angelofdeath

GB may be a gigantic idiot, but moore definitely takes the cake

i just heard it straight from moores mouth on a radio show. they played the live clip

10mm is definitely beast. a few comments though. ralphy is talking about carrying for possible 'sketchy' times in the near future. .40 is the most used caliber by LE. lots of ammo around. .45 is also the way to go. if money is an issue, be advised .45 is usually cheaper than .40. remember, if you cant feed it, it will do you no good. first handgun you are probably better off looking for a side arm you can conceal but is big enough to give you decent accuracy, as opposed to a .38 snub nose for instance. a glock 23 is a great choice, or a 30. private sales are not hard to come by in gun friendly states. although, id rather have either of the above, if a private sale 17 came up cheap, i'd hop on it.

great starting place. all you really need is an extended mag release and it will run like champ. get a bunch of mags, even factory mags these days dont last that long. dont use aftermarket mags at all, they suck. if you want to customize, i recommend a hogue stock, a bull barrel of some sort will greatly improve accuracy.

im a believer in buy once, cry once. im a fan of the AR platform. i would definitely not ruling out an AK platform, but by the time i modify it to do what i need it to do, im at the cost of an AR15. if i were to buy one rifle to cover the most bases, i'd buy something in .308. m14 variant, FAL, AR platform, etc. there isnt much you couldnt do with a .308 battle rifle of some sort, a 18" 12g, and a side arm.

i refuse to own a handgun that doesnt start in '4' but all kidding a side, i definitely dont want to get shot with a 9mm.

been sick for 2 weeks. last week i had a weight i could do for 7 come over my head on the second rep of box squats. lost 15 pounds. started over last week.

just heard 1%'er michael moore, net worth of 50m or more, is calling for people richer than him to 'give back' 1 million dollars to the US government for them to squander. great idea. i've never heard of a bigger idiot in my life than michael moore.

you know in the early 19th century, most people in american couldnt see black slaves living free. the objections ranged from them being savages to 'who will pick the cotton?' little did we know that a century and a half later cotton is being picked by gps guided cotton gins. whodathunkit? i think the moral objection to the FED is first and foremost, the practical objections to it run a close second. the other main objection, that it causes infinitely more harm than good is also quite valid.

i think i'd have as much luck convincing people to embrace liberty at an occupy wall street rally as i do on this forum.

i believe murray rothbards analysis of the origins of money, currency and stores of value is much better than that link http://mises.org/resources.aspx?Id=7184a3af-b7ff-4465-aab5-68a3c773b48b

we dont need to debate this in 2011? what does that even mean? the FED caused the housing collapse, they are largely responsible for extending it by still having interest rates to low. the dollar is essentially debt. the fed prints money out of thin air to buy treasuries and this toxic debt you are talking about. this inflation results in devaluing the dollar, higher prices and keeping this current financial collapse going. i fail to see how we dont need to discuss this in 2011. if it wasnt for the FED the government wouldnt be enabled.

this guy is a class act for sure: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnKetznvdUE

occupy DC idiots: the guy that starts talking around 4:45 is the best

this is just funny. your are basically trying to label anyone who actually understands economics as a believer in 'reptilian freemasons' trying to take over the world. the FED didnt 'save' us from any depression, THEY CREATED IT. now you are saying because they bought a bunch of worthless debt, printed a bunch of money devaluing all dollars in existence the FED is perpetrating the system of debt, inflation and is largely responsible for allowing the government to get out of control. they manipulate credit artificially resulting in booms and busts. they ARE the reason for the business cycle. now you are saying that the very institution responsible for the business cycle, saved us from it. governments, GSE's, and govt protected monopolies are diseases masquerading as their own cure. your statements reveal your true logic: governments are good at breaking your leg, handing you a crutch and then saying: "see, if it wasnt for the government, you wouldnt be able to walk.'

