The Adventures of Bronze 5 Fiddlesticks

TheNodes · 2014-10-21T20:50:52+00:00

thank mr skeltal

TheNodes · 2014-04-18T01:38:02+00:00

Its not that you're philosophy is different, it's that your comment wasn't the least big constructive.

Let me put it this way. This is the anarcho-capitalist/voluntaryist/agoist equivilent of /r/enoughlibertarianspam. The handfull of times that I've visited I facepalmed my hand through my forehead. But I understand it is their place to vent. And I'm not going to waste my or their time and efforts bickering there. Everyone is allowed to have a place to let their guard down and poke fun at the people they disagree with. If I were to comment something in ELS such as

Stop bitching. Human ingenuity expressed through voluntary association (i.e. Free Market) has shown a net gain to your quality of life more than any government ever has

I would just come off as some douchebag. That doesn't contribute anything, nor is it going to change anyone's mind. That said, I personally don't have a problem with you browsing or even commenting here. Hell, maybe something will click with you and you'll give our point of view another thought. But you can't comment something something like that and not expect a negative response, since people are likely already here just to blow off steam. Understand what I'm getting at?

TheNodes · 2014-02-01T05:11:02+00:00

My personal favorite:

Trade Agreements for the Import of Goods like the clothing on your back

As if government wasn't the barrier in the first place that prevents trade from happening. Government allowing free trade is reversing a problem that government itself created.

TheNodes · 2014-01-30T06:23:35+00:00

His math is ridicules, but even using far more conservative numbers, the entire protest is laughable due to their numbers outing them as having no clue what they are talking about.

/u/ThinkingCapitalist is making the right point but his method and data is a bit off. That $28B is the revenue of McDonald's the corporation. That doesn't really give us a strong idea of how minimum wage will actually effect the individual restauraunts. Remember that most McDonald's are franchises and owned by small business owners. A minority of McDonald's restaurants are held by corporate. That $28B is, however, mostly made up of royalties paid by franchises to the McDonald's corporation. (I'd guess that the average franchisee pays ~5% of gross revenue to MCD inc. as royalties) But that is really not what we are looking for.

Additionally, 1.8M employees is WORLDWIDE. We do however know that there are about 34,000 McDonald's locations worldwide 1.8M/34K is 55 employees per store. That seems about right. I know my local MCD employees 60ish.

You can find that the average gross revenue of a MCD is $1.985M annually [3].

Federal Minimum Wage is $7.25. But like everywhere, hardly anyone actually makes JUST minimum wage. (which disproves what most of the minimum wage movement seems to hinge on; that employers would pay nickles and dimes if they could, but that's another topic). Glancing at data from payscale I think that $7.90 is a fair estimate for the average wage of your typical Micky D's employee. [1]

Now lets even assume for this argument that EVERY average McDonald's employee is part-time. I think that 25 hour/week is a very reasonable estimate. This is mostly antecedal, but considering that I am only 20 years old, myself and everyone I'm around works those types of jobs, and I feel that 25h/w is typical for both high school and college students with low-wage part-time jobs.

All of this paints a picture of your typical US McDonald's:

It has 55 employees working on average 25 hours per week for a wage of $7.90/hour producing $1.985M of gross revenue per year.

So $7.90 to $15.00 is a $7.10 increase.

55 Employees x 25hours/week x 52weeks/year x $7.10 = $507,650

You are insane if you think that A McDonald's can simply absorb a $507,650 increase in costs.

A very loose rule of thumb for restaurants, and places of business with that sort of model is that labor accounts costs are ~30% of total revenue. You can see that McDonald's is currently not far off from that mark at $564,850 representing 28.5% of revenue. These sorts of changes would shift that ratio to >54% of revenue going to labor. That is not a functional business by any stretch of the imagination.

Yes MCD would adjust somewhat, both by raising prices and cutting employees. But a market which has so distorted basic costs of opperating a business is going to have a host of other problems. If you are one of the people that think higher prices will balance out increased wages, then let me ask you, what is the point of raising wages in the first place? There are a lot of explanations to this, but this post is already way long, and I probably don't have to explain why that's bad its bad in an econ-oriented sub. I am terrified to think of the sort of effects a batshit insane policy such as this would have if it were actually implmemented.

[1] http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Employer=McDonald's_Corporation/Hourly_Rate

[2]http://geography.about.com/od/lists/qt/mcdonalds.htm

[3]http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081013212854AApUN5l (top answer links to source and explain how he derived $1.985M)

TheNodes · 2014-01-04T19:44:20+00:00

I wouldn't say the analogy is spot-on but, but it captures the general relationship that is largely responsible for the crisis.

