UMD Libertarians

that’s why the wise chairman obama is going to plan a NEW economy for us

death to capitalists! peter schiff is a counter-revolutionary!
great some doomsday guy who "predicted" the collapse….keeps making predictions.

I predict that someday someone will invade Japan, come back and interview me when that happens so I can tell you I told you so.
except he explains himself as to what and why, unlike you just spewing out random bullshit. We’re sorry that your over Lord and his dim lackeys refuse to accept that we can’t spend our way into prosperity.

yup, much more unrestricted.

OT in general rejects anything associated with Alex Jones

hence the mainstream media videos
I got 10 seconds in and turned it off.

Posters on Democratic Underground have been talking about this major collapse for 3+ years now.

This guy isn’t a prognosticator. With the stupid shit Bush and his cronies were doing…Stevie Wonder could’ve seen this shit coming.

the point is that all this crap we’re doing to prop up the economy is only going to make it worse

and the economy is not going to recover UNTIL we make fundamental changes that we are apparently unwilling to make

the dollar is going to collapse if we continue on our current path

once again, the messenger is discredited because you don’t like his message

In the meantime…we have people starving in the streets and living in boxes.

Ya rly.

I’m not going to turn and tell these people were doing nothing while they lose everything and have to stress about how they’re going to get shelter…or food into their childrens mouths.

Do you want to be the one to tell them, "Hey…we just have to wait a few years until a new economy emerges. Suck it up. People starve all over the world. You just have to put your man-pants on."?

I know Lue has no problem with this because he’s a heartless fuck.

But I know you’re not like that Yail.

Oh…and it’s not that I don’t like his message. It’s that he’s not a prognosticator. People having been warning us since Bush won in 2004.
"We need to stop spending and start saving so we can have capital for private enterprise."

If nobodies spending…who becomes the customers for these new private enterprises? Everybody is saving in this guys scenario.

But his perception as one is what is allowing him to get network airtime to spread his message

Most of the so-called experts are talking about a recovery

yes, but what exactly are we doing?

Is it better to do things that will actually make the problems worse? (because we are concerned with perception?)

Thats how they sold us on the bailout - "but we can’t DO NOTHING!"

And now we know that the bailouts were totally unnecessary
"The credit driven consumer economy is the problem."

Fucking duh. But the reason everybody turned to credit?…..

BECAUSE WAGES HAVEN’T KEPT UP WITH THE COST OF LIVING!!!!

That’s why even I…someone who only had a couple of economics classes in college…could see this coming.

That’s why it’s so asinine that people complain about UAW wages. They’re aren’t making more than they should be making. They’re making what everybody else SHOULD be making. They’ve programmed everybody that we shouldn’t be making that much money.

Well…there was a time when one parent in a family could work…and one could stay home. And they could still provide a house…two cars…college for the kids….food at the dinner table.

Impossible now.

So…people started turning to credit as it got worse. And it’s been obvious for 15 or more years that the citizenry was eventually going to max out on their credit.

And now here we are. With retarded cheerleaders in the back going, "I don’t make as much money as those schmoes….so THEY SHOULD GET LESS MONEY."

Talk about the "misery loves company" approach.

No…the true drain on wages in this country? Executives…healthcare…big pharma. The last two are middle men that are unnecessary and just adding to the overall cost of everything and drawing from the wages that everybody should be making. Burn those evil mother fuckers to the ground and cost of living will start to go down and wages will start to go up.

can you elaborate on this please
Peter Schiff rides his wave, and ignores the fact that nearly all of those who have invested with him since his real estate crash call, have lost their asses.

WSJ had a great article on it last week.

Wages have kept up with the cost of living. The problem is that everyone believes they should have 50" plasmas, mercedes leases, and mcmansions. When you THINK you deserve it, you use credit to make it happen.

I don’t give a fuck about Schiff

Its all about the message

And what does "lost their asses" mean?

If gold soars in the next couple of years they are going to do quite well.

Any investment can go South in the short-term. Did he promise these people instant profits?

Its a totally-knee jerk argument.

