Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Monday, November 29, 2010
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Bain_(consultant)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Bain_(consultant)
Romney served as governor of Massachusetts (2003-2007), with a generally conservative record that included economic expansion. He balanced the budget
Romney served as governor of Massachusetts (2003-2007), with a generally conservative record that included economic expansion. He balanced the budget every year of his administration with out increasing taxes or increasing state dept. Romney turned a $3 billion budget deficit into a $500 million surplus by reducing government spending and added 80,000 new jobs by the end of his term. In 2004, 2005, and 2006
someone shoot larry ellison
http://venturebeat.com/2010/11/23/oracle-wins-a-whopping-1-3b-verdict-against-sap/
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
(6:42:30 PM) havegot: I dont speak that fucked up opposite trickle down language and people who try to use it to scare me need to take off their cloth
(6:42:30 PM) havegot: I dont speak that fucked up opposite trickle down language and people who try to use it to scare me need to take off their clothes
(6:42:35 PM) mika1 [~mika@adsl-75-18-165-225.dsl.pltn13.sbcglobal.net] entered the room.
(6:42:47 PM) Maddy: crazy
(6:43:08 PM) zefyr: cutgovspending, so hey, lets perpetuate war. that would be awesome for defence
(6:43:17 PM) epicurus: cutgovspending, isn't bristol palin dancing tonight? good jackin.
(6:43:29 PM) cutgovspending: tricle down is stpid dem speak
(6:43:36 PM) cutgovspending: austain school econopmics is economics
(6:43:43 PM) sevenless: seriously. the first thing people in economics classes "learn" is about situations under a "free market". WHICH IS TOTALLY MYTHICAL
(6:43:48 PM) zefyr: havegot, does taking off thoer clothed mean something
(6:43:48 PM) cutgovspending: keyensian are nutjobs who were apid by politicans to say
(6:43:53 PM) cutgovspending: hey if u overspend more than u got
(6:43:57 PM) zefyr: clothes^
(6:43:58 PM) cutgovspending: u will stimualte grwoth LOL
(6:44:00 PM) cutgovspending: LOL
(6:44:06 PM) cutgovspending: try that as an indivudual
(6:44:07 PM) cutgovspending: lOL
(6:44:08 PM) cutgovspending: LOL
(6:44:10 PM) cutgovspending: a joke
(6:44:13 PM) cutgovspending: any morn can see
(6:44:15 PM) Maddy: all of the North Face commercials make me want to be more hardcore
(6:44:20 PM) cutgovspending: yet when you say onyl pay people to produce
(6:44:22 PM) epicurus: can we get a kick on the troll
(6:44:23 PM) kunwon1: cutgovspending: could you be less spammy please
(6:44:26 PM) cutgovspending: dont pay anyone to sit on ass
(6:44:27 PM) kunwon1: the enter key is not punctuation
(6:44:30 PM) cutgovspending: thats illogical to communists
(6:44:32 PM) cutgovspending: its amazing
(6:44:33 PM) havegot: no trickle down is the same reversalism that marks the rest of the rascist retarded Republican policies. All logic says one thing, and therefore they believe the opposite and if you dont agree they just call you names. The bastards need to be naked.
(6:44:37 PM) cutgovspending: I mean these are simple basics
(6:44:44 PM) sevenless: Economics is just right wing propaganda. The World Bank and IMF have fucked up so many countries
(6:44:44 PM) cutgovspending: you got joe biden saysing voerpesnding is econoics
(6:44:47 PM) cutgovspending: nonsense
(6:44:53 PM) cutgovspending: any 7th grader cna see hes fulla shit
(6:44:55 PM) cutgovspending: and a moron
(6:44:56 PM) kunwon1: cutgovspending: can you demonstrate that you're not a bot?
(6:44:59 PM) cutgovspending: lol
(6:44:59 PM) blognewb left the room (quit: Ping timeout: 245 seconds).
(6:45:00 PM) blognewb_ [~blognewb_@unaffiliated/blognewb] entered the room.
(6:45:02 PM) slimjimflim: http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread630146/pg1
(6:45:08 PM) subtitle: [ "By buying a ticket, you gave up a lot of your rights." -The TSA, page 1 ]
(6:45:09 PM) cutgovspending: scinec can make skyscrapers in desert liek las vegas
(6:45:09 PM) zefyr: cutgovspending, so if your mot a keynesian .. you must be a Monetarist. notice that failed last year
(6:45:19 PM) epicurus: slimjimflim, that site is a CIA front
(6:45:21 PM) cutgovspending: yet democrats want usa to be hamstrung by billion shitty commy law s n taxes
(6:45:22 PM) kunwon1: cutgovspending: respond to me now or i am going to assume you're a bot and ban you
(6:45:24 PM) cutgovspending: ruining progress
(6:45:25 PM) havegot: stripped naked chaned together and thrown into a pile, that is the only cure for the rascist retarded Republican disease
(6:45:28 PM) cutgovspending: capitalsits are progrssive
(6:45:33 PM) sevenless: Marx was the only economist who really got it right
(6:45:35 PM) cutgovspending: so much so that progress elaves lazy dems in dust
(6:45:40 PM) slimjimflim: epicurus: well the guy writing the article can be cia or w/e, but he's right
(6:45:41 PM) cutgovspending: crazy buggers
(6:45:44 PM) cutgovspending: well
(6:45:48 PM) cutgovspending: people rae seeing it
(6:45:49 PM) zefyr: havegot, killing half of society is never a good idea
(6:45:53 PM) cutgovspending: thye are sick of bad economy
(6:45:55 PM) havegot: unless they are right and everything is the opposite of how it appears because god is testing us
(6:45:56 PM) cutgovspending: sick of obama lies
(6:46:03 PM) cutgovspending: said can keep plan u got at rpice u got
(6:46:03 PM) kunwon1: cutgovspending: last chance, are you a bot or no?
(6:46:04 PM) cutgovspending: bullshti
(6:46:06 PM) cutgovspending: all going nuts
(6:46:07 PM) slimjimflim: marx wasn't an economist
(6:46:08 PM) cutgovspending: taxing internet
(6:46:11 PM) cutgovspending: that fucking basatrd
(6:46:17 PM) zefyr: sell you soul to save big business. step right up
(6:46:17 PM) cutgovspending: taxing the net is such horse shit
(6:42:35 PM) mika1 [~mika@adsl-75-18-165-225.dsl.pltn13.sbcglobal.net] entered the room.
(6:42:47 PM) Maddy: crazy
(6:43:08 PM) zefyr: cutgovspending, so hey, lets perpetuate war. that would be awesome for defence
(6:43:17 PM) epicurus: cutgovspending, isn't bristol palin dancing tonight? good jackin.
(6:43:29 PM) cutgovspending: tricle down is stpid dem speak
(6:43:36 PM) cutgovspending: austain school econopmics is economics
(6:43:43 PM) sevenless: seriously. the first thing people in economics classes "learn" is about situations under a "free market". WHICH IS TOTALLY MYTHICAL
(6:43:48 PM) zefyr: havegot, does taking off thoer clothed mean something
(6:43:48 PM) cutgovspending: keyensian are nutjobs who were apid by politicans to say
(6:43:53 PM) cutgovspending: hey if u overspend more than u got
(6:43:57 PM) zefyr: clothes^
(6:43:58 PM) cutgovspending: u will stimualte grwoth LOL
(6:44:00 PM) cutgovspending: LOL
(6:44:06 PM) cutgovspending: try that as an indivudual
(6:44:07 PM) cutgovspending: lOL
(6:44:08 PM) cutgovspending: LOL
(6:44:10 PM) cutgovspending: a joke
(6:44:13 PM) cutgovspending: any morn can see
(6:44:15 PM) Maddy: all of the North Face commercials make me want to be more hardcore
(6:44:20 PM) cutgovspending: yet when you say onyl pay people to produce
(6:44:22 PM) epicurus: can we get a kick on the troll
(6:44:23 PM) kunwon1: cutgovspending: could you be less spammy please
(6:44:26 PM) cutgovspending: dont pay anyone to sit on ass
(6:44:27 PM) kunwon1: the enter key is not punctuation
(6:44:30 PM) cutgovspending: thats illogical to communists
(6:44:32 PM) cutgovspending: its amazing
(6:44:33 PM) havegot: no trickle down is the same reversalism that marks the rest of the rascist retarded Republican policies. All logic says one thing, and therefore they believe the opposite and if you dont agree they just call you names. The bastards need to be naked.
(6:44:37 PM) cutgovspending: I mean these are simple basics
(6:44:44 PM) sevenless: Economics is just right wing propaganda. The World Bank and IMF have fucked up so many countries
(6:44:44 PM) cutgovspending: you got joe biden saysing voerpesnding is econoics
(6:44:47 PM) cutgovspending: nonsense
(6:44:53 PM) cutgovspending: any 7th grader cna see hes fulla shit
(6:44:55 PM) cutgovspending: and a moron
(6:44:56 PM) kunwon1: cutgovspending: can you demonstrate that you're not a bot?
(6:44:59 PM) cutgovspending: lol
(6:44:59 PM) blognewb left the room (quit: Ping timeout: 245 seconds).
(6:45:00 PM) blognewb_ [~blognewb_@unaffiliated/blognewb] entered the room.
(6:45:02 PM) slimjimflim: http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread630146/pg1
(6:45:08 PM) subtitle: [ "By buying a ticket, you gave up a lot of your rights." -The TSA, page 1 ]
(6:45:09 PM) cutgovspending: scinec can make skyscrapers in desert liek las vegas
(6:45:09 PM) zefyr: cutgovspending, so if your mot a keynesian .. you must be a Monetarist. notice that failed last year
(6:45:19 PM) epicurus: slimjimflim, that site is a CIA front
(6:45:21 PM) cutgovspending: yet democrats want usa to be hamstrung by billion shitty commy law s n taxes
(6:45:22 PM) kunwon1: cutgovspending: respond to me now or i am going to assume you're a bot and ban you
(6:45:24 PM) cutgovspending: ruining progress
(6:45:25 PM) havegot: stripped naked chaned together and thrown into a pile, that is the only cure for the rascist retarded Republican disease
(6:45:28 PM) cutgovspending: capitalsits are progrssive
(6:45:33 PM) sevenless: Marx was the only economist who really got it right
(6:45:35 PM) cutgovspending: so much so that progress elaves lazy dems in dust
(6:45:40 PM) slimjimflim: epicurus: well the guy writing the article can be cia or w/e, but he's right
(6:45:41 PM) cutgovspending: crazy buggers
(6:45:44 PM) cutgovspending: well
(6:45:48 PM) cutgovspending: people rae seeing it
(6:45:49 PM) zefyr: havegot, killing half of society is never a good idea
(6:45:53 PM) cutgovspending: thye are sick of bad economy
(6:45:55 PM) havegot: unless they are right and everything is the opposite of how it appears because god is testing us
(6:45:56 PM) cutgovspending: sick of obama lies
(6:46:03 PM) cutgovspending: said can keep plan u got at rpice u got
(6:46:03 PM) kunwon1: cutgovspending: last chance, are you a bot or no?
(6:46:04 PM) cutgovspending: bullshti
(6:46:06 PM) cutgovspending: all going nuts
(6:46:07 PM) slimjimflim: marx wasn't an economist
(6:46:08 PM) cutgovspending: taxing internet
(6:46:11 PM) cutgovspending: that fucking basatrd
(6:46:17 PM) zefyr: sell you soul to save big business. step right up
(6:46:17 PM) cutgovspending: taxing the net is such horse shit
(6:21:41 PM) The topic for ##politics is: Welcome to ##Politics | Info: http://bit.ly/PoliticsRules | /join ##politics-appeal to appeal quiets/bans or
(6:21:41 PM) The topic for ##politics is: Welcome to ##Politics | Info: http://bit.ly/PoliticsRules | /join ##politics-appeal to appeal quiets/bans or ask for +e gateway nick exception if you register your nick and nickserv set enforce on. | Join ##News | Rope: A good idea.
(6:21:46 PM) zefyr: deregulation _liberal?
(6:21:50 PM) havegot: and thats your only case, that everyone is stupid excaept the people who ignore reality and buy your theory that everything is the opposite of how it appears
(6:21:51 PM) nitus: zefyr that's because you don't know what liberal means
(6:21:52 PM) zefyr: im not getting it
(6:21:56 PM) cutgovspending: end pensions end unemployment and public school
(6:21:59 PM) cutgovspending: end all welfare
(6:22:00 PM) nitus: liberalizing = liberal
(6:22:01 PM) cutgovspending: end it
(6:22:04 PM) cutgovspending: oh yeah!!
(6:22:15 PM) cutgovspending: capitalits are liberals, whiel communists are fascsits
(6:22:21 PM) cutgovspending: freedom come sfrom capitalism
(6:22:31 PM) havegot: pure unadulturated mysticism
(6:22:36 PM) nitus: I think one problem in the usa is the two-party system
(6:22:41 PM) HisMajesty left the room (quit: Quit: Page closed).
(6:22:44 PM) nitus: parties don't have "wings" in democratic countries
(6:22:49 PM) zefyr: capitalism doesn't have a monopoly on freedom
(6:22:53 PM) nitus: the "wing" just splits off and forms its own party
(6:23:02 PM) havegot: and even if you are right that you are completely stupid it doesnt mean i have to be stupid too
(6:23:06 PM) nitus: in most countries, the tea party would be an actual party
(6:23:12 PM) cutgovspending: geoism is interesting
(6:23:15 PM) usatt1337: nitus, but then you can't herd the sheep
(6:23:18 PM) usatt1337: like we do in the US.
(6:23:33 PM) MrElite left the room (quit: Quit: Leaving).
(6:23:42 PM) slimjimflim: lol: http://www.dailysquib.co.uk/data/queenflash=griffysavalas250.jpg
(6:23:50 PM) nitus: at the opposite ends of both parties you find politicians who have more in common with each other than with the rest of their party
(6:24:03 PM) zefyr: so true nitus
(6:24:06 PM) nitus: you don't see that in countries that have multi-party systems
(6:24:07 PM) stablefood left the room (quit: Quit: Exit, Close).
(6:24:18 PM) nitus: a party is unified with the same message - otherwise it splits in two
(6:24:24 PM) WireBot [~USER@unaffiliated/bittwist/bot/wirebot] entered the room.
(6:24:24 PM) mode (+o WireBot) by ChanServ
(6:24:29 PM) havegot: you think its all about the parties, its not. The moment you decided to target people for not hating who your patrty tells them to hate it would be silly to assume you and yyour party has any gopal besuides siezing power
(6:24:45 PM) usatt1337: nitus: are you saying in a country like Germany?
(6:25:04 PM) usatt1337: with multi parties.
(6:25:51 PM) nitus: I'm thinking of canada
(6:25:53 PM) nitus: as I'm canadian
(6:26:08 PM) nitus: our right wing party had a scism in the late 80s, similar to what the gop is doing
(6:26:18 PM) nitus: except in canada it just became a seperate party
(6:26:25 PM) zefyr: havegot, i agree that the politics of hate is ultimately bad for society
(6:26:54 PM) usatt1337: nitus, if the tea party split into its own party
(6:26:58 PM) usatt1337: people would see it for what it really is.
(6:27:11 PM) havegot: too littl;e too late. The moment the retarded rascist republicans began their holy war they lost any right they ever had to use words to make their case. Words are too good for them
(6:27:20 PM) usatt1337: and the tea partiers feed off of trying to tag onto something bigger, which is the GOP.
(6:27:29 PM) zefyr: but just becaue republicans are so adept at that method of politicing, doesnt mean they have nothing worthwhile in thier movement
(6:28:29 PM) cutgovspending: republicans are cool
(6:28:30 PM) zefyr: wow. Words are too good for you. epic dismissal. kudos havegot
(6:28:31 PM) cutgovspending: dems evil
(6:28:34 PM) nitus: usatt1337 I'm not sure it even *could become its own party
(6:28:37 PM) cutgovspending: canadaians all seem to be dems
(6:28:45 PM) cutgovspending: interesting health system tho
(6:28:48 PM) usatt1337: cutgovspending: your trolling is poor.
(6:28:56 PM) cutgovspending: demand side monopoly by governemtn for med ical services n machines
(6:28:56 PM) nitus: the only way you can put a new party into power in the states is if everybody in party A jumps ship to party B
(6:29:06 PM) nitus: which amounts to just changing the stationery
(6:29:06 PM) cutgovspending: usatt1337: your lame trol calling is poor
(6:29:11 PM) Hoffman left the room (quit: ).
