ralfy

Well, "except" is my point, esp. war. Also, as I pointed out, besides claims that bearing arms is a Constitutional right (actually, it's part of the right to self-defense) is the unsaid point that lack of gun control is made possible thanks to lobbying from the arms industry, with financiers providing easy credit to citizens to buy, among other things, arms. Meanwhile, the same arms industry supplies better weapons to the government to equip military and police forces, which also sets up formidable surveillance and prison systems, with costs passed on to the unwitting citizen. The same arms industry also lobbies for deregulation of arms exports so that profits can be made from sales to other countries. The government uses that as part of military aid used to prop up various governments or supply groups to destabilize them, all needed to keep the petro-dollar afloat, and in turn, an economy heavily dependent on borrowing and spending. So much for "disinterested" parties.

Has anyone read anti-natalist works like Ligotti's The Conspiracy Against the Human Race and older sources?

For me, it is very hard to imagine that the human race will do well in the long run simply because of the lack of resources. Only around 12 pct of the world's population are responsible for over 60 pct of personal consumption, but most of the other 88 pct want the same middle class lifestyle. 60 pct earn only around two dollars daily, but they want to earn more, and the global middle class is counting on them to earn more because the middle class can only enrich itself by selling more goods and services to the rest. For example, I read in one article that in 1984 per capita meat consumption in China was around 20 kg a year. Twenty years later, it rose to 50 kg. Another article stated that soon China will need up to half of various resources just to maintain economic growth. The IEA maintains that just to maintain global economic growth in the long term we will need the equivalent of one Saudi Arabia every seven years. Some ecological footprint studies argue that ave. global footprint per capita has already exceeded biocapacity, and the first is set to increase further given that global middle class while the latter drops due to environmental damage, lack of resources, etc.

Here's an interesting point about the historical context of the Second: "The Second Amendment was Ratified to Preserve Slavery" "The real reason the Second Amendment was ratified, and why it says 'State' instead of 'Country' (the Framers knew the difference - see the 10th Amendment), was to preserve the slave patrol militias in the southern states, which was necessary to get Virginia's vote. Founders Patrick Henry, George Mason, and James Madison were totally clear on that . . . and we all should be too." http://truth-out.org/news/item/13890-the-second-amendment-was-ratified-to-preserve-slavery

It will likely be shaped by various political and economic circumstances.

It will be too much given de-industrialization due to lack of resources, the long-term effects of environmental damage and global warming, etc.

In a way, but not due to lack of intelligence. For example, the use of oil and various technologies contributed to industrialization and the Green Revolution, which in turn led to lower infant mortality rates and higher life expectancy rates, which also contributed to a population boom. With better technology, we have more resource-hungry goods and greater demand from a growing global middle class and resources that can barely catch up with demand.

The arms industry that lobbies to avoid gun control (and thus allow for more sales to citizens) also sells to government (which strengthens police and military forces as well as contributes to more formidable surveillance and prison systems) and lobbies to deregulate arms exports (which government uses as part of military aid to other countries, part of arms sales to all sorts of groups engaged in control of citizens, destabilization of "undesirable" governments, and other schemes to keep the petro-dollar propped up). I believe that the FAS has studied the matter in light of global arms sales.

I was looking at the issue in terms of prevention, as the results of the effects of capital punishment on crime appear to be mixed. One should also consider the point that if "nuts" are involved then they will likely not be "aware of what they are going to do, or have done." That's why they are "nuts". With that, and given an arms industry that, as part of Big Business, essentially controls the U.S., then the immediate means for now would be gun control. Unfortunately, the same arms industry has been lobbying against it, and has even called for deregulation of arms exports.

By likelihood, I refer to the time when events take place and extent (such as sea levels rising to a certain extent by a given decade), which is the same as magnitude of risks. And according to this lecturer, the likelihood of such events taking place earlier and the extent is increasing:

At the very least, gun control in the form of registration, whatever background checks can be made, and training and education should be encouraged in order to at least decrease incidences.

The issue is probably related to some type of mutually assured destruction, where large numbers of guns available lead to more incidences, in turn prompting more re-armament. Behind all this is the arms industry which profits from lack of gun control coupled with deregulation of arms exports.

