Actually... first thing's first:

Could you justify every one of your costs here?  Where is each coming from?

1: I had to close that thread because a clear rules violation on your part had taken place.  Don't try to be disingenuous by pretending there was another reason behind it.  In fact, I very clearly said in there "If you want to rehash this discussion, make a new thread or bring it into this thread."  You're resorting to a pitiful ad hominem here.

2: I literally had 1 minute to answer that post... you had a chance to answer my arguments there.  It's one thing if you said "I'm really busy" or some other real life justification.  Rather, you made the active cognitive decision to neglect the argument, saying, quote:

> xeno syndicated wrote:

> Well, I've made my point, Zarf.  The US dollar is soon becoming the short-term safe-haven asset for investors, but because of inflation they can't hold cash for long.  It's simply the short-term default safe-haven until people can figure out what asset will retain its value with inflation.

Now, I'm forgiving of life circumstances that prevent replies.  If you remember, there was a free trade debate you and I had earlier in which you clearly stated that you were busy in real life, and couldn't give a comprehensive reply.  That is a legitimate excuse.  The above, however, was clearly an active choice to advance your political stance while ignoring my arguments against it.  If you had answers to my post, you could have provided them when I asked for them.  Alternatively, you could have said "I'm busy."  You chose neither.  So no... due to empirical observation of the way you bow out of certain threads, that was clearly not an instance in which you had a real life justification for not posting, because you're generally an honest person who says "I'm busy."

3: Even if everything else is wrong, time is the tiebreaker.

This forum is a place for people to openly and completely discuss their ideas with one another and, through the disagreement and debate, arguments which were formerly simply bits and pieces of a larger argument can be expanded, hashed out, and better understood.  As a result, because the knowledge we can consider and interpret within the forum is limited to the knowledge that is expressed within the forum.  Within the context of our discourse in this forum, I cannot assume that someone else is correct on their argument without seeing and being able to interpret the argument.  So when you fail to provide that argument, within the context of this discourse, that argument does not exist.

To assume otherwise would be the same as if I said you were wrong on everything you have ever said, because I have super-secret arguments and evidence that I can't show anyone, but you should just trust that you're wrong on everything you said because I'm asserting it and I have a nice smile. 

Yes.  This argument was important for the following reasons:

1: My arguments were a disproving of your justification for the argument that the current economic crisis is a symptom of a fundamental flaw in the structure of the global economic system.  Without that argument, much of your problem identification that justified societal restructuring is gone.

2: It fundamentally disproves your advocacy, stated in that thread, that the world needs to convert away from unbacked currencies.

3: If you recall in the SOPA thread, you empirically will frame other issues (in that case, patent law) in the context of "well, how would this work under a different financial structure?"  This thread was an indictment of one of your advocated alternate financial structures (the metal-backed currency, in this case).  Much of the analysis could be applied to other forms of "currency" systems where currency is backed by other materials (I remember a few years ago, you wanted a system where all commodities were represented by financial assets that could be traded).  Regardless, if the effect of policies such as that are dependent on the status of currency policy, the currency debate is a fundamental prerequisite to understanding how those policies function.

4: I shouldn't even need to prove this one, to be honest.  It's really self-evident.  You have an advocacy.  I argue it.  The challenges eventually go unanswered.  By definition, if an argument exists absent any objection, and the argument disproves the advocacy, the argument does represent a logical problem to the advocacy.

So yes... you have to know the financial system before you can begin to analyze the economic system.

No, you're only considering the supply side of the equation.  The demand side is the game-changer, the factor you're ignoring.  Even if we all have the same incentives, if you are receiving twice the number of client applications that I'm receiving, you can be more selective in choosing your clients, whereas I must accept a larger percentage of clients.  Thus, due to your ability to refuse clients, an ability which I am much less able to exercise, you have a greater capacity to actually make that decision than I have.  Thus, imbalance.

It doesn't matter if everyone wants to screw the system if only a limited portion (those which have a higher win percentage number) have the opportunity to do so.  Motive means nothing without opportunity.

