Entropic one?  Should I ask? 

Anyway... remember, Republicans tried to get this amendment passed during the Clinton Administration, when Clinton and Republicans actually did get a balanced budget passed (yes, I give credit to both parties, specifically because each one checked against the other going crazy with spending).  Anyway, the original argument against it was sensible enough... "if we want to have a balanced budget... we just need to pass a balanced budget!"  The idea was that deficit spending was necessary for non-war issues.

Personally, I would like the amendment slightly more if it included national-scale ecological crises as justification for deficit spending (not thinking a global warming debate... I'm talking more about a disease spread, Katrina-level hurricane relief, asteroid impact, etc).  But that's a relatively minor issue, so I won't drag it out.

That being said, there is one problem I see.  US defense spending currently comprises 15+ % of budget spending.  During a war, legislators and lawyers could easily make the argument that the entire defense budget is considered "war funding," in addition to any sort of internal economic spending (think about a good portion of WW2 Roosevelt spending programs, ranging from rubber research to price controls).  Thus, during a war period, the entire defense budget (15% at its lowest period in the past 50 years, but as much as 49% during the 1960's) could be written off as justified deficit spending.

The other legal question would be one of defining a "war."  For example, would an unofficial war be considered a war?  Would the War on Terror justify Afghanistan and TSA funding going into deficit levels?

I think it's a step in the right direction, but I'd like to see clarification as to what's meant by the exception. 

You're still around? 

*sigh*

Good luck townies!

As the King Pro Tempre (designated by Ps), I am directing Ps to vote for Arandur.

Reasons:
1: If I had the King Pro Tempre vote alongside my vote, I would control too many votes this early in the round to fairly determine the best person to lynch.  This way, if the town feels one of my votes is a legitimate mobbie, they can jump on board.  I'll be conducting my King Pro Tempre votes this way unless we have a damn good idea of a mobster, or if we otherwise have a damn good reason to put Ps' vote into action as a multiplier.
2: Arandur jumped on my bandwagon against Gwynedd amazingly early in the round.  I wouldn't find this odd if it was someone who actually played last round, as my Gwynedd vote was solely made as a vengeance vote for actions done last round, and Gwynedd did piss off a good number of people that round.  However, Arandur wasn't there last round... so his vote really had little justification, other than hiding in a bandwagon.  Seems odd.

I said I was making this vote last round, and I'm sticking with my stance.  I'm voting Gwynedd.

For those who didn't follow what happened last round, Gwynedd was able to get to the end of the round as Godfather by fabricating logs.  Genesis, myself, and others initially thought he was godfather, but gave him credit once he showed logs which helped prove his innocence.

Generally, the community has been trusting of logs given by players.  The past two rounds, we've only seen one person try the tactic of log fabrication: that's Gwynedd.

It's not a new or innovative tactic.  It's just a breach of trust on a level we hadn't seen... and from a person who we thought wouldn't stoop to those levels.

In short, Gwyn... you wanted people to learn to not trust logs.  You succeeded partially, in that we won't be trusting them coming from you.

*********************************

If there's some semblance of a vote that may actually result in a mobbie getting lynched, I'm willing to spare Gwyn for the time being.  However, if we're just going to randomly lynch, I think a 1st day Gwynedd lynch would be a good way to indicate that the only problem with trusting logs... was trusting logs from Gwynedd.

As a side note, since I'm apparently designated by Ps as the King Pro Tempre, I will be looking for someone else to vote for, and won't be requiring that Ps vote alongside my vote, as it would blatantly be an abuse of power in this case. 

Only 3 mibbit users can be on each server.  More than likely, there's 3 people using mibbit on www.imperialconflict.com.

I vote to make Zarf BeebleBrix the King Pro Tempore.

It's night 1.  There's only 1 person I trust for now, and considering my terrible track record at picking mobbies... I shouldn't even trust that person.  I guess this is more a show of support for the effort...

Blame Nolio.

Wow... a suddenly interesting thread... I'm impressed, Nai! 

> Justinian I wrote:

> I didn't attack him personally. I informed him that his source was produced by an organization lacking authoritative value. It's like Acolyte citing an Austrian Economics website as a source. Austrian Economics lacks authoritative value because most authorities in Economics laugh at the Austrian school.

Ad hominem applies to attacking one's source as well, rather than going for the argument itself.  He is providing a logical argument which you can attack on merits, but you instead ignored it and said "no, your source is bad."  Thus, unless you provide counter-sources (in the case of his economic analysis, definitely an easy, and preferable alternative)... it's pretty much nothing more than an ad hominem on your part.

Acolyte's citing of Austrian economists, in the same way, don't necessarily invalidate his argument.  Remember, we're in a politics forum for the purpose of debate.  Although someone else may have invalidated Acolyte's sources, you haven't, and we're left with trusting you (yes... we're relying on trust in Justinian... let me take a moment and count the possible jokes).  Long story short, it's still up to you in this thread to either cite the flaw in a source's argument, or provide sourcing to back up the flaw, so that we can better understand both why and whether a flaw exists (NOTE: I'm not asking you to go spend a day hunting down Austrian economics responses... only using it as an example).

Lame ad hominem attack, Justinian. 

> Geese wrote:

> Dependence is a wee bit of a strong word. China only buys about 20% of the USA's grain exports. If they were to increase their consumption this would be detrimental to the US too when they drive up grain prices. Not sure if Americans would be too happy about that.
China has also invested heavily in other developing countries in Africa to ease their reliance on the US. I doubt the US would sabotage this relationship with such a big buyer.

1: You're looking at the export issue backwards.  The question shouldn't be what percentage of US exports China buys.  Instead, you should be asking what percentage of China's grain is imported, and what percentage of that is from the US.

2: Americans are relatively unaffected by food price changes, because food only accounts for 10-20% of consumer spending.  In addition, American food consumption (not just American, but developed nations in general) is diverse enough to where substitutes can replace goods that become more expensive, although grain is probably the most important of these crops, being important for multiple industries.

3: Also remember that general grain price increases don't easily reach the American consumer.  Remember, US grain production is heavily subsidized to reduce the price.