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Messages - More Than Mortal
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4291
« on: July 09, 2015, 08:32:28 AM »
4292
« on: July 09, 2015, 08:09:02 AM »
Apparently Tsipras was expecting a Syriza failure in the referendum.Ambrose Evans-Pritchard at The Telegraph has just dropped a bomb on the situation in Greece.
Writing in The Telegraph on Tuesday, Evans-Pritchard reports that the Greek referendum unexpectedly called Friday and carried out Sunday was held in anticipation that Greece's controlling Syriza government would lose.
That's right: Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras called a referendum on the latest bailout terms offered to Greece, campaigned that the Greek voters should vote "no" and reject these measures, and expected the vote would still be a "yes."
Instead the vote was an overwhelming "no," with 61% of the votes going that way and Syriza seeming to have won a huge victory.
But as Evans-Pritchard outlines in his bombshell report Tuesday, everything is falling apart for Syriza, Tsipras, and the entire country of Greece.
"What should have been a celebration on Sunday night turned into a wake," Evans-Pritchard writes.
"Mr Tsipras was depressed, dissecting all the errors that Syriza has made since taking power in January, talking into the early hours. The prime minister was reportedly told that the time had come to choose, either he should seize on the momentum of the 61pc landslide vote, and take the fight to the Eurogroup, or yield to the creditor demands — and give up the volatile [Greek Finance Minister Yanis] Varoufakis in the process as a token of good faith."
Varoufakis resigned in the middle of the night Sunday, and news broke that Tsipras and Varoufakis' replacement — Euclid Tsakalotos — would head to Brussels for an emergency meeting on Tuesday.
When they showed up at the meeting Tuesday, they didn't have a plan.
A report from Reuters on Tuesday indicated that Greece's banks had only two days of cash left. And this after ATM withdrawals had been limited to 60 euros per day for over a week.
On Monday, the European Central Bank declined to increase its emergency lending assistance to Greece, meaning that Greek banks will not have access to any more cash from the ECB. Greece last week, and again Monday, had requested an increase in the ELA.
As Evans-Pritchard reports, "Syriza has been in utter disarray for 36 hours ... Events are now spinning out of control. The banks remain shut. The ECB has maintained its liquidity freeze, and through its inaction is asphyxiating the banking system."
Reports on Monday also indicated that Greek banks would be closed at least through Wednesday, but now it looks as if the bigger question is how the banks will reopen at all.
When results of Greece's referendum came in, Wall Street banks were nearly unanimous in saying that the most likely scenario for Greece was an exit, or "Grexit," from the euro.
According to Evans-Pritchard's report, Tsipras rejected a "triple plan" devised ahead of the referendum that aimed to avoid a Grexit by firing the Bank of Greece governor, seizing all cash stowed away in various central bank branches, and issuing a parallel currency with IOUs denominated in euros.
Something like this plan, however, is what Tsipras may have to do anyway, according to Evans-Pritchard, as Greece has quickly run out of options.
The latest headlines out of Europe indicate that all 28 European Union members — not just the 19 members of the eurozone — will convene for a summit this Sunday.
Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi told Reuters on Tuesday that he was "not pessimistic" about this meeting, believing that a deal could be reached and this would be the final meeting on the issue.
Renzi added, however, that it was up to Greece to come up with a plan.
4293
« on: July 09, 2015, 07:37:59 AM »
You're using the benefits of how things are as an argument for how they should continue to be Not quite, I'm saying that how we are facilitates good moral reasoning, which is good definitionally. I'm not using the nature of humans as a metric for what is good; simply realising the constraints we have which impede perfect moral efficiency. we aren't living as ethically as we (easily) could be. Sure, I agree with that. Easily one can see that to be true; I just don't buy the whole "proximity isn't important" argument. The question I'm most interested in is how we make a distinction between ethical and unethical actions.