There's a related article about this: "‘We the People’ Loses Appeal With People Around the World" http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/07/us/we-the-people-loses-appeal-with-people-around-the-world.html

Skepticism takes place by default. What is more important is to look at likelihood and to see that in light of policies, if not in light of related problems.

Generally, any belief that involves a divine or supernatural being, although it may also be seen as a belief in some utopia. This might explain why some writers might consider Marxism and Capitalism as the two most dominant secular religions of the twentieth century.

CO2 does not come only from cars, and may have a forcing and feedback factor. More details may be found in NAS reports and others.

Actually, my arguments work against Mises et al. They assume that with a gold standard and less government things will be fine. My argument is that the economic crisis will not be solved no matter what happens. My reason is scientific: There are limited resources, esp. oil, and mass manufacturing and mechanized agriculture that are heavily geared towards the use of oil. High levels of energy returns are needed to meet increasing demand worldwide due to a growing global middle class in BRIC and emerging markets. Capitalism, whether state or free market, requires increasing amounts of resource use for painfully obvious reasons: the increased production and consumption of resources are needed to ensure profits, which in turn are used to as capital to increase production and consumption. With competition, the need to increase production becomes higher. All these can be determined very easily by looking at consumption levels of oil, demand for various resources, etc. worldwide, as well as money supply. As more move to service and finance to earn money, then more money has to be created. Again, the reason is painfully obvious: the interest paid or the return on investment adds to money supply. That's basically it. How much credit do we need to cover? According to the BIS, at least $600 trillion in unregulated derivatives worldwide. For one expert, even higher: around $1.2 quadrillion. The source of the 2008 crash, leading to one wave after another, as seen in the Arab Spring, the Eurozone crisis, and even real estate bubbles in China? $1 trillion. How is this connected to the U.S. economy? It is a reserve-currency economy, which explains why it dropped the gold standard in '71 in order to create more credit, engage in voodoo economics from '81 onward, initiated further deregulation in '01 onward, and finally experienced what will likely be the first of many crashes in 2008. That was from subprime lending. What happens when the Fed runs out of bullets? Will prime lending come next? How about commercial real estate? Student loans? A fiscal cliff? So, you see, it's not really a matter of differences in views. It's that your views of the situation are very limited, focusing only on moving funds here and there, tweaking interest rates further in order to sustain spending, etc., which very much explains why you see everything I've presented so far as nothing more than "homemade pretzels." With that, I don't think you should grow bored by this, as everything that I've shown to you is not only basically new to you, it's also something that you still don't think is related to what you've shared. But don't worry, you'll get it right one day. In any event, if there's anyone who should be bored by this, it should be me. You have no idea how many times I have to explain the most basic aspects of this current crisis to those who see anything that they can't or won't understand as "homemade pretzels," including the incredibly basic issue of how to address over a trillion dollars in deficits with tax revenues less than a tenth of that, except by, perhaps, buying more cars and houses, as if more spending through debt will solve a problem caused by too much spending and debt. That's it. I'm outta here.

What are you talking about? I'm not even raising any particular "school of economics" but simply pointing out to you what has been taking place. The article on economic numbers alone should make you rethink your views. The problem is that you are unable to accept those facts and want to continue imagining that what I'm raising is some "ideological" point. The bigger problem is that you can't interpret them, hence your need for me to explain to you every point. Want another chart to consider? Try this one: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-01-01/putting-americas-tax-hike-perspective Now, I'm guessing you can figure out the point for that one!

That's what Clinton said. The al Qaeda stemmed from mujahedeen financed by the U.S. But don't ignore the latest news about Libya and others. That is what the "reality-based crowd" consider, i.e., blowback, false flags, etc. There are multiple examples from history, from Vietnam to Irangate. And don't wait for transcripts. Just look at the other sources I gave.