Yes and no.

I am arguing that in a free market where lawyers and doctors come to mutual agreements on whether to engage in a contractual agreement with the client/patient, a lawyer who has a readily available supply of clients (i.e., perhaps one who has 12 people that want to hire him, but only has time to handle 6 people) has an incentive to maximize their statistical quality under such a scenario.  Thus, the attorney can refuse the difficult cases, increasing their average percentage of wins by reducing the odds of failure... thus increasing the amount of people who want to hire him, further increasing his probability of success by allowing him more rejections.

To suggest, though, that there are necessarily "two castes" is sort of inconsistent, because that would assume people are homogenous.  A statistical imbalance can exist even if individuals are not homogenously motivated.

Plus, for a prosecuting attorney working for the government, this is a completely ass-backwards motivation, because a prosecuting attorney should want to seek the truth (i.e., drop charges when they know a person is innocent), but such an analysis would actually create an incentive for the prosecutor to prosecute anyway, or attempt to get a plea bargain.

> mandrewsf wrote:

> All of these options are deeply flawed, whereas the evaluation for doctors and lawyers are relatively more straightforward.

How do you evaluate a doctor or lawyer, then?

I got one.  An old inflation argument between you and myself a few months ago. 

http://www.imperialconflict.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=145540&p=3

You'll notice a big debate between you and myself on ideal inflationary policies, halfway through which the argument is abruptly ended because the series of arguments I placed were left unanswered by you and when I called you on this... the response was not an effort to rectify the issue, but a simple "Well, I've made my point, Zarf."

> Purin wrote:

> "Mand,

I am calling bs. Never in my experience have teachers in primary/secondary schooling held Ph.Ds. Seriously, wtf?"

Here is another fallacy. Just because in your experience, you have never had a teacher with a Ph.D., does that mean that all secondary school teachers do not have a Ph.D.? It is easy to see how your way of reasoning can lead to faulty conclusions. For example, I have never seen or had an experience of being on Mars. Thus, Mars does not exist. Amirite?

http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=28

Demographic Characteristics

    In 2007

Don't forget also that most teachers do not work the full year.  They get summer off just like students.  So comparing an annual teacher's salary to an annual non-teaching salary is not entirely accurate, since teachers generally only work 3/4 of the time normal employees would work.

> V.Kemp wrote:

> Government printing money. Like Zimbabwe. Like Germany. Like Amerika today.

That is the credibility issue.  I already talked about it.  Anything else?

> When you mention Zimbabwe, remember that currency valuations are always a process. Many sellers in the US would be hurt accepting Zimbabwe currency before the downward cycle was obvious. Buyers would similarly be hurt, unknowingly buying with a currency about to increase in value. An obvious measure would be to only deal in certain currencies: But this completely obliterates the troll's suggestion.

True enough.  Okay, so would it then be a fair middle ground to allow sellers to select the currencies they wish to use in transactions?  This is how I perceived his intent with that post (if I would rather use the Euro, I can accept Euros, but if I think Zimbabwe currency is crap, I can refuse it if I prefer).

Counterargument, Kemp (This is Devil's Advocate time for me... I just wanna see this particular debate fleshed out a bit): Would currency fluctuations exist in a world where all currencies are perfectly interchangeable?

Okay, assume that in every country in the world, I can use whatever currency I want to purchase goods and services I want.  Therefore, supply and demand for currency would not be tied to a nation's production and consumption of goods and services, because there would be no reason I would need to use dollars to buy US goods.

So if currency values would no longer be based on a nation's total consumption and production of goods and services, where would the fluctuations occur that you're talking about?  The currency market may theoretically become perfectly elastic, in that if a government attempts to devalue its currency by printing more currency beyond the normal societal inflationary needs, the credibility of that currency as a medium of exchange would decline, in effect degrading that currency's credibility as a tool of international exchange.

1: Fair enough.  That being said, it's incomparable to a scenario where an action clearly has the intent of an anti-women agenda.
2: Explain.