(6:29:20 PM) cutgovspending: way u win in usa is improve the economy
(6:29:28 PM) havegot: yes it does. The position that they must hate and try to kill everyone who doesnt hate who they hate makes them nazis. Whatever they say it is just a klie and the moment we turn our back on them they will resume their holy crusade of murder
(6:29:29 PM) cutgovspending: dems are losing cuz they are nuking it
(6:29:41 PM) cutgovspending: I vote republican each time
(6:29:47 PM) usatt1337: Republicans are just a bunch of forum trolls dressed up as politicians if you ask me.
(6:29:48 PM) nitus: cutgovspending that's the way you win everywhere in times like these
(6:29:51 PM) Maddy: I like Sue as a principal
(6:29:58 PM) cutgovspending: I mean if communism works we could just whip up a mansion for eewveryone
(6:29:58 PM) cutgovspending: eh
(6:30:01 PM) havegot: In fact its an insult to our inteligence that they tried to kill us and now expect us to but this quasi religion reversalism
(6:30:06 PM) nitus: the conservative party of canada spends less and taxes less
(6:30:10 PM) nitus: and canadians like that
(6:30:12 PM) usatt1337: govspending
(6:30:17 PM) cutgovspending: I dont liek word conservaive
(6:30:20 PM) sevenless [sevenless@68-185-37-188.dhcp.knwc.wa.charter.com] entered the room.
(6:30:22 PM) cutgovspending: I prefer capitalist or liberal
(6:30:32 PM) usatt1337: Can you explain why there is such a big correlation between republicans and bible thumping?
(6:30:33 PM) cutgovspending: communists vs capitalists
(6:30:36 PM) cutgovspending: is clearer
(6:30:36 PM) nitus: well you should read a dictionary then
(6:30:45 PM) nitus: because capitalists are liberals
(6:30:45 PM) cutgovspending: collectivists vs free neterprisers
(6:30:51 PM) cutgovspending: yes
(6:30:56 PM) nitus: liberalization = liberal
(6:30:56 PM) cutgovspending: capitalsits are liberals
(6:31:03 PM) cutgovspending: freedom
(6:31:06 PM) nitus: deregulation = liberal
(6:31:13 PM) ron_o left the room (quit: Ping timeout: 245 seconds).
(6:31:14 PM) cutgovspending: liberty is in line with capitalism no fascism/communism
(6:31:19 PM) nitus: that's what I mean, the gop is not fiscally conservative
(6:31:26 PM) nitus: they are economically liberal
(6:31:33 PM) cutgovspending: best growth happened under ron ragan for 8 years
(6:31:36 PM) zefyr: i never seize to be amazed at the level of havegots hat for half the citizens in America (ie republicans)
(6:31:37 PM) cutgovspending: peacetime
(6:31:41 PM) zefyr: hate^
(6:31:42 PM) nitus: clinton
(6:31:46 PM) havegot: when they learn to treat me like a human being then I will slit their throats because it is too little, too late
(6:31:51 PM) cutgovspending: waelth is created by freedom and capitalism
(6:32:02 PM) usatt1337: define wealth
(6:32:18 PM) glenrock [~glenrock@unaffiliated/glenrock] entered the room.
(6:32:20 PM) mythomaniac: usatt1337: who the fuck are you?
(6:32:23 PM) usatt1337: and wealth for who (what percent of population)
(6:32:33 PM) usatt1337: mythomaniac: not important who I am, this is the internet.
(6:32:42 PM) usatt1337: not important who anyone is.
(6:32:52 PM) mythomaniac: usatt1337: you been on here by another nick?
(6:32:53 PM) sevenless: zefyr: republicans are trying to destroy the country
(6:32:57 PM) zefyr: cutgovspending, have you considered the cost of corporations taking over all aspects of modern life
(6:32:57 PM) sevenless: why would you not hate them
(6:33:00 PM) usatt1337: mythomaniac: don't believe so.
(6:33:06 PM) mythomaniac: k
(6:34:07 PM) cutgovspending: cost
(6:34:09 PM) cutgovspending: ?
(6:34:13 PM) havegot: I dont hate them any more than I hate anyone else who is trying to use terror to promote a political agenda. I feel sorry for them and am willing to spend billions of tax dollars to strip them naked which is the cure for the disease they have
(6:34:16 PM) cutgovspending: weird idea
(6:34:33 PM) zefyr: i was all for free trade when everyone was in the game. but now you have to be pretty elite to play
(6:34:37 PM) cutgovspending: whats cost of ben bernanke printing 4 trillion he never producined anything to back up and hadning ti to his pals?
(6:34:42 PM) cutgovspending: to loan out for profit
(6:34:50 PM) cutgovspending: banks are governemtn pigs
(6:34:54 PM) cutgovspending: insuarnace too
(6:34:59 PM) cutgovspending: but problem si governemtn
(6:35:03 PM) cutgovspending: not competition or market
(6:35:04 PM) epicurus: cutgovspending, reagan doubled the national debt in 8 years
(6:35:06 PM) cutgovspending: government
(6:35:10 PM) cutgovspending: no he did not
(6:35:10 PM) usatt1337: The problem is oil drilling
(6:35:11 PM) epicurus: cutgovspending, is that what you mean by cutting spending?
(6:35:16 PM) cutgovspending: democrat congress overspeding did that
(6:35:16 PM) usatt1337: or anything else that hurts the environment
(6:35:20 PM) cutgovspending: and he did nto double it
(6:35:26 PM) usatt1337: why is it fair to exploit natural resources for profit?
(6:35:28 PM) usatt1337: it's not.
(6:35:28 PM) epicurus: cutgovspending, did ronnie sign the budget?
(6:35:31 PM) cutgovspending: people need to not lsiten to crazy paul krugman bs about reagan
(6:35:37 PM) usatt1337: that only creates short term "wealth"
(6:35:40 PM) cutgovspending: paul krugman is a fool who knows nothing of economics
(6:35:42 PM) cutgovspending: keynes is bunk
(6:35:44 PM) nitus: lol epicurus obama did it a lot faster than that ;p
(6:35:46 PM) cutgovspending: keynesian economic failed
(6:35:48 PM) cutgovspending: the fed failed
(6:35:52 PM) cutgovspending: and wil always fail
(6:35:57 PM) zefyr: dem or republicans each spend the same. reps just finance most of it
(6:36:04 PM) usatt1337: cutgovspending: the problem I have is with the corporations that exploit other people and resources for profit
(6:36:08 PM) cutgovspending: Ron reagan is who we need now
(6:36:11 PM) usatt1337: that doesn't "create wealth"
(6:36:15 PM) cutgovspending: mitt romney will be some semblance I hope
(6:36:15 PM) epicurus: cutgovspending, to do what?
(6:36:20 PM) cutgovspending: I vote for mitt in under 2 yaer
(6:36:21 PM) cutgovspending: :)
(6:36:22 PM) nitus: the guys who aren't in power always complain about spending
(6:36:27 PM) cutgovspending: to grow the conomy
(6:36:27 PM) havegot: what they mean by free trade is fraud and theft, what they mean by cutting the government is cutting oversight, and what they mean by their economic lies is that they believe people are stupid enough to believe anything carl rove tells them to think
(6:36:29 PM) nitus: then they get power and they do the same old shit
(6:36:35 PM) usatt1337: that creates turmoil, poverty and violence.
(6:36:42 PM) cutgovspending: unlink democrats ragan grew the eocnomy byy cutting taxes and allowing commerce and freedom
(6:36:50 PM) cutgovspending: ron reagns time was real prosiperity
(6:36:52 PM) epicurus: cutgovspending, who the fuck is ragan?
(6:37:03 PM) cutgovspending: not huge tax increaces hidden by governemnt finance enabled net bubble liek sad ass clinton
(6:37:06 PM) cutgovspending: clitnon was a afarce
(6:37:13 PM) zefyr: cutgovspending, just because taxes were cut, doesnt mean spending decreased
(6:37:16 PM) cutgovspending: geoge bush should get 2 nobel prides
(6:37:17 PM) epicurus: cutgovspending, taxes are lower now than they were in reagan era
(6:37:20 PM) cutgovspending: and take obamas away
(6:37:31 PM) usatt1337: George Bush should get 2 shots in the face
(6:37:31 PM) cutgovspending: georege bush lberated two countries from mercialless dicatores
(6:37:39 PM) epicurus: cutgovspending, would you say the 1950s were prosperous?
(6:37:39 PM) cutgovspending: the usa military had amazing heroic victories
(6:37:42 PM) usatt1337: he liberated them by taxes
(6:37:43 PM) usatt1337: taxing americans
(6:37:45 PM) usatt1337: to fight.
(6:37:46 PM) cutgovspending: adn usa is much safer than it was
(6:37:48 PM) epicurus: cutgovspending, = troll
(6:37:50 PM) usatt1337: in a foreign country.
(6:37:52 PM) cutgovspending: obama yes is eroding that
(6:37:55 PM) usatt1337: lol
(6:38:06 PM) cutgovspending: the 1980 were amazingly prosperous
(6:38:12 PM) cutgovspending: yes jfk got us into viet nam
(6:38:13 PM) usatt1337: cutgovspending: bye.
(6:38:13 PM) epicurus: cutgovspending, what about the 50s?
(6:38:14 PM) zefyr: George HW bush called reagonomics voodoo economics
(6:38:15 PM) havegot: so because the retarded rascist republicans hate democrats so much they spin everything they do, but the nobel prize committee is not a republican, so they dont buy that reversalist bullsghit
(6:38:20 PM) nitus: cutgovspending there are 500 times more terrorists now than before Bush
(6:38:22 PM) cutgovspending: 19080s > 1950s?
(6:38:24 PM) nitus: america isn't safer
(6:38:27 PM) cutgovspending: nope
(6:38:33 PM) cutgovspending: much much less terrosim now that b4
(6:38:40 PM) usatt1337: lol
(6:38:40 PM) cutgovspending: and bush kept usa safe for 8 years
(6:38:43 PM) usatt1337: that's false.
(6:38:44 PM) cutgovspending: obama gone in 2
(6:38:46 PM) cutgovspending: good riddance
(6:38:50 PM) havegot: we have the nobel priize they have limbaughs lies
(6:38:53 PM) cutgovspending: only morons could vote democrat
(6:38:57 PM) cutgovspending: complete morons
(6:39:00 PM) nitus: he'd have to fuck up pretty royally to avoid a second term
(6:39:02 PM) cutgovspending: who dont know history or economics
(6:39:08 PM) zefyr: cutgovspending, as if one president controlled the safety of the uS?
(6:39:10 PM) usatt1337 left the room (quit: ).
(6:39:10 PM) cutgovspending: and yes the bible aprt of repubican aprty is 5%
(6:39:15 PM) cutgovspending: no oen amking aboriation illegal
(6:39:19 PM) cutgovspending: :)
(6:39:26 PM) cutgovspending: ther eis no reason to vote democrat
(6:39:28 PM) epicurus: cutgovspending, unemployment has been lower and the stock market has done better under democrats for the last 80 years
(6:39:39 PM) cutgovspending: despite young people being misled by lies on jon stewart
(6:39:43 PM) cutgovspending: and feeling ti ship to be democat
(6:39:50 PM) cutgovspending: because rational through is enemy of the communist
(6:39:51 PM) zefyr: cutgovspending, theres one big reason. populism
(6:39:55 PM) epicurus: every time the republicans get control of anything they completely reverse course and fuck things up
(6:39:57 PM) cutgovspending: communism wil never work
(6:39:59 PM) cutgovspending: has never worked
(6:40:02 PM) havegot: They seeked out an obscure sect of christianity that happens to fit their agenda and used it for political purposes
(6:40:08 PM) epicurus: someone kick this floodtard
(6:40:08 PM) cutgovspending: if it did we all hav enice governemtn created mansion and bentley
(6:40:17 PM) cutgovspending: i can nly imgaine fi freeodm was allowed more
(6:40:21 PM) cutgovspending: how cheaper things owuld be
(6:40:28 PM) cutgovspending: since governemtn finance in 19013 the fed established
(6:40:37 PM) cutgovspending: price no longer go down each year as efficiency goes up
(6:40:38 PM) cutgovspending: nope
(6:40:40 PM) zefyr: cutgovspending, prices=wages. take some economics
(6:40:49 PM) cutgovspending: governemtn outspends it by overpsening money thye nver earned
(6:40:50 PM) cutgovspending: amazing
(6:40:51 PM) epicurus: reaoalayryar dideda googg aa
(6:40:55 PM) cutgovspending: I am amazing things are this good
(6:40:59 PM) Maddy: ALADDIN!
(6:41:03 PM) cutgovspending: show tremedous power of mass production and captialism
(6:41:06 PM) mythomaniac: Maddy: you called?
(6:41:08 PM) cutgovspending: defense is 22% fo GDP
(6:41:12 PM) cutgovspending: 22%
(6:41:17 PM) cutgovspending: welfare is 72% of GDP
(6:41:18 PM) zefyr: no way
(6:41:21 PM) cutgovspending: jsut giving money away
(6:41:23 PM) cutgovspending: unearned
(6:41:29 PM) cutgovspending: imagine of 2/3 of GDP was recouped
(6:41:33 PM) cutgovspending: end all union pension
(6:41:36 PM) cutgovspending: end unemplyemnt
(6:41:41 PM) sevenless: What's taught in economic classes is right wing propaganda
(6:41:42 PM) cutgovspending: dont pay people to not produce anythign
(6:41:47 PM) havegot: so the moment they decided that their hate for the democrats was more important to them then the theory of emopiricism there was no point using words. they use words only as weapons and that makes them a disease in the body of civilisation
(6:41:48 PM) cutgovspending: dont pay women to ahve baby
(6:41:49 PM) epicurus: if oabama and asr aoraaagan ronaled wuz ifn taxez mbusah gfereemdoms
(6:41:55 PM) zefyr: defence is over half the budget. expressing it as percentage of GDP is just distubiung
(6:42:06 PM) cutgovspending: and I can dream fo amazing productivity and cheapness of commidty fod and goods
(6:42:08 PM) epicurus: FREEEDUUMNMMM
(6:42:11 PM) cutgovspending: getting cheapre every year
(6:42:11 PM) cutgovspending: wow
(6:42:25 PM) cutgovspending: 22% fo GDP and defense invents everything
(6:42:27 PM) cutgovspending: everything
(6:21:46 PM) zefyr: deregulation _liberal?
(6:21:50 PM) havegot: and thats your only case, that everyone is stupid excaept the people who ignore reality and buy your theory that everything is the opposite of how it appears
(6:21:51 PM) nitus: zefyr that's because you don't know what liberal means
(6:21:52 PM) zefyr: im not getting it
(6:21:56 PM) cutgovspending: end pensions end unemployment and public school
(6:21:59 PM) cutgovspending: end all welfare
(6:22:00 PM) nitus: liberalizing = liberal
(6:22:01 PM) cutgovspending: end it
(6:22:04 PM) cutgovspending: oh yeah!!
(6:22:15 PM) cutgovspending: capitalits are liberals, whiel communists are fascsits
(6:22:21 PM) cutgovspending: freedom come sfrom capitalism
(6:22:31 PM) havegot: pure unadulturated mysticism
(6:22:36 PM) nitus: I think one problem in the usa is the two-party system
(6:22:41 PM) HisMajesty left the room (quit: Quit: Page closed).
(6:22:44 PM) nitus: parties don't have "wings" in democratic countries
(6:22:49 PM) zefyr: capitalism doesn't have a monopoly on freedom
(6:22:53 PM) nitus: the "wing" just splits off and forms its own party
(6:23:02 PM) havegot: and even if you are right that you are completely stupid it doesnt mean i have to be stupid too
(6:23:06 PM) nitus: in most countries, the tea party would be an actual party
(6:23:12 PM) cutgovspending: geoism is interesting
(6:23:15 PM) usatt1337: nitus, but then you can't herd the sheep
(6:23:18 PM) usatt1337: like we do in the US.
(6:23:33 PM) MrElite left the room (quit: Quit: Leaving).
(6:23:42 PM) slimjimflim: lol: http://www.dailysquib.co.uk/data/queenflash=griffysavalas250.jpg
(6:23:50 PM) nitus: at the opposite ends of both parties you find politicians who have more in common with each other than with the rest of their party
(6:24:03 PM) zefyr: so true nitus
(6:24:06 PM) nitus: you don't see that in countries that have multi-party systems
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(6:24:18 PM) nitus: a party is unified with the same message - otherwise it splits in two
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(6:24:24 PM) mode (+o WireBot) by ChanServ
(6:24:29 PM) havegot: you think its all about the parties, its not. The moment you decided to target people for not hating who your patrty tells them to hate it would be silly to assume you and yyour party has any gopal besuides siezing power
(6:24:45 PM) usatt1337: nitus: are you saying in a country like Germany?