First off, the cost of drugs is outrageous. Kid at my work….good kid…smart kid…extremely hard working. Starts having seizures at 16. Ends up having epilepsy. 22 now. With insurance…his cost of medication is STILL $200 dollars a month. Now that goes at insurance as well.

My Mother is a Psycho-analyst. Runs a practice out of her home. She gets diagnosed with diabetes a few years ago. Her insurance now runs her about $800 a month. And she still pays several hundred for medication.

And the biggest problem with big pharma? There is not nearly as much money in cures. There is way more money in treatments where people have to keep spending and spending and spending to make sure they don’t die. That’s why with the present status quo…you will never EVER….

…see a CURE for cancer.

And in this way…capitalism and big pharma are actually hurting society.

It means their account values have declined 50-60%, THAT’S WHAT.

the cost of healthcare has also risen dramatically

No…wages have not kept up with inflation.

And your thought process is the big scam they’ve laid down on you. Don’t buy it. Wages have NOT kept up with inflation. The buying power (in regards to cash) has gone down for the majority of Americans.

Let’s ignore that it takes upteen Billion to develop the treatments for these diseases. While I agree that MANY of the costs of pharma are way too high, complaining about spending $200 a month on medicine to combat a once fatal disease, like epileptic seizures, is NOT a big issue.

Throw a chart up, don’t claim it.

No…but it goes to show you why there won’t be cures for these things…and that you’ll find big pharma lobbyists behind legislation that makes sure we maintain the status quo. Because they won’t make nearly as much money if cures are found.

whats wrong with a short-term drop in a long-term investment?

this is a big part of the problem, people have this idea that they put their money in the market and immediately it will sky-rocket

if it drops 60% then over the next 2 years recovers to 0 then rises to 200%, where is the problem exactly?

When the dollar collapses gold will soar

The dollar is holding up in the shortterm so of course his investments are down in the shortterm.

It doesn’t fucking matter

Find it yourself. I’m not going to spend 20 minutes finding you a chart.

How about you find a chart for your assertion. Then you’ll have your chart.

How about a compromise? Remove their patent expirations and they’ll lower the cost of medicine? How’s that?

You can’t find it, and you need to because you’re the idiot that made the assertion in the first place.

I am sure you can find an article in Forbes from this month that discusses it.

I’ve seen the charts. I had them bookmarked on my last computer……..that died in November.

So…no….I’m not going to spend my morning looking for a chart.

I didn’t call you names. So I ask you refrain from calling me names.

And if you really want to make an assertion to the opposite….and you really want a chart…you can do your own work.

Sounds fantastic.

No let’s talk about the rip off that is healthcare.

that’s a real stretch. its highly unlikely that a pharm company would withhold production of a drug that can cure a disease. the FDA has little if any bargaining power, so while the company has the patent on the drug (and the drug WILL be approved so long as its safe and it works) it can charge almost whatever it wants. I doubt they would ignore that in favor of potential long term profits from keeping people sick and incrementally putting out new drugs with marginally improved benefit since drug companies ARE in competition (unlike, say oil) and if another company puts out the drug first, the other company is screwed.

So you still trust corporations?

I’m sorry…I have no faith in them whatsoever to do the right thing.

corporations always do the right thing

the right thing for the corporation

i don’t have much reason to believe there is some secret conglomerate of pharmaceutical companies that works together to prevent full-on cures from being developed

Oh…I don’t think it’s conspiratorial bullshit. I think it’s what corporations are about. I’ve worked for them. I know that the bottom line is the dollar. NOT people.

Though they need customers…customers are not the most important thing. Profits are.

It’s not conspiratorial. It’s business.

If the corporation realizes that this is what is best for it, then that is what it will do.

There doesn’t have to be a secret conglomerate, just single pharmaceutical companies with the capital to research new drugs, realizing that they have discovered a cure for a disease that is keeping their share prices up. Instead it would make more monetary sense to tweak the cure to ensure that while it does treat the symptoms of the disease in question, it does not stamp it out.

its possible but i disagree. a full on cure would reap the company immense short term profits. i agree that in the long term their profits would be less than had they incrementally released drugs for the same disease, but id argue that competing companies would create similar drugs in the meantime, and could potentially develop the cure and leave the first company in the dust.

