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Wikipedia
"Money: is anything that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts. The main uses of money are as a medium of exchange, a unit of account, and a store of value. Some authors explicitly require money to be a standard of deferred payment. The dominant form of money is currency."
...of being here waiting for admins to give the user, (formerly known as choggie), some basic, operating power back. When, boys? Times' a wastin'...Please, take a fucking poll if it helps to speed things along....I will remind the site and all her users, that decisions made here shape the site's future. Anyone who would like to have direct questions from choggie relative to this post answered on this thread.... feel free to ask here.
I remind anyone in the know how patient and long-suffering we are.
The AP has fact-checked recent Dems who have claimed that health insurance profits have been "obscene" and "immoral" while "bodies pile up" and has found them to be full of hot air if not intentionally deceptive:
Last year, the average health insurance company's profit margin was a measly 2.2%, but after you hear Dem representatives talk about it, you'd think it was near 40%. But last year was slow right? What about the average year? That must be the obscene number they're talking about right? 6% ...
You can argue that we would benefit from a federal insurance system or not, but let's not make stuff up out of thin air and call it scary truth. You can't form and informed opinion when your information is misinformation. I'm tired of all the major arguments being based in "feelings," sob stories, and skewed numbers. Half of the arguments are deceptions and the other half are fallacies.
I don't have the answers, but I certainly have learned who not to look to for them, and they all work in the same building.
The developer of the game World of Goo has made an offer that games shouldn't refuse. In honor of the 1 year anniversary of the game, they are selling it for donations until Oct 19th - you can donate what you feel is right and get a free license for the game.
The game is very amusing and I recommend it for everyone. I've bought it for $5, what will you give?
You better brace yourselves, because if this is the truth - and I'm inclined to think so -, it is equally hilarious and agitating.
The Dutch anti-piracy outfit BREIN is pushing a more than questionable trial against TPB in Dutch courts and now appears to have forged evidence to link the blokes of TPB to the company officially owning TPB. Brokep aka Peter Sunde blogged about todays hearing at the Dutch court and presents rather convincing arguments that almost inescapably indicate forgery by BREIN.
Excerpt:
And the question is, why would Experian make a false credit report? A company that does one thing for a living, with hundred of employees all over the world, give out trustworthy credit reports. They would of course not risk it to help a small antipiracy agency out in their high profile political game! And as you all can clearly see from the overwhelming evidence, the credit report is fake. Backed up by evidence from the lawyers of Mossack Fonseca & Co. Backed up by the government of Seychelles, times two – First by their company registry. And I actually called and asked if Fredrik was a citizen of their country. The answer was, as expected, Neij. He’s not.
It’s also clear that the government does not keep the data of the CEO nor the directors of companies. It is clear that the previous inquiry is bullshit, at least on that date. It is clear that the date of registration is taken from the whois of thepiratebay.org It is clear that Fredriks name is taken from the same whois; … and it’s clear that Reservellas name is taken from there (or from the air, it doesn’t really matter).
It is very clear to me what has happened. My well educated, well established, well founded hunch is that BREIN realized that they were going to lose hard and in order to win, they themselves had to create false evidence and hand that over to the court!
from raw story: Federal regulators in the Bush administration blocked attempts by state governments to prevent predatory lending practices that resulted in the financial crisis now stalking the American economy, a new study from the University of North Carolina says.
In 2004, the Office of the Currency Comptroller, an obscure regulatory agency tasked with ensuring the fiscal soundness of America's banks, invoked an 1863 law to give itself the power to override state laws against predatory lending. The OCC told states they could not enforce predatory-lending laws, and all banks would be subject only to less-strict federal laws.
Now, a research paper (PDF) from UNC-Chapel Hill's Center for Community Capital shows that those anti-predatory lending laws had actually worked. States that had stricter regulations on issuing mortgages were found to have fewer foreclosures.
"We believe that these findings are remarkable, since they suggest an important and yet unexplored link between [anti-predatory lending laws] and foreclosures," the study's authors state.
