unarmedman wrote:big_dave, you really need to get in the game here. I have yet to see you debunk anything, unless you see your smarmy one-liners like above as evidence enough.

You're right. Weimar marks weren't anything like the current dollar, so there is barely anything to debunk at all. Not only were they an exceptionally short-time product, but there were several incarnations.

Saying that Weimar inflation happened, so it can happen anywhere is one thing. Because it is sort of right, in a very wooly way. Giving it as evidence for the inevitable Weimar-style collapse of any non-Gold currency is knowingly facile.

Currency devaluation is exponential.

Exponential isn't an either/or deal. Something could be exponential with a large gradiant, or with a small gradiant.

Not everything exponential is exponential at the same rate.

It has nothing to do with time, and everything to do with balance.

It has everything to do with time, unless a specific disaster occurs, in which case the hyperinflation would be the product of that disaster and not of anything intrinsic to the currency itself.

Here is where I start to agree (briefly) with Ron Paul and his ilk, whether or not a currency is desirable or successful would in many ways depend on its ability to survive and protect the economy from hypothetical disasters like this.

So, unless you can predict a Weimar-style disaster such as someone replacing the dollar another currency that isn't backed by production, labour or government spending, or a general strike halting all the production in the USA - something possible in Weimar but impossible in the United States due to size, the Weimar economic collapse stops being a useful analogy for American inflation.

Once the market is over-flooded, and the dollar is abandoned overseas, this economy will be forced into a recession. With each day, the ramifications of that recession become worse.

Unless the dollar is flexible, business well regulated and the people in charge are rational. There is no reason for the USA not to overcome any economic obstacle thrown at it.

Yes Rick, World War III.

Yeah that sucks. It's been happening everywhere. I was watching msnbc this morning and they referred to Thompson possibly winning SC and Giuliani winning FL and then said 'the top 5 candidates will have each won one of the first 5 states'. So ignorant on so many levels:

1. Forgetting Nevada and Wyoming
2. Forgetting Ron Paul

How do you beat a system that is already entrenched? A second Revolution.

"When did diabetes become a "choice"?"
Quote:
10 facts about diabetes
1)There is an emerging global epidemic of diabetes that can be traced back to rapid increases in overweight, obesity and physical inactivity.
http://www.who.int/features/factfiles/d ... 01_en.html

Diabetes can be prevented. Thirty minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity on most days and a healthy diet can drastically reduce the risk of developing type 2 diabetes.
http://www.who.int/features/factfiles/d ... 10_en.html

That is an inexcusable response. Diabetes has two forms: Type 1 and Type 2. Type 1 Diabetes has "no known cause" and most of the time it's children who get the disease. This population is not at fault, they have no accountability for the cause of their disease because they're children and adults can call the disease whatever they want and forget about them.

Rick Reuben wrote:World War III

unarmedman wrote:A second Revolution

Are these the promised or threatened outcomes of not voting for Paul?

Boogens wrote:"When did diabetes become a "choice"?"
Quote:
10 facts about diabetes
1)There is an emerging global epidemic of diabetes that can be traced back to rapid increases in overweight, obesity and physical inactivity.
http://www.who.int/features/factfiles/d ... 01_en.html

And a shitty diet is not a choice? If I get lung cancer from smoking whose fault is that? Mine, right?

Skronk wrote:

Boogens wrote:"When did diabetes become a "choice"?"
Quote:
10 facts about diabetes
1)There is an emerging global epidemic of diabetes that can be traced back to rapid increases in overweight, obesity and physical inactivity.
http://www.who.int/features/factfiles/d ... 01_en.html

And a shitty diet is not a choice? If I get lung cancer from smoking whose fault is that? Mine, right?

What about genetics, access, finances and upbringing?

Supposing you were raised poor, got diabetes from Kelloggs'n'Coke diet, and from the age of 16 onwards you were stronger than a mule due to an adult regime of fitness and health?

What if you're working the nightshift in a mill out of town, and the cateen only stocks fried food and chocolate bars, like most cateens do? And you get diabetes.

What if you're too poor to afford good food?

What if you have a slight learning disability, so you can't understand why some food is good and some food is bad? Even though you're smart enough to get by and not need constant care.

Do people in these cases somehow 'deserve' diabetes, because they got it through 'choice'? Even if they were crazy enough to try and get diabetes on purpose, would you deny them public health for that - because in the interest of eveness, you would have to deny support for drug addicts, masochists and would-be suicides.

Skronk wrote:

Boogens wrote:"When did diabetes become a "choice"?"
Quote:
10 facts about diabetes
1)There is an emerging global epidemic of diabetes that can be traced back to rapid increases in overweight, obesity and physical inactivity.
http://www.who.int/features/factfiles/d ... 01_en.html

And a shitty diet is not a choice? If I get lung cancer from smoking whose fault is that? Mine, right?

Skronk, did you read the last paragraph in his post?

What about, Asthma for instance? Another chronic disease which is increaing in prevalence.

Multiple Sclerosis? No one knows what causes that.

Many kinds of auto-immune diseases, like Lupus, Chron's Disease, Rheaumatoid Arthritis, etc. No known cause for these either.

Alzheimer's-no known cause, but definitely increasing.

Not everyone who gets lung cancer smokes either.

There are so many causes of disease, environmental, hereditary, lifesyle choices, really bad luck, etc., why the hell are we even trying to parse out the good reasons and bad reasons, other than just trying to figure out a cause, and judging people who get sick?

Everybody is going to get something that, in the end, will either make them very ill or kill them.

Why the fuck judge people based on getting sick and what they could have done to, possibly, but not for sure, prevent it?

Is that the humanitarian thing to do?

That's not my point, to dissect every ill person's situation. I just don't like the assumption that being ill can never be your own responsibility.

It's ridiculous to think people deserve their illnesses. I don't agree with denying anyone treatment, but in our country, where corruption is seemingly at intolerable levels, I don't believe universal health care can be pulled off effectively. That has been my point in this argument since the beginning.

In that case 'free will' and 'choice' is just idle rhetoric.

I don't agree with denying anyone treatment, but in our country, where corruption is seemingly at intolerable levels, I don't believe universal health care can be pulled off effectively.

And how is corruption is an argument against universal care? Some people might make money off people being sick? Surely this is the situation you have now.