The problem is, you cannot create a similar drug if the original company put a patent out. This is the environment that these companies operate in nowadays. Very similar to the Big 3 back in the 40s to 60s stamping out innovation and competition.

I don’t NEED a chart to know that your claim is not accurate. You made a blanket statement that was in error.

The patent terms are so short it’s almost irrelevant anyways.

No…I did not.

Yes, you did. End of story.

No I did not. End of story.

We can go on like this as long as you like. I assure you I’m infinitely more patient than you are.
Wait….TCMS…I made the statement incorrectly.

Originally, I should have said…wages haven’t kept up with the cost of living.
http://www.workinglife.org/wiki/Wages+and+Benefits%3A+Real+Wages+(1964-2004)

and at least 10 years between the development of a treatment and it being put on the market. That is, if it ever reaches that point.

we would be going deeper into technical science stuff to debate this point, but i’ll say this is incorrect. for example, the original drug might be a racemic mixture of R and S enantiomers. if another company develops a procedure to produce the same drug but only the S enantiomer (or whichever the body requires), then it can produce the drug with its own patent.

on another note, i’ll point to the two main drugs from a type of leukemia, CML. the first was Gleevec, produced by Novartis, which doesn’t work on some patients. Another company, Bristol-Myers Squibb, developed a new drug, Sprycel, which has shown efficacy in these patients. The mechanisms by which these two drugs work are pretty similar (they target the same protein bcr-abl)

and also, read up on Vectibix and Erbitux. Both are ANTIBODIES that target the SAME RECEPTOR. i don’t know how much more similar you can get

New.. like what happened to the Peso in the early ’90s? They had to lop off a few zeros and call it the Nuevo (new) Peso. Like New Coke? They’re going to print money ’till the cows come home, then a car will cost 10 million dollars, and they’ll have to lop off a few zeros, and call our new currency the New Dollar, or perhaps the Amero?

What diseases do you think drug co’s should be curing that they currently choose not to?

What about the cost of hydro, quality goes up and prices come down.
And they’d need to, what with the standard of living dropping with the wages.
This is why the economy is tanking.

When pay drops lower that inflation, the difference in many cases has been made up from credit card use or spending the equity of the over inflated value of property.
Now property values are falling, many people find themselves in the position of owing more that the property is worth.
Real estate bubble.
Credit card bubble.
They’re coming home to roost. And as unemployment rises, this can only get worse.
We have to stop falsely holding up the prices, let go of the toxic debt, and let the banks and hedge funds sink or swim, deposits are protected.
When the price reaches a level that the market will accept, then the investors will return.
If we go along with the rescue package, it just delays the inevitable, and when it does come, things will be much much worse, and the dollar could collapse leaving the economy open to hyper inflation.

.

This is an obvious statement that every talking head is afraid to make. There’s nothing wrong with lower prices. The high prices are clearly incorrect.

The jury is out on this one I’d say - due to the fact that most every other developed country is in about the same state as the US is. The Bank of England and the European Central Bank have been slashing their rates much like we have. But still, they’re not as close to zero as we are. The US stimulus packages are quite a bit larger than the ones being proposed in Europe, which is another strike against the US Dollar. However, during all the turmoil in 2008 the US dollar got a lot stronger due to a flight to safety/quality.

For the US dollar to really fall off a cliff, there will have to be a loss of confidence in the United States’ credit quality relative to all other developed countries.
There isn’t money in curing diseases, the money is in treating them.

i’m the king of it so i can’t bitch
How can supporting the toxic debt be any use.
Let it go, and value the companies that remain accurately.
It’s a mistake for the government to support bad debt, it’s over priced.
We must have a fire sale, let investors buy what’s any good, at a fair price, if no one will buy it, it must be worthless, why support it, and pay the banks or shareholders who own it, today’s prices which are over inflated.

Great post!

I totally agree, but it’s not just healthcare and insurance. The main culprit is banking/Federal Reserve. So-called free trade has been one of the other main causes of our economic downturn and most government policies have intentionally harmed the US economy. The globalists control the US government and they want to knock the US down economically, while raising the economies of developing nations at the same time.

