The man who squashed efforts to regulate derivatives was Greenspan. The crisis went far beyond housing. The crash just started with the implosion of the housing bubble.
You are an extremely unreliable historian and you're unapologetic about it. Definitely to be ignored. — frank
The effective corporate tax rate is 18.6%. Companies are the largest users of energy, natural resources, air and water and their related infrastructures. What exactly is the justification that private individuals pay more to maintain those infrastructures than those that actually use it? — Benkei
GW crashed the economy through idiotic policies of financial deregulation which Obama had to reverse, so he didn't continue what GW set in motion. He reversed a negative trend set in motion by GW. Trump is continuing a positive trend set in motion by Obama. I don't think that's hard to grasp. — Baden
"Nine of the last 10 recessions have been under Republicans." — Baden
That's no different in principle to saying if someone offers me 1000 bucks to call someone a nigger or to support someone else calling someone a nigger, do I do it because it's in my self-interest? No, I don't because a more important part of my self-interest than money is a basic level of moral integrity. I mean nothing angelic, just basic. If someone can't even get to that level, they're screwed. — Baden
Thank fuck for that. I've had enough making enemies for one night. — Baden
What aspects would you consider "good ideas" of the following:
1. increased corporate tax (pay for what they use),
2. higher capital gains taxes (the Buffet Rule)
3. roll-back of recent tax cuts for the rich
4. repeal of Citizens United through legislation
5. universal healthcare
6. stricter environmental protection regulation
7. tax incentives for green initiatives (like duties on gas-guzzlers for instance) — Benkei
If your president uses the N-word, he's a racist scumbag just the same as anyone who would come on this site and use it would be considered so, and he should be condemned by everyone no matter what their political persuasion. If you can't come out and say that, that 's your problem not the left's. — Baden
And yet you have.And it seems language is incapable of expressing anything relating to an actual meaningful experience. — Blue Lux
Yet you have expressed meaning without being poetic.The only exception to this is in poetry — Blue Lux
If it's not language, what is it, applesauce?But can poetry be adequately defined as language? — Blue Lux
The significance of your giving up your greatest passion will be a tragedy only to you.And I am to the point where I don't know whether or not to give up on philosophy, which has been my greatest passion. — Blue Lux
I take back my prior assessment that your linguistic expression is meaningful.The will has always been an objectivity... But what is an objectivity but another? The Other. What could possibly firmly base an objectivity other than another? But is this too not an illusion? An objectivity? The theoretical amalgamation the concrescence of all minds, separate but equal? The theoretical amalgamation the concrescence of all minds, separate but equal?
— Blue Lux
Incoherent more than delusional.Am I delusional with all of these thoughts? — Blue Lux
So don't take anything in life more seriously than yourself and be empathic to the fact that we are all alone and therefore ought to be extra nice to each other, so that through little acts of kindness and thoughtfulness we alleviate each other's feelings of being alone. — Benkei
Denying the world is an exercise for developing free will. One holds back all impulses; instinctive, personal, habitual and collective so one can differentiate the predetermined. Since so few people will make this effort, very few people ever develop free will. — wellwisher
It would change the group consensus in that the round the clock media coverage (which would dwarf 9/11) would focus everyone on the issue. — Jake
Whether that focus would have positive or negative results is indeed unknown, agreed. — Jake
Military planes are dependent upon GPS so that our bombs blow up the right shit. Without it, we'd have to use paper maps and look for landmarks out the window.Air traffic control is done on the basis of radar not GPS. — Benkei
To anyone with half a brain it's clear that Barron was complicit, no doubt taking charge of some aspects given Trump's penchant for nepotism. — Michael

Like Meta, youre trying to stomp out my question instead of exploring it. WTF? — frank
It's pretty clear that tossing a javelin is preparation for war. Football is likewise modelled after some sort of primitive military action. — frank
What you are saying is we should eat anything we want if it brings us pleasure, since pleasure comes first. — wellwisher
People are asked to control the lure and not chase every carrot on the string, so the final result is healthy. — wellwisher
An interesting observation is the left wing of the political movement is more outwardly concerned with natural things than the right wing; going green and save the earth. This is based on compensation for believing the secondary is the primary. — wellwisher
