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981
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Other / Off-topic / Re: Greece is in economic crisis!
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on: July 26, 2011, 06:54:55 AM
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Heard already more jokes about selling isles or the Acropolis to other European countries to repay their debt.
About the Greek situation, a lot of European institutions (banks, pension funds, etc.) have been investing a lot of money in Greece due to the high interest rates they offered (anybody with some economical understanding should know that high interest means high risk, red flag). And this bail out is to protect these investors from loosing their money (and to keep the EU voters satisfied the banks throw also a nickel at the problem), not to help the Greece people.
Greece had about 75% civil servants (1 person having to pay the salary of 3 governmental workers through tax), previous governments lied about their debts to EU controlling bodies, lots of corruption and no taxes were collected. If I remember correctly the currently interest on their debts are about 60% of the GNP.
It would be much better for them (and everybody else) if they just went bankrupt, now it just costs a lot of money to extend the situation.
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982
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Other / Politics & Society / Re: Democrats & Debt
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on: July 26, 2011, 06:37:47 AM
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In the Netherlands it depends per party how candidates are placed on the voting lists. Normally everybody who wants can sign up to be on the list for that party, the chair of the fraction is often number one on the list and other current MPs follow, new people are added after that. During voting you vote for a person, normally the first on the list. If the seat is in the vote overflows to the next person. However if someone gets more votes then the person in front of that person he/she gets the seat (even if the party doesn't like it). In that case there are 3 options: the person can keep the seat, the party asks the person to give the seat away and in that case the person can choose to do it or not, or the person decides to become an independent MP (this is also the case if the person is thrown out of the party).
After elections the largest party gets the initiative to form a coalition, where the number 1 becomes the Prime Minister and ideally you want to have more then 50% of the seats in the parliament, although that isn't required. Our current Cabinet contains 2 parties, supported by a 3rd. That in most cases give >50% support.
That is fascinating. Thank you for the insight. It is even possible to get on the list on your own (without a party). In that way the person gets a list number instead of a party name. Another thing is that after voting often remaining seats are left, which are given to the parties depending on the remaining unfilled votes. Sometimes 2 parties cooperate and link their lists in such way that one of the two parties would get the seat instead of one of the larger parties. This type of election is for the Parliament and Cabinet. For the Senate we choose indirectly through voting for the province council. They often contain parties that are not in the Parliament and can give sometimes interesting situations (the Cabinet needs a majority in the Senate to pass a law or plans). We had the elections for the provinces recently and the Cabinet wasn't able to get a majority with the ruling parties. Despite the fact that they got a vote from a specific party from one of the provinces about a very controversial (for that province) agreement between the Netherlands and Belgium. In the end they also had to make agreements with a very conservative right-winged Christian party to get some things passed through the Senate (where a large part of the country got a WTF? moment). |
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983
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Other / Politics & Society / Re: Democrats & Debt
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on: July 25, 2011, 10:14:27 PM
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Ah, I thought you meant people could only vote for a party, not individual MP. Yes, the largest party delivers the Prime Minister.
In America we have a primary system so you can vote for who the party candidate will be in the final election (this goes for almost all elective offices.) To my knowledge, I am not aware that such a thing exists in parliaments. Doesn't the party itself choose who the MP candidates will be? So in my mind, you really are voting for the party instead of the individual, as candidates are unlikely to be far off from party policy, whereas here you could potentially choose a republican to be the democratic nominee in a Congressional race. There are some pros and and cons to both systems, I guess it just depends on your preference. In the Netherlands it depends per party how candidates are placed on the voting lists. Normally everybody who wants can sign up to be on the list for that party, the chair of the fraction is often number one on the list and other current MPs follow, new people are added after that. During voting you vote for a person, normally the first on the list. If the seat is in the vote overflows to the next person. However if someone gets more votes then the person in front of that person he/she gets the seat (even if the party doesn't like it). In that case there are 3 options: the person can keep the seat, the party asks the person to give the seat away and in that case the person can choose to do it or not, or the person decides to become an independent MP (this is also the case if the person is thrown out of the party). After elections the largest party gets the initiative to form a coalition, where the number 1 becomes the Prime Minister and ideally you want to have more then 50% of the seats in the parliament, although that isn't required. Our current Cabinet contains 2 parties, supported by a 3rd. That in most cases give >50% support. |
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984
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Other / Politics & Society / Re: Democrats & Debt
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on: July 25, 2011, 09:36:57 PM
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I was not aware you could split your vote in a parliamentary system. It was my understanding that you voted for your party MP and whichever party holds the majority got the Prime Minister, such that the Prime Minister always had the majority of the legislature. Unlike here where we can have a Democratic President and a Republican legislature (and vice-versa.)
Ah, I thought you meant people could only vote for a party, not individual MP. Yes, the largest party delivers the Prime Minister. |
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985
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Other / Politics & Society / Re: Democrats & Debt
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on: July 25, 2011, 09:22:51 PM
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Looking at wikipedia it seems the USA has more parties then the two big ones. Why not pick one of those and convince like-minded people to vote for them as well?
