Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Mongrel]

Hint: she's an auditor.

[Miss Cat Ears]

Hint: studied and in love with pure mathematics

[Miss Cat Ears]

AND AMERICA. WHICH IS FUCKED. AGAIN.

[Classic]

I've been led to believe that if I blindly agree with whatever Brentai says he'll be able to make more Xenogears LP videos.

Also, he appears to be suggesting that the bizarre contortions that are done with numbers to arrive at a credit rating are harrowing events capable of destroying a person's emotions love of maths.

Also, discrete maths?

[Miss Cat Ears]

Somehow with that avatar of yours, I don't realize it's you so I forget to not read until after I read.

[Royal☭]

Somehow with that avatar of yours, I don't realize it's you so I forget to not read until after I read.

[Mongrel]

Well guys, looks like the debt reduction agenda is going to be subverted anyway.

[James Edward Smith]

We can talk about the credit rating system in this country if you like.  I don't know if it's US specific but the fact that it exists anywhere in this universe is enough to make you stop believing in rational mathematics.

I'm reminded of the section of The Areas of my Expertise in which John Hodgman describes insurence agencies and the various guilds of actuaries that they employ each of which use their own traditional methods of determining when you will die using methods and tools such as animal entrails, crystal ball gazing, sheep dog consultation, and GUESSING.

[Mongrel]

Oh one other thing. The outlandish culture of credit only exists partly because of mindless rampant consumerism.

It also exists because the last thirty years have completely destroyed the American middle class, and only by going into massive debt are we all able to collectively pretend this didn't happen.

[Doom]

Somehow with that avatar of yours, I don't realize it's you so I forget to not read until after I read.

It's a trained reflex by this point, and the subject matter of his new avatar is actually terrible as well so it's easy to associate terrible with terrible.

[Pacobird]

Yeah, I've always liked the Terry Pratchett theory of wealth - wealthy people stay wealthy because they can afford to be frugal. I think his example was that rich people can afford the boots which cost twice as much but last five times as long - a net savings, if you can afford it up front.

oh god this

Also, I would add my two cents about the issue: people are people and no one is perfect, so therefore it's a given that through all the myriad choices people have to make over the course of their lives, some will be good choices, and others bad.  What money does for you is enable you to benefit more from your good choices and suffer less from your bad ones.

[Mongrel]

Yeah, I've always liked the Terry Pratchett theory of wealth - wealthy people stay wealthy because they can afford to be frugal. I think his example was that rich people can afford the boots which cost twice as much but last five times as long - a net savings, if you can afford it up front.

oh god this

Heh. I can't tell if you're agreeing or horrified (tentatively guessing agreement?).

Also, I would add my two cents about the issue: people are people and no one is perfect, so therefore it's a given that through all the myriad choices people have to make over the course of their lives, some will be good choices, and others bad.  What money does for you is enable you to benefit more from your good choices and suffer less from your bad ones.

[Classic]

I suddenly wonder where "money" is distinct from "privilege". Being a white-lookin' male, I basically don't get any shit even for being pants wetting retarded.

[Büge]

Privilege is invisible money that never goes away.

[Royal☭]

Also money is free speech.  We need a word filter that changes all instances of the word money to free speech.

It is clear that some people have more free speech that others.

[Mongrel]

Well, that's because some people are more equal than others.

[Thad]

It's a freeze, not a cut.

It's a freeze that's not tied to inflation.  Meaning it's not a cut...until NEXT year.

...back to the corporate personhood thing.  The way I see it, the only recourse at this point is a constitutional amendment.  Which of course is how I felt BEFORE all this (it's here somewhere, pretend I took the time to find a link).

I found a proposal at someplace called reclaimdemocracy.org.

SECTION 1. The U.S. Constitution protects only the rights of living human beings.

SECTION 2. Corporations and other institutions granted the privilege to exist shall be subordinate to any and all laws enacted by citizens and their elected governments.

SECTION 3. Corporations and other for-profit institutions are prohibited from attempting to influence the outcome of elections, legislation or government policy through the use of aggregate resources or by rewarding or repaying employees or directors to exert such influence.

SECTION 4. Congress shall have power to implement this article by appropriate legislation.

At a glance, it seems to make sense, but something's nagging at me that there must be something wrong here (probably because it's a legal proposition and yet it seems to make sense).  Could one of our resident lawyers pick it apart for me and explain what's wrong with it?

Also: if the Democrats were smart (they, of course, are not), they would campaign on this.  Of course it won't pass, but that hasn't stopped the Republicans from pushing stupid bullshit like flag-burning and gay-marriage bans in election years.

[Burrito Al Pastor]

Only protecting the rights of living human beings sounds like a terrible idea. It sounds weird to say it, but dead people have rights too - and so do some things which aren't human at all. Kittens, for example. A sufficiently narrow reading of "only" protecting the rights of "living human beings" could effectively put a stop to, among other things, great huge chunks of wildlife conservation efforts at a government level.

Section 2 sounds really, really odd to me. It sounds wrong on multiple levels. For example: what constitutes an institution? Who has the authority to grant an institution the privilege of existence? Since when is existing ever a privilege? And what is the purpose of this whole line?

Honestly, the more I read this thing, the more it sounds like a terrible phrasing of a suspiciously radical concept to begin with. I would imagine that 'A corporation is not a person and does not possess any of the rights which are otherwise exclusive to people" would rock the boat enough.

And even then I'm not sure if that's sufficiently specific. When you really think about it, a constitutional amendment of "corporations are not people" wouldn't be terribly helpful; nobody's ever actually seriously claimed that they literally are, or should be. (I've never heard anybody claim that corporations should have a right to vote in elections, for example.) What we actually want is for corporations to not have certain rights and abilities that would otherwise be the sole domain of individual people and governments - but (I assume) we want some of those things to remain. The ability to sue and be sued, for example. Or the ability to have money and property. (Physical, not intellectual.)

[Detonator]

Only protecting the rights of living human beings sounds like a terrible idea. It sounds weird to say it, but dead people have rights too - and so do some things which aren't human at all. Kittens, for example. A sufficiently narrow reading of "only" protecting the rights of "living human beings" could effectively put a stop to, among other things, great huge chunks of wildlife conservation efforts at a government level.

are you fucking retarded or something?

[Classic]

Dolphins are too delicious to have rights.

Burrito did a bit of read fail there. We don't consider trees or other "natural resources" to have rights, but there are still great pains to protect them.