The Official Conservative Political Thread

Dumar_sl said:

And what's the first rule of finance? Mathematics + $$$ = finance.

If economics isn't science, then finance isn't either. It's the study of a thing made up by humans, money, that doesn't exist in nature or reality outside those humans. So you're studying and modeling the mathematical rules and processes based on time/risk of something that was made up to begin with: valuation and management of valuation due to ... money.

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Economics is in the school of liberal arts, I got a bachelor of Science in Accounting and Finance. Economists get too loosey goosey about things no one cares about. I'd rather learn about how to exploit this system to my advantage, than to sit around whining about this or that. A lot of it is nothing but pretentious intellectual masturbation. Maybe the first bit of advanced coursework is good, but my stuff in my Senior year made me walk. I kept asking myself what real world applications it had, and couldn't answer.

Who cares?

Lyrical_sl said:

I'd rather learn about how to exploit this system to my advantage [...]

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This attitude is part of the problem, compared to the educational attitude in those Nordic countries, for example.

You have a degree in how to exploit the system you're in, and are deriding other systems without an education on the specific disparities between them?

Sebudai_sl said:

The Nordic countries aren't purely Marxist. That's what you're not getting. You think you're arguing with all of us, but you're not, because you just don't understand what actually goes on in these Nordic countries.

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Actually, I'm wondering how you see to think that your argument about a system followed by countries not even the size of New York City have any relation to what we are talking about. These countries are are so teeny, that if that's the crux of your argument, you are just wasting our time.

Agraza_sl said:

You have a degree in how to exploit the system you're in, and are deriding other systems without an education on the specific disparities between them?

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Do you think when I was in the school of liberal arts, that we just discussed capitalism? No, it was all systems, and how we could merge systems and move to Utopia. I'm a realist in that there's not going to be a Utopia, until we all have replicators from Star Trek, and there is no scarcity of resources.

wormie_sl said:

First lets toss the free market myth out the window. A market cannot exist without some form of rules and regulations and those rules and regulations are enforced by some authority. The fact that there are rules and regulations and that they are enforced contradict the notion of a free market. The idea of a market that is free is just as silly as the idea of communism.

Now onto the rest. Your family's student loans are heavily subsidized by the government and financed by tax revenue collected from the overall society. This is called "socialism". Your dads free shit after the war? Same thing, funded by taxes. The fact that your dad actually got pay + benefits while serving? Funded by taxes and this is a massive improvement over forcing plebs to go fight in your wars and this improvement came about because of SOCIALISM. All of the things you explicitly supported in your last few posts, exist because of socialism. Yet you insist that countries that practice socialism are evil shit holes. It makes no fucking sense.

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Your arguments are childish. I can sit here and read Sebudai or Dumar's arguments, and have some sort of respect for them (misguided as they are). But all of your arguments engage in reductio ad absurdum, please try harder to make a compelling point.

Lyrical_sl said:

Actually, I'm wondering how you see to think that your argument about a system followed by countries not even the size of New York City have any relation to what we are talking about. These countries are are so teeny, that if that's the crux of your argument, you are just wasting our time.

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You claimed the Nordic countries weren't worth a shit, I told you they were. They obviously are. You were wrong. Then you moved the goal posts and jumped into some weird side-argument that you invented out of thin air where you pretended I was claiming that Marxism is awesome... or something. Nobody here knows. What argument do you even think I'm making?

Take a 2min breather, and then come back here, re-read the thread, and then realize that the only thing you and I have really disagreed about so far, is your completely absurd assertion regarding the Nordic countries. I like capitalism. Just not pure capitalism. You like capitalism too. Just not pure capitalism. You seem to approve of some social programs. So do I. So do the Nordic countries.

How much innovation do you see in alternative systems? I've attached two images, one of the Ambassador (from India), and the other of a Mercedes. There was a point in time when the two were considered direct competitors, but the Ambassador made little progress. Why should there be innovation, when there is no profit involved, and competition is limited by the state to protect the workers? Why bother improving when there's nothing in it for you. A picture is worth 1,000 words. The Ambassador has changed very little in almost 100 years, because the system was FUBAR for so long.It looks the same in 2014, as it did in 1926.

I'll take the Mercedes. This isn't the only example.

I stopped paying attention once he said Nordic countries are shitholes, stuff like that throws credibility out the window, no matter how much you make running lawn services. You have Dumar on one side of the spectrum and Lyrical and Tad on the other. Throw in an Asian grocery clerk from Canada it sounds like one hell of a big brother tv show.

Sebudai_sl said:

I like capitalism. Just not pure capitalism. You like capitalism too. Just not pure capitalism. You seem to approve of some social programs. So do I. So do the Nordic countries.

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We'll stop there.

ZyyzYzzy_sl said:

This is the funniest thing I have ever read. I was an accounting major in undergrad for 4 semesters then I switched to Neurobiology and eventually picked up Cell Bio too. Accounting and financing classes were a joke. It was learning man made rules for a man made system that was meant to be exploited by those who knew how. Your statement is ridiculous.

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Everyone says that Accounting and Finance are easy, but look at the business failure rate and tell me they are. If you can run a business for ten years, you've done something that 95% of businesses can't. I've heard it all, in undergrad, I lived in the Honors dorm, and many of the guys that said that the classes were a joke are making less than I am. Many of them tried to start science related businesses that went under, and more of them lost all of their money in the tech boom because they didn't understand MPT. I remember a guy telling me b-grads are idiots, he looked down on me, and then he lost a million dollars in the market, and went from living a in a huge house, to living in a one bedroom apartment. Most of the time, when companies are laying off, the stock price is at all time low. Congrats on your prestigious science degree from a top school, but enjoy renting furniture from Rent A Center.

If you think you've mastered the material, and it's easy, feel free to start a business, and we'll see if you last two years. We'll chronicle everything in the B&F forums, like we did with Corndog, and then see how ridiculous I'm being.

Trollface_sl said:

first car looks sweet.

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Yup, and it looks the same as it did in 1926, with crappy quality and poor gas mileage.An Icon Falls On Hard Times; In India, the Ambassador Car Fights to Survive Competition - New York Times

That's what you get in those other systems. No one gives a shit about quality, gas mileage, etc., when the workers are protected and no one cares about a profit. If the state is giving you too large a subsidy to support your lack of innovation and efficiency, you don't innovate or become more efficient. I can pull out thousands of examples, but the Ambassador Car finishes the argument. I'm sure someone can start pulling other examples of innovation that we didn't see in the other systems (other than government supported military applications).