When the woman is employed, we know that she prefers to work X job in order to earn $100,000 per year. We know that her employer values her services at $100,000 per year. When she quits, all we know is that she no longer values working job X for $100,000 per year for whatever her reasons are. We have no idea if anyone else values her working around the house at $100,000 or not. In fact, as far as we know, nobody does, as she is not getting paid $100,000 per year for it.
Mediaite.com sticks up for libertarianism…
No, The Actual Libertarian Movement Didn’t ‘Go Nuts’ — It’s Just The One Inside Bill Maher’s Head
During his HBO show last Friday, Bill Maher dedicated four minutes to bashing libertarians for having “ruined libertarianism.” The comedian lamented that even though he himself once identified as a libertarian, the movement has “morphed into this creepy obsession with free-market capitalism based on an Ayn Rand novel called Atlas Shrugged.”
“I didn’t go nuts; this movement did,” he concluded before launching into a series of cartoonishly reductive descriptions of what he thinks are the ultimate libertarian ends.
All in all, Maher’s rant was actually pretty funny. Despite stereotypes to the contrary, we libertarians do love a good send-up — from Parks and Recreation‘s parodic anti-government hero Ron Swanson to a mock tourism advertisement for Somalia, the “libertarian paradise.” But throughout all the libertarian bashing, Maher showed his hand a bit: Despite once calling himself a libertarian, he revealed that he really does not have a grasp on what the movement/ideology actually represents.
For starters, the fact that he somehow believes libertarianism was ever a movement not predicated on a belief in free market economics is astonishing. The ideology never “morphed” into a free-market “obsession,” as he believes. In fact, the study of markets has always been a fundamental part of the movement, from the Austrian school of economics (F.A. Hayek, Ludwig von Mises) to the Chicago school (Milton Friedman, Gary Becker).
When Maher declared himself a “libertarian” back in 2001, Salon declared it a “joke,” noting that only a handful of his beliefs (specifically in the social issues realm) overlapped with libertarian ideology. His staunch support for the expansion of government over guns, education, business, etc., were all in direct opposition to what libertarians generally believe — and yet, somehow, he bizarrely believes to this day that the movement left him.
I don’t believe I’ve ever seen anyone milk a metaphor like this guy. And on multiple levels. This is kind of a work of art…
Vermin Supreme: When I’m President Everyone Gets A Free Pony
Charitably check out my blog please
/selfpromotion
Too many bitcoin threads, so I’ll just post yesterday’s daily here. I don’t care if this is a repost.
http://vftonline.org/Patriarchy/definitions/anarchist.htm
thought you guys might want to see what actual Christianity is, in light of all the hoopla about reconstructuralism or whatever.
http://vftonline.org/Patriarchy/definitions/anarchist.htm
thought you guys might want to see what actual Christianity is, in light of all the hoopla about reconstructuralism or whatever.
Vermin supreme is fucking awesome.
I love poneys :3
Figured it was worth dredging this back up:
Hey, if there are any fellow Tennesseans out there, apparently we’re living in Ayn Rand’s “mean spirited” paradise that “kicks the poor when they’re down”! Hooray!
http://www.salon.com/2013/04/11/tennessee_ayn_rands_vision_of_paradise_partner/
If you are, I’m moving there tomorrow.
I also don’t buy that maximum family welfare is capped at $185 as the article states. Jon Stewart also echoed this statistic. I suppose this only takes into account TANF? What other programs should properly be taken into account?
WHAT IS WITH ALL THE CURRENCY THREADS THIS MONTH???
U.S. Economy Grinds To Halt As Nation Realizes Money Just A Symbolic, Mutually Shared Illusion
WASHINGTON—The U.S. economy ceased to function this week after unexpected existential remarks by Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke shocked Americans into realizing that money is, in fact, just a meaningless and intangible social construct.
What began as a routine report before the Senate Finance Committee Tuesday ended with Bernanke passionately disavowing the entire concept of currency, and negating in an instant the very foundation of the world’s largest economy…
What’s a good book/online resource that lays out a comprehensive chronology of the US’s imperialist intervention in the Global South/Mid-East?
The most authoritative-looking source I could find for that is this article. It looks to be where that factoid came from (you can find the factoid repeated throughout the Internetz, but with little to no supporting evidence. This one at least fleshes out a story, and does end up remarking that exact same dollar amount. I have to assume this is where it was lifted from.)
From a preliminary skim it doesn’t seem the article provides any real support for that number either. First of all, the article specifically says “let’s leave out the high cost of benefits”. Second, all they do is take a median American wage at $42,270 per year and work that out to a $15.57/hour cost to employers. (The average number of hours worked is not provided, so there’s no way to even check the arithmetic.)
From there it just jumps to the retail price of a low-end iPad at $499, and makes the claim of “If it were built by Americans, it would have to cost $14,970.”
The author gives absolutely no data whatsoever as to what went into that calculation. He doesn’t even give the number of man-hours he is assuming it takes to manufacture an iPad. And what’s more, when he says “have to cost”…is he talking about the actual cost of manufacturing the product, or is he factoring in profit margin and saying that would be the retail price? If the latter, who says profit margin has to be anything? If the former, how the hell is he getting from a retail price in one manufacturing scheme to a wholesale cost in another?
I find it odd that with so many hyperlinks throughout that story, the most interesting fact of all, the one that essentially is supposed to encapsulate his point…offers no sources at all.
Attacked By Ferrari Owner - Pee Prank
I love his justification:
You’re in a handicap spot
It’s a FERRARI!
Dude, it’s a joke. It’s water.
Who cares? I could buy your whole fucking family motherfucker!
Nothing brings you down into reality quite like the host of the interview.
On campus they’re running an “anti-rape” campaign. The posters say things like “got consent?” and “The absence of a ‘no’ doesn’t mean ‘yes’”
And then a thought runs through my mind as I make my way back to my dorm room
“The people putting up these posters probably support rape every day of the year”