There's no perfectly reliable navigational tool we can use to judge actions. Partly because we're incapable of judging the myriad consequences of an action collectively, and partly because what may be moral for one individual wouldn't be moral (or as moral) for another. That said, I think we have a fairly solid understanding of what concepts like evil must mean if they are to make any moral sense and it can be quite clearly extrapolated that anything which unambiguously and actively contributes to net suffering is absolutely immoral. You raise an interesting point as to whether passive, or inactive, contributions to suffering are equal; but it boils down to the age-old question over whether sins of omission are as bad as sins of commission. And I don't have an answer for that.
4294
« on: July 09, 2015, 06:34:54 AM »
Meta also said that he's [one of] the worst candidates of the lot.
That's because he is. . . I don't see how the Serious board being, on balance, a fan of Bernie Sanders changes the quality of his policies/thoughts.
4295
« on: July 09, 2015, 06:33:10 AM »
Any thoughts on the disproportionate wage growth between the top percentage of earners and the bottom 90% over the past five decades?
I have to point out immediately that I don't have any solid evidence on the matter. But, I think, a couple of things could be said about such an issue: - There isn't actually a consensus on whether or not income inequality has increased in the US, and to what degree if it has. Income brackets just don't experience inflation in the same way, and accordingly a straight GINI line which doesn't capture these divergences will be led to show increasing inequality simply through data bias. - There isn't any definitive evidence that income inequality harms economic growth. I think it does, personally, but the jury's out there. - Inequality stats in the US are woeful; you're measuring income prior to any government transfers. What you really ought to be looking at is consumption inequality; the US performs much better in such instances. - The rising share of national income going to capital is due to higher rents as a result of poor housing/planning regulation.
4296
« on: July 09, 2015, 06:19:23 AM »
but I really can't see any logic to get around it.
First and foremost I think the point must always be made that proximity absolutely matters. Humans have evolved to have this bias of immediacy towards themselves and people in the general vicinity, and that's good. It allows for generally efficient moral reasoning; everybody would be brought to an effectual stand-still if they had to make global considerations constantly, and that of course would be a negative on net. I also think there's something to be said about the moral certainty of saving the baby from the puddle, and all of the cloudy epistemological channels that involve donating to a charity. There's not much evidence that charity is effective in most circumstances, let alone all charities apply are equally efficient/trustworthy.
4297
« on: July 08, 2015, 06:28:09 PM »
Basically I think this comes down to the Chinese government trying to stop the economy from shifting to export-led growth to domestic consumption-led growth. A lot of the appreciation in stock prices has been fuelled by a debt-financed government binge, which wasn't sustainable and now the debt's dragging on the economy. If this is correct, expect a lot of debt overhang and a fairly nasty recession.
Unless, of course, China's central bank can maintain nominal spending/devalue the currency.
4298
« on: July 08, 2015, 06:20:08 PM »
It'll be interesting to see how this crash affects the Chinese macroeconomy, and how the central bank and macroprudential regulators tackle it. I'm actually really excited; it'll be cool to witness first-hand just how stock market crashes impact economies.
Although, to be honest, the crash is probably a result of already weak underlying fundamentals. AFAIK, the Chinese government has long had a very loose credit policy, encouraged mis-allocation and frequently misreported levels of government debt. Given that China hasn't yet begun its deleveraging cycle, I wouldn't be surprised if it faces recession.
4299
« on: July 08, 2015, 06:10:51 PM »
4300
« on: July 08, 2015, 04:51:54 PM »
Or perhaps you could take the most understandable and logical standpoint which would be neutral. . . . Except that's exactly what I did. Assuming ignorance is neutrality. you have no grounds to make an assumption in any direction. It's not an "assumption", though. I have no evidence to suggest you're cognizant about politics or economics, hence ignorance is the default position. You can't adopt a position of both non-cognizance and non-ignorance. I didn't call you unintelligent, nor did i make any statement in which I said I was smarter. You called me an idiot quite a bit. I also didn't claim that you said you were more intelligent. I don't come onto a forum, or this one for the matter, to discuss politics or economics. Okay? I don't expect you to. The point is that you implied I was unintelligent (y'know, through the words "idiot" and I think "dumb") without I) demonstrating how I lack an understanding of the areas in which I consider myself intelligent or II) demonstrating a clear failure in reasoning. I have every right to say I'm Catholic You have a right to claim to be a Catholic, sure, but it's possible that such a claim could be wrong. The fact is, I'd be impressed if you actually even read this instead of doing the same work around response. I pretty much always read responses; now who's making rash assumptions on little evidence? Also, your calling out a lapse of logic in situation of doubt. There was nothing inherently stupid with my decision, and its odd to see you calling a precaution as a stupid act. I'm not calling the act stupid, I'm calling the failure of reasoning stupid. I'm not saying what you did at the time was a bad thing to do--far from it--I'm saying in our conversation following the act you displayed incredibly poor reasoning skills.