i think about 5-10% of these people in these occupy movements, 'get it.' the vast majority are ideologically on the spectrum from soft social democrats to hard marxists to anarcho-communists. there basic argument is that corporations control the government and its regulations, so we need the government to control the corporations. its circular. its impossible. the problem is GOVERNMENT. absent government, no corporation has any advantage or coercive power over anyone else. look at the new list of demands: http://occupywallst.org/forum/proposed-list-of-demands-for-occupy-wall-st-moveme/ Demand one: Restoration of the living wage. This demand can only be met by ending "Freetrade" by re-imposing trade tariffs on all imported goods entering the American market to level the playing field for domestic family farming and domestic manufacturing as most nations that are dumping cheap products onto the American market have radical wage and environmental regulation advantages. Another policy that must be instituted is raise the minimum wage to twenty dollars an hr. Demand two: Institute a universal single payer healthcare system. To do this all private insurers must be banned from the healthcare market as their only effect on the health of patients is to take money away from doctors, nurses and hospitals preventing them from doing their jobs and hand that money to wall st. investors. Demand three: Guaranteed living wage income regardless of employment. Demand four: Free college education. Demand five: Begin a fast track process to bring the fossil fuel economy to an end while at the same bringing the alternative energy economy up to energy demand. Demand six: One trillion dollars in infrastructure (Water, Sewer, Rail, Roads and Bridges and Electrical Grid) spending now. Demand seven: One trillion dollars in ecological restoration planting forests, reestablishing wetlands and the natural flow of river systems and decommissioning of all of America's nuclear power plants. Demand eight: Racial and gender equal rights amendment. Demand nine: Open borders migration. anyone can travel anywhere to work and live. Demand ten: Bring American elections up to international standards of a paper ballot precinct counted and recounted in front of an independent and party observers system. Demand eleven: Immediate across the board debt forgiveness for all. Debt forgiveness of sovereign debt, commercial loans, home mortgages, home equity loans, credit card debt, student loans and personal loans now! All debt must be stricken from the "Books." World Bank Loans to all Nations, Bank to Bank Debt and all Bonds and Margin Call Debt in the stock market including all Derivatives or Credit Default Swaps, all 65 trillion dollars of them must also be stricken from the "Books." And I don't mean debt that is in default, I mean all debt on the entire planet period. Demand twelve: Outlaw all credit reporting agencies. Demand thirteen: Allow all workers to sign a ballot at any time during a union organizing campaign or at any time that represents their yeah or nay to having a union represent them in collective bargaining or to form a union. These demands will create so many jobs it will be completely impossible to fill them without an open borders policy. cmon, that might as well be the manifesto of the USA communist revolution. americans used to protest to keep government out of their lives. now they protest to use force against other americans to impose their will on them. they demand more from government, not to be left alone. if the people who claim this is a noble movement and is the beginning of the 'revolution...' everyone should be agreed on negatives... such as ending the war, stopping the bail outs, stopping assassination of US citizens, dismantling the FED. all the other stuff about massive class warfare, redistribution of wealth, having the government pay off your student loans that you were stupid enough to take on in the first place... keep all that to yourself. the protesters need to stop being like these protesters: and start being like this protester: until you realize what the problem is... 'occupying' isnt going to fix anything. its sort of like if someone on the right is against welfare, they dont go occupy and protest at welfare offices, they protest against the government for stealing their money to give away in their name. look to the source, strike the root.

bench is the slowest progressing exercise of the big lifts for sure. where are you failing? bottom, top, middle? im weakest off the chest, and cambered bar presses have really helped me. floor presses and board presses also fix sticking points. this is assuming you arent over training, are going all out, etc.

if it is really true that collusion is possible in markets, then all your arguments you have made about companies raising prices 'because they can' make no sense. business wants to sell something cheaper than someone else in order to make more money. if all businesses are paying workers a similar wage and benefit package, it is because that is the market's value it places on the workers wages. if it is universally true that collusion can lower the price of wages and raises prices of goods, then why is the price of gas only 3.50$ a gallon in the US and NOT infinity dollars per gallon? if business can really 'do what it wants' then all prices should be totally untouchable by EVERYONE. the one problem is.... companies want to make money and you cant make money charging 1 million dollars for a peice of bread and you cant keep workers by paying them 1 cent an hour i'll say it one more time...HOW LONG CAN A BUSINESS PAY SOMEONE MORE THAN WHAT THEY CAN PRODUCE AND STAY IN BUSINESS? as i stated previously, it is also impossible for a guy digging house foundations with a teaspoon to live off the wages he is paid. in order to make more money, you need to increase your productivity. wages are not a benevolent gift, they are something that is exchanged for a good or service. no, i dont support 'business being the top rank person able to fuck over the staff...' no is 'fucking over' anyone in a free market. your post implies that workers have a right or are entitled to work at someones business. and no one is forcing anyone to work at someone's business. if one doesnt like a companies pay he can seek other work, other occupations, increase their productivity, etc. a worker who is 'getting fucked' is quite free to leave. there is no force involved in the equation. you can even start your own business. there are many that require little capital investment if any. sadly though, the 'regulations' you favor to 'stick it to corporations' also make it impossible for small start ups to access the market place. the theory of trade is fairly universal. one can logically deduce that if one trades an apple for 1$ in a free market that the person with the apple valued the dollar more than the apple, and the person with the dollar valued the apple more than the dollar. if one person takes a job with an employer and exchanges labor for monetary compensation, this person is doing so because he values the money more than his labor, OTHERWISE THEY WOULD NOT ENGAGE IN THE TRADE. do you tend to give the grocery store money because you think you are getting screwed or because you want the food more than the money?

bump

im not sure what you are trying to say at all in these arguments. from what ive taken from your arguments is...first you said the min wage isnt a floor under wages, now you are trying to argue that it is a floor. you said you are against the minimum wage, yet you are posting large rebuttals to my argument for elimination calling to keep it. now you are posting something that is saying how much things cost and that low productivity workers might not be able to go to a concert every weekend or buy a new pair of shoes every 2. certainