Skip to main content

Oh Yes. In reply to all those pretentious little Marie Antoinette references, do have it be known that I not only worked for my money but once I had EARNED it I invested it wisely. No peasants suffered while I was acting intelligently, working hard and smart to take advantage of the most efficient economic system to ever benefit mankind. If you yourself had followed the Darla Diamond investing system, you too could have made 400% on your investments so far this millennium. But you are probably socialist statists who think the government's job is to support you the rest of your lifes. Honey, that's like asking the DMV to be your chauffeur the rest of your lives!
Darla, no one is asking the government to support them. It is a feature of modern capitalism in every other advanced CAPITALIST nation that the state guarantees that every citizen has health care. The US healthcare system is ranked 37th behind all the other rich nations. That's just one example. As far as housing regulations or any regulations on the market, we should remember that regulations put in place after the great depression pretty much saved Capitalism. There is nothing communist about the government in the richest nation on Earth making sure there is a floor it's citizens cannot drop below. It's called civilization.
The Week
www.nationalreview.com

"If he wants to see bitter, he should try taking away their guns."

Time magazine offers a bracing report on biofuels headlined "The Clean Energy Scam." The report, by Michael Grunwald, is unsparing in its assessment. Accounting for worldwide deforestation as biofuels push food crops onto newly cleared land, ethanol is harder on the environment than old-fashioned petroleum is. And the diversion of agricultural resources drives up food prices, exacerbating hunger. Writes Grunwald: "Corn ethanol, always environmentally suspect, turns out to be environmentally disastrous. . . . The grain it takes to fill an SUV tank with ethanol could feed a person for a year." Ethanol is a product that could not survive on its own in the market: Massive subsidies are lavished on agribusiness corporations in the effort to turn Kansas into a corn-powered Qatar on the prairie. And even the subsidies are insufficient; federal mandates create artificial demand for ethanol that nobody wants, and that has to be produced by robbing the taxpayer to pay Archer Daniels Midland.

Top ten reasons to support ANWR development:
http://www.anwr.org/ANWR-Basics/Top-ten-reasons-to-supp...ANWR-development.php

We could always go back to harpooning whales, that's natural and eco-friendly.
Last edited by Darla Diamond
quote:
But I agree with you about Islam, it's mysogenist, homophobic and horrible and superstitious just like much of christianity and judaism

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Lily of the Valley, 04-20-08 05:25 PM


Note how Islam is capitalized, yet Christianity and Judaism are not. Some of us don't quite seem to know which side our bread is buttered on.
Thanks, GWB:

The End of Cheap Food?
High Cost of Commodities Will Continue to Hit Developing World Hardest
By Mary Kane 04/23/2008

A sharp spike in prices for wheat, corn, rice and other staples has sparked riots in Mexico and Egypt, marches by hungry children in Yemen and the spectre of starving people in Haiti turning to mud pies for sustenance. This growing unrest is forcing the global community to focus on the causes of higher food costs and what can be done. But it's also raising the troubling possibility that cheap prices for food may be gone for good, an economic relic of the the past.

That scenario would be disastrous for the progress of fighting poverty in poor countries - and it would threaten to halt a long period of rising living standards in the United States tied directly to the inexpensive cost of food.

"Don't look now, but the good times may have just stopped rolling," the economist Paul Krugman wrote in his New York Times column. The Economist was more strident: "The era of cheap food is over," it declared. World Bank President Robert Zoellick, reaching back to policies created during the Great Depression for inspiration to address food inflation, is pushing a "New Deal" for global food policy, aimed at aiding impoverished countries with income support and help in producing crops.

The gloom-and-doom outlooks are prompted by rising prices for commodities, which started increasing steadily in 2001 before suddenly soaring recently. Wheat prices have gone up by 181 percent over the past three years, according to the World Bank; food prices around the globe have risen by 83 percent during the same period. In March, rice prices hit a 19-year high. Corn prices recently rose from $2.50 a bushel three years ago to $6, for the first time. Zoellick has predicted a sustained period of higher food costs, saying he expects prices to remain elevated through next year and stay above 2004 levels for at least the next seven years.

The causes are many. India and China have growing populations and are becoming more prosperous; more people can now afford to eat more meat, and the demand for animal feed has grown. In the U.S. and Europe, a boom in biofuel as alternative energy is diverting considerable amounts of corn from the market. A severe drought in Australia has contributed to a 25-year low in supplies. Some also blame speculation in the commodity markets for sharp swings in prices and availability.