(6:25:04 PM) usatt1337: with multi parties.
(6:25:51 PM) nitus: I'm thinking of canada
(6:25:53 PM) nitus: as I'm canadian
(6:26:08 PM) nitus: our right wing party had a scism in the late 80s, similar to what the gop is doing
(6:26:18 PM) nitus: except in canada it just became a seperate party
(6:26:25 PM) zefyr: havegot, i agree that the politics of hate is ultimately bad for society
(6:26:54 PM) usatt1337: nitus, if the tea party split into its own party
(6:26:58 PM) usatt1337: people would see it for what it really is.
(6:27:11 PM) havegot: too littl;e too late. The moment the retarded rascist republicans began their holy war they lost any right they ever had to use words to make their case. Words are too good for them
(6:27:20 PM) usatt1337: and the tea partiers feed off of trying to tag onto something bigger, which is the GOP.
(6:27:29 PM) zefyr: but just becaue republicans are so adept at that method of politicing, doesnt mean they have nothing worthwhile in thier movement
(6:28:29 PM) cutgovspending: republicans are cool
(6:28:30 PM) zefyr: wow. Words are too good for you. epic dismissal. kudos havegot
(6:28:31 PM) cutgovspending: dems evil
(6:28:34 PM) nitus: usatt1337 I'm not sure it even *could become its own party
(6:28:37 PM) cutgovspending: canadaians all seem to be dems
(6:28:45 PM) cutgovspending: interesting health system tho
(6:28:48 PM) usatt1337: cutgovspending: your trolling is poor.
(6:28:56 PM) cutgovspending: demand side monopoly by governemtn for med ical services n machines
(6:28:56 PM) nitus: the only way you can put a new party into power in the states is if everybody in party A jumps ship to party B
(6:29:06 PM) nitus: which amounts to just changing the stationery
(6:29:06 PM) cutgovspending: usatt1337: your lame trol calling is poor
(6:29:11 PM) Hoffman left the room (quit: ).
(6:29:20 PM) cutgovspending: way u win in usa is improve the economy
(6:29:28 PM) havegot: yes it does. The position that they must hate and try to kill everyone who doesnt hate who they hate makes them nazis. Whatever they say it is just a klie and the moment we turn our back on them they will resume their holy crusade of murder
(6:29:29 PM) cutgovspending: dems are losing cuz they are nuking it
(6:29:41 PM) cutgovspending: I vote republican each time
(6:29:47 PM) usatt1337: Republicans are just a bunch of forum trolls dressed up as politicians if you ask me.
(6:29:48 PM) nitus: cutgovspending that's the way you win everywhere in times like these
(6:29:51 PM) Maddy: I like Sue as a principal
(6:29:58 PM) cutgovspending: I mean if communism works we could just whip up a mansion for eewveryone
(6:29:58 PM) cutgovspending: eh
(6:30:01 PM) havegot: In fact its an insult to our inteligence that they tried to kill us and now expect us to but this quasi religion reversalism
(6:30:06 PM) nitus: the conservative party of canada spends less and taxes less
(6:30:10 PM) nitus: and canadians like that
(6:30:12 PM) usatt1337: govspending
(6:30:17 PM) cutgovspending: I dont liek word conservaive
(6:30:20 PM) sevenless [sevenless@68-185-37-188.dhcp.knwc.wa.charter.com] entered the room.
(6:30:22 PM) cutgovspending: I prefer capitalist or liberal
(6:30:32 PM) usatt1337: Can you explain why there is such a big correlation between republicans and bible thumping?
(6:30:33 PM) cutgovspending: communists vs capitalists
(6:30:36 PM) cutgovspending: is clearer
(6:30:36 PM) nitus: well you should read a dictionary then
(6:30:45 PM) nitus: because capitalists are liberals
(6:30:45 PM) cutgovspending: collectivists vs free neterprisers
(6:30:51 PM) cutgovspending: yes
(6:30:56 PM) nitus: liberalization = liberal
(6:30:56 PM) cutgovspending: capitalsits are liberals
(6:31:03 PM) cutgovspending: freedom
(6:31:06 PM) nitus: deregulation = liberal
(6:31:13 PM) ron_o left the room (quit: Ping timeout: 245 seconds).
(6:31:14 PM) cutgovspending: liberty is in line with capitalism no fascism/communism
(6:31:19 PM) nitus: that's what I mean, the gop is not fiscally conservative
(6:31:26 PM) nitus: they are economically liberal
(6:31:33 PM) cutgovspending: best growth happened under ron ragan for 8 years
(6:31:36 PM) zefyr: i never seize to be amazed at the level of havegots hat for half the citizens in America (ie republicans)
(6:31:37 PM) cutgovspending: peacetime
(6:31:41 PM) zefyr: hate^
(6:31:42 PM) nitus: clinton
(6:31:46 PM) havegot: when they learn to treat me like a human being then I will slit their throats because it is too little, too late
(6:31:51 PM) cutgovspending: waelth is created by freedom and capitalism
(6:32:02 PM) usatt1337: define wealth
(6:32:18 PM) glenrock [~glenrock@unaffiliated/glenrock] entered the room.
(6:32:20 PM) mythomaniac: usatt1337: who the fuck are you?
(6:32:23 PM) usatt1337: and wealth for who (what percent of population)
(6:32:33 PM) usatt1337: mythomaniac: not important who I am, this is the internet.
(6:32:42 PM) usatt1337: not important who anyone is.
(6:32:52 PM) mythomaniac: usatt1337: you been on here by another nick?
(6:32:53 PM) sevenless: zefyr: republicans are trying to destroy the country
(6:32:57 PM) zefyr: cutgovspending, have you considered the cost of corporations taking over all aspects of modern life
(6:32:57 PM) sevenless: why would you not hate them
(6:33:00 PM) usatt1337: mythomaniac: don't believe so.
(6:33:06 PM) mythomaniac: k
(6:34:07 PM) cutgovspending: cost
(6:34:09 PM) cutgovspending: ?
(6:34:13 PM) havegot: I dont hate them any more than I hate anyone else who is trying to use terror to promote a political agenda. I feel sorry for them and am willing to spend billions of tax dollars to strip them naked which is the cure for the disease they have
(6:34:16 PM) cutgovspending: weird idea
(6:34:33 PM) zefyr: i was all for free trade when everyone was in the game. but now you have to be pretty elite to play
(6:34:37 PM) cutgovspending: whats cost of ben bernanke printing 4 trillion he never producined anything to back up and hadning ti to his pals?
(6:34:42 PM) cutgovspending: to loan out for profit
(6:34:50 PM) cutgovspending: banks are governemtn pigs
(6:34:54 PM) cutgovspending: insuarnace too
(6:34:59 PM) cutgovspending: but problem si governemtn
(6:35:03 PM) cutgovspending: not competition or market
(6:35:04 PM) epicurus: cutgovspending, reagan doubled the national debt in 8 years
(6:35:06 PM) cutgovspending: government
(6:35:10 PM) cutgovspending: no he did not
(6:35:10 PM) usatt1337: The problem is oil drilling
(6:35:11 PM) epicurus: cutgovspending, is that what you mean by cutting spending?
(6:35:16 PM) cutgovspending: democrat congress overspeding did that
(6:35:16 PM) usatt1337: or anything else that hurts the environment
(6:35:20 PM) cutgovspending: and he did nto double it
(6:35:26 PM) usatt1337: why is it fair to exploit natural resources for profit?
(6:35:28 PM) usatt1337: it's not.
(6:35:28 PM) epicurus: cutgovspending, did ronnie sign the budget?
(6:35:31 PM) cutgovspending: people need to not lsiten to crazy paul krugman bs about reagan
(6:35:37 PM) usatt1337: that only creates short term "wealth"
(6:35:40 PM) cutgovspending: paul krugman is a fool who knows nothing of economics
(6:35:42 PM) cutgovspending: keynes is bunk
(6:35:44 PM) nitus: lol epicurus obama did it a lot faster than that ;p
(6:35:46 PM) cutgovspending: keynesian economic failed
(6:35:48 PM) cutgovspending: the fed failed
(6:35:52 PM) cutgovspending: and wil always fail
(6:35:57 PM) zefyr: dem or republicans each spend the same. reps just finance most of it
(6:36:04 PM) usatt1337: cutgovspending: the problem I have is with the corporations that exploit other people and resources for profit
(6:36:08 PM) cutgovspending: Ron reagan is who we need now
(6:36:11 PM) usatt1337: that doesn't "create wealth"
(6:36:15 PM) cutgovspending: mitt romney will be some semblance I hope
(6:36:15 PM) epicurus: cutgovspending, to do what?
(6:36:20 PM) cutgovspending: I vote for mitt in under 2 yaer
(6:36:21 PM) cutgovspending: :)
(6:36:22 PM) nitus: the guys who aren't in power always complain about spending
(6:36:27 PM) cutgovspending: to grow the conomy
(6:36:27 PM) havegot: what they mean by free trade is fraud and theft, what they mean by cutting the government is cutting oversight, and what they mean by their economic lies is that they believe people are stupid enough to believe anything carl rove tells them to think
(6:36:29 PM) nitus: then they get power and they do the same old shit
(6:36:35 PM) usatt1337: that creates turmoil, poverty and violence.
(6:36:42 PM) cutgovspending: unlink democrats ragan grew the eocnomy byy cutting taxes and allowing commerce and freedom
(6:36:50 PM) cutgovspending: ron reagns time was real prosiperity
(6:36:52 PM) epicurus: cutgovspending, who the fuck is ragan?
(6:37:03 PM) cutgovspending: not huge tax increaces hidden by governemnt finance enabled net bubble liek sad ass clinton
(6:37:06 PM) cutgovspending: clitnon was a afarce
(6:37:13 PM) zefyr: cutgovspending, just because taxes were cut, doesnt mean spending decreased
(6:37:16 PM) cutgovspending: geoge bush should get 2 nobel prides
(6:37:17 PM) epicurus: cutgovspending, taxes are lower now than they were in reagan era
(6:37:20 PM) cutgovspending: and take obamas away
(6:37:31 PM) usatt1337: George Bush should get 2 shots in the face
(6:37:31 PM) cutgovspending: georege bush lberated two countries from mercialless dicatores
(6:37:39 PM) epicurus: cutgovspending, would you say the 1950s were prosperous?
(6:37:39 PM) cutgovspending: the usa military had amazing heroic victories
(6:37:42 PM) usatt1337: he liberated them by taxes
(6:37:43 PM) usatt1337: taxing americans
(6:37:45 PM) usatt1337: to fight.
(6:37:46 PM) cutgovspending: adn usa is much safer than it was
(6:37:48 PM) epicurus: cutgovspending, = troll
(6:37:50 PM) usatt1337: in a foreign country.
(6:37:52 PM) cutgovspending: obama yes is eroding that
(6:37:55 PM) usatt1337: lol
(6:38:06 PM) cutgovspending: the 1980 were amazingly prosperous
(6:38:12 PM) cutgovspending: yes jfk got us into viet nam
(6:38:13 PM) usatt1337: cutgovspending: bye.
(6:38:13 PM) epicurus: cutgovspending, what about the 50s?
(6:38:14 PM) zefyr: George HW bush called reagonomics voodoo economics
(6:38:15 PM) havegot: so because the retarded rascist republicans hate democrats so much they spin everything they do, but the nobel prize committee is not a republican, so they dont buy that reversalist bullsghit
(6:38:20 PM) nitus: cutgovspending there are 500 times more terrorists now than before Bush
(6:38:22 PM) cutgovspending: 19080s > 1950s?
(6:38:24 PM) nitus: america isn't safer
(6:38:27 PM) cutgovspending: nope
(6:38:33 PM) cutgovspending: much much less terrosim now that b4
(6:38:40 PM) usatt1337: lol
(6:38:40 PM) cutgovspending: and bush kept usa safe for 8 years
(6:38:43 PM) usatt1337: that's false.
(6:38:44 PM) cutgovspending: obama gone in 2
(6:38:46 PM) cutgovspending: good riddance
(6:38:50 PM) havegot: we have the nobel priize they have limbaughs lies
(6:38:53 PM) cutgovspending: only morons could vote democrat
(6:38:57 PM) cutgovspending: complete morons
(6:39:00 PM) nitus: he'd have to fuck up pretty royally to avoid a second term
(6:39:02 PM) cutgovspending: who dont know history or economics
(6:39:08 PM) zefyr: cutgovspending, as if one president controlled the safety of the uS?
(6:39:10 PM) usatt1337 left the room (quit: ).
(6:39:10 PM) cutgovspending: and yes the bible aprt of repubican aprty is 5%
(6:39:15 PM) cutgovspending: no oen amking aboriation illegal
(6:39:19 PM) cutgovspending: :)
(6:39:26 PM) cutgovspending: ther eis no reason to vote democrat
(6:39:28 PM) epicurus: cutgovspending, unemployment has been lower and the stock market has done better under democrats for the last 80 years
(6:39:39 PM) cutgovspending: despite young people being misled by lies on jon stewart
(6:39:43 PM) cutgovspending: and feeling ti ship to be democat
(6:39:50 PM) cutgovspending: because rational through is enemy of the communist
(6:39:51 PM) zefyr: cutgovspending, theres one big reason. populism
(6:39:55 PM) epicurus: every time the republicans get control of anything they completely reverse course and fuck things up
(6:39:57 PM) cutgovspending: communism wil never work
(6:39:59 PM) cutgovspending: has never worked
(6:40:02 PM) havegot: They seeked out an obscure sect of christianity that happens to fit their agenda and used it for political purposes
(6:40:08 PM) epicurus: someone kick this floodtard
(6:40:08 PM) cutgovspending: if it did we all hav enice governemtn created mansion and bentley
(6:40:17 PM) cutgovspending: i can nly imgaine fi freeodm was allowed more
(6:40:21 PM) cutgovspending: how cheaper things owuld be
(6:40:28 PM) cutgovspending: since governemtn finance in 19013 the fed established
(6:40:37 PM) cutgovspending: price no longer go down each year as efficiency goes up
(6:40:38 PM) cutgovspending: nope
(6:40:40 PM) zefyr: cutgovspending, prices=wages. take some economics
(6:40:49 PM) cutgovspending: governemtn outspends it by overpsening money thye nver earned
(6:40:50 PM) cutgovspending: amazing
(6:40:51 PM) epicurus: reaoalayryar dideda googg aa
(6:40:55 PM) cutgovspending: I am amazing things are this good
(6:40:59 PM) Maddy: ALADDIN!
(6:41:03 PM) cutgovspending: show tremedous power of mass production and captialism
(6:41:06 PM) mythomaniac: Maddy: you called?
(6:41:08 PM) cutgovspending: defense is 22% fo GDP
(6:41:12 PM) cutgovspending: 22%
(6:41:17 PM) cutgovspending: welfare is 72% of GDP
(6:41:18 PM) zefyr: no way
(6:41:21 PM) cutgovspending: jsut giving money away
(6:41:23 PM) cutgovspending: unearned
(6:41:29 PM) cutgovspending: imagine of 2/3 of GDP was recouped
(6:41:33 PM) cutgovspending: end all union pension
(6:41:36 PM) cutgovspending: end unemplyemnt
(6:41:41 PM) sevenless: What's taught in economic classes is right wing propaganda
(6:41:42 PM) cutgovspending: dont pay people to not produce anythign
(6:41:47 PM) havegot: so the moment they decided that their hate for the democrats was more important to them then the theory of emopiricism there was no point using words. they use words only as weapons and that makes them a disease in the body of civilisation
(6:41:48 PM) cutgovspending: dont pay women to ahve baby
(6:41:49 PM) epicurus: if oabama and asr aoraaagan ronaled wuz ifn taxez mbusah gfereemdoms
(6:41:55 PM) zefyr: defence is over half the budget. expressing it as percentage of GDP is just distubiung
(6:42:06 PM) cutgovspending: and I can dream fo amazing productivity and cheapness of commidty fod and goods
(6:42:08 PM) epicurus: FREEEDUUMNMMM
(6:42:11 PM) cutgovspending: getting cheapre every year
(6:42:11 PM) cutgovspending: wow
(6:42:25 PM) cutgovspending: 22% fo GDP and defense invents everything
(6:42:27 PM) cutgovspending: everything
fuck IBM and patent law bullshit
http://mises.org/daily/4848
Ideas Are Free: The Case Against Intellectual Property
Mises Daily: Tuesday, November 23, 2010 by Stephan Kinsella
[Lightly edited transcript of speech given at the 2010 Annual Meeting of the Property and Freedom Society, June 6, 2010.]