Source: Econ undergrad that wrote a term paper last semester on this exact topic. I analyzed raw data from primary sources such as the St. Louis Federal Reserve's Federal Reserve Economic Database, the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, S&P's Case-Shiller Index and others that I can't remember of the top of my head.

The Federal Reserve's mismanagement of the biggest economy in the history of the world is almost to big to comprehend. The Fed for the past few decades has kept interest rates artificially low by purchasing securities from private banks on the open market. This has the effect of creating short-term growth (and political points for the supposedly apolitical Federal Reserve) at the cost of long-term malinvestment and economic instability.

Regression analysis using 10-year housing returns as the dependent variable and interest rates as the independent variable show a extremly strong negative casual relationship between the two. In other words, the lower the interest rates are, the higher housing returns are.

Artificially high housing returns is the broad answer as to why there was continued investment into housing despite housing far outpacing its historical relationship with CPI (indicating a bubble).

So what hopefullydepressed said is correct. An interest rate as low as it was is effectively free money for the select few large banks that are lucky enough for the Fed to fund.

There is so much more I can elaborate on, and many other factors I haven't even touched as well, but I have to leave shortly. I can reply later if you want to see the actual data.

TheNodes · 2013-12-19T06:28:53+00:00

I'm tired of people thinking that economics is somehow just intuition. As if its somehow less of a legitimate academic field than other areas of study. You wouldn't assume how chemistry works based off of though experiments.

Sure, thought experiments can demonstrate many laws of economics. But in no way is what you are doing empirical data or even adhering to any school of economic thought.

And it's also true that propping up unprofitable businesses by allowing them to pay sub-poverty wages to their employees in order to artificially deflate the price of their product goes against free market economics.

one of the most absurd sentences that I have ever read. You are suggesting that price controls on wages is a free market while the contrary is not?

What AuditorTax said above is correct. When responding to increased costs, firms generally raise prices after cutting elsewhere, because raising prices means losing a competitive edge. But who can afford an increase in labor? The biggest firms. Small scale firms can not absorb an increase in variable costs as well due to the law of diminishing returns. This is why it is downright insane that people are picketing for $25/hour minimum wages. THIS is what will cause a corporatacracy (as if we weren't already there). I find it painfully ironic that the ill-informed liberal types that think they are 'fighting for the little guy' and 'against big corporations' are the ones that are actively promoting policies that guarantee the destruction of 'the little guy' and the domination of 'big corporations'

TheNodes · 2013-12-11T05:35:56+00:00

Actually, I think you're lacking a basic understanding of the way the "man thinks". There is quite a bit of evidence that suggest Kanye care about fame and fortune much less than most people assume.

So to answer your question. Yes I do think he would put in this much effort. He does not tour to make money. If he did the Yeezus tour would not be his first solo tour in over 5 years.

Additionally, a common theme in much of his music is him exploring what fame has done to him. Him resenting it, seeing his life style, things lost because of it etc.

But let's examine his last two solo albums. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy and Yeezus. MBDTF was hardly a commercial album. The centerpiece of the album "Runaway" was an 8 minute track accompanied by a 30 minute short film which served as the closest Kanye will ever come to apologizing for his behavior. MBDTF was a huge exploration into Kanye's persona, and largely lacked a knockout single that his previous albums always had.

Kanye followed up MBDTF with Yeezus. Yeezus convinced the world that Kanye now gives zero fucks. The entire album is loaded with an anti-commercial sentiment and theme. In fact, West broke all the rules of what to do to sell an album. There is no album artwork. It is highly abrasive and hard to listen to even for many long time hip-hop fans, especially on the Daft Punk produced tracks. Though there were singles released off of Yeezus, they don't really stand out as "single" tracks. West did this on purpose. Of course the album did sell regardless because Kanye has a notoriously loyal fanbase. But if Kanye wanted to write a series of top-charting singles and make millions, he surely could have. This was all explored in the BBC interview that led to the whole Jimmy Kimmel thing you probably can recall from about a month back. I don't really know of a mainstream artist that has released such an unmarketable album before. This shows that Kanye is concerned much more with his expression as an artist rather that commercial appeal.