While plenty of people are worried about the end of cheap food, it's not clear yet whether that will happen, said David Orden, senior research fellow with the International Food Policy Research Institute. Things like the weak dollar becoming stronger, crop shortfalls easing, energy prices stabilizing and strong growth in the world economy are all factors that could affect the availability of food, he said, and no one's sure how they will play out. "We just don't know yet," Orden said. "Before this bump in food prices started, people were not predicting it."

What has become clear is that in a short time, soaring food costs have shaken some long-held assumptions about food and fuel, especially in the U.S.

Food has been cheap in America for nearly 60 years, and Americans set aside less of their incomes for food than any other country in the world, devoting just 11 percent of disposable income to it, compared to double that percentage in Europe. Keeping food costs low has been one of the great economic achievements of the last century. The low food costs, combined with rising incomes, "have been two of the primary sources of prosperity for American consumers," said John Urbanchuck, an agriculture industry analyst for LECG, a global consulting firm.

Until now, Americans had the luxury of worrying about food due to its abundance. Concerns have centered on childhood obesity and an epidemic of diabetes. But new problems with food are already surfacing, as rising prices begin showing up at the grocery store. More expensive corn means people pay more for eggs and poultry, and still higher meat and milk prices are on the horizon. Record high oil prices are adding to price pressures, since transporting food costs more.

If prices stay high for a long time, the poor will be hit the hardest, since they spend the largest percentage of their incomes on food. Efforts to reduce hunger, like food stamps and free and reduced lunch programs, will become more costly, said Otto Doering, a professor of agricultural economics at Purdue University in Indiana. Asking taxpayers to pay more for them won't exactly be politically popular, since food prices could also take a greater bite out of middle-class budgets. And paying more for food will mean having less to spend on things like big-screen television sets and iPods, putting a dent in the kind of consumer spending that has kept the economy growing for the past two decades.

Consumers won't be the only ones feeling the squeeze. Hog producers in the Midwest expect to lose hundreds of millions of dollars in just the next six months due to corn price hikes, Doering said.


It could get far worse. Another "hidden issue" is the scarcity of land still available for farming, he said. In the past, the United States had plenty of farmland to provide more crops as food demands grew. But land is finite, and after all these years, we're beginning to run short, Doering said. "For the first time in our history, we're pushing up against the edge in terms of quality land," Doering said. "We're in a somewhat fixed box."

Because of all this, Doering said it's not clear whether the U.S. can keep food prices low. "It's a whole new ballgame," he stated.
The United States has endured temporary price bumps before. A spike in commodities in the early 1970s was due mainly to bad weather around the world, and to huge and secretive Russian grain purchases. In 1995-96, food inflation stemmed from a Midwestern drought, global demand for U.S. feed grains and speculation. In both cases, prices settled back down again.

This time around, the biofuel boom is also complicating the question of whether prices will revert. Some one-third of the U.S. corn crop now is devoted to ethanol production, its growth due to a combination of high oil prices and generous government subsidies. When corn prices were lower a few years ago, ethanol was seen as a popular energy alternative. Now it's a target.

Zoellick, the World Bank president, made headlines for blaming biofuels for recent price hikes, saying earlier this month that biofuels are a major factor in the world's added demand for food. Biofuel mania, or speculating in commodities by hedge fund and traders betting on corn prices, was also responsible for shortages and price increases, he said.

His remarks added to an already simmering debate. Last summer Foreign Affairs magazine published "How Biofuels Starve the Poor," which reiterated that sentiment, noting that filling the 25-gallon tank of a sports utility vehicle with pure ethanol required 450 pounds of corn, or enough calories for one person for a year.

At some point, American policy-makers are going to have to decide whether they want to live with an "expensive food policy" that requires continuing to produce large percentages of corn crops for biofuel and enduring higher prices for other foods, said Bruce Babcock, an Iowa State University economist.

The food debate will eventually break down into two camps: Those who believe supply and demand are the problem, and that the world can't produce enough to meet the needs of growing economies; and those who blame ethanol production. In the end, Babcock predicts, Washington will continue to support ethanol production in the near term, before imposing caps on its production.
But the future for food prices will still remain uncertain, because the global market is so complex. "I don't think we've ever been where we are right now," Babcock said.

Should prices stay high, the effect will be felt most keenly in developing countries, as the recent food riots have shown. Impoverished families now pay 50 percent to 80 percent of their incomes for food. Continuing high prices for oil and corn threaten to undo any gains in reducing poverty made over the past decade, Zoellick said.