Because the election system (in the States) is based on plurality instead of majority and we have an electoral college system independent of the results of Congress. This makes voting for 3rd parties, especially on the national level, kind of useless. Very simplified example: In 2000 there were the two major candidates: Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Al Gore. There was also a more liberal than Al Gore independent name Ralph Nader. In Florida, the state that basically decided the outcome of that close election, it was decided (kind of) that George W. Bush won the election there. However, there were more votes for Al Gore + Ralph Nader combined. So people like to blame Ralph Nader and his voters for making Al Gore lose to Bush. If there was a majority system, this would not be a problem and you could vote more confidently for a 3rd party candidate. Also, despite the assumption that because we only have two major parties they must have more power, the parties on both sides really are very broad coalitions. Also I like the ability to split your vote for the different offices (so you can choose the individual) as opposed to the parliamentary system of voting for a party (even though that allows for a wider range of parties.) Thank you for the explanation. The parliamentary system also allows to vote for individuals, but not many people do it. Works voting for other governmental bodies (senate?) work the same as for the president elections? Or is that more direct? |
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986
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Other / Politics & Society / Re: Your Economic Recovery Program
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on: July 25, 2011, 05:28:35 PM
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I'm not sure that this country will move 'this far to the left' (whatever that means anymore) until we have a complete meltdown or revolution, but I can hope. I'd just be happy if we could stop our express train that we've been on for 40 years moving to the 'right'. Pretty soon the politics will be so fascistoid that the political debate will be between choosing debtor prisons or concentration camps.
We have pundits on the radio laughing about people not getting an unemployment check and trying to destroy any means of social decency so we don't have old, sick, or disabled people dying in the streets. The amount of cruelty and hatred in the general populace is starting to get nauseating.
Socialism means a different thing to each person you ask but if Tarpley's plan is socialist plan then sign me up. If selling toxic Chinese plastic injected molded shit to each other is the best the naked Free Market has to offer I want alternatives. Overall our level of GDP that is in the government sector is far lower than other 1st world countries and then when you account for how much of that is military spending it is pathetic.
The only thing to make people more social is to do social things for them. It is strange that the US socialist party is pretty small if there are so many poor and unemployed people in the US (all potential voters for that party if they would help them directly). I don't think you need a revolution or complete meltdown to get a more social society. Just a change of how people take care for each other. |
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989
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Other / Politics & Society / Re: Your Economic Recovery Program
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on: July 25, 2011, 10:12:55 AM
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Wow, I would like to see the financial picture of that in detail. Very interesting. Although I don't think the average US citizen would accept such socialist plan (looking back at the discussion of the health reform plan of Obama). I think the democrats might be able to get enough support from their people to implement such plan, but the republicans would not give them the opportunity to do so. |
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991
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Other / Politics & Society / Re: Democrats & Debt
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on: July 25, 2011, 08:52:23 AM
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Looking at wikipedia it seems the USA has more parties then the two big ones. Why not pick one of those and convince like-minded people to vote for them as well?
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992
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Other / Politics & Society / Re: Democrats & Debt
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on: July 25, 2011, 07:42:46 AM
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OP seems to be jobless and is supporting the Republicans... Yes, Americans appear smart if OPs intelligence is below the 90% of the population.
Joking aside, to me the US is right-winged or more right-winged. There is no left-winged party in the USA.
From my point of view: Republicans always seem to get tax reductions for rich people/companies and spend it to military "toys for big boys". Democrats always seem to have to clean up the mess of the Republicans, being unable to to actually do something useful within the time they get.
But don't worry, I see the same here in The Netherlands with the only exception that we haven't had a left-winged government for quite come time. So instead of generating huge debts, our right-winged governments have been breaking down all the social security we have build up in the past and making everything more expensive.
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993
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Other / Off-topic / Re: (almost) free energy presentation for real ?
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on: July 25, 2011, 07:14:47 AM
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you still have not explained why i would not be able to reverse engineer this device, let alone why i would not be able to sell it to the mass market. with the advent of bitcoin, it would be way to easy to commit patent infringement and sell them anonymously.
"To preserve intellectual property and trade secrets, Andrea Rossi is being forced to design a self destruct mechanism to be built into every E-Cat (Energy Catalyzer) used by the public. This could delay the public (non-industrial) launch of the technology." source1) Bluff 2) If this is so revolutionary. Someone will leak the plans/blueprints. Also, I think that government bodies have to check the device for safety before marketing/selling/renting them, so if blueprints don't leak at the company, they will leak somewhere else. |
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994
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Other / Politics & Society / Re: Religion is a plague
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on: July 24, 2011, 12:44:07 PM
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I can recommend to look up his 'Manifest' and have a quick browse through it (1516 pages is too much to read). You'll get the idea why he did it. The worrying part is that people have been helping him to write it (most likely people with the same believes).
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996
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Economy / Marketplace / Re: Buy shares NOT
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on: July 16, 2011, 06:25:42 AM
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If that's the case, just shut the rig down until difficulty drops again (some people argue that difficulty and price are linked). You're not mining for the electricity company.
Maybe see how much you would get if you would sell some of the hardware, you might then even make a profit on that.
Example:
10 BTC (got from investors) => $300 (exchange rate at high time) => 1 card (used card for mining) => $250 (what you would get when selling again) => 22 BTC (dollars to btc at aprox. current rate).
These numbers are just fetched from the air, but I guess you could do some calculations on the data you have.
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997
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Economy / Marketplace / Re: Buy shares NOT
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on: July 14, 2011, 05:13:49 PM
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Bitcoin price is dropping, so maybe at some point it might be profitable to just buy some bitcoins to repay for your mining rig.
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Better than nothing I suppose... 