In addition to defense, security, education, money and banking, scientific research, providing for the poor, space exploration, food and drug safety, roads and transportation, the definition of marriage, immigration and border control, unemployment insurance, and healthcare — all of which have been monopolized, co-opted, or corrupted by the state — the state also monopolizes dispute resolution, the court system, and the production of law, both by government courts and, primarily, by state legislation and rules promulgated by state agencies. And the state's legal system, and thus most aspects of economic life, is permeated by what is called intellectual-property law.
Intellectual-property law consists primarily of patent, copyright, trade-secret, and trademark law, and also more modern innovations such as semiconductor maskworks, databases, moral rights, boat hull designs, and reputation rights such as defamation, libel, and slander law.[1]
To take one example of a modern patent system, out of all the patent systems of the roughly 200 countries in the world, consider the US patent system. US patents are granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Agency Office (the USPTO). It is an agency of the US Department of Commerce. It has about 10,000 employees; most of them are called patent examiners.
In 2008, about 485,000 patents were filed in the United States; about 185,000 were issued or granted or approved. As of the end of 2008, there were about 1.2 million patent applications pending for examination at the Patent Office.[2] There are about 2.5 million live US patents right now — patents that are enforced, that can be infringed. IBM, for example, one of the largest patent procurers, was awarded over 4,000 US patents in 2008. They hold about 40,000-50,000 live patents at present.
Patents are classified by group, class, and subclass. They're divided into four main groups: for instance, group number one is chemical and related arts, two is communications and radiant energy, and so on. There are about 1000 classes and several thousand sub- and sub-subclasses.
The PTO grants issued patents after reviewing patent applications filed by individuals and corporations. Corporations have invention-disclosure programs. They tell their engineers, "Submit an idea to us. We'll pay you $5,000."
A patent committee usually reviews these ideas and decides which ones to file. A patent attorney files the application. The cost is $10,000–$20,000, for example.
The end result is a patent that is issued after a couple years of what is called "prosecution" with the Patent Office. Prosecution is the going back and forth between the patent attorney and the USPTO. The end result is called a "red-ribbon copy." I brought one with me. I'm holding pure evil in my hands [laughter]. In fact, I'll pass this around if anyone wants to take a look. I just need it back because it's my employer's [laughter].
So that becomes part of a company's patent portfolio, which can be used to sue, to countersue, or to license for profit.
Now, what are the results of the patent system itself? The results are distorted research, protectionism, wealth transfers, and enrichment of the patent bar. Large companies, such as IBM, amass giant patent portfolios. And they license them — IBM, for example, makes hundreds of millions of dollars every year off of licensing.
It's also used for cross-licensing. Larger companies engage in cross-licensing agreements, which makes it difficult for smaller companies to enter; so this practice sets up barriers to entry.
Let me give some examples of some patents:[3]
There's Amazon's One Click patent, which is a patent on clicking once to purchase something instead of twice. They used it to sue Barnes & Noble at the dawn of e-commerce.
There was a company called Cendant that asserted Amazon had violated patent monopoly on recommending books to customers.
There was an attempt by Dustin Stamper, who was President Bush's top economist, to get a patent on a system and method for a multistate tax analysis.
Apple has filed a patent application for digital karaoke.
Facebook was sued by someone who had a patent on a "system for creating a community of users with common interests to interact in."
There was an absurdly broad patent issued to a company called Blackboard for the common use of technology that is employed in education and in online encyclopedias.
Carfax has a patent on "a method for perusing selected vehicles having a clean title history."
And then there is the fun patent covering swinging on the swing sideways [laughter]. That's a method patent.
Another result of the patent system is patent lawsuits. Many patents are granted that are ridiculous, such as some of the ones I read. But the problem with the patent system is not ridiculous patents. It's valid patents. They can be used for suing.
Kodak, for example, first sued Apple for violating their imaging patents. Now Apple countersues Kodak, before the US International Trade Commission, over its digital-camera technology.
There are some Android-related patent lawsuits going on right now in the smart-phone industry. Apple suing HTC suing Kodak suing Nokia. This is just an example — this is the patent battle in the smart-phone industry right now. All these suits went back and forth. This is what these companies deal with and engage in.
HTC signed an agreement with Microsoft providing rights to use Microsoft software on mobile phones, related to one of their patents. What happened was Microsoft got a royalty on every Android phone that is made by HTC. Microsoft might prefer to make its own phones, but if they can get a royalty from every Android phone sold, that's pretty good too.
This, right here, is called the "smart-phone nuclear war" in the patent industry. There are lawsuits going back and forth. One patent litigator was quoted as saying,
We've seen this in the tech industry, with the LCD industry, and it goes all the way back to semiconductors. Patents aren't a barrier to entry so much as patent holders want people to pay. If you can tax your competitors with your royalty then you have set yourself up for profits. In a low-margin business, that's important.
Source: New York Times
Just for examples, here are some more recent patent suits:
In a stent case, Boston Scientific agreed to pay Johnson & Johnson $1.7 billion to settle three patent cases.
There was a $1.6 billion patent infringement verdict found in favor of Johnson & Johnson against Abbott.
A $400 million settlement paid to Abbott by Medtronics, again regarding stents.
Qualcomm has been enjoined against importing chips that help conserve power in cell phones.
One New Jersey doctor was awarded $432 million against Boston Scientific as a "reasonable royalty" for infringing his "method and apparatus for managing macromolecular distribution."
Even though the practice of saving seeds after a harvest to plant the next season is as old as farming itself, patents prevent farmers from saving their patented seeds.
Apple was sued over a caller ID idea on the iPhone.
Blackberry's manufacturer, RIM, was forced to pay $612 million after the patents of NTP were asserted against them and threatened to shut down the Blackberry.
Microsoft was on the receiving end of a $1.5 billion jury verdict for infringing an mp3 patent held by Alcatel-Lucent.
It's also used in connection with IPOs (initial private offerings) of companies. Quite often one competitor will hold on to its patent, wait until their competitor files their S-1 to go public, and then they'll hit them with a patent lawsuit because this has to be disclosed in the IPO, and it can damage or scuttle the IPO.
For example, a company called Optium went public in late 2006 and the company Emcore sued them for patent infringement as soon as they filed their S-1.[4]
In another very recent case, which is ongoing now, a company called Neophotonics, which has recently filed its S-1 — they're not public yet — has been sued along with three other defendants by Finisar for patent infringement. What's interesting about this is that one of the patent claims — I've reviewed these — that is being asserted covers "a system and method for protecting eye safety during operation of a fiber optic transceiver." So, in other words, so that the engineers working on the lasers don't get their eyes burned, there's an alarm set if you have too much power going to it. It's something that has been used for years; it's a common idea. Patents are supposed to be "nonobvious," by the way. This is not.
And, of course, each of these defendants has countersued Finisar with their own patents. Now you have literally millions of dollars being spent by these five companies on legal fees because of this patent suit.
Now what about copyright? Copyright is also bad. It lasts a lot longer than patents, usually over a hundred years. It can even lead quite literally to censorship and thought control.
There is a case where the seminal German silent film Nosferatu was deemed a derivative work of Dracula and the courts ordered all copies destroyed.
Shortly after the death of the author J.D. Salinger, author of Catcher in the Rye — courts banned the publication of a novel called Sixty Years Later: Coming Through the Rye. Banned it. Based on copyright.
Some get lucky though, and they say the work was a fair use. There was a parody called The Wind Done Gone which is an unauthorized rewrite of Gone With the Wind from another character's point of view.
In another interesting case, fantasy author Mary Zimmer Bradley, who actually encouraged and allowed a lot of her fans to write fantasy without suing them for copyright infringement, came across an idea that fans had submitted to her that was similar to one she was using herself in a novel she was writing. So she wrote to the fan to tell her what was going on and even offered to pay her a little bit of money and to acknowledge in the book that they had come up with the same idea. But the fan replied she wanted full coauthorship of the book and half the money or she would sue. So Mary Zimmer Bradley scrapped the novel rather than risk a lawsuit; it was never written.
Sometimes lawyers who send cease and desist letters claim copyright in the letter and threaten to sue you if you republish it on the web [laughter].
The Australian band, Men at Work, was recently found guilty of plagiarizing "Kookaburra Bird" on their 1980 CD, Down Under. The judge held that a flute rift in Down Under bore an unmistakable resemblance to "Kookaburra Bird Sits in the Old Gum Tree," a folk tune taught to Australian school children for 75 years [laughter].
RIAA wants a law passed that would impose a penalty of $1.5 million per CD copied.
Ford Motor Company has attacked Ford enthusiasts, claiming that they hold those rights to any image of a Ford vehicle, even if it is a picture that you took of your own car.
The NFL has prohibited churches from holding Superbowl parties on TV sets larger than 55 inches.
And, of course, there are recent extensions of copyright such as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, or DMCA, which criminalizes even the mere possession of technology that can be used to circumvent digital-protection systems. But I say DVD ripping devices don't steal; people do.
Trademark is also bad:
Subway has claimed a trademark on the term "foot-long" to describe their sandwich. They threatened a hotdog seller who has been selling foot-longs for decades.
A court has said the University of Southern California is the only one who can use "USC." Sorry, University of South Carolina [laughter].
"Who dat?" The National Football League has stewed over this expression being put on t-shirts.
There are modern extensions of trademark law that are even worse, such as rights against cybersquatting and rights against trademark dilution; the latter don't even require consumer confusion, which is required in normal trade lawsuits.
Even trade secret, which is the least objectionable of the four main types of IP, has been corrupted by the state. For example, when information about the then-secret iPad was leaked back in January of this year, Apple's law firm used trade-secret law to threaten new publications such as Valleywag and Gawker to make them stop publishing information, even though Valleywag and Gawker had never signed a non-disclosure agreement or contract with Apple.
Now, Western IP laws are bad enough, but the US-led Western countries have long tried to extend the reach of their mercantilist IP laws to countries like Russia, India, and China. They use the World Trade Organization, the WTO, to twist the arms of other countries.
And now we have the dreaded ACTA, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, coming down the pipe and I suspect it will be ratified. It is a worldwide treaty that will impose draconian Western-style patent and copyright protection, including DMCA-type anticircumvention rules, on every country. It will also provide the legal authority for surveillance of Internet file transfers and searches of personal property. As science-fiction author Corey Doctorow notes, "ACTA is a radical re-writing of the world's internet laws, taking place in secret without public input."[5]
Now these IP laws are, quite obviously, unlibertarian. They're nothing but grants of privilege by the state, leading to protectionism, market distortion and inefficiencies, wealth transfer from consumers and smaller companies to big media, big pharma, and so on, with the state taking a handsome handling charge. In our statist world we have taxation, we have regulation, we have incarceration for victimless crimes, and we have war. So the existence of IP law should come as no surprise. The question is not why we have IP law. We have IP law because we have the state. The question is why in the world would any libertarian support IP? But some of them do support it.
There are, of course, utilitarian arguments in favor of IP law, but these are hardly worth mentioning. First of all, there is no evidence at all that IP creates net worth. There are incoherent standards even in determining this. It leads to crazy schemes, advocated even by some libertarians and people such as Joseph Stiglitz and Forbes who openly endorse the idea of, say, a $30 or $80 billion tax-funded medical innovation prize fund or innovation contracts, either to replace the patent system or supplement it. On a debate on Cato's website, one Dean Baker argued that copyright and patent should be abolished and replaced with such a tax-funded innovation prize.[6]
Cato's Tim Lee opposed this idea. He says,
I can't agree with Baker that all copyright and patent protection monopolies are illegitimate. Copyright and patent protections have existed since the beginning of the Republic and, if properly calibrated, they can promote the progress of science and the useful arts. Like any government intervention in the economy, they need to be carefully constrained, but if they are so limited, they can be a positive force in the American economy.
That's really a relief. We just need to "calibrate" [laughter].
Galambos believed that man has property rights in his own life, which he called "primordial property," and thus in all nonprocreative derivatives of his life. (You don't own your children, I guess.) The first derivatives of a man's life are his thoughts and ideas, according to Galambos. These are primary property. Since action is based on primary property, you own your actions too. This is liberty.
Second derivatives, such as land, televisions, and other tangible goods, are produced by ideas and actions. So, in other words, in Galambos's hierarchy, primary property is your thoughts, ideas, and actions. Secondary property are lowly things like this.[7]
Now, sometimes I start a speech with a joke. I didn't do so today. I couldn't think of a good IP lawyer joke. But I have one now. Ayn Rand incredibly said, "Patents are the heart and core of property rights."
That's a joke [laughter].
It's so positivist, for Ayn Rand. I suppose we had no property rights in existence until 1790, the first Patent Act, or perhaps in 1624 with England's Statute of Monopolies. (By the way, many libertarian advocates of the patent system deny that patents are monopolies even though they originated in the Statute of Monopolies.)
Statists used to be much more honest. We used to have the Department of War. In 1949, it was changed to the Department of Defense. Advocates of patents used to call them monopolies. Now they deny that they're monopolies.
Recently, I was relistening to a 1991 lecture by an Objectivist IP attorney, Murray Franck. I'm going to play a little bit here:
In the words of Forvald Solberg, a former register of copyrights, "When we come to weigh the rights of the several sorts of property which can be held by man, and in this judgment take into consideration only the absolute question of justice, leaving out the limitations of expediency and prejudice, it will be clearly seen that intellectual property is after all the only absolute possession in the world. The man who brings out of the nothingness some child of his thoughts has rights therein which cannot belong to any other sort of property. Land or chattels are pre-existing in some form, and the rights therein are limited in many ways, and are held in the great service of the world, but the inventor of a book or other contrivance of thought holds his property, as a god holds it, by right of creation."
So this is how the Objectivists look at it. We're gods. We create things and we own these things that we create. In fact, Franck recounts that when he met Ayn Rand, and she learned he was an IP lawyer, she said, "Intellectual property is the most important field of law."
Now what about the fact that IP is necessarily based upon legislation? No problem, according to Murray Franck.
Just as the common law evolved to recognize trespass by barbecue smoke, you would have evolved to recognize property in intellectual creations. But even if it could somehow be established that common law would never recognize IP rights, this would not be an argument against these rights. The common law often required legislation to correct it; for example, recognizing the rights of women. Indeed, it is a myth that the common law evolved to reflect and that legislation is always in conflict with the requirements of human nature. The same minds that employ induction and deduction to decide a particular case, as judges in making the common law, can employ those methods to legislate universal law.[8]
Some of the arguments for IP made by defenders of the system are so unbelievable they seem like they must be made in jest. For example, in a recent online debate, antipatent philosopher and ontologist — if there is such a term — David Koepsell, had mentioned that in the 19th and early 20th centuries two of the most innovative countries on the earth, the Netherlands and Switzerland, had no patent systems at all.
In response, a patent attorney who was defending the system, says, "Thank goodness the Swiss did have a patent office. That is where Albert Einstein worked and, during his time as a patent examiner, came up with his Theory of Relativity."[9]
Free-market economist William Shughart, a senior fellow with The Independent Institute, recently argued, "It is true that other means exist for creative people to profit from their effort. In the case of copyright, authors can charge fees for reading their works to paying audiences. Charles Dickens did this, but his heavy work schedule of public performances in the United States, where his works were not protected by copyright, arguably contributed to his untimely death."[10]
So, in other words, we need IP law because Charles Dickens died early.
Support for IP rights even leads some libertarian thinkers, such as Cato's Doug Bandow, Richard Epstein, and Michael Kraus to oppose free trade and, in particular, to oppose reimportation because this permits consumers to partially evade the patent-monopoly tax.[11]
Now what is the reason these libertarians make this mistake? I think it can be traced to three big causes: Locke, America, and Ayn Rand (plus two minor causes: legislation and utilitarianism.)
John Locke unnecessarily assumed the ownership of labor in his theory of homesteading. You don't need to assume that we own our labor to have the best claim to a homesteaded resource. You have the best claim to a homesteaded resource because you have a better connection to it, because you were the first user of it. There is no need to assume the ownership of labor, but this assumption has transformed into the Randian and other libertarian idea that we own our creation because we mix our labor with creations such as intellectual ideas as well.