The study may be the first scientific evidence to back up claims made by many critics that the Bush administration and earlier administrations allowed last year's financial crisis to happen by not enforcing common-sense regulations on lenders.
This is not an original idea. I occasionally read DailyKos, and they've had this suggestion stickied to the top of their site for the past couple of weeks at least. Any way, if you're not a charter member but run Adblock on Mozilla Firefox, you CAN help this site out a little. According to dag most of this site's ad revenue is derived per impression, and not by clicking the ad. Therefore you can help this site by following these simple steps:
1. In Firefox click Tools > Adblock Plus Preferences> then click on 'Add filter...'
3. Click 'Add Filter' at the bottom of the window, then 'OK.'
Like I already suggested, if you're a charter member then you're already excluded from ads. However, if you're not a charter member, then you can help this place out by following these few simple steps. Help out the team. Please?
1. Obama is bought and paid for by Wall Street. 2. Obama crisis management skills are exactly equal to or defeated by a wet paper bag.
You can say Obama's economic policy is not bad, but you should know that they are really the last president's bailout policy. Also the TARP plan has a good intention, but it's just a one time fix. It's supposed to kick the economy back up to speed. As if.
posted by blankfist2 months 3 weeks ago • 177 views
The US Federal government will match the amount a presidential candidate raises ($250 per individual). There is a slight caveat. You must receive at least 5% of the popular vote, which typically means the money goes to the two party system. That's not very fair, but what is fair is this... the source of the funds come from a voluntary tax you pay on your income tax form.
According to a "a survey of 1,500 European hotel managers conducted in April for Expedia.com" Americans are the best tippers. full article.
From the article:
Americans are the best tippers at Euro hotels, by far, the survey says. Also good at spreading around the pounds and euros -- Russians and Japanese. Least generous tippers: Germans, French, Israelis.
Americans also are considered the third most polite hotel guests, behind Japanese and British travelers.
Least polite, according to the survey: Russians, followed by Israelis and the French.
Who's best dressed: Italians, ahead of the French and Spanish.
Worst dressed: Oh dear. It's Americans, by far, followed by Brits and Germans. Maybe it's time to ditch the tell-tale baseball caps, baggy shorts, running shoes and T shirts.
Just like little kids trying to fib thier way outta trouble, the news tries to blame the recession on everything but the real culprit.
1. The problems with the american economy is deep, and have been draining the economy for decades.
2. The only reason we could afford the drain from a non-productive economy was the housing-finance-consumer debt bubble.
3. The problem is not that the bubble ended. The problem is that the bubble masked the real problems in the economy. (for years
Think of an sand hourglass. The hourglass drains sand slowly, but during a bubble, new sand is poured in rapidly, and you can't tell how much sand is draining out.
4. Ben Bernanke is either an idiot or a crook. His policy to reduce deflation, has to be a scam because the deflation isn't there. Banks benefit from the policy by skimming cream off the economy as the ant-deflation policy hammers our economy.
**** Thx for reading. I suppose I may have convinced 1 or 2 people, as for the rest of you, please believe me when I say my facts are right, and these facts are unpopular and troublesome and worth your consideration.
rare day that newsweek has an article worth reading but I think we all know that the problems that japan has faced in it's "lost decade" are very similar to what the USA faces with the decline in trade. Oh, and happy 4th of july.
posted by imstellar284 months 3 weeks ago • 549 views
I've noticed that the stars seem to be rather unfairly distributed around here. A handful of sifters have over 1000 stars while many have only a few dozen or hundred, and the vast majority haven't even a single star to their name. Its almost as if we are split into distinct classes; the vast majority existing in a state of poverty – beggars, killers, devoid of any meaningful invocation, and resented for their burden on siftbot’s resources; a broad, hard working middle class with a respectable standard of promotion; and a brutal, unrelenting ruling class who has concentrated all the channels and stars in their greedy hands.