4301
« on: July 08, 2015, 04:26:26 PM »
When have I ever spoken about economics or politics on this site? Humor me.
So you're just going to complete avoid the contradiction that was practically the whole basis for this cute little exchange? Okay. EDIT: You addressed it, fair enough. But, no, I'm judging you on the information I have. The information is pretty clear. You made a ridiculously obvious failure in reasoning in that situation. Whether or not you're "okay" with being a bad Catholic doesn't change the merits of your logic. But you haven't, I never claimed that you had. But they're quite clearly my areas of interest; if you haven't posted anything about it, my default position is of course to assume that you're ignorant of it. I wouldn't dive into a conversation with you right off the bat about the legitimacy of defining aggregate demand as total nominal expenditure/income in an economy, and I wouldn't be questioning you on whether the Wicksellian equilibrium rate is the correct way of judging the stance of monetary policy. So when you question my intelligence--which is quite clearly grounded in this area--and when you have demonstrated no prior proclivities for either politics or economics, then of course I'm going to question the basis for that judgement. Unless, of course, you could demonstrate any contradiction I had made, or pointed out or any failure of understanding in my chosen fields.
4302
« on: July 08, 2015, 04:22:36 PM »
Aren't all tax brackets arbitrary?
Depends how you want to define arbitrary. Bren probably means that Sanders has a number in his head without rhyme or reason; in which case no, no all tax brackets are arbitrary. Tax brackets ought to be judged on the economic effects they cause.
4303
« on: July 08, 2015, 04:20:08 PM »
Flashbacks of?
Of my fucking life. What the fuck else type of flashbacks do you have man.
Best answer to a question I've ever seen.
4304
« on: July 08, 2015, 04:18:14 PM »
You're just proving my point? If you're adamant on the issue, then fine I'll go over your points and demonstrate where I think the flaws are. your beliefs of me don't make sense. They do, precisely because you're still hypocritical in your beliefs. The fact that you don't accept every tenet of Roman Catholic belief doesn't absolve you of the fact that you were opposed to an abortion precisely because you thought it would be murder, on account of the fact that the foetus has a soul, only to then think morning-after pills are okay.There is a CLEAR contradiction there. but clearly your not the genius you set out to be I don't remember doing that; I don't care what you think about my intellectual capacity, I care about how it's reflected in the work that I do. I have no idea what position you're in to judge my intellectual capacity anyway, since you seem to know relatively little about politics and economics and I'm yet to say something explicitly contradictory. and your high horse is what makes you laughable. Its an internet forum calm down, no need to throw around how your so "smart". I'm not doing that, though. You're just being defensive. I don't have a high horse; you wanted my opinion so I gave it to you. Now you are going to incessant lengths to try and convince me that my opinion is based on misinformation, and you're failing miserably. That's a hell of a horse to fall off. I'm not throwing around how smart I am, either. Calling you stupid does not mean I immediately think myself more intelligent. Your a dick, but I don't have a negative opinion.
This is all I really needed to quote, though, wasn't it?
4305
« on: July 08, 2015, 04:06:18 PM »
Clearly your incapable of continuing this conversation LOL
No, you're just stupid. It pains me to try and converse with you. I have changed my mind about you though, you are uptight.
4306
« on: July 08, 2015, 04:05:22 PM »
I await my evaluation.
I think you're a Christian, IIRC, and the few times I've seen you talk about your religion you seem pretty defensive about it. Other than that, you have a pretty great sense of humour and your religion doesn't seem to really influence your personality at all--which is a really nice think to see to be honest. You're similar to Turkey in that respect. You're your own person.