America is also part of the problem. America instituted a patent system on utilitarian grounds in the beginning. And since the modern libertarian movement arose in America, and because early America is naively seen as a total libertarian paradise, state patent and copyright laws get a pass. And this is compounded with the influence of Ayn Rand who, in her desire to adopt the values of the superior United States over the communist Russia that she escaped and despised, she became too pro-American. I've even been told that Murray Rothbard's correspondence indicates that around 1954 someone convinced Ayn Rand to oppose eminent domain, which is the state's ability to take property. She had previously favored eminent domain because the Constitution endorses it. So, she is giving too much credence to the American Constitution.
I think there are two other contributing causes related to the others. One is the rise of legislation as a means of law-making. Recall Objectivist Murray Franck's approval of legislation as a means of making law. But, of course, legislation requires a state.
The second contributing cause is rise of utilitarianism and wealth mechanization as justifications for law. Now the founders may be forgiven for their hubris and assumptions, but not today's econometricians. The evidence is against them, but like the left-liberal do-gooders of Thomas Sowell's The Vision of the Anointed — the "Humanitarians with a Guillotine" — they persevere in claiming IP law generates net wealth without a shred of proof. Some claim that the success of the United States shows that IP law generates wealth. They forget that correlation is not causation. If they're right, we can also attribute Western prosperity to the income tax, antitrust laws, and war. So I guess we should export these policies to other nations, too. Oh, wait.
At least Jefferson had the decency not to pretend that the temporary, artificial, state-granted patent and copyright privileges were natural rights, unlike modern pro-IP libertarians.[12]
So what is the right way to view this?
Let's think about property rights in the context of the nature of human action.[13]
There are various ways to explain what is wrong with IP. You can explain that IP requires a state and legislation, which are both necessarily illegitimate. You can point out that there is no proof that IP generates net wealth. You can explain that IP grants rights in nonscarce things, which are necessarily enforced with physical force against tangible property, thus supplanting already-existing rights and scarce resources.
Another way, I believe, to seeing the error in treating information, ideas, and patterns as ownable property is to consider IP in the context of a structure of human action. Mises explains in The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science that to act means to strive after gains, to chose a goal and resort to means in order to attain the goal sought.[14] Obviously, the means have to be causally efficacious to obtain the desired end. So as Mises has observed, if there was not causality, men "could not contrive any means for the attainment of any ends." Knowledge and information, of course, play a key role in action as well. They guide action. The actor is guided by his knowledge and information. Bad information results in unsuccessful action or loss. As Mises puts it, "Action is purposive conduct. It is not simply behavior, but behavior begot by judgments of value, aiming at a definite end and guided by ideas concerning the suitability or unsuitability of definite means" (emphasis added).
So all action employs means and all action is guided by knowledge and information.[15] As Mises says, means are necessarily scarce resources. He said, "Means are necessarily always limited, i.e. scarce, with regard to the services for which man wants to use them."
So, in other words, to have successful action, you have to have knowledge about causal laws to know which means to employ. You have to have the ability to employ these means suitable for the goal that you are seeking. So the scarce resources that you need to use as means need to be owned by you. This is why there are property rights in these things. The nature of a scarce resource is that use by one person excludes use by another; but you don't need to own the information that guides your action in order to have successful action. For example, two people can make a cake at the same time. They each have to have their own ingredients, but they can use the same recipe at the same time.
Material progress is made over time in human society because information is not scarce. It can be infinitely multiplied, learned, taught, and built on. The more patterns, recipes, causal laws that are known add to the stock of knowledge available to all actors and act as a greater and greater wealth multiplier by allowing actors to engage in ever-more efficient and productive actions. It is a good thing that ideas are infinitely reproducible, not a bad thing. There is no need to impose artificial scarcity on these things to make them more like scarce resources, which, unfortunately, are scarce. As Bastiat said,
All innovation goes through three stages. One possesses unique knowledge and profits from it. Others imitate and share profits. Finally, the knowledge is widely shared and no longer profitable on its own which thereby inspires new knowledge.[16]
What patents do is artificially prolong the first stage at the expense of the others. For example, a recent news story reports that Acer is the latest PC maker to jump into the tablet PC market, which has been gaining increasing attention since Apple launched its iPad in January. With more than one million units sold so far, the iPad's success has sent other PC makers scrambling to come up with similar devices. This competition to make similar devices is not a bad thing, but IP advocates have to have mixed feelings about this imitation.
Granting copyrights to scarce resources, but not to ideas, is precisely what is needed to promote successful action as well as societal progress and prosperity. So we can see that an essential defect of IP is that it seeks to impede learning and the spread of ideas and knowledge. Honest (or naive) IP advocates even admit this. Recall that above I quoted the comment from William Shughart. He says, "To paraphrase the late economist John Robinson, patents and copyrights slow down the diffusion of new ideas for a reason, to assure there will be more new ideas to diffuse."[17]
$8 $6
So they admit this. By the way, Professor Hoppe realized this as far back as 1988. At a panel discussion on ethics with Hoppe, Rothbard, David Gordon, and Leland Yeager, there was the following exchange, and I'll conclude with it:
AUDIENCE QUESTION: I have a question for Professor Hoppe. Does the idea of personal sovereignty extend to knowledge? Am I sovereign over my thoughts, ideas, and theories? …
HOPPE: … in order to have a thought you must have property rights over your body. That doesn't imply that you own your thoughts. The thoughts can be used by anybody who is capable of understanding them.[18]
Stephan Kinsella is an attorney in Houston, director of the Center for the Study of Innovative Freedom, and editor of Libertarian Papers. See his blog. Send him mail. See Stephan Kinsella's article archives.
This article is a lightly edited transcript of "Ideas are Free: The Case Against Intellectual Property: or, How Libertarians Went Wrong," a speech given at the 2010 Annual Meeting of the Property and Freedom Society, June 6, 2010.
Ideas Are Free: The Case Against Intellectual Property
Mises Daily: Tuesday, November 23, 2010 by Stephan Kinsella
[Lightly edited transcript of speech given at the 2010 Annual Meeting of the Property and Freedom Society, June 6, 2010.]
In addition to defense, security, education, money and banking, scientific research, providing for the poor, space exploration, food and drug safety, roads and transportation, the definition of marriage, immigration and border control, unemployment insurance, and healthcare — all of which have been monopolized, co-opted, or corrupted by the state — the state also monopolizes dispute resolution, the court system, and the production of law, both by government courts and, primarily, by state legislation and rules promulgated by state agencies. And the state's legal system, and thus most aspects of economic life, is permeated by what is called intellectual-property law.
Intellectual-property law consists primarily of patent, copyright, trade-secret, and trademark law, and also more modern innovations such as semiconductor maskworks, databases, moral rights, boat hull designs, and reputation rights such as defamation, libel, and slander law.[1]
To take one example of a modern patent system, out of all the patent systems of the roughly 200 countries in the world, consider the US patent system. US patents are granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Agency Office (the USPTO). It is an agency of the US Department of Commerce. It has about 10,000 employees; most of them are called patent examiners.
In 2008, about 485,000 patents were filed in the United States; about 185,000 were issued or granted or approved. As of the end of 2008, there were about 1.2 million patent applications pending for examination at the Patent Office.[2] There are about 2.5 million live US patents right now — patents that are enforced, that can be infringed. IBM, for example, one of the largest patent procurers, was awarded over 4,000 US patents in 2008. They hold about 40,000-50,000 live patents at present.
Patents are classified by group, class, and subclass. They're divided into four main groups: for instance, group number one is chemical and related arts, two is communications and radiant energy, and so on. There are about 1000 classes and several thousand sub- and sub-subclasses.
The PTO grants issued patents after reviewing patent applications filed by individuals and corporations. Corporations have invention-disclosure programs. They tell their engineers, "Submit an idea to us. We'll pay you $5,000."
A patent committee usually reviews these ideas and decides which ones to file. A patent attorney files the application. The cost is $10,000–$20,000, for example.
The end result is a patent that is issued after a couple years of what is called "prosecution" with the Patent Office. Prosecution is the going back and forth between the patent attorney and the USPTO. The end result is called a "red-ribbon copy." I brought one with me. I'm holding pure evil in my hands [laughter]. In fact, I'll pass this around if anyone wants to take a look. I just need it back because it's my employer's [laughter].
So that becomes part of a company's patent portfolio, which can be used to sue, to countersue, or to license for profit.
Now, what are the results of the patent system itself? The results are distorted research, protectionism, wealth transfers, and enrichment of the patent bar. Large companies, such as IBM, amass giant patent portfolios. And they license them — IBM, for example, makes hundreds of millions of dollars every year off of licensing.
It's also used for cross-licensing. Larger companies engage in cross-licensing agreements, which makes it difficult for smaller companies to enter; so this practice sets up barriers to entry.
Let me give some examples of some patents:[3]
There's Amazon's One Click patent, which is a patent on clicking once to purchase something instead of twice. They used it to sue Barnes & Noble at the dawn of e-commerce.
There was a company called Cendant that asserted Amazon had violated patent monopoly on recommending books to customers.
There was an attempt by Dustin Stamper, who was President Bush's top economist, to get a patent on a system and method for a multistate tax analysis.
Apple has filed a patent application for digital karaoke.
Facebook was sued by someone who had a patent on a "system for creating a community of users with common interests to interact in."
There was an absurdly broad patent issued to a company called Blackboard for the common use of technology that is employed in education and in online encyclopedias.
Carfax has a patent on "a method for perusing selected vehicles having a clean title history."
And then there is the fun patent covering swinging on the swing sideways [laughter]. That's a method patent.
Another result of the patent system is patent lawsuits. Many patents are granted that are ridiculous, such as some of the ones I read. But the problem with the patent system is not ridiculous patents. It's valid patents. They can be used for suing.
Kodak, for example, first sued Apple for violating their imaging patents. Now Apple countersues Kodak, before the US International Trade Commission, over its digital-camera technology.
There are some Android-related patent lawsuits going on right now in the smart-phone industry. Apple suing HTC suing Kodak suing Nokia. This is just an example — this is the patent battle in the smart-phone industry right now. All these suits went back and forth. This is what these companies deal with and engage in.
HTC signed an agreement with Microsoft providing rights to use Microsoft software on mobile phones, related to one of their patents. What happened was Microsoft got a royalty on every Android phone that is made by HTC. Microsoft might prefer to make its own phones, but if they can get a royalty from every Android phone sold, that's pretty good too.
This, right here, is called the "smart-phone nuclear war" in the patent industry. There are lawsuits going back and forth. One patent litigator was quoted as saying,
We've seen this in the tech industry, with the LCD industry, and it goes all the way back to semiconductors. Patents aren't a barrier to entry so much as patent holders want people to pay. If you can tax your competitors with your royalty then you have set yourself up for profits. In a low-margin business, that's important.
Source: New York Times
Just for examples, here are some more recent patent suits:
In a stent case, Boston Scientific agreed to pay Johnson & Johnson $1.7 billion to settle three patent cases.
There was a $1.6 billion patent infringement verdict found in favor of Johnson & Johnson against Abbott.
A $400 million settlement paid to Abbott by Medtronics, again regarding stents.
Qualcomm has been enjoined against importing chips that help conserve power in cell phones.
One New Jersey doctor was awarded $432 million against Boston Scientific as a "reasonable royalty" for infringing his "method and apparatus for managing macromolecular distribution."
Even though the practice of saving seeds after a harvest to plant the next season is as old as farming itself, patents prevent farmers from saving their patented seeds.
Apple was sued over a caller ID idea on the iPhone.
Blackberry's manufacturer, RIM, was forced to pay $612 million after the patents of NTP were asserted against them and threatened to shut down the Blackberry.
Microsoft was on the receiving end of a $1.5 billion jury verdict for infringing an mp3 patent held by Alcatel-Lucent.
It's also used in connection with IPOs (initial private offerings) of companies. Quite often one competitor will hold on to its patent, wait until their competitor files their S-1 to go public, and then they'll hit them with a patent lawsuit because this has to be disclosed in the IPO, and it can damage or scuttle the IPO.
For example, a company called Optium went public in late 2006 and the company Emcore sued them for patent infringement as soon as they filed their S-1.[4]
In another very recent case, which is ongoing now, a company called Neophotonics, which has recently filed its S-1 — they're not public yet — has been sued along with three other defendants by Finisar for patent infringement. What's interesting about this is that one of the patent claims — I've reviewed these — that is being asserted covers "a system and method for protecting eye safety during operation of a fiber optic transceiver." So, in other words, so that the engineers working on the lasers don't get their eyes burned, there's an alarm set if you have too much power going to it. It's something that has been used for years; it's a common idea. Patents are supposed to be "nonobvious," by the way. This is not.
And, of course, each of these defendants has countersued Finisar with their own patents. Now you have literally millions of dollars being spent by these five companies on legal fees because of this patent suit.
Now what about copyright? Copyright is also bad. It lasts a lot longer than patents, usually over a hundred years. It can even lead quite literally to censorship and thought control.
There is a case where the seminal German silent film Nosferatu was deemed a derivative work of Dracula and the courts ordered all copies destroyed.
Shortly after the death of the author J.D. Salinger, author of Catcher in the Rye — courts banned the publication of a novel called Sixty Years Later: Coming Through the Rye. Banned it. Based on copyright.
Some get lucky though, and they say the work was a fair use. There was a parody called The Wind Done Gone which is an unauthorized rewrite of Gone With the Wind from another character's point of view.
In another interesting case, fantasy author Mary Zimmer Bradley, who actually encouraged and allowed a lot of her fans to write fantasy without suing them for copyright infringement, came across an idea that fans had submitted to her that was similar to one she was using herself in a novel she was writing. So she wrote to the fan to tell her what was going on and even offered to pay her a little bit of money and to acknowledge in the book that they had come up with the same idea. But the fan replied she wanted full coauthorship of the book and half the money or she would sue. So Mary Zimmer Bradley scrapped the novel rather than risk a lawsuit; it was never written.
Sometimes lawyers who send cease and desist letters claim copyright in the letter and threaten to sue you if you republish it on the web [laughter].
The Australian band, Men at Work, was recently found guilty of plagiarizing "Kookaburra Bird" on their 1980 CD, Down Under. The judge held that a flute rift in Down Under bore an unmistakable resemblance to "Kookaburra Bird Sits in the Old Gum Tree," a folk tune taught to Australian school children for 75 years [laughter].
RIAA wants a law passed that would impose a penalty of $1.5 million per CD copied.
Ford Motor Company has attacked Ford enthusiasts, claiming that they hold those rights to any image of a Ford vehicle, even if it is a picture that you took of your own car.
The NFL has prohibited churches from holding Superbowl parties on TV sets larger than 55 inches.
And, of course, there are recent extensions of copyright such as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, or DMCA, which criminalizes even the mere possession of technology that can be used to circumvent digital-protection systems. But I say DVD ripping devices don't steal; people do.
Trademark is also bad:
Subway has claimed a trademark on the term "foot-long" to describe their sandwich. They threatened a hotdog seller who has been selling foot-longs for decades.
A court has said the University of Southern California is the only one who can use "USC." Sorry, University of South Carolina [laughter].
"Who dat?" The National Football League has stewed over this expression being put on t-shirts.
There are modern extensions of trademark law that are even worse, such as rights against cybersquatting and rights against trademark dilution; the latter don't even require consumer confusion, which is required in normal trade lawsuits.
Even trade secret, which is the least objectionable of the four main types of IP, has been corrupted by the state. For example, when information about the then-secret iPad was leaked back in January of this year, Apple's law firm used trade-secret law to threaten new publications such as Valleywag and Gawker to make them stop publishing information, even though Valleywag and Gawker had never signed a non-disclosure agreement or contract with Apple.
Now, Western IP laws are bad enough, but the US-led Western countries have long tried to extend the reach of their mercantilist IP laws to countries like Russia, India, and China. They use the World Trade Organization, the WTO, to twist the arms of other countries.
And now we have the dreaded ACTA, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, coming down the pipe and I suspect it will be ratified. It is a worldwide treaty that will impose draconian Western-style patent and copyright protection, including DMCA-type anticircumvention rules, on every country. It will also provide the legal authority for surveillance of Internet file transfers and searches of personal property. As science-fiction author Corey Doctorow notes, "ACTA is a radical re-writing of the world's internet laws, taking place in secret without public input."[5]
Now these IP laws are, quite obviously, unlibertarian. They're nothing but grants of privilege by the state, leading to protectionism, market distortion and inefficiencies, wealth transfer from consumers and smaller companies to big media, big pharma, and so on, with the state taking a handsome handling charge. In our statist world we have taxation, we have regulation, we have incarceration for victimless crimes, and we have war. So the existence of IP law should come as no surprise. The question is not why we have IP law. We have IP law because we have the state. The question is why in the world would any libertarian support IP? But some of them do support it.
