A Forum for Grinches and Ho-Ho-Hoes

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
Just you wait. The crazies will be after pay tv soon enough. they claim they only want to ensure that they are not exposed to filthy things, but you know damn well they want to cleanse everything they can. They'll be angling to censor pay and satellite tv soon enough.

they are already making noise for basic cable.

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by Adder
Already researching your options, eh?

Ad(that is what I thought)der

I'm solo now. And I plan on retiring my ass as soon as I gets my "fuck you" money.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by sgtclub
they are already making noise for basic cable.

Really? Where did you read that? Got any cites?

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
Really? Where did you read that? Got any cites?

Saw it on TV last week I think. One of those "family advocacy groups." They are initially targeting Sex in the City reruns on TBS.

[SlaveNoMore]

Tyrone Slothrop
While I'm not going to defend Galloway's comments, you should know that the story that he was a "Saddam stooge" is now understood to have been based on fraudulent documents and that Galloway recently won a huge libel verdict against the paper that ran it.

We've discussed this.

British libel law is a joke, and the verdict never stated the accusations were false.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
We've discussed this.

British libel law is a joke, and the verdict never stated the accusations were false.

No, but the piece I linked to did:

• The Monitor put the documents through a rigorous series of forensic tests and decided that they were fake.
  
  On June 22, 2003, the Monitor retracted their story and explained how they obtained the documents in a lengthy front-page spread. The Monitor's retraction is worth a read as it offers a fascinating insight into the cryptic, if lucrative, underground market of forgeries that were distrubuted to reporters as pro-war propaganda.

(eta the quote)

[Tyrone Slothrop]

• In Washington, President Bush weighed in on the alleged foreign interference, warning Iran and Syria against "meddling" in Iraq.

WaPo

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
We've discussed this.

British libel law is a joke, and the verdict never stated the accusations were false.

So?

No it isn't. No it did not.

[sgtclub]

• The FCC declined to open a proceeding on whether satellite radio is indecent, saying that it is a subscription service and that the agency has already ruled that such services "do not call into play the issue of indecency."

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/CA488198.html

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Gattigap
From Sullivan:

• My old boss and friend, Mike Kinsley, now running the editorial pages at the Los Angeles Times, poses the following conundrum, which he invites any of you to refute. Yep, he's a big media guy turning to blogs for an answer. Write responses to him at michael.kinsley@latimes.com. Here's his argument:
  
  My contention: Social Security privatization is not just unlikely to succeed, for various reasons that are subject to discussion. It is mathematically certain to fail. Discussion is pointless.
  
  The usual case against privatization is that (1) millions of inexperienced investors may end up worse off, and (2) stocks don't necessarily do better than bonds over the long-run, as proponents assume.But privatization won't work for a better reason: it can't possibly work, even in theory. The logic is not very complicated.
  
  1. To "work," privatization must generate more money for retirees than current arrangements. This bonus is supposed to be extra money in retirees' pockets and/or it is supposed to make up for a reduction in promised benefits, thus helping to close the looming revenue gap.
  
  2. Where does this bonus come from? There are only two possibilities: from greater economic growth, or from other people.
  
  3. Greater economic growth requires either more capital to invest, or smarter investment of the same amount of capital. Privatization will not lead to either of these.
  
  a) If nothing else in the federal budget changes, every dollar deflected from the federal treasury into private social security accounts must be replaced by a dollar that the government raises in private markets. So the total pool of capital available for private investment remains the same.
  
  b) The only change in decision-making about capital investment is that the decisions about some fraction of the capital stock will be made by people with little or no financial experience. Maybe this will not be the disaster that some critics predict. But there is no reason to think that it will actually increase the overall return on capital.
  
  4. If the economy doesn't produce more than it otherwise would, the Social Security privatization bonus must come from other investors, in the form of a lower return.
  
  a) This is in fact the implicit assumption behind the notion of putting Social Security money into stocks, instead of government bonds, because stocks have a better long-term return. The bonus will come from those saps who sell the stocks and buy the bonds.
  
  b) In other words, privatization means betting the nation's most important social program on a theory that cannot be true unless many people are convinced that it's false.
  
  c) Even if the theory is true, initially, privatization will make it false. The money newly available for private investment will bid up the price of (and thus lower the return on) stocks, while the government will need to raise the interest on bonds in order to attract replacement money.
  
  d) In short, there is no way other investors can be tricked or induced into financing a higher return on Social Security.
  
  5. If the privatization bonus cannot come from the existing economy, and cannot come from growth, it cannot exist. And therefore, privatization cannot work.
  
  Q.E.D.
  Or not?

Makes sense to me. Can anyone help me refute this?

Here's a response:

http://www.techcentralstation.com/121504H.html

[ltl/fb]

Originally posted by taxwonk
I'm solo now. And I plan on retiring my ass as soon as I gets my "fuck you" money.

(a) update martindale. (b) if you are solo, to whom are you saying "fuck you"? your clients? nice.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by sgtclub
Here's a response:

http://www.techcentralstation.com/121504H.html

It is a "response." It does not, however, "refute" Kinsley's logic. Is there any portion of it you find particularly compelling?

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
It is a "response." It does not, however, "refute" Kinsley's logic. Is there any portion of it you find particularly compelling?

No, I just came upon it so I thought I'd post it.

[Adder]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
Well, the money in SS is not welfare - it was earned by its receipients,

It is welfare, and they didn't "earn" it.

You're not losing money on this deal. If your folks don't need SS, the cash will trickle to you later.

You seem to have missed the fact that the money that will trickle down will be some subset of my the taxes I paid.

Of course, I also believe in inheritence taxes....

[Adder]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
Just you wait. The crazies will be after pay tv soon enough. they claim they only want to ensure that they are not exposed to filthy things, but you know damn well they want to cleanse everything they can. They'll be angling to censor pay and satellite tv soon enough.

Didn't we just have this conversation with me saying exactly this and you saying, "no, satellite is different?"