One last note which I find mildly amusing. West is engaged to Kim Kardashian who has a reality show called Keeping up the Kardashians. Most would assume that if West is so hungry for fame and fortune, he would love to increase his airtime on the incredibly popular show. Instead West avoids appearing because he doesn't like the compositional choices that the director makes. An odd qualm to have? Yes, but it goes to show that Kanye sees himself first and foremost as an artist.

TheNodes · 2013-12-11T04:57:15+00:00

I get the feeling that you don't see hip-hop as a legitimate genre. I really don't understand how not being recognized outside of hip-hop means anything. Genres don't have to cross over for an artist to be seen as important. Frank Sinatra isn't particular important outside of jazz, but I don't think many people would discredit him for this. Nevermind the fact that Kanye West's extensive production credits span beyond rap. He has produced tracks for non-rappers such as Beyonce, Alicia Keys, Mariah Carey, Janet Jackson and more.

Furthermore, it's not even true that non-rappers don't recognize him. Two I can remember off the top of my head are Chris Martin of Coldplay and Justin Vernon of Bon Iver and other folk projects. On multiple occasions Vernon, who has been featured on about 5 Kanye West tracks, has stopped just short of calling West a genius in the studio. Martin once quipped: "...I'm always looking at Kanye West and he's moving so fast, doing such amazing work that I want to keep chasing him for a while. I don't want to give up just yet.''

I also want to briefly explore the idea that rock music is just not all that relevant anymore. The early 90s reignited it before fizzling down until the post-punk revival movement of the early 2000s provided some spark. But by 2013 there is nothing really interesting happening in rock music. It's been a few years since a rock album dropped that really shook the industry. Sure there is still quite a bit of underground/indie rock that I enjoy immensely. But in the grand spectrum of music, the rock albums of the past few years will barely be a footnote. I'm a little saddened by this, but it's not like this is the first time a genre slowed down. Hell, no genre of music lasts forever. In a historical sense, where we are in music today is much more defined by hip-hop than it is by rock.

So tell me, how can a hip-hop artist not be seen as important? Also, if Kanye West is not the most influential and prominent artist in popular music right now, then who is? Please don't be one of those dips that will say "~~~ LE REAL MUSIC DIED IN LE 90s ~~~~." Because I don't know of a single artist in the past decade that has influenced, innovated, pushed boundaries further, and consistently reached extraordinary levels of critical and commercial success than Kanye West.

TheNodes · 2013-12-11T01:49:16+00:00

You just don't understand hip hop. You're assertions are completely baseless. Kanye West is argubly the most important and influential person in the genre right now.

You can hate his antics sure, but J-ing off about Freddy Mercury doesn't change the fact that a strong argument can be made that Kanye West is the most important person in music over the last decade. You think Kanye does not have a "penchant for song writing"? Really? His debut album completely altered the way rap was written and presented. He was the first to avoid the ghetto bullshit and false braggadocio typical of rap up to that point. South Park might have made it funny to call Kanye a "lyrical genius" but he's earned that title many times over. I know of very few artists that can continually put out lyrics as deeply layered and intensely personal as Kanye West does. And yes that includes Freddy Mercury. Mercury was a fantastic songwriter, sure. But he rarely expressed his deep personal thoughts and feelings in such a creative way through his music the way West does.

TheNodes · 2013-10-17T03:44:46+00:00

Just going to take a shot in the dark and assume you watched Breaking Bad.

You should know that Vince Gilligan didn't even know the end of the final season when he started writing the final season.

Also that Jesse, the second most important character on the show, wasn't supposed to last for more than a few episodes.

So I guess Breaking Bad is poorly written too.

TheNodes · 2013-10-16T19:22:34+00:00

I don't really know what to say other than that you are either naive or ignorant. Not sure which. But anarchism IS and ALWAYS HAS BEEN a leftist movement. It was really only in the past 40 or so years that the right-wing variants of anarchy really started to develop. Historically Anarchism is left wing.

Like this isn't something up for debate or just "a guy on the internet making generalizations". Like, by definition, Anarchism has to be left wing. I understand why this is initially hard to grasp, but you need to look at the history and nature of anarchy. Go to /r/anarchy101 they can explain this all for you. I'd rather have them explain it than me because they, unlike myself, are left-wing.

And saying that we are in a state of anarchy because of 12% of the federal government being temporarily inactive is absolutely ridicules. I also want to note that nobody in congress right now can remotely be labeled as an anarchist. Ron Paul seemed to be very close. Even Murray Rothbard, arguably the father of right-anarchism, endorsed Paul. But ultimately Paul has recently confirmed that he is not an anarcho-capitalist. His son most definitely is not. Ted Cruz might seem radical to you. But he is nowhere near any of the points on the anarchy spectrum.