There are, of course, utilitarian arguments in favor of IP law, but these are hardly worth mentioning. First of all, there is no evidence at all that IP creates net worth. There are incoherent standards even in determining this. It leads to crazy schemes, advocated even by some libertarians and people such as Joseph Stiglitz and Forbes who openly endorse the idea of, say, a $30 or $80 billion tax-funded medical innovation prize fund or innovation contracts, either to replace the patent system or supplement it. On a debate on Cato's website, one Dean Baker argued that copyright and patent should be abolished and replaced with such a tax-funded innovation prize.[6]
Cato's Tim Lee opposed this idea. He says,
I can't agree with Baker that all copyright and patent protection monopolies are illegitimate. Copyright and patent protections have existed since the beginning of the Republic and, if properly calibrated, they can promote the progress of science and the useful arts. Like any government intervention in the economy, they need to be carefully constrained, but if they are so limited, they can be a positive force in the American economy.
That's really a relief. We just need to "calibrate" [laughter].
Galambos believed that man has property rights in his own life, which he called "primordial property," and thus in all nonprocreative derivatives of his life. (You don't own your children, I guess.) The first derivatives of a man's life are his thoughts and ideas, according to Galambos. These are primary property. Since action is based on primary property, you own your actions too. This is liberty.
Second derivatives, such as land, televisions, and other tangible goods, are produced by ideas and actions. So, in other words, in Galambos's hierarchy, primary property is your thoughts, ideas, and actions. Secondary property are lowly things like this.[7]
Now, sometimes I start a speech with a joke. I didn't do so today. I couldn't think of a good IP lawyer joke. But I have one now. Ayn Rand incredibly said, "Patents are the heart and core of property rights."
That's a joke [laughter].
It's so positivist, for Ayn Rand. I suppose we had no property rights in existence until 1790, the first Patent Act, or perhaps in 1624 with England's Statute of Monopolies. (By the way, many libertarian advocates of the patent system deny that patents are monopolies even though they originated in the Statute of Monopolies.)
Statists used to be much more honest. We used to have the Department of War. In 1949, it was changed to the Department of Defense. Advocates of patents used to call them monopolies. Now they deny that they're monopolies.
Recently, I was relistening to a 1991 lecture by an Objectivist IP attorney, Murray Franck. I'm going to play a little bit here:
In the words of Forvald Solberg, a former register of copyrights, "When we come to weigh the rights of the several sorts of property which can be held by man, and in this judgment take into consideration only the absolute question of justice, leaving out the limitations of expediency and prejudice, it will be clearly seen that intellectual property is after all the only absolute possession in the world. The man who brings out of the nothingness some child of his thoughts has rights therein which cannot belong to any other sort of property. Land or chattels are pre-existing in some form, and the rights therein are limited in many ways, and are held in the great service of the world, but the inventor of a book or other contrivance of thought holds his property, as a god holds it, by right of creation."
So this is how the Objectivists look at it. We're gods. We create things and we own these things that we create. In fact, Franck recounts that when he met Ayn Rand, and she learned he was an IP lawyer, she said, "Intellectual property is the most important field of law."
Now what about the fact that IP is necessarily based upon legislation? No problem, according to Murray Franck.
Just as the common law evolved to recognize trespass by barbecue smoke, you would have evolved to recognize property in intellectual creations. But even if it could somehow be established that common law would never recognize IP rights, this would not be an argument against these rights. The common law often required legislation to correct it; for example, recognizing the rights of women. Indeed, it is a myth that the common law evolved to reflect and that legislation is always in conflict with the requirements of human nature. The same minds that employ induction and deduction to decide a particular case, as judges in making the common law, can employ those methods to legislate universal law.[8]
Some of the arguments for IP made by defenders of the system are so unbelievable they seem like they must be made in jest. For example, in a recent online debate, antipatent philosopher and ontologist — if there is such a term — David Koepsell, had mentioned that in the 19th and early 20th centuries two of the most innovative countries on the earth, the Netherlands and Switzerland, had no patent systems at all.
In response, a patent attorney who was defending the system, says, "Thank goodness the Swiss did have a patent office. That is where Albert Einstein worked and, during his time as a patent examiner, came up with his Theory of Relativity."[9]
Free-market economist William Shughart, a senior fellow with The Independent Institute, recently argued, "It is true that other means exist for creative people to profit from their effort. In the case of copyright, authors can charge fees for reading their works to paying audiences. Charles Dickens did this, but his heavy work schedule of public performances in the United States, where his works were not protected by copyright, arguably contributed to his untimely death."[10]
So, in other words, we need IP law because Charles Dickens died early.
Support for IP rights even leads some libertarian thinkers, such as Cato's Doug Bandow, Richard Epstein, and Michael Kraus to oppose free trade and, in particular, to oppose reimportation because this permits consumers to partially evade the patent-monopoly tax.[11]
Now what is the reason these libertarians make this mistake? I think it can be traced to three big causes: Locke, America, and Ayn Rand (plus two minor causes: legislation and utilitarianism.)
John Locke unnecessarily assumed the ownership of labor in his theory of homesteading. You don't need to assume that we own our labor to have the best claim to a homesteaded resource. You have the best claim to a homesteaded resource because you have a better connection to it, because you were the first user of it. There is no need to assume the ownership of labor, but this assumption has transformed into the Randian and other libertarian idea that we own our creation because we mix our labor with creations such as intellectual ideas as well.
America is also part of the problem. America instituted a patent system on utilitarian grounds in the beginning. And since the modern libertarian movement arose in America, and because early America is naively seen as a total libertarian paradise, state patent and copyright laws get a pass. And this is compounded with the influence of Ayn Rand who, in her desire to adopt the values of the superior United States over the communist Russia that she escaped and despised, she became too pro-American. I've even been told that Murray Rothbard's correspondence indicates that around 1954 someone convinced Ayn Rand to oppose eminent domain, which is the state's ability to take property. She had previously favored eminent domain because the Constitution endorses it. So, she is giving too much credence to the American Constitution.
I think there are two other contributing causes related to the others. One is the rise of legislation as a means of law-making. Recall Objectivist Murray Franck's approval of legislation as a means of making law. But, of course, legislation requires a state.
The second contributing cause is rise of utilitarianism and wealth mechanization as justifications for law. Now the founders may be forgiven for their hubris and assumptions, but not today's econometricians. The evidence is against them, but like the left-liberal do-gooders of Thomas Sowell's The Vision of the Anointed — the "Humanitarians with a Guillotine" — they persevere in claiming IP law generates net wealth without a shred of proof. Some claim that the success of the United States shows that IP law generates wealth. They forget that correlation is not causation. If they're right, we can also attribute Western prosperity to the income tax, antitrust laws, and war. So I guess we should export these policies to other nations, too. Oh, wait.
At least Jefferson had the decency not to pretend that the temporary, artificial, state-granted patent and copyright privileges were natural rights, unlike modern pro-IP libertarians.[12]
So what is the right way to view this?
Let's think about property rights in the context of the nature of human action.[13]
There are various ways to explain what is wrong with IP. You can explain that IP requires a state and legislation, which are both necessarily illegitimate. You can point out that there is no proof that IP generates net wealth. You can explain that IP grants rights in nonscarce things, which are necessarily enforced with physical force against tangible property, thus supplanting already-existing rights and scarce resources.
Another way, I believe, to seeing the error in treating information, ideas, and patterns as ownable property is to consider IP in the context of a structure of human action. Mises explains in The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science that to act means to strive after gains, to chose a goal and resort to means in order to attain the goal sought.[14] Obviously, the means have to be causally efficacious to obtain the desired end. So as Mises has observed, if there was not causality, men "could not contrive any means for the attainment of any ends." Knowledge and information, of course, play a key role in action as well. They guide action. The actor is guided by his knowledge and information. Bad information results in unsuccessful action or loss. As Mises puts it, "Action is purposive conduct. It is not simply behavior, but behavior begot by judgments of value, aiming at a definite end and guided by ideas concerning the suitability or unsuitability of definite means" (emphasis added).
So all action employs means and all action is guided by knowledge and information.[15] As Mises says, means are necessarily scarce resources. He said, "Means are necessarily always limited, i.e. scarce, with regard to the services for which man wants to use them."
So, in other words, to have successful action, you have to have knowledge about causal laws to know which means to employ. You have to have the ability to employ these means suitable for the goal that you are seeking. So the scarce resources that you need to use as means need to be owned by you. This is why there are property rights in these things. The nature of a scarce resource is that use by one person excludes use by another; but you don't need to own the information that guides your action in order to have successful action. For example, two people can make a cake at the same time. They each have to have their own ingredients, but they can use the same recipe at the same time.
Material progress is made over time in human society because information is not scarce. It can be infinitely multiplied, learned, taught, and built on. The more patterns, recipes, causal laws that are known add to the stock of knowledge available to all actors and act as a greater and greater wealth multiplier by allowing actors to engage in ever-more efficient and productive actions. It is a good thing that ideas are infinitely reproducible, not a bad thing. There is no need to impose artificial scarcity on these things to make them more like scarce resources, which, unfortunately, are scarce. As Bastiat said,
All innovation goes through three stages. One possesses unique knowledge and profits from it. Others imitate and share profits. Finally, the knowledge is widely shared and no longer profitable on its own which thereby inspires new knowledge.[16]
What patents do is artificially prolong the first stage at the expense of the others. For example, a recent news story reports that Acer is the latest PC maker to jump into the tablet PC market, which has been gaining increasing attention since Apple launched its iPad in January. With more than one million units sold so far, the iPad's success has sent other PC makers scrambling to come up with similar devices. This competition to make similar devices is not a bad thing, but IP advocates have to have mixed feelings about this imitation.
Granting copyrights to scarce resources, but not to ideas, is precisely what is needed to promote successful action as well as societal progress and prosperity. So we can see that an essential defect of IP is that it seeks to impede learning and the spread of ideas and knowledge. Honest (or naive) IP advocates even admit this. Recall that above I quoted the comment from William Shughart. He says, "To paraphrase the late economist John Robinson, patents and copyrights slow down the diffusion of new ideas for a reason, to assure there will be more new ideas to diffuse."[17]
$8 $6
So they admit this. By the way, Professor Hoppe realized this as far back as 1988. At a panel discussion on ethics with Hoppe, Rothbard, David Gordon, and Leland Yeager, there was the following exchange, and I'll conclude with it:
AUDIENCE QUESTION: I have a question for Professor Hoppe. Does the idea of personal sovereignty extend to knowledge? Am I sovereign over my thoughts, ideas, and theories? …
HOPPE: … in order to have a thought you must have property rights over your body. That doesn't imply that you own your thoughts. The thoughts can be used by anybody who is capable of understanding them.[18]
Stephan Kinsella is an attorney in Houston, director of the Center for the Study of Innovative Freedom, and editor of Libertarian Papers. See his blog. Send him mail. See Stephan Kinsella's article archives.
This article is a lightly edited transcript of "Ideas are Free: The Case Against Intellectual Property: or, How Libertarians Went Wrong," a speech given at the 2010 Annual Meeting of the Property and Freedom Society, June 6, 2010.
Empty promises on health care will haunt Obama TAGS: aaron carroll american medical association Byron York center for medicare and medicaid services
Empty promises on health care will haunt Obama
TAGS: aaron carroll american medical association Byron York center for medicare and medicaid services Gallup indiana university school of medicine New York Times patient protection and affordable care act
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By: Byron York 11/22/10 9:05 PM
Chief Political Correspondent
Virginia Mayo/AP U.S. President Barack Obama speaks during a media conference at an EU-US summit in Lisbon on Saturday Nov. 20, 2010. EU and US leaders will look at ways in which they can work together on a growing range of security issues that affect citizens on both sides of the Atlantic, such as cyber attacks and cyber crime, as well as violent extremism and terrorism.
Barack Obama is only halfway through his term, but it's not too early to ask: What is the biggest whopper he has told as president? So far, the hands-down winner is:
"No matter how we reform health care, we will keep this promise to the American people. If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor, period. If you like your health care plan, you'll be able to keep your health care plan, period. No one will take it away, no matter what."
Obama made that particular pledge in a speech to the American Medical Association in June 2009, but he said the same thing, with slight variations, dozens of times during the health care debate. And now, exactly eight months after he signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act into law, we're seeing just how empty the president's promise was.
The New York Times reports there is a "growing frenzy of mergers" in the health care field in which hospitals and other care providers, pressured by the new law's provisions, are joining forces to save money. "Consumer advocates fear that the health care law could worsen some of the very problems it was meant to solve," the paper reports, "by reducing competition, driving up costs and creating incentives for doctors and hospitals to stint on care, in order to retain their cost-saving bonuses."
The Obama administration's answer to the problem will undoubtedly be more regulation. But the wave of mergers is just one of many signs of trouble with the new law.
For example, we know that the government's Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services has found that the new law will increase health care costs, rather than reduce them, in the coming decade. We know that cuts in Medicare, with the money saved going to pay for expanding coverage to the poor, will jeopardize seniors' access to care. We know the law will make it impossibly expensive for companies that currently offer bare-bones health coverage to low-income employees to keep doing so. We know several corporations are taking giant write-downs because the bill will increase the cost of providing prescription drug coverage to retired employees. And perhaps most important, we know the law offers an enormous incentive for employers who currently provide coverage to workers to stop doing so, sending those workers to buy coverage in government-subsidized health care exchanges.
In sum, what the law means for millions of Americans is: No matter what the president said, if you like the coverage you have now, you can't keep it.
And a lot of people do like their coverage. A new Gallup Poll found that when Americans are asked to assess the quality of their own health care, the results "are among the most positive Gallup has found over the past decade." A total of 82 percent of respondents rate their health care as excellent or good, while just 16 percent rate it as fair or poor."
The key question of health care reform has always been how to make things better for the 16 percent while not messing things up for the 82 percent. Obama decided to blow up the system for everyone.
In doing so, he has created not just well-founded anxiety in those who are skeptical of the new law but also unrealistic expectations in those who support it. "We just told millions of people that they can go to the exchanges in 2014 and buy insurance," writes Aaron Carroll, an Indiana University School of Medicine professor who blogs on health care issues at a site called the Incidental Economist. "There won't be any lifetime or annual limits. There won't be denials for pre-existing conditions. There won't be any surcharges for having such conditions. And it's going to be 'reasonably' priced."
Carroll talked to lots of insurance executives, and concluded it's just not going to happen. "I feel like many people think they will have choice of doctor, choice of hospital, and the ability to dictate care," he writes. "I'm not seeing how insurance companies will be able to offer such products at prices people can afford."
Is any of this a surprise? The fact is, the president knew or should have known that his health care scheme would have these effects. He paid a political price for his actions on Nov. 2. There might be more to pay on Nov. 6, 2012.
Byron York, The Examiner's chief political correspondent, can be contacted at byork@washingtonexaminer.com. His column appears on Tuesday and Friday, and his stories and blogposts appear on ExaminerPolitics.com.
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TAGS: aaron carroll american medical association Byron York center for medicare and medicaid services Gallup indiana university school of medicine New York Times patient protection and affordable care act
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By: Byron York 11/22/10 9:05 PM
Chief Political Correspondent
Virginia Mayo/AP U.S. President Barack Obama speaks during a media conference at an EU-US summit in Lisbon on Saturday Nov. 20, 2010. EU and US leaders will look at ways in which they can work together on a growing range of security issues that affect citizens on both sides of the Atlantic, such as cyber attacks and cyber crime, as well as violent extremism and terrorism.
Barack Obama is only halfway through his term, but it's not too early to ask: What is the biggest whopper he has told as president? So far, the hands-down winner is:
"No matter how we reform health care, we will keep this promise to the American people. If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor, period. If you like your health care plan, you'll be able to keep your health care plan, period. No one will take it away, no matter what."
Obama made that particular pledge in a speech to the American Medical Association in June 2009, but he said the same thing, with slight variations, dozens of times during the health care debate. And now, exactly eight months after he signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act into law, we're seeing just how empty the president's promise was.