It is for these reasons, that we as sifters, in order to form a more perfect Sift, establish a fair and balanced top 15, insure channel tranquility, provide for a common defense against trolls, promote the general queue, and secure the blessings of Dag to our ourselves and our power points, should establish the following system of fair distribution:
0-10 stars earned in the last year: 10% 10-25 stars earned in the last year: 15% 25-50 stars earned in the last year: 25% 50-100 stars earned in the last year: 28% 250-500 stars earned in the last year: 33% Over 500 stars earned in the last year: 35%
The stars collected from each years earnings shall then be re-distributed to those living star to star, who can hardly afford to sift a video a week. I think you will find these brackets fair and equitable, as those earning the most stars can surely afford to part with such a pittance of their yearly bounty.
Furthermore, in light of these tough times, I also move that we construct with haste a script to generate 10,000 new stars; to be sent out as a stimulus to help those in need of an increase in the size of their queues. By giving these lower-class sifters an fair start, they will have an equal chance at bringing themselves out of the sad ranks of the unsiftables, the un-starred and scarlet P's.
What do you say, how many percent are forgeries? Just the Kennedy Bonds or some of the T-bonds as well, maybe everything?
Or even more interesting: who made them?
If you missed the story so far:
Japan is investigating reports two of its citizens were detained in Italy after allegedly attempting to take $134 billion worth of U.S. bonds over the border into Switzerland.
“Italian authorities are in the midst of the investigation, and haven’t yet confirmed the details, including whether they are Japanese citizens or not,” Takeshi Akamatsu, a spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said by telephone today in Tokyo. “Our consulate in Milan is continuing efforts to confirm the reports.”
An official at the Consulate General of Japan in Milan, who only gave his name as Ikeda, said it still hasn’t been confirmed that the individuals are Japanese. “We are in contact with the Italian Financial Police and the Italian Public Prosecutor’s Office,” Ikeda said by phone today.
The Asahi newspaper reported today Italian police found bond certificates concealed in the bottom of luggage the two individuals were carrying on a train that stopped in Chiasso, near the Swiss border, on June 3.
The undeclared bonds included 249 certificates worth $500 million each, the Asahi said, citing Italian authorities. The case was reported earlier in Italian newspapers Il Giornale and La Repubblica and by the Ansa news agency.
If the securities are found to be genuine, the individuals could be fined 40 percent of the total value for attempting to take them out of the country without declaring them, the Asahi said.
The Italian embassy in Tokyo was unable to confirm the Asahi report.
posted by Ornthoron5 months 2 weeks ago • 490 views
Our very own deputydog was featured on the front page of reddit today! And it was a rather cool article too. Of course, what the redditors are most interested in discussing about it is the lack of capitalization.
According to Forbes.com (via Yahoo!), these 5 U.S. cities had more layoffs in the first quarter of 2009 than any others:
1. Detroit, Mich. Mass Layoffs: 57 Workers Affected: 14,781
2. Chicago, Ill. Mass Layoffs: 87 Workers Affected: 13,647
3. Los Angeles, Calif. Mass Layoffs: 100 Workers Affected: 10,594
4. New York, N.Y. Mass Layoffs: 61 Workers Affected: 8,688
5. Las Vegas, Nev. Mass Layoffs: 55 Workers Affected: 8,367
None of these really surprise me, but I thought you'd like to know. We have a lot of SoCal sifters here, so seeing L.A. in the #3 spot really drives the point home. Currently the U.S. is at an 8.9% unemployment rate, with experts forecasting a 10% unemployment rate before it gets better. That's 1 out out of every 10 able-bodied workers in the country. Yikes.
On a personal level, both my older sister and younger brother were laid off earlier this year. Fortunately my older sister got a new job, but my younger brother hasn't, so he recently decided to go back to school to get an M.B.A. at Columbia. I have no doubt he'll do well there, but I hope it proves effective in garnering a new job when he's done. Only time will tell.
I know VS is weathering some financial hard times too, so I hope this new Amazon deal will make ends meet. Do any of you have tales of current economic pain you'd like to share? Let the healing begin.
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