Josette Sheeran, head of the U.N.'s World Food Program, told The Economist that the effects of higher food prices in poor countries will be devastating:


"For the middle classes, it means cutting out medical care. For those on $2 a day, it means cutting out meat and taking the children out of school. For those on $1 a day, it means cutting out meat and vegetables and eating only cereals. And for those on 50 cents a day, it means total disaster."
Food riots have already started in Egypt, Thailand, Cote de Ivoire, and Haiti.

Soon a regular news feature will be the food riots of the week report.

I also think these reports are the seed of a conscious effort to bring pressure/shame on all the oil producing nations -if they are cuasing high gas prices which then drive the cost of food up due to the higher transport costs, then those oil producers will eventually have fingers pointed at them about how they are causing the world to starve.
Last edited by seven
quote:
Note how Islam is capitalized, yet Christianity and Judaism are not. Some of us don't quite seem to know which side our bread is buttered on.


Oh please Darla. GODAH!! I can't even partially agree with you without a snyde remark in return. I despise Islam. It's a sickening homophobic violent totalitarian ideology. I didn't capitalize it on purpose. My bread isn't buttered by any of those fairy tales.
Last edited by Lily of the Valley
quote:
Government supplied health care is health care rationed. If you think it's bad now, wait until that suspicious lump has to wait 3 months for an MRI. Besides, where will all the Canadians go when they need an MRI?


This could win an award for the most overused bit of propaganda defending out broken health care system. The fact is we are the ONLY industrialized democratic nation that does not guarantee health care to everyone. Ask anyone in England if they have ever seen a medical bill, they haven't. My friends mother had liver cancer. She had to have three operations. She got the best care, didn't have to wait and paid NOTHING. If she lived here, in addition to worrying about having cancer she probably would have had to sell her house to stay alive.

The United States ranks 37th in terms of quality and availability of health care. Waiting times in many European countries are the same or better than ours. I would encourage you to watch the PBS FRONTLINE special where they go into detail about how other nations do it. You can watch it online on the PBS site.

The myth that the private sector does this better is laughable. We spend several times as much as other nations on health care and get worse results, worse life expectancies, worse prognoses and more debts and lived ruined financially. They spend far less (and virtually none of the administrative costs we do and they are healthier and live longer.

None of this I expect will cause you abandon the ideological position you need to identify with for whatever reason in favor or a common sense system that would actually help people. No, it's just if the State does it, it has to be wrong, and damn the consequences.
quote:
Government supplied health care is health care rationed. If you think it's bad now, wait until that suspicious lump has to wait 3 months for an MRI. Besides, where will all the Canadians go when they need an MRI?


What a croc of shit. My mother-in-law lives in Lewiston, NY, minutes from Niagara Falls and the Canadian border. She knows lots and lots of elderly Canadians who receive lots of free healthcare and are quite satisfied with their system. Were it not for her teacher's union healthcare benefits, my mother-in-law might be crossing the border to avail herself of far more affordable medicines right now as I type.

That said, I'm not convinced a healthcare system that is totally run by the government is the answer either. When I worked at Barclays Bank years ago I met lots of Brits and many complained about their system. One must wonder about the quality of British care when looking at their teeth. I feel a blended scenario is best, where private coverage can still exist and operate for those who can afford it and government and business share the cost of subsidized care of everyone else. Heavier taxes on things like tobacco and booze and proportional income tax, tax breaks/incentives for small businesses, that sort of thing.
Last edited by Luxury Lex
Safety Nets and "Comfy Chairs"

I guess McCain doesn't believe in "comfy chairs" either. That must be why he repeatedly voted against increased federal funding for the recovery of New Orleans, voted against increasing Medicare and unemployment benefits for Katrina survivors and spent the day after the Katrina tragedy eating birthday cake with George Bush. Anyone who's not a whiz kid on the stock market can rot, evidently.

Attachments

Images (1)
  • mccain-bush-cake
quote:
Oh Yes. In reply to all those pretentious little Marie Antoinette references, do have it be known that I not only worked for my money but once I had EARNED it I invested it wisely. No peasants suffered while I was acting intelligently, working hard and smart to take advantage of the most efficient economic system to ever benefit mankind. If you yourself had followed the Darla Diamond investing system, you too could have made 400% on your investments so far this millennium. But you are probably socialist statists who think the government's job is to support you the rest of your lifes. Honey, that's like asking the DMV to be your chauffeur the rest of your lives!