The New York Times reports there is a "growing frenzy of mergers" in the health care field in which hospitals and other care providers, pressured by the new law's provisions, are joining forces to save money. "Consumer advocates fear that the health care law could worsen some of the very problems it was meant to solve," the paper reports, "by reducing competition, driving up costs and creating incentives for doctors and hospitals to stint on care, in order to retain their cost-saving bonuses."
The Obama administration's answer to the problem will undoubtedly be more regulation. But the wave of mergers is just one of many signs of trouble with the new law.
For example, we know that the government's Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services has found that the new law will increase health care costs, rather than reduce them, in the coming decade. We know that cuts in Medicare, with the money saved going to pay for expanding coverage to the poor, will jeopardize seniors' access to care. We know the law will make it impossibly expensive for companies that currently offer bare-bones health coverage to low-income employees to keep doing so. We know several corporations are taking giant write-downs because the bill will increase the cost of providing prescription drug coverage to retired employees. And perhaps most important, we know the law offers an enormous incentive for employers who currently provide coverage to workers to stop doing so, sending those workers to buy coverage in government-subsidized health care exchanges.
In sum, what the law means for millions of Americans is: No matter what the president said, if you like the coverage you have now, you can't keep it.
And a lot of people do like their coverage. A new Gallup Poll found that when Americans are asked to assess the quality of their own health care, the results "are among the most positive Gallup has found over the past decade." A total of 82 percent of respondents rate their health care as excellent or good, while just 16 percent rate it as fair or poor."
The key question of health care reform has always been how to make things better for the 16 percent while not messing things up for the 82 percent. Obama decided to blow up the system for everyone.
In doing so, he has created not just well-founded anxiety in those who are skeptical of the new law but also unrealistic expectations in those who support it. "We just told millions of people that they can go to the exchanges in 2014 and buy insurance," writes Aaron Carroll, an Indiana University School of Medicine professor who blogs on health care issues at a site called the Incidental Economist. "There won't be any lifetime or annual limits. There won't be denials for pre-existing conditions. There won't be any surcharges for having such conditions. And it's going to be 'reasonably' priced."
Carroll talked to lots of insurance executives, and concluded it's just not going to happen. "I feel like many people think they will have choice of doctor, choice of hospital, and the ability to dictate care," he writes. "I'm not seeing how insurance companies will be able to offer such products at prices people can afford."
Is any of this a surprise? The fact is, the president knew or should have known that his health care scheme would have these effects. He paid a political price for his actions on Nov. 2. There might be more to pay on Nov. 6, 2012.
Byron York, The Examiner's chief political correspondent, can be contacted at byork@washingtonexaminer.com. His column appears on Tuesday and Friday, and his stories and blogposts appear on ExaminerPolitics.com.
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Higher Taxes Won't Reduce the Deficit History shows that when Congress gets more revenue, the pols spend it. Article Comments (300) more in Opinion
Higher Taxes Won't Reduce the Deficit
History shows that when Congress gets more revenue, the pols spend it.
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By STEPHEN MOORE And RICHARD VEDDER
The draft recommendations of the president's commission on deficit reduction call for closing popular tax deductions, higher gas taxes and other revenue raisers to drive tax collections up to 21% of GDP from the historical norm of about 18.5%. Another plan, proposed last week by commission member and former Congressional Budget Office director Alice Rivlin, would impose a 6.5% national sales tax on consumers.
The claim here, echoed by endless purveyors of conventional wisdom in Washington, is that these added revenues—potentially a half-trillion dollars a year—will be used to reduce the $8 trillion to $10 trillion deficits in the coming decade. If history is any guide, however, that won't happen. Instead, Congress will simply spend the money.
In the late 1980s, one of us, Richard Vedder, and Lowell Gallaway of Ohio University co-authored a often-cited research paper for the congressional Joint Economic Committee (known as the $1.58 study) that found that every new dollar of new taxes led to more than one dollar of new spending by Congress. Subsequent revisions of the study over the next decade found similar results.
We've updated the research. Using standard statistical analyses that introduce variables to control for business-cycle fluctuations, wars and inflation, we found that over the entire post World War II era through 2009 each dollar of new tax revenue was associated with $1.17 of new spending. Politicians spend the money as fast as it comes in—and a little bit more.
We also looked at different time periods (e.g., 1947-2009 vs. 1959-2009), different financial data (fiscal year federal budget data, as well as calendar year National Income and Product Account data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis), different lag structures (e.g., relating taxes one year to spending change the following year to allow for the time it takes bureaucracies to spend money), different control variables, etc. The alternative models produce different estimates of the tax-spend relationship—between $1.05 and $1.81. But no matter how we configured the data and no matter what variables we examined, higher tax collections never resulted in less spending.
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Alice Rivlin
This is exactly the opposite of what the tax-increase lobby in Washington is preaching today. For example, Erskine Bowles, co-chairman of the president's deficit reduction commission, suggested at a briefing several months ago that there will be $3 of spending cuts for every $1 of tax increases. Sound familiar? Reagan used to complain that he waited his entire presidency for the $3 of spending cuts that Congress promised for every dollar of new taxes he agreed to in 1982. The cuts never came.
We're constantly told by politicos that tax increases must be put "on the table" to get congressional Democrats—who've already approved close to $1 trillion of new spending in violation of their own budget rules over the last two years—to agree to make cuts in the unsustainable entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security.
Our research indicates this is a sucker play. After the 1990 and 1993 tax increases, federal spending continued to rise. The 1990 tax increase deal was enacted specifically to avoid automatic spending sequestrations that would have been required under the then-prevailing Gramm-Rudman budget rules.
The only era in modern times that the budget has been in balance was in the late 1990s, when Republicans were in control of Congress. Taxes were not raised, and the capital gains tax rate was cut in 1997. The growth rate of federal spending was dramatically reduced from 1995-99, and the economy roared.
We suspect that voters intuitively understand this tax and spend connection, which is why there is such hostility to broad-based tax increases. "Polls consistently find that a majority of Americans believe any new taxes will be spent by the politicians," pollster Scott Rasmussen told us recently in an interview.
The grand bargain so many in Washington yearn for—tax increases coupled with spending cuts—is a fool's errand. Our research confirms what the late economist Milton Friedman said of Congress many years ago: "Politicians will always spend every penny of tax raised and whatever else they can get away with."
Mr. Moore is senior economics writer for The Wall Street Journal editorial page. Mr. Vedder is a professor of economics at Ohio University and an adjunct scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.
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History shows that when Congress gets more revenue, the pols spend it.
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By STEPHEN MOORE And RICHARD VEDDER
The draft recommendations of the president's commission on deficit reduction call for closing popular tax deductions, higher gas taxes and other revenue raisers to drive tax collections up to 21% of GDP from the historical norm of about 18.5%. Another plan, proposed last week by commission member and former Congressional Budget Office director Alice Rivlin, would impose a 6.5% national sales tax on consumers.
The claim here, echoed by endless purveyors of conventional wisdom in Washington, is that these added revenues—potentially a half-trillion dollars a year—will be used to reduce the $8 trillion to $10 trillion deficits in the coming decade. If history is any guide, however, that won't happen. Instead, Congress will simply spend the money.
In the late 1980s, one of us, Richard Vedder, and Lowell Gallaway of Ohio University co-authored a often-cited research paper for the congressional Joint Economic Committee (known as the $1.58 study) that found that every new dollar of new taxes led to more than one dollar of new spending by Congress. Subsequent revisions of the study over the next decade found similar results.
We've updated the research. Using standard statistical analyses that introduce variables to control for business-cycle fluctuations, wars and inflation, we found that over the entire post World War II era through 2009 each dollar of new tax revenue was associated with $1.17 of new spending. Politicians spend the money as fast as it comes in—and a little bit more.
We also looked at different time periods (e.g., 1947-2009 vs. 1959-2009), different financial data (fiscal year federal budget data, as well as calendar year National Income and Product Account data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis), different lag structures (e.g., relating taxes one year to spending change the following year to allow for the time it takes bureaucracies to spend money), different control variables, etc. The alternative models produce different estimates of the tax-spend relationship—between $1.05 and $1.81. But no matter how we configured the data and no matter what variables we examined, higher tax collections never resulted in less spending.
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Alice Rivlin
This is exactly the opposite of what the tax-increase lobby in Washington is preaching today. For example, Erskine Bowles, co-chairman of the president's deficit reduction commission, suggested at a briefing several months ago that there will be $3 of spending cuts for every $1 of tax increases. Sound familiar? Reagan used to complain that he waited his entire presidency for the $3 of spending cuts that Congress promised for every dollar of new taxes he agreed to in 1982. The cuts never came.
We're constantly told by politicos that tax increases must be put "on the table" to get congressional Democrats—who've already approved close to $1 trillion of new spending in violation of their own budget rules over the last two years—to agree to make cuts in the unsustainable entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security.
Our research indicates this is a sucker play. After the 1990 and 1993 tax increases, federal spending continued to rise. The 1990 tax increase deal was enacted specifically to avoid automatic spending sequestrations that would have been required under the then-prevailing Gramm-Rudman budget rules.
The only era in modern times that the budget has been in balance was in the late 1990s, when Republicans were in control of Congress. Taxes were not raised, and the capital gains tax rate was cut in 1997. The growth rate of federal spending was dramatically reduced from 1995-99, and the economy roared.
We suspect that voters intuitively understand this tax and spend connection, which is why there is such hostility to broad-based tax increases. "Polls consistently find that a majority of Americans believe any new taxes will be spent by the politicians," pollster Scott Rasmussen told us recently in an interview.
The grand bargain so many in Washington yearn for—tax increases coupled with spending cuts—is a fool's errand. Our research confirms what the late economist Milton Friedman said of Congress many years ago: "Politicians will always spend every penny of tax raised and whatever else they can get away with."
Mr. Moore is senior economics writer for The Wall Street Journal editorial page. Mr. Vedder is a professor of economics at Ohio University and an adjunct scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.
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WSJ: A Sucker's Play -- Each $1 in Higher Taxes Results in $1.17 of New Spending Wall Street Journal op-ed, Higher Taxes Won't Reduce the Deficit, by
WSJ: A Sucker's Play -- Each $1 in Higher Taxes Results in $1.17 of New Spending
Wall Street Journal op-ed, Higher Taxes Won't Reduce the Deficit, by Stephen Moore (Wall Street Journal) & Richard Vedder (Ohio University, Department of Economics):
The draft recommendations of the president's commission on deficit reduction call for closing popular tax deductions, higher gas taxes and other revenue raisers to drive tax collections up to 21% of GDP from the historical norm of about 18.5%. Another plan, proposed last week by commission member and former Congressional Budget Office director Alice Rivlin, would impose a 6.5% national sales tax on consumers.
The claim here, echoed by endless purveyors of conventional wisdom in Washington, is that these added revenues—potentially a half-trillion dollars a year—will be used to reduce the $8 trillion to $10 trillion deficits in the coming decade. If history is any guide, however, that won't happen. Instead, Congress will simply spend the money.
In the late 1980s, one of us, Richard Vedder, and Lowell Gallaway of Ohio University co-authored a often-cited research paper for the congressional Joint Economic Committee (known as the $1.58 study) that found that every new dollar of new taxes led to more than one dollar of new spending by Congress. Subsequent revisions of the study over the next decade found similar results.
We've updated the research. Using standard statistical analyses that introduce variables to control for business-cycle fluctuations, wars and inflation, we found that over the entire post World War II era through 2009 each dollar of new tax revenue was associated with $1.17 of new spending. Politicians spend the money as fast as it comes in—and a little bit more. ...
We're constantly told by politicos that tax increases must be put "on the table" to get congressional Democrats—who've already approved close to $1 trillion of new spending in violation of their own budget rules over the last two years—to agree to make cuts in the unsustainable entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security.
Our research indicates this is a sucker play. After the 1990 and 1993 tax increases, federal spending continued to rise. The 1990 tax increase deal was enacted specifically to avoid automatic spending sequestrations that would have been required under the then-prevailing Gramm-Rudman budget rules....
The grand bargain so many in Washington yearn for—tax increases coupled with spending cuts—is a fool's errand. Our research confirms what the late economist Milton Friedman said of Congress many years ago: "Politicians will always spend every penny of tax raised and whatever else they can get away with."
Wall Street Journal op-ed, Higher Taxes Won't Reduce the Deficit, by Stephen Moore (Wall Street Journal) & Richard Vedder (Ohio University, Department of Economics):
The draft recommendations of the president's commission on deficit reduction call for closing popular tax deductions, higher gas taxes and other revenue raisers to drive tax collections up to 21% of GDP from the historical norm of about 18.5%. Another plan, proposed last week by commission member and former Congressional Budget Office director Alice Rivlin, would impose a 6.5% national sales tax on consumers.
The claim here, echoed by endless purveyors of conventional wisdom in Washington, is that these added revenues—potentially a half-trillion dollars a year—will be used to reduce the $8 trillion to $10 trillion deficits in the coming decade. If history is any guide, however, that won't happen. Instead, Congress will simply spend the money.
In the late 1980s, one of us, Richard Vedder, and Lowell Gallaway of Ohio University co-authored a often-cited research paper for the congressional Joint Economic Committee (known as the $1.58 study) that found that every new dollar of new taxes led to more than one dollar of new spending by Congress. Subsequent revisions of the study over the next decade found similar results.
We've updated the research. Using standard statistical analyses that introduce variables to control for business-cycle fluctuations, wars and inflation, we found that over the entire post World War II era through 2009 each dollar of new tax revenue was associated with $1.17 of new spending. Politicians spend the money as fast as it comes in—and a little bit more. ...
We're constantly told by politicos that tax increases must be put "on the table" to get congressional Democrats—who've already approved close to $1 trillion of new spending in violation of their own budget rules over the last two years—to agree to make cuts in the unsustainable entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security.
Our research indicates this is a sucker play. After the 1990 and 1993 tax increases, federal spending continued to rise. The 1990 tax increase deal was enacted specifically to avoid automatic spending sequestrations that would have been required under the then-prevailing Gramm-Rudman budget rules....
The grand bargain so many in Washington yearn for—tax increases coupled with spending cuts—is a fool's errand. Our research confirms what the late economist Milton Friedman said of Congress many years ago: "Politicians will always spend every penny of tax raised and whatever else they can get away with."
Monday, November 22, 2010
Frank Defends Bernanke, ‘Appalled’ By Republican Criticism Monday, 22 Nov 2010 01:17 PM Article Font Size Barney Frank, chairman of the House
Frank Defends Bernanke, ‘Appalled’ By Republican Criticism
Monday, 22 Nov 2010 01:17 PM
Article Font Size
Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said he’s “appalled” by Republicans who he said have sided with foreign central banks in criticizing Federal Reserve chairman Ben S. Bernanke.
“I was appalled to see a group of Republican economists from the Bush and Reagan administration” arguing against the Fed’s asset-purchase program. “Republicans are joining the central bank of China in attacking Bernanke. This is really distressing to me.”
Frank, who spoke in an interview today on Bloomberg Television’s “In Business with Margaret Brennan,” called the Fed program to purchase $600 billion in assets through June “a very reasonable thing” that isn’t fueling inflation, as Republican critics contend.
A group of 23 people including former Republican government officials and economists published a letter to Bernanke urging him to halt the expansion of monetary stimulus because it risks an inflation surge. Separately, John Boehner, nominated to be the next House speaker, and three other Republicans leaders last week sent Bernanke a letter expressing “deep concerns” about a policy they said risked weakening the dollar and fueling asset bubbles.
“I wish we had some more fiscal stimulus,” Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat, said. “In the absence of that, given unemployment, given the complete absence of inflation, he is doing a very reasonable thing.”
The Fed on Nov. 3 said it was expanding record stimulus to try to reduce 9.6 percent unemployment and keep the inflation rate from dropping further. China, Brazil, South Africa and Germany have said the injection of cash into the system may weaken the U.S. dollar.
Monday, 22 Nov 2010 01:17 PM
Article Font Size
Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said he’s “appalled” by Republicans who he said have sided with foreign central banks in criticizing Federal Reserve chairman Ben S. Bernanke.
“I was appalled to see a group of Republican economists from the Bush and Reagan administration” arguing against the Fed’s asset-purchase program. “Republicans are joining the central bank of China in attacking Bernanke. This is really distressing to me.”
Frank, who spoke in an interview today on Bloomberg Television’s “In Business with Margaret Brennan,” called the Fed program to purchase $600 billion in assets through June “a very reasonable thing” that isn’t fueling inflation, as Republican critics contend.