The American people are pathetic sheep. Allowing the government to run amok for decades wasting trillions of dollars, while the middle class is being taxed out of existence.

Shadow Stats has explained how the government manipulates economic data, but the sheeple don’t want to hear it.

David Walker, the former comptroller of the GAO has warned us about the 30-40 trillion dollar deficit for social security and medicaid, but the sheeple don’t want to hear it. Screw tomorrow and future generations, it’s all about me, me, me, me, me, me.

I have been talking for years about the false economy. A false economy driven by credit and government policies. Look at 401 Ks and IRAs. During the 1990s we had millions of Americans who had money taken directly out of their paycheck and go straight into the stock market. This was great for a while as people watched their portfolios grow significantly. But then of course, the stock market went down. How does the market go down when millions of people have moeny taken directly form their paychecks every week and pump them into the market? Obviously the rich people sold off a lot of their stocks. There is no other explanation for how the markets could go down.

“About 50 million Americans have 401(k) plans, which have $2.5 trillion in total assets, estimates the Employee Benefit Research Institute in Washington. In the 12 months following the stock market’s peak in October 2007, more than $1 trillion worth of stock value held in 401(k)s and other “defined-contribution” plans was wiped out, according to the Boston College research center. If individual retirement accounts, which consist largely of money rolled over from 401(k)s, are taken into account, about $2 trillion of stock value evaporated.”

The above article is pretty good. We have been swindled, but most of the American people are too stupid to realize it and continue to vote the people who helped swindle us into office.

Pathetic sheep.

Lukkie’s correct.

As much as we like to pretend that these companies try to keep us sick. It’s just not true. There’s too much monies out there for someone not to develop a similar drug that acts on the same receptor. Especially considering most of the science behind the drug discovery/design is free or at least obtained by the mass of the scientific communtiy.

As a researcher I can tell you, these companies are too scared of someone coming out with a similar or the same type of drug before them that they often actually RUSH things out as fast as possible.

Also talking about "the cure for cancer" is just nonsensical and shows how little whoever brought it up understands about cancer. There probably won’t be ONE cure for ALL cancers considering cancer is a condition, not a simple disease. It can be caused by many different proteins and mutations. Far too complex than to make a blanket statement about it.

As for the claim that people can’t develop similar drugs under patent laws…..uhhh that’s not necessarily true. Many drugs are developed that affect similar receptors but just in minute differences in drug structure. You generally have too show a different lineage. But that’s not terribly difficult. It’s not like one drug company has a patent over anything with a 6 carbon ring involved. Often the drug can be developed fairly easily by making minor structure changes. As I mentioned…companies are fearful that someone else will before they release theirs.

Did he say that about Bush as well?

The fact that 10 drug companies made more profit in 2002 than the top 490 other corporations in the FORTUNE 500 combined will be lost on you……….

In 2002, as the economic downturn continued, big pharma showed only a slight drop in profits—from 18.5 to 17.0 percent of sales. The most startling fact about 2002 is that the combined profits for the ten drug companies in the Fortune 500 ($35.9 billion) were more than the profits for all the other 490 businesses put together ($33.7 billion).

SICKENING.

The fact that the drug companies spent hundreds of millions of dollars lobbying Congress is obviously lost on you as well….

WASHINGTON, July 7, 2005 — The pharmaceutical and health products industry has spent more than $800 million in federal lobbying and campaign donations at the federal and state levels in the past seven years, a Center for Public Integrity investigation has found. Its lobbying operation, on which it reports spending more than $675 million, is the biggest in the nation. No other industry has spent more money to sway public policy in that period. Its combined political outlays on lobbying and campaign contributions is topped only by the insurance industry.

The FACT that drug companies have buried studies and manipulate data on a regular basis is obviously lost on you……..