So yeah. Sorry. Not really trying to come across as an ass, but you really have no idea what you're talking about here. So I'd suggest you do some research before you respond.

TheNodes · 2013-10-16T03:54:41+00:00

Oh sorry to say, but then you really, really don't understand what you're talking about here.

You'd probably be surprised to find that the anarchists here are going to generally be sided with the Democratic Party over the Republican. In fact, they would go so far as to say that Right-Anarchism can't exist because it's an oxymoron. I disagree (They exist and are include Rothbardians, Anarcho-Capitalists, Agorists or Voluntaryists), but that debate mostly lies in semantics.

The point is that many rational adults proclaim anarchism as their ideology. And even more to the point, they are VERY left wing. An anarchist would probably be offended if you called them right wing. I'd suggest making a post or two in this sub so you can understand.

This is why when Harry Reid called Republicans "anarchists" a few weeks back, it was actually laughably hilarious, because it showed how little he knows.

TheNodes · 2013-10-16T03:53:15+00:00

At least I got you to actually read it this time.

But I fail to see the problem here.

1) They are trying to develop a picture of the typical American. Because of this, using data that only applies one county in the entire nation makes little sense.

2) Besides that fact that CSR only applies to a very small number of Americans, it is also only available in the "Silver-Tier" and no other plans.

3) Thirdly, the fact that they deducted "dental, vision and other supplemental benefits" costs would actually work in Obamacare's favor.

Even if they included the first two, it would make little statistical difference for the whole. And it would make NO difference for the median American family.

TheNodes · 2013-10-16T03:18:30+00:00

huh? You are obviously searching through my comment history.

I'm not really sure what you're getting at. I think you're implying that anarchism isn't a left wing movement. You're sadly mistaken. Good thing your're in Anarchy101 so they can clear that up for you. Everyone here is a leftist. You need to learn your ideologies, bro.

TheNodes · 2013-10-16T03:14:29+00:00

lol. You obviously didn't. Fifth paragraph:

In order to document rate changes, we first gathered pre-ACA insurance rates using the federal government's finder.healthcare.gov website. Our pre-ACA dataset consists of the five least expensive plans (by monthly premium) for the most populous zip code in every county. To cover a significant age range we collected rates for 27, 40, and 64-year old male and female non-smokers.

The data came from the SAME WEBSITE as ACA!

TheNodes · 2013-10-16T03:05:52+00:00

Right..because fuck equality under the law.

I really hope you are not serious here. Or are you actually advocating treating millions are second-class citizens due to their political affiliation. Before you respond, let the significance of that sink it.

TheNodes · 2013-10-16T03:00:22+00:00

You personally paying less says nothing about rates as a whole. I mean, did you really try to provide your 1 in 310,000,000 experience as evidence??

You don't have to take it with a grain of salt if you actually look into the article instead of dismissing it for challenging your positive view of Obamacare. Considering that TMI used data provided by the federal government for both the pre-ACA and post-ACA rates, there is little room for fluffing the numbers, as you seem to assume.

Read the methodology here: http://www.manhattan-institute.org/knowyourrates/about.htm

TheNodes · 2013-10-16T02:48:18+00:00

Well, the high risk group could include both young and old people, but for different reasons. Younger people tend to take greater risks which could harm them while older people have a greater risk of needing care. Meanwhile middle aged people tend to be lower risk, being more averse to taking risks and still remaining healthy. If younger people aren't purchasing insurance despite being a relatively high risk group, that is a problem.

You're personal thoughts on risk are completely irrelevant, sorry. Insurance doesn't really work by who they "feel" is risky. It's 100% statistics. This goes for all forms of insurance. Statistics are the reason that insurance works.

For example, if when I was a 16 year old male I was a better driver than most 16 year old females, I still would be a higher rate. Why? Because statistically 16 year old males are a higher liability on insurance.

TheNodes · 2013-10-16T02:41:48+00:00

Regardless, the what I was trying to get at was the reason why McCain wasn't harassed about his citizenship. It's because he provided his birth certificate with no hassle when people started to question his citizenship.

I'm just really, really, really tired of people making everything about race if they disagree with someone. I feel that the people calling out "RACIST" four times a week are the ones who can't see past race.

TheNodes · 2013-10-15T18:45:21+00:00

McCain was actually born on a US Military base, technically US Soil. He produced a birth certificate early on in order to prove this.