A group of 23 people including former Republican government officials and economists published a letter to Bernanke urging him to halt the expansion of monetary stimulus because it risks an inflation surge. Separately, John Boehner, nominated to be the next House speaker, and three other Republicans leaders last week sent Bernanke a letter expressing “deep concerns” about a policy they said risked weakening the dollar and fueling asset bubbles.
“I wish we had some more fiscal stimulus,” Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat, said. “In the absence of that, given unemployment, given the complete absence of inflation, he is doing a very reasonable thing.”
The Fed on Nov. 3 said it was expanding record stimulus to try to reduce 9.6 percent unemployment and keep the inflation rate from dropping further. China, Brazil, South Africa and Germany have said the injection of cash into the system may weaken the U.S. dollar.
Bachmann: Obama Pushing "Massive Increase in Taxes"
Bachmann: Obama Pushing "Massive Increase in Taxes"
Monday, 22 Nov 2010 06:10 PM
Article Font Size
By Jim Meyers
Rep. Michele Bachmann, head of the House Tea Party Caucus, tells Newsmax that the Federal Reserve’s plan to increase the money supply by buying government securities is a “huge mistake” that will boost inflation and amount to “stealing from the American people.”
The Minnesota Republican also declares that President Barack Obama wants to impose a “massive increase in taxes” by refusing to extend the Bush tax cuts for all Americans.
And she says Congress could reign in the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) regarding the use of body scanners and aggressive pat-downs at airports.
Bachmann is a tax attorney by profession who formerly worked for the U.S. Treasury Department. In an exclusive interview with Newsmax.TV, she was asked about the Bush tax cuts, which Democrats want to extend for the middle class and Republicans want for all taxpayers.
“The best thing to do is not increase anyone’s taxes,” Bachmann says.
“Unfortunately President Obama’s wish list is to have a massive increase in taxes. We want to make sure no one has an increase in taxes, because for instance just in my district alone if we fail to extend these current tax rates we’re going to lose 2,000 jobs.
“I don’t think it serves anyone’s interest if we take $1.2 billion out of my district and put it in the hands of politicians in Washington. Let’s keep it back home where it will do some good.”
Some Republicans are threatening a government shutdown to force spending cuts by the federal government. Asked if she believes that could occur, Bachmann responds: “I hope not. I don’t think it serves anyone’s interest for the government to shut down. I think now the election is over and people want us to sit down and make a lot of really hard decisions, and we need to.
“We need to have some cuts, some very serious cuts. One that I would begin with is this: Treasury Secretary [Timothy] Geithner had given an unlimited credit card to Fannie Mae. Now he’s spent over $200 billion dollars. That’s real money. We need to pull that credit card away, and away from all of the various private businesses that the federal government has now gone in and either purchased or controlled.
“We need to get the federal government interest out of private business. That will save us a lot of money going forward.”
Bachmann agrees with many Republican economists who have joined Sarah Palin in urging Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke to cease and desist with “quantitative easing” — the $600 billion plan to buy government securities in an effort to spur the economic recovery.
“I was ahead of the curve on this,” she tells Newsmax.
“I had written a letter to Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke asking him to please come before our Financial Services Committee and have a hearing before he took this extraordinary action. He failed to do that, and we got just a perfunctory letter back from the Federal Reserve.
“This is a huge mistake. Quantitative easing is nothing more than government getting behind inflation. As if the government hasn’t done enough wrong to the economy by spending us into a debt that will be very difficult to pay off, now they want to inflate the money to pay off their debts that they accrued.
“This is just stealing from the American people, and it’s flat out wrong.”
Bachmann says she has doubts that the House and Senate will follow the lead of Republican conferences and ban earmarks, adding: “It may be that the Democrats decide they still want to be porkers, you might say, and get more projects.”
Regarding calls for the tea party and other conservatives to confront Democrats rather than compromise, the tea party leader says: “I think it’s important that we uphold our pledge.
“The tea party is not a political party, it’s a set of ideas that the GOP is now embracing. And it is this: The government needs to live within its means. Don’t spend more than you take in. No one’s taxes should go up. And act within the limits of the Constitution. That sounds like a pretty good agenda to me.”
Asked if Congress could reign in the TSA, which now requires airline passengers to submit to a body scan or pat-down before boarding, Bachmann responds: “Yes they can. As a matter of fact there’s a provision whereby each individual airport can go outside and contract privately for security.
“The best security in the world right now is employed in Israel — El Al Airlines in Tel Aviv. I think we need to bring Israeli security here to the United States and teach all of us how it should be done.
“I think we need to stop focusing on the things people are trying to take on airplanes and focus on the people. We know it’s terrorists we’re looking for, and not everyone should be considered guilty when they go through the metal detectors.
“We need to have highly trained, sensitive people who are going to give us the best possible security outcome, and that’s why I would invite Israeli intelligence to come to the United States.”
Bachmann declined to name who she would favor to run for president in 2012, saying: “I think we’re going to have a very deep bench, and I hope we have a lot of candidates come forward so we have a true open contest where we can choose the right person.
“I think right now the American people have made their decision. I think they’ve decided that President Obama has overstepped and overreached.
“And now we’re hearing from behind the scenes that if he can’t have his way with Congress, he’ll just go through on his own with executive order and put through whatever it is he wants to put in place. That’s against the Constitution.
“If President Obama decides to go forward with actions that are contrary to our Constitution, you’ll not only see a big fight, you’ll see a huge nosedive in his ratings.
“I don’t think he can win a second election.”
Monday, 22 Nov 2010 06:10 PM
Article Font Size
By Jim Meyers
Rep. Michele Bachmann, head of the House Tea Party Caucus, tells Newsmax that the Federal Reserve’s plan to increase the money supply by buying government securities is a “huge mistake” that will boost inflation and amount to “stealing from the American people.”
The Minnesota Republican also declares that President Barack Obama wants to impose a “massive increase in taxes” by refusing to extend the Bush tax cuts for all Americans.
And she says Congress could reign in the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) regarding the use of body scanners and aggressive pat-downs at airports.
Bachmann is a tax attorney by profession who formerly worked for the U.S. Treasury Department. In an exclusive interview with Newsmax.TV, she was asked about the Bush tax cuts, which Democrats want to extend for the middle class and Republicans want for all taxpayers.
“The best thing to do is not increase anyone’s taxes,” Bachmann says.
“Unfortunately President Obama’s wish list is to have a massive increase in taxes. We want to make sure no one has an increase in taxes, because for instance just in my district alone if we fail to extend these current tax rates we’re going to lose 2,000 jobs.
“I don’t think it serves anyone’s interest if we take $1.2 billion out of my district and put it in the hands of politicians in Washington. Let’s keep it back home where it will do some good.”
Some Republicans are threatening a government shutdown to force spending cuts by the federal government. Asked if she believes that could occur, Bachmann responds: “I hope not. I don’t think it serves anyone’s interest for the government to shut down. I think now the election is over and people want us to sit down and make a lot of really hard decisions, and we need to.
“We need to have some cuts, some very serious cuts. One that I would begin with is this: Treasury Secretary [Timothy] Geithner had given an unlimited credit card to Fannie Mae. Now he’s spent over $200 billion dollars. That’s real money. We need to pull that credit card away, and away from all of the various private businesses that the federal government has now gone in and either purchased or controlled.
“We need to get the federal government interest out of private business. That will save us a lot of money going forward.”
Bachmann agrees with many Republican economists who have joined Sarah Palin in urging Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke to cease and desist with “quantitative easing” — the $600 billion plan to buy government securities in an effort to spur the economic recovery.
“I was ahead of the curve on this,” she tells Newsmax.
“I had written a letter to Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke asking him to please come before our Financial Services Committee and have a hearing before he took this extraordinary action. He failed to do that, and we got just a perfunctory letter back from the Federal Reserve.
“This is a huge mistake. Quantitative easing is nothing more than government getting behind inflation. As if the government hasn’t done enough wrong to the economy by spending us into a debt that will be very difficult to pay off, now they want to inflate the money to pay off their debts that they accrued.
“This is just stealing from the American people, and it’s flat out wrong.”
Bachmann says she has doubts that the House and Senate will follow the lead of Republican conferences and ban earmarks, adding: “It may be that the Democrats decide they still want to be porkers, you might say, and get more projects.”
Regarding calls for the tea party and other conservatives to confront Democrats rather than compromise, the tea party leader says: “I think it’s important that we uphold our pledge.
“The tea party is not a political party, it’s a set of ideas that the GOP is now embracing. And it is this: The government needs to live within its means. Don’t spend more than you take in. No one’s taxes should go up. And act within the limits of the Constitution. That sounds like a pretty good agenda to me.”
Asked if Congress could reign in the TSA, which now requires airline passengers to submit to a body scan or pat-down before boarding, Bachmann responds: “Yes they can. As a matter of fact there’s a provision whereby each individual airport can go outside and contract privately for security.
“The best security in the world right now is employed in Israel — El Al Airlines in Tel Aviv. I think we need to bring Israeli security here to the United States and teach all of us how it should be done.
“I think we need to stop focusing on the things people are trying to take on airplanes and focus on the people. We know it’s terrorists we’re looking for, and not everyone should be considered guilty when they go through the metal detectors.
“We need to have highly trained, sensitive people who are going to give us the best possible security outcome, and that’s why I would invite Israeli intelligence to come to the United States.”
Bachmann declined to name who she would favor to run for president in 2012, saying: “I think we’re going to have a very deep bench, and I hope we have a lot of candidates come forward so we have a true open contest where we can choose the right person.
“I think right now the American people have made their decision. I think they’ve decided that President Obama has overstepped and overreached.
“And now we’re hearing from behind the scenes that if he can’t have his way with Congress, he’ll just go through on his own with executive order and put through whatever it is he wants to put in place. That’s against the Constitution.
“If President Obama decides to go forward with actions that are contrary to our Constitution, you’ll not only see a big fight, you’ll see a huge nosedive in his ratings.
“I don’t think he can win a second election.”
obama is raising massive taxes, typical tax n waste moron
http://www.newsmax.com/Headline/bachmann-obama-tax-increase/2010/11/22/id/377871
There are over 100 million people that play console games in the U.S. We believe that online rental subscriptions will constitute a growing percentage
There are over 100 million people that play console games in the U.S. We believe that online rental subscriptions will constitute a growing percentage of total video game*related expenditures.
enviro economics
http://thegwpf.org/ipcc-news/1877-ipcc-official-climate-policy-is-redistributing-the-worlds-wealth.html
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Ann Coulter Repeal the 26th Amendment!
Ann Coulter
Repeal the 26th Amendment!
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Jimmy Carter was such an abominable president we got Ronald Reagan, tax cuts, a booming economy and the destruction of the Soviet Union.
Two years of Bill Clinton and a Democratic Congress got us the first Republican Congress in half a century, followed by tax cuts, welfare reform and a booming economy –- all of which Clinton now claims credit for.
Obama's disastrous presidency has already produced Republican senators from Massachusetts, Wisconsin and Illinois; New Jersey's wonder-governor Chris Christie; and the largest House majority for Republicans since 1946.
We deserve more. Clinton only threatened to wreck the health care system; Obama actually did it. We must repeal the 26th Amendment.
Adopted in 1971 at the tail end of the Worst Generation's anti-war protests, the argument for allowing children to vote was that 18-year-olds could drink and be conscripted into the military, so they ought to be allowed to vote.
But 18-year-olds aren't allowed to drink anymore. We no longer have a draft. In fact, while repealing the 26th Amendment, we ought to add a separate right to vote for members of the military, irrespective of age.
As we have learned from ObamaCare, young people are not considered adults until age 26, at which point they are finally forced to get off their parents' health care plans. The old motto was "Old enough to fight, old enough to vote." The new motto is: "Not old enough to buy your own health insurance, not old enough to vote."
Eighteen- to 26-year-olds don't have property, spouses, children or massive tax bills. Most of them don't even have jobs because the president they felt so good about themselves for supporting wrecked the economy.
The meager tax young people paid for vehicle licensing fees on their cars threw them into such a blind rage that in 2003 they uncharacteristically voted to recall the Democratic governor of California, Gray Davis. Wait until they start making real money and realize they share a joint-checking account arrangement with the government! Literally wait. Then we'll let them vote.
Having absolutely no idea what makes their precious cars run, by the way, young voters are the most likely to oppose offshore drilling.
How about 10-year-olds? Why not give them the vote?
Then we'd have politicians wooing voters with offers of free Justin Bieber tickets instead of offers of a "sustainable planet" or whatever hokum the youth have swallowed hook, line and sinker from their teachers, pop culture idols and other authority figures. (Along with their approved-by-the-authorities "Question Authority" bumper stickers.)
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Ann Coulter
Ann Coulter is a columnist and author of Guilty: Liberal Victims and Their Assault On America.
Repeal the 26th Amendment!
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Jimmy Carter was such an abominable president we got Ronald Reagan, tax cuts, a booming economy and the destruction of the Soviet Union.
Two years of Bill Clinton and a Democratic Congress got us the first Republican Congress in half a century, followed by tax cuts, welfare reform and a booming economy –- all of which Clinton now claims credit for.
Obama's disastrous presidency has already produced Republican senators from Massachusetts, Wisconsin and Illinois; New Jersey's wonder-governor Chris Christie; and the largest House majority for Republicans since 1946.
We deserve more. Clinton only threatened to wreck the health care system; Obama actually did it. We must repeal the 26th Amendment.
Adopted in 1971 at the tail end of the Worst Generation's anti-war protests, the argument for allowing children to vote was that 18-year-olds could drink and be conscripted into the military, so they ought to be allowed to vote.
But 18-year-olds aren't allowed to drink anymore. We no longer have a draft. In fact, while repealing the 26th Amendment, we ought to add a separate right to vote for members of the military, irrespective of age.
As we have learned from ObamaCare, young people are not considered adults until age 26, at which point they are finally forced to get off their parents' health care plans. The old motto was "Old enough to fight, old enough to vote." The new motto is: "Not old enough to buy your own health insurance, not old enough to vote."
Eighteen- to 26-year-olds don't have property, spouses, children or massive tax bills. Most of them don't even have jobs because the president they felt so good about themselves for supporting wrecked the economy.
The meager tax young people paid for vehicle licensing fees on their cars threw them into such a blind rage that in 2003 they uncharacteristically voted to recall the Democratic governor of California, Gray Davis. Wait until they start making real money and realize they share a joint-checking account arrangement with the government! Literally wait. Then we'll let them vote.
Having absolutely no idea what makes their precious cars run, by the way, young voters are the most likely to oppose offshore drilling.
How about 10-year-olds? Why not give them the vote?
Then we'd have politicians wooing voters with offers of free Justin Bieber tickets instead of offers of a "sustainable planet" or whatever hokum the youth have swallowed hook, line and sinker from their teachers, pop culture idols and other authority figures. (Along with their approved-by-the-authorities "Question Authority" bumper stickers.)
12Full ArticleNext »
Ann Coulter
Ann Coulter is a columnist and author of Guilty: Liberal Victims and Their Assault On America.
why obama will lose the 2012 presidential election
1 government spending causes infaltion and hardship
2 people know government banking finance fed fannie freddy caused 2008
3 obama hasn't ended war
4 obama care is a disaster not reforming insurance or lawyers suing tort reform so costs nto controlled
5 democrats nuke the economy
6 the fed must be stopped
7 lower taxes lead to success a la reagan miracle
2 people know government banking finance fed fannie freddy caused 2008
3 obama hasn't ended war
4 obama care is a disaster not reforming insurance or lawyers suing tort reform so costs nto controlled
5 democrats nuke the economy
6 the fed must be stopped
7 lower taxes lead to success a la reagan miracle
Sunday, November 7, 2010
why are digg and reddit so commy?
seriously
99% of political posts are far left wing insanity, rest peppered throughout
99% of political posts are far left wing insanity, rest peppered throughout
The U.S. government’s total outstanding debt is about $13.5 trillion, according to U.S. Treasury Department figures.
The U.S. government’s total outstanding debt is about $13.5 trillion, according to U.S. Treasury Department figures.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-09-25/-black-swan-author-taleb-says-obama-s-stimulus-made-economic-crisis-worse.html
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-09-25/-black-swan-author-taleb-says-obama-s-stimulus-made-economic-crisis-worse.html
Why do people keep claiming electric motor superior to gas?
gas is way more powerful
commies need to stop jacking off to theory and start seeing that electric motor is not as powerful and harder to store energy
if it was companies would make them
commies need to stop jacking off to theory and start seeing that electric motor is not as powerful and harder to store energy
if it was companies would make them
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