* Last month, analysts led by an expert at the University of California in San Francisco checked 164 clinical trials testing 33 different drugs submitted for FDA approval from 2001 to 2002. One in four had yet to be published. Almost all of the unpublished findings made the drug in question look bad. * In September, some UCSF folks reviewed 900 FDA filings involving 90 new drugs. More than half of the clinical trials were still unpublished 5 years after the drugs had been approved. (More on UCSF’s work here.) * Earlier this year, doctors at the University of Washington reported in the journal Oncology that only one in five cancer clinical trials ever is disclosed. * Earlier this fall, researchers at the State University of New York reviewed 1,835 clinical research articles from four leading otolaryngology journals and reported that a third of them failed to mention any side effects at all.

THE VIOXX manipulation is well known to many, but still unknown to people who enojy having others tell them what to think…..

The REVOLVING DOOR POLICY AT THE FDA is obviously lost on you as well. Ya know the revolving door which allowed the approval of VIOX, resulting in a 4.85 billion dollar settlement from MERCK? Ya know, the revolving door which allowed, according to Dr David Graham, an official of the US government’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA), who became a whistleblower claiming that Vioxx was responsible for 140,000 heart disease cases and up to 56,000 American deaths.

Yeah, blame the expensive drug approval process, even though the drug makers have shown they place LITTLE TO NO VALUE ON HUMAN LIFE and that they will use every dirty trick in the book to increase profit.

Oh, but the asses cry, IT IS BECAUSE OF THE HIGH COST OF THE APPROVAL PROCESS.

Well, we wouldn’t need such an expensive approval process if the drug companies weren’t dirty, stinking murderers.

I can post a long list of their crimes.

there you go.
charts and everything.

"A quick summary of the data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Expenditure Survey paints a very different picture of family spending. Consider what a family of four spends on clothing. Designer toddler outfits and $200 sneakers are favorite media targets, but when it is all added up, including the Tommy Hilfiger sweatshirts and Ray-Ban sunglasses, the average family of four today spends 33 percent less on clothing than a similar family did in the early 1970s. Overseas manufacturing and discount shopping mean that today’s family is spending almost $1,200 a year less than their parents spent to dress themselves.

What about food? Surely, families are eating out more and buying shopping carts full of designer water and exotic fruit? In fact, today’s family of four actually spends 23 percent less on food (at-home and restaurant eating combined) than its counterpart of a generation ago. The slimmed-down profit margins in discount supermarkets have combined with new efficiencies in farming to cut more costs for the American family.

Appliances tell the same picture. There is a lot of complaining about microwave ovens and espresso machines: Affluenza rails against appliances “that were deemed luxuries as recently as 1970, but are now found in well over half of U.S. homes, and thought of by a majority of Americans as necessities: dishwashers, clothes dryers, central heating and air conditioning, color and cable TV.” But manufacturing costs are down, and durability is up. Today’s families are spending 51 percent less on major appliances than their predecessors a generation ago."

This is primarily the result of the way our healthcare ’system’ is set up. But this thread has been derailed enough already so i’ll leave it at that and if you want to discuss it further, create a new thread

Great find!

Yeah great find.

Even if it is misleading.

Yes, clothing is cheaper in real wages, as we allowed our textile industry to be destroyed through so-called free trade policies and now most clothing items and other textiles are made in developing nations.

Food has also gone done in real wages, thanks to large subsidies to giant corporations which have been making record profits.

Then of course we have electronics. Once again, these have also gone done in price because we import these products that we used to make here in the US and because of so-called free trade policies, as well as improvements in manufaturing and economies of scale.

What about housing? Fuel? Utilities? What about auto insurance, health insurance, personal hygiene products, property taxes, entertainment and college tuition?

I know I am new. I know I don’t have an avatar, or a sub. You see, I am waiting to see how many thinking people frequent this forum before I pay one cent. So far, it’s not looking too good.

NEWSFLASH: The government has been manipulating economic data for decades!

WAKE UP!

– in the 1980s, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) switched from using house prices to their rental equivalent;

– BLS has long adjusted prices for quality improvements; it’s called "hedonic adjustment" that, in fact, cooks the books; so if computer speed increases, its cost is lowered proportionally even if its price rises; the same is true for autos with better brakes or other assorted innovations; again the result is distortion, and it affects all sorts of products; as a result, inflation is artificially and fraudulently lowered.

IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO SHED YOUR IGNORANCE, THEN EDUCATE YOURSELF.

REAL WAGES HAVE BEEN DECLINING FOR A LONG TIME.

more reading…….

So, why is it important for the government to manipualte economic data?

Let’s take a look at CPI………….

Revamping the CPI is a politician’s dream: Seemingly painless tax increases and spending cuts result. The Congressional Budget Office says lowering the CPI by one percentage point would increase the IRS’s annual take by $45 billion a decade from now (because tax brackets are adjusted for inflation each year). At the same time, it would reduce the growth of Social Security payments, military pensions, and interest payments by $90 billion.

Wow, doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see the advantages of keeping CPI artificially low.

I will drop the pharma issue.

Still though, my last post is important to show how we have been living in a false economy. The government has been manipulating economic data for decades now, but some people just don’t seem to flipping get it.

if another country can manufacture quality products for less than we can, that is a good thing right? as was posted, the average family spends LESS on those products today than in the past, correct? is that not a good thing? sounds like more money in the average family’s pocket.

i hope you’re not suggesting protectionist policies.

All we need, more cry baby idiots that would rather find someone to blame than deal with reality.

Poor you.

You couldn’t be farther from the truth.

Lets just bold one part you brought up.

Most people didn’t have it easy on a single income family back in the 40-60’s like you’d like to think. The real difference in this between then and now is that what people spent thier money on. You have so many more luxuries and expenses these days than you did back then. Add to it that we are so much more irresponsible with our money. If we honestly had to go back to how our grandparents were at our age we’d probably want to kill ourselves. There was no money spent 3 times a week for eating out or entertainment, it was a rare and special occasion. There was no money for overpriced coffee’s or babysitters, no paying $150/month so you can have 1,000 tv channels of which you only watch about 15.(taking it into account if they had TV, and that availablity). There was no luxury cars on lease payments, and no homes on low interest ARM mortgages. If they had two cars, they were inexpensive and not always on payments like they are now. There average american didn’t have a college funds for thier kids, as it wasn’t expected like it is now that kids are going to go to college.

Point is, in thier generation it was difficult to get credit, and they did not spend or have the simply luxuries you take for granted every single day. It is our society and our culture that has gotten us to thinking that the average laborer should make enough money to afford things way beyond what they used to.

If you need to witness proof of this, go interview some elderly people and talk to them, they will tell you how it was and what was so different from how it is today.

Because the quality of healthcare has risen dramatically.

I’m not saying healthcare now isn’t overpriced, but back then you didn’t go to the doctor unless it was a dire emergency, and if you got something like cancer… tough shit.
Saving companies and banks that fail due to incompetence is going to destroy our economy…

Did you bother to look at any of the information I posted?

If you want to know what is really going on, check out some of the links I posted, or do your own research. A good place to start is by searching for these keywords…….

"GOVERNMENT MANIPULATES ECONOMIC DATA"

…….and then start sifting.

Let me know what you think.

What are you talking about? You told another poster "Good find", for information which was accurate, but totally misleading. CPI has been manipulated for years. Real inflation is considerably higher than what is reported and I posted why, because it saves the government billions and billions in payments.

You then call me a cry baby idiot, just for pointing out the REALITY, but morons like you are too flipping brainwashed to know the truth when you see it.

Exactly what reality were you referring to?

The reality is, you are a moron.

how was the article I posted misleading? It gave you facts about the reasons the middle class is struggling to get by these days.

Huh? The article you posted showed that for 3 categories, the cost of those goods has DECREASED.

Textiles, food and appliances.

How does that show reasons the middle class is struggling these days?

While the article itself was very good, the EXCERPTS you posted were misleading.

that guy sounds like a broken record

well if you had actually read the article, you would have noticed that the section before it contained the oft repeated sentiment that its the luxuries that have driven Americans to the brink of bankruptcy. Buying new TVs instead of saving and the like.
The excerpts show that its not the luxuries and goods we buy. Its the cost of necessities that have climbed while wages have remained stagnant and even decreased in some areas.

Yes, I saw that, after I replied.

I apologize.

I was wrong.

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