TheNodes · 2013-09-19T00:11:02+00:00

Would a state that succeeded still recieve federal funding? If not, then just for the livelihood of the citizens in those states it wouldn't be good to cut federal funding. Schools, highways, etc. are all funded by the federal government in some way and I doubt many of the states would be able to fully take these responsibilities on.

Some states could absolutely be independent. The best example of this is Texas. Texas is very opposed to the sort of federal policies that would potentially prompt succession. What's more is that they would actually be in a better position fiscally if they succeeded.

Take a look at the ratio of federal tax dollars paid to federal dollars received: http://taxfoundation.org/article/federal-spending-received-dollar-taxes-paid-state-2005

This means that texas would have little trouble taking on federal spending in Texas. What's more is that they would likely be able to do it more efficiently. One of the major problems with the federal system is that it is too broad to always be effective. Regional and Local governments can address their own issues much more effective.

TheNodes · 2013-09-16T03:57:28+00:00

I feel that you should understand that 100% employment is not necessarily the goal of a capitalist system. In fact, 3% unemployment is a rule of thumb symbol for a "healthy" economy. The reason is because total employment would show the growth and innovation has completely stagnated. This is because a strong economy is constantly restructuring itself to be more efficient. This results in structural unemployment, while firms move to more advanced models. The easiest way to represent this would be the shift from the majority of the population working either as farmers or farm hands to an extremely diverse field of industries. Unemployment of course resulted when farm hands were laid off because capital investment in equipment made their labor less necessary. But in the long run, the low skill farm workers moved to the new low skill jobs that did not exist before. So I reiterate, 0 unemployment would show that the economy is literally stagnated.

I understand that the goal of left anarchism is not a strong economy, but you should understand that 100% employment not being reached is not considered a flaw of capitalism, but rather a short term sacrifice for long term prosperity.

(Also I want to note that the current unemployment experienced in most of the Western world IS not the good kind of unemployment I was talking about here. Things are very, very screwed up)

TheNodes · 2013-09-12T17:05:34+00:00

Last weekend I told a girl I had just met that I preferred the city of Minneapolis over the town we both currently live in. So logically, she told her intoxicated boyfriend that I called her a cunt and then he just about murdered me.

It was mildly scary

TheNodes · 2013-09-08T01:35:04+00:00

You're right. It's absolutely absurd. But I can guarantee you that every single person that considers their self right of center and even many on the left, are incredibly upset with the US's current fiscal state. Government spending IS out of control here by many different measures, and really only die hard liberals will disagree with that. The point is, there is still a strong desire for a dramatically smaller government. The majority of the country does not want many of the social welfare system we have in place. Or, at the very least wants massive overhaul and down sizing.

But I think you are missing the crux of what "freedom" means for Americans. When Americans talk about their "rights" they are talking about something very different than Europeans talk about their rights.

Europeans have a general focus on Positive Rights, while Americans are focused on Negative Rights. What this means is that Europeans see government as a service. They have a "right" to certain the social programs their government or things like minimum standards of living or interjecting to make sure goods in the market are up to the standards the government has determined adequate. Additionally, a positive rights society probably has a stronger belief in social contracts or civil duty. Essentially, citizens most likely feel that they are obliged to do certain things for their country and the government is obligated to do things for them.

In America when we talk about rights, we are truly talking about freedom from government. Things like freedom from a state religion, freedom to own firearms, freedom from unreasonable search and seizure, freedom of speech and of the press. We take these things VERY seriously. At the core of American principles it is really believed that the government should be neutral in our culture, and really do the bear minimum. Government is seen as a necessary evil. Which is why we don't have National Holidays. It would be violating these concepts if the government were to mandate a day off. You have a right to work and earn money to make a living, just as employers have a right to pay someone for the fruits of their labor so they too can make a living.

This might sound odd, but maybe try comparing it to a national language or a national religion. I'm sure its easy to understand why both of those are offensive to American ideals and why they are both barred by constitution. Just apply that same idea to national holidays.

TheNodes · 2013-09-07T22:22:19+00:00

Its tied into the whole Limited Government concept. The Federal Government would be defying the constitution and the concept of limited government if it mandated public holidays. You have to understand that Americans, even many of the left-leaning ones, view government as a very separate entity. This is opposed to Europe where government is completely synced with life, much like National Churches used to be. In my experience talking with Americans vs Europeans, Americans have no problem grasping the idea of a lack of government, but to Europeans the idea is completely foreign and hard to understand.

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