As far as I know, the majority insisted in 2007 that there would be no crash in 2008 because the "fundamentals" are sound. Only Schiff, Roubini, Taleb, and others argued otherwise, and by 2008 they were proven right. The issue isn't "currency" but a reserve-currency economy. Look up the "Triffin Dilemma." Your references to bond percentages and negative interest rates proves my point. The U.S. has been engaged in form of quantitative easing after another in order to avoid more credit crunches, and it's running out of ammo. http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/fed-speaks-doesn-t-much-ammo-says-bob-140039083.html receiving fewer cents for every dollar it needs to borrow. And prime lending, commercial real estate debt, consumer debt, student loan debts, and more are creeping in, together with the rest of between $600 trillion to over $1.2 quadrillion in unregulated derivatives (notional value) worldwide. As it is, governments struggled just to cover losses stemming from only $1 trillion in subprime lending, leading to over $30 trillion vaporized worldwide. Where do you think governments will get bailout funds to cover more losses as they come in? What? Print even more money? Stop kidding yourself. Again, read up on the news, especially about plans by BRIC to use SDRs, trading with Iran using the yuan and other currency, Russia divesting of treasury bonds and China doing so partially with its own, various governments worldwide buying more gold, etc. These are reported by Reuters and other agencies, so you can find them very easily. I'm surprised that you don't know even though you claim that you study the matter daily. I never thought that the bailouts were too small? That's EXACTLY my point. The problem is that governments struggled just to cover losses stemming from ONLY a trillion dollars in subprime lending. Four Wall Street banks are exposed to over $40 trillion in unregulated derivatives, U.S. banks in general to up to ten times that, in a global market with between $600 trillion to over $1.2 quadrillion in notional value. Where on earth will governments find the bailout money to cover those levels of risk? You still don't get it, do you? The weakening dollar is the result of increasing financial risks! Put simply, the Fed has to create more dollars to cover losses of top Wall Street banks, and that involved only a fraction of the total market. It has reached the point that this problem, coupled with peak oil, has now spread to various Middle East countries, the Euro zone, and even Japan and China. Stop imagining that this is not a global situation and that economies are not coupled to each other! Again, the U.S. is a debt-based economy, with around 70 pct of it dependent on consumer spending. It's had trade deficits for the last four decades, and the only reason why it can gobble up so much resources (such as almost 20 Mb/d of oil for a population that makes up less than 5 pct of the world's) is that it creates the reserve currency, in turn backed up by the military and used exclusively for trading oil. But now the situation has changed given peak oil and financial risks stemming from Wall Street, leading to the ff. "75 Economic Numbers From 2012 That Are Almost Too Crazy To Believe" http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/75-economic-numbers-from-2012-that-are-almost-too-crazy-to-believe_12212012 Finally, why is peak oil involved in this issue? Because it is the real problem of the current crisis and is being masked by fallout from financial risks. Read the ff. for details: http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2011/08/our-oil-constrained-future What will it take to recover from the current crisis? We will need to ensure economic growth by making resources readily available, and that will require more oil. How much more oil? According to the IEA, just to maintain current economic growth, at least one Saudi Arabia every seven years. And that's assuming that conventional oil production doesn't drop. Morgan Stanley and others argue, though, argue otherwise: http://www.businessinsider.com/oil-spare-capacity-2013-2011-2

That's an excerpt from an interview with Hillary Clinton. More details here, featuring Clinton again: Also, check out Scott's The Road to 9/11, an interview with Brzezinski, the Time article "The Oily Americans," and more.