4307
« on: July 08, 2015, 04:03:10 PM »
No your just an idiot lmfao. I can say I'm Catholic, I can say whatever I want. I don't have all the beliefs, I've openly stated I don't believe in Hell because it doesn't make sense. And no, because i still attend Catholic mass, and believe most core beliefs. Such as everything in the Creed.
And no, I'm not getting defensive. Thats what your not getting. Im merely saying "this doesn't make sense for these reasons." I don't really give a shit if you told me you wanted me to die, or think I'm stupid. If I'm not putting any effort into posting here other then having a laugh and keeping it lighthearted I'm obviously not going to portray myself has a genius. Even though I've said many times I'm not, clearly.
Im not offended or bothered, its just stupid to me to have an opinion based of incorrect information, or biased information for that matter.
4308
« on: July 08, 2015, 04:01:32 PM »
please fuck me
and give me an opinion, i guess
this reminds me that i can't forget about my thread again >.>
You have an absolutely appalling taste in music. Other than that, you're probably one of the chillest users here. Perhaps a bit too chill, but likeable all the same.
4309
« on: July 08, 2015, 03:58:39 PM »
English better be your second language.
you're*
4310
« on: July 08, 2015, 03:58:07 PM »
oh do me
Some cockney faggot. For realz doe: good sense of humour, easy to get along with. You don't really engage with serious/intellectual discussions, but at the same time you're obviously not an idiot. You seem to have a solid, practical plan for the future and I respect that. On the whole, bretty gud.
4311
« on: July 08, 2015, 03:56:31 PM »
Because I am asking questions? There's a difference between inquiry and getting defensive. You could give your opinion of me, and I really wouldn't give a shit. I just assign myself to it because i group up Catholic and attend Catholic mass.
So you don't actually believe in Catholic creed? You just assign that label to yourself because your parents raised you a certain way and you like the taste of wafer? That's pretty fucking stupid.
4312
« on: July 08, 2015, 03:54:23 PM »
I consider you the cousin that I never go bowling with, but I'd kill a room full of people to rescue.
I consider you the cousin I would expect to kill a room full of people to rescue.
4313
« on: July 08, 2015, 03:52:46 PM »
oh boy...
You're somewhat up-tight and easy to irritate. Besides that you're a sound nigger, nigger. You mod plug.dj well enough, and you're enjoyable to converse with. I don't really have any problems with you.
4314
« on: July 08, 2015, 03:51:22 PM »
although I'm not sure what insecurities your talking about. The need to defend yourself from a stranger's opinion with a post longer than that opinion isn't a bad example. 1. I've never had serious debate/conversation on here to have my non spoken views be hypocritical and stupid. so... You're a Catholic. You believe the soul arises at conception. You got a girl pregnant. You didn't want her to have an abortion. You were fine with the morning-after pill. That's stupid.
4315
« on: July 08, 2015, 03:43:10 PM »
Smd
You're a superficial, narcissistic faggot with no intellectual capacity.
you mad fatty?
No, just astounded. I never knew Neanderthals could speak, let alone form a sentence.
4316
« on: July 08, 2015, 03:39:13 PM »
Smd
You're a superficial, narcissistic faggot with no intellectual capacity.
4317
« on: July 08, 2015, 03:38:33 PM »
hit me with some top quality banter
I used to think you were a fucking prick back on Bungie.shitinmymouth. Since I've seen you post more, however, I think I've become more accustomed to you. As with Das, I think we have a similar no-holds-barred sense of humour. You aren't up-tight, you're capable of having a laugh and you're a generally agreeable person.
4318
« on: July 08, 2015, 03:36:02 PM »
So you're saying that my "dumbness" is just a lack of knowledge you deem important?
Essentially.
4319
« on: July 08, 2015, 03:35:29 PM »
I am prepare.
Literally who
4320
« on: July 08, 2015, 03:34:03 PM »
Do it sun
You completely and utterly lack an intellectual side on here. Which is actually fine, because it doesn't mean you're stupid. It just means you don't engage in any serious conversations. You have a great sense of humour, too.
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