Coogeebay24

Another reason why it is ludicrious to think of offering a bailout to the Greek govt is what they will do with the money. In a section in Michael Lewis' book Boomerang, he talks about the Greek nationalized rail road which costs so much to run that it would be cheaper to pay for the entire country of Greece to use taxi cabs for the entire year...every year. Give the Greek govt bailout money and they will flush it down the toilet continuing to run a railroad that nobody uses.

Even if they were to achieve the goal, the situation would mirror what happened with Chrysler/GM during the financial crisis...bailing the government out allows it to fold on concessions it needs to get from the population (entitlement reform/tax hikes/work force reductions/etc), so in the present things are a bit less tenuous but down the road that money will be gone and the government or company will go bankrupt anyway. If they are going to give money away to anyone it should be to the Greek youth, to say "sorry we ruined your future". Everyone in Greece/Europe that does not have their head buried in the sand can see that this is a SOLVENCY issue not a LIQUIDITY issue.

This was always, always, always going to happen. Of course the taxi companies can't compete with Uber since they have to pony up ~$1 million upfront to get the medallion. What's really hilarious is that for most instances it's not even a price competiion issue but rather a quality of service issue. Uber is much often more expensive here in NYC than a yellow cab but at rush hour you have the choice of an Uber in 5-10 minutes or walking around for 45 minutes to try to find a cab. Of course DeBlasio has to frame the issue in some bullshit "consumer protection" noise becuase he can't out and out say "Hey New Yorkers...you can't ride in those Uber cars because they didn't pay me for permission to allow you to pay them to drive you places!" By the way...this is a Mayor who has been campaigning hard to raise taxes on the wealthy and despite his sizeable 6 figure plus income and net worth (multi-million park slope apartment)...I paid more taxes at 22 years old then he did. What a guy!!!!

I believe Hillary bringing up this topic of conversation occured during the 2008 Dem primary race...Hillary had to reach for something to make her look more like one of the "common people" because even though Barack Obama was 100% a member of the "1%" people were rallying against, that narrative somehow got left out... The Clintons were "broke" the same way that Donald Trump was "broke"...rich people being broke and poor people being broke are not remotely the same thing.

Sick pay is a difficult subject because in certain circumstances it acts an incentive for behavior that ends up being undesirable. Mandatory paid sick leave is really only an issue for hourly employees, as salaried employees will get paid regardless when missing short amounts of time for minor illness. There are certain professions, the majority of which involve the government, where the ability to cash out paid sick leave creates major problems. For example, my mother is a teacher and I know that it is very common for teachers to show up to work sick (since their performance is not measured and they cannot be fired) and accrue a large number of sick days which they will then cash out at retirement. The point of paid sick leave is obviously not to act as a bonus to government employees with relatively cushy jobs. I certainly sympathize with the hardships of individuals who are in the low $ hourly wage industries, who often feel compelled to show up to work regardless of health (I encountered this frequently when I was a dishwasher), however I strongly disagree with any action to legislate paying people for hours they do not work. My opinion on sick leave has always been, be honest and reasonable, use it when really needed, and if you have motivated employees with high integrity, you don't need a formalized system to deal with this. Another point, to consider, is that just by passing laws requiring companies to provide paid sick leave does not necessarily mean that employees will be able to access it. When I worked in investment banking, I theoretically accrued 10 vacation days a year, but after 2 years working at the company, had only taken 1 vacation day (as merely requesting days off would trigger sideways looks from the higher-ups).

Exactly! That is one of the reasons that the national debt will never be paid off...doing so would bring the money supply significantly down and cause a severe depression. Not that it should not be paid off, but to do so would require either a re imposition of the gold standard or a transition to an alternative currency. As it stands now, all fiat (credit) money is equal to the total liabilities of the global banking sector. As pointed out above, because of double entry book keeping, each liability must be matched with an asset or equity. Ergo: Money Supply [banking Sector Liablitiles] (think of this as M2 or M3)= Banking Sector Assets [Loans] + Banking Sector Equity [Excess Capital Reserved against Loan Losses] If this subject is of interest, there is an Australian economics professor named Steve Keen that has some brilliant work on the subject. You can look him up on YouTube, or he runs a blog called DebtDeflation.

This video makes a mistake in the statement that the majority have to "rent their money from a wealthy minority"...in reality, all non-bank actors in the economy "rent" the banking sector's ability to create money (from nothing) from the banking sector. When an individual receives a loan from a bank, the individual is not borrowing any money from the depositors (under the theory of fractional reserve banking, if the reserve ratio is 10%, 10% of the money borrowed would be borrowed from the depositor, with the other 90% being created out of thin air), however there are a number of ways around this requirement. Banks can borrow or lend excess reserves to one another on the inter bank market...or, they can call up Aunt Janet at the Fed, and borrow the necessary reserves from the Fed. However, through the magic of double entry bookkeeping, often deposits and borrowing reserves are not necessary. Example: Bob goes into his local bank to borrow $1,000. The bank grants him the loan, crediting his account with $1,000. From the bank's perspective: Assets: (Loan) +$1000 Liabilities: (Deposits) +$1000 Thus the loan can be granted purely through the creation of new money without actually lending any reserves. The video is correct in stating that the majority are forced to "rent" their money from a wealthy minority, it just so happens that the wealthy minority it is renting from is the banking sector, which has been granted the ability to create money by the state. Additionally, the "opportunity cost" the video points out on govt debt is nothing more than a handout to the banking sector from the taxpayers. All money that currently exists is credit money, any remnant of commodity money was ditched in 1971 with the downfall of the Breton Woods agreement.