People like me? First of all, you don't know me. Second, it's was the opposite. Before the 2008 crash, most said that there would be no crash because the "fundamentals" are sound." Guess what happened? Ideology? Where do you come up with such nonsense? The points given in the first article that I shared are facts, not narratives or ideological arguments. Unemployment is high not only because households are saving more but because the price of oil has doubled and food prices reached record highs: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-14062360 The sources include high oil prices (driven by peak oil), global warming, etc. http://edition.cnn.com/2012/12/04/world/asia/food-price-impact/index.html As for distrusting the U.S. dollar, why don't you look up news regarding Russia and China concerning U.S. bonds, gold purchases by various governments, calls for using SDR instead of the dollar, etc? http://www.europeanbusinessreview.com/?p=1124 The gold standard is not and never will be a solution because the global capitalist system requires increasing money supply, something that can never be met by limited gold resources. There are only 150,000 metric tons of gold available, or less than one troy oz for each human being. How big is the money supply needed? In 2008, governments scrambled to issue bailouts to deal with "only" one trillion dollars in the subprime lending mess that led to over $30 trillion vaporized worldwide. And we're still in the same mess. That one trillion dollars is only a fraction of between $600 trillion in notional value (reported by the BIS) of unregulated derivatives to over $1.2 quadrillion (reported by Wilmott) that's part of the global market. What happens when more asset bubbles burst? As it is, the U.S. is receiving fewer cents per dollar, and interest rates are close to zero. Natural gas is cheaper and surging? The energy returns for non-conventional production are much lower, and the drop in production from an initial surge for some types of energy can be high. Overall, the IEA argues that at best we will see a 9-pct increase in energy produced from all oil and gas sources put online worldwide for the next two decades: In fact, for North America, the IEA states that at best there will be an increase in production to 12 Mb/d during the decade. The problem is that demand is that current demand for the U.S. alone is 19 Mb/d, and as the first link shows, the economy can only continue growing with increasing energy use. Globally, we need energy demand to go up by 1.4 to 2 pct a year in order to meet global economic growth. The IEA states that this is the equivalent of finding one Saudi Arabia every seven years. So, you see, there is nothing that I've shared with you that is based on ideology, and I NEVER argued that a gold standard will solve these problems. If any, I've been stating that we face three predicaments (debt-based global economy, peak oil, and the effects of environmental damage and global warming) that affect each other and very much describe what has been happening from 2006 onward, when conventional oil production has stayed at around 73.5 Mb/d with demand increasing from non-OECD countries. The first link that I shared simply explains ten trends connected to these predicaments using graphs. That's all. With that, I have no idea why you are so antagonistic concerning what I've shared. It is as if you don't want to hear about them to maintain your pollyanna view of the world. If that's the case, then stop asking forum members for their thoughts about the issue! Related: "Chilling economic report strikes fear into CEOs" "Over an early-morning coffee with the chief executive of a FTSE 100 business last week, talk turned to the outlook for 2013. Where I had expected some guarded optimism, instead I heard a chilling analysis." http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/9763112/Chilling-economic-report-strikes-fear-into-CEOs.html

What we have, essentially, is an economy that holds the reserve currency, and because of the Triffin dilemma, can only operate through increasing debt and spending. Ultimately, economies holding that reserve currency will show growing distrust and move away from it. causing that economy to fall apart. What we are seeing now is the first stages of that economic crisis starting with a combination of one credit crunch after another (e.g., subprime lending, the crisis in Europe and the Arab spring, and now a drop in exports in China, etc.) leading to combinations of unemployment plus high food and oil prices. What makes matters worse is that because we are part of a global system where economies are linked to each other and increased production and consumption of goods are needed to prop up increasing levels of credit (e.g., between $600 trillion to over $1 quadrillion in unregulated derivatives worldwide, and the 2008 crash was initiated by "only" a trillion dollars in subprime lending leading to over $30 trillion worldwide vaporized and governments scrambling to bail out banks). In which case, expect one 2008 financial crash after another throughout the years. But that's not the worst of it, as the resources needed to increase production and consumption of goods are under threat. Conventional oil production, for example, has been relatively flat since 2005, and we're making up for it using non-conventional sources which are more expensive energy-wise and, although might meet basic needs, will not sustain a global economy that needs increasing growth. For details on that and what was pointed out earlier, try this recent article: "Peak Philosophy: The economic contraction narrative needs facts, not theory" http://www.resilience.org/stories/2012-12-21/peak-philosophy-the-economic-contraction-narrative-needs-facts-not-theory It refers to ten trends to consider, with one to three graphs per trend.

Perhaps one should see this in relation to public admissions of U.S. involvement with the al Qaeda. For example, "Hillary Clinton Admits the U.S. Government Created al-Qaeda" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifZK6SVlQ1Y

For me, it's balance of trade: "U.S. Trade Deficit Graphs" (posted in 2009) http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2009/01/us-trade-deficit-graphs.html and debt levels: "Krugman and the pied pipers of debt" http://blogs.reuters.com/rolfe-winkler/2009/09/30/krugman-and-the-pied-pipers-of-debt/ But the U.S. is expected to fare badly because of the Triffin dilemma: http://lexicon.ft.com/Term?term=Triffin-dilemma Some more charts are shared here in relation to that: "What Is Wrong With The U.S. Economy? Here Are 10 Economic Charts That Will Blow Your Mind" http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/what-is-wrong-with-the-u-s-economy-here-are-10-economic-charts-that-will-blow-your-mind "Scary Charts: Consumers Can't Prop Us Up" http://www.wealthwire.com/news/economy/4235 "Modern American Economic History in a Few Charts" http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/10/modern-american-economic-history-in-a-few-charts.html