Religions have no problem with sex in marriage and with this sex being pleasurable. The reason is, it is following the natural hierarchy. Birth control is not acceptable o avoid tricking the system via will power. — wellwisher
It is humanly possible, but it should not be called natural since it often leads to unnatural balances. — wellwisher
If you cant ask your partner for a specific thing, out of shame, then you arent really partners — Akanthinos
The point this is being missed about sex is, sex evolved as a path for reproduction which increases genetic diversity in offspring. This is the natural and primary goal of sex. The pleasure of sex is the carrot on the string; secondary, used to lead the critter to the primary goal. Humans are not always natural, so they tend to get it backwards. — wellwisher
Historically, pregnancy has been a far greater threat to health than STDs.The same is true of sex. The unnatural path of using the secondary as the primary is reflected in STD's and psychological problems and sublimations. Using an instinctive secondary, as the primary, is an example of human will power and free will. It is short term thinking where the long term result may not always be satisfactory or healthy at many levels. — wellwisher
If the distinction between natural and unnatural is that the latter involves the exercise of free will, then sex is unnatural.Abortion is not natural, but is an example of free will and choice. The goal of abortion appears to be a disruption in the natural primary goal, in favor of the secondary coming first. This is like passing a law that repeals all nutritional labelling on food, so people can eat for pleasure in peace without regard to the natural consequences. — wellwisher
Now I have been with the same person for the last two decades but I would be hard pressed to be able to name all the men I was with before getting married. — ArguingWAristotleTiff
So I have tasted what is on the salad bar but I really want to get to where the Champagne and Truffles that I have heard so much about are. — ArguingWAristotleTiff
There are very, VERY, few males that in a relationship are willing to take the time to allow a woman to orgasm. — ArguingWAristotleTiff
I think heterosexuality is inherently related to patriarchal subordination of women. — darthbarracuda
And the idea that all that makes sex moral is "consent", is related to capitalism, because it makes sex out to be a service or exchange between two parties - the buyer and the seller. Invariably the buyer is the man, the seller is the woman. — darthbarracuda
We do not typically ask for consent for other activities - I do not ask for consent to sit across from you, for example. I do not ask for consent when I approach a cashier to check out from the grocery store — darthbarracuda
Your sex life isn't like mine I guess.So then what is it about sex that makes consent so important? It is because (this sort of?) sex is inherently violating, objectifying, manipulating. — darthbarracuda
Consider: it is usually the man who asks for consent of the woman (to do things to her body, to use her body as a mean for his own climax, to satisfy some urge that is inherently questionable). — darthbarracuda
My perspective on consent in sex is this: if you feel the need to ask for consent, then there is something questionable about what you wish to do (to the other person). "Kinks" are so often not about satisfying the other person but instead are about whether or not the other person will allow you to do something to them. — darthbarracuda
"I respect you as a person, so I ask you for consent so that I can treat you not as a person but as an object." Yet this is clearly contradictory, you cannot ask a person to suspend their dignity and still claim to respect them as a person. — darthbarracuda
https://bible.knowing-jesus.com/topics/StoningI will need to look at those Scripture passages in more detail to see what's going on in there, hopefully when I have more time. — Agustino
The Austrian David Irving was sentenced to 3 years in prison for Holicaust denial.
It occurred to me that this likely wouldn't happen in the US, but I have mixed feelings about it. Is it a test of one's convictions regarding free speech? Or is Austria right to safeguard its society from people like Irving? — frank
Yes, adultery is absolutely wrong, but not because God said so. — Agustino
Because they would interpret our way of living as effeminate, weak - they being used to cutting heads off, public beatings, etc. would have found our modern world a world for weak men and women, who cannot bear anything more. — Agustino
That's not being a moral relativist. I did not claim that X or Y is immoral at one time in history and not at another. — Agustino
Does it matter in a court of law if she was a mother, a prostitute, or a barbarian? — Waya
It would be a bad judge to let a criminal go, UNLESS someone offered to pay the price AND the person accepted it. — Waya
When only justice exists, and no mercy, why do we perceive as unfair? — Waya
Is it draconian when a person is struck by lightning? Rather, we see that as the result of nature. Justice is natural, but the problem is in defining justice. — Waya
From an objective viewpoint though, what determines right from wrong? — Waya