Of course. The ol' "pull yourself up by the boot straps" cowboy mythology. Much like Reagan's chauffeur-driven welfare queen, a character that, as the world now knows, was a complete fabrication. For your sake, Darla, I hope all those newly-acquired bon-bons haven't left your waistline as bloated as your two-dimensional, dog-and-pony ideas. But congratulations on your stock market victories ... I'm happy for you.

The Marie Antoinette references were not about what you personally have earned or not earned, Darla, but about your unflagging support for the elitist disregard of the current adminstration, even in the face of failure after failure.

Before you write everyone off everyone who hasn't scored on Wall Street, you should know that lots and lots of people earn an honest, productive living the same as you. In fact, some of us on these boards have graduate degrees and earn six-figure salaries working for profit-driven Fortune 500 companies. Life isn't fair and no one expects it to be. But that doesn't mean it's cool to bleed the system dry and let everyone who isn't a genius investor starve to death.
Last edited by Luxury Lex
Gorgeous! The man who presided over the sub-prime mortgage mess that is costing hundreds of thousands their homes can now sail off into the sunset.

quote:
Countrywide CEO Made $132M In 2007 Pay, Stock Sale

CALABASAS, Calif. (AP) "• A securities filing shows Countrywide Financial Corp. CEO Angelo Mozilo earned some $10.8 million in total compensation and cashed out $121.5 million in stock options last year.

The compensation disclosed in the Securities and Exchange Commission filing released Thursday represents an 80 percent cut from the 70-year-old's total pay in 2006 of about $51 million.

The Calabasas-based company reported a yearly loss in 2007 of $704 million amid the nationwide mortgage market meltdown.

It agreed in January to be acquired by Bank of America Corp. for $4.1 billion in stock.

The SEC has been scrutinizing the timing of Mozilo's stock sales. Mozilo has said he's cooperating with the inquiry and has denied making any improper trades.

(© 2008 The Associated Press.
"So before remembering that we are now left with two dangerous choices for president -- a young liberal who is friendly with terrorists or an old liberal who is friendly with Teddy Kennedy -- take a moment to revel in the fact that our long national nightmare is over. It turns out getting rid of the Clintons was the change we've been waiting for."

The Lovely Ann Coulter
Last edited by Darla Diamond
"but about your unflagging support for the elitist disregard of the current adminstration, even in the face of failure after failure."

Wow Lex, where did you get that from? The current administration broke the Promise with America by expanding the Federal Government, Medicare, and mis-managing the War Against Islamo-Fascism, (although General David Petraeus is busy fixing THAT). Also, don't you know that the term ELITIST is generally reserved for Ivy League educated limousine liberals, not us fly-over country hicks?
LIBERTY
"The line between judicial ˜activism' and due deference is not determined by whether one always lets elected branches get their way, but rather by whether a judge will defer to the clear language of the Constitution regardless of whether that means affirming legislative or executive action or overturning it. Sometimes a judge is being activist by refusing to overturn a congressional action despite a lack of constitutional authority for that action, merely because the judge happens to agree with the policy Congress has enacted... The very problem is that too many judges want to ensure that ˜no interest is served except the interest of justice.' The problem is that what one man considers justice is often in conflict with the law, and that too many judges want to put their ideas of justice above the law's dictates. But Oliver Wendell Holmes was right to upbraid a friend who urged him to ˜do justice.' His answer: ˜That is not my job, sir. My job is to apply the law'." "”Quin Hillyer
DICKIPEDIA! A wiki of dicks.

Love the Ann entry.

Ann Coulter

quote:
Coulter attended [Ivy League] Cornell University, where she helped found The Cornell Review in 1984. The fortnightly tabloid, patterned after the Dartmouth Review, railed against affirmative action, gay rights, abortion, anti-apartheidism, and "political correctness," which is a term dicks use derisively when they are chastised for dressing up in blackface at Halloween parties.
quote:
It's a common misconception that conservatives restrict freedom of speech and liberals are the champions of it.


Shut up Darla you Log Cabin Bitch!
How dare you say something like that on these boards!
We are all free thinking unique individuals on The Motherboards and would appreciate it if you would GET WITH THE PROGRAM!!!!
How dare you say something like that.
in fact, I think I'll delete it.
That'll show you not to be a Contrary Mary.
Last edited by daddy

Add Reply

Post
×
×
×
×
Link copied to your clipboard.
×