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Comment Re:Free market economy (Score 1) 529

While I don't 100% agree with Keynesian explanation for the Great Depression, the events leading to the Depression, and the immediate monetary responses to it were anything but Keynesian.
You are talking straight out of your asshole.

Keynesian economics took off after the Great Depression precisely as a way of preventing it from happening again, and still largely holds today on several of its tenets. Did you see monetary *deflation* during the recent recession?

The Great Depression was a result of unregulated market speculation going batshit crazy over the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act, and government and monetary laissez-faire reactions to the sudden massive contraction of the money supply caused by the bank's responses to the crumbling market value. It's pretty goddamn hard to get *further* from Keynesian economics than that. The cascade of events was practically a fucking advertisement for a change to Keynesian economics, which isn't much of a surprise, since he formulated it *right in the middle of the Depression*

Private banks formed buying cartels in an attempt at keynesianesque bailouts of the failing stocks, but in the end, their pooled resources weren't enough to add confidence in the market and stop the collapse, but they did stave it off.

Is it any surprise to you that Keynesian economics are starting to come into favor again after 2008, after almost 30 years erosion to their mind-share?

Interesting how we forget, indeed.

Comment Re:What? (Score 1) 382

And you're right- I just wanted to dispel the idea that representative democracy is somehow a sub-form of Democracy. It's not. What you're calling "full democracy" is direct democracy. Both forms are a full democracy.

There's been a lot of people yelling that we're not a democracy lately, and it makes me cringe, because it's usually done by people trying to justify laws that haven't been struck down yet that still favor oppression from when they were the majority. Sure we're not a direct democracy, but who the hell is? We have aspects of direct democracy incorporated into many of our state constitutions, though, and people should never be discouraged from thinking their votes matter. Otherwise, we get into situations like today, where people think they don't matter. And in the case of Democracy, if you think they don't matter, they don't.

Comment Re:What? (Score 1) 382

All I see is DOJ advocacy of direct sales: http://www.justice.gov/atr/pub...
And the DOJ suing some dealerships under the Equal Credit Opportunity Act: http://www.justice.gov/atr/pub...

It sounds like they're doing what they can, which is nice... that is their job, after all.. But I'm still pretty sure they lack the power to do anything about this until they're authorized to intervene by some statute empowered by the Commerce Clause.

Comment Re:How to influence policy... (Score 1) 382

A superficially cool idea... However, it ultimately defeats the purpose of a representative democracy. That's more like a random sampled direct democracy. One could argue that may be a better system (I wouldn't), but it certainly wasn't how the country was framed... Though I suppose in all fairness, much of the government has changed just as radically over time.

Comment Re:What? (Score 1) 382

People forget that the United States is a Democracy (our people vote for government), and a Republic (we no king.)
Great Britain is also a Democracy, though a Monarchy instead of a Republic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R...

It bugs the hell out of me when people say "The US is a republic, not a democracy!". It's non-sensical crazy babble.

Comment Re:Dems had both houses. Reagan led with Dem major (Score 1) 382

"For fiscal year 2003, the Senate, under Democratic control in 2002, failed to pass a budget resolution of any kind. For fiscal years 1999, 2005 and 2007, the House and the Senate failed to reconcile their different bills and pass a compromise measure. In these latter three cases, the Republicans were in the majority in both chambers of Congress."

I guess the Dems finally caught up with the Republicans.
Also, the Democratic congress did pass a joint budget resolution for FY2010 (in 2009).
Is the budget really that big of a deal though? Whether it's implemented in one single continuing resolution, or 8 of them, does it really matter?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...
Single budgets are kind of a joke starting in 2001, anyway, with the "war supplementals".
2 budget resolutions died while Reagan was in office, as well. I never thought to criticize him for his bad leadership at the time.

Comment Re:What? (Score 1) 382

Not unless there is statute authorizing them to do so, which currently, there isn't... Which is why the response said Congress needs to pass one.
I'm torn on whether or not he should have someone introduce legislation though, since that could very well backfire into a highly partisan war the second the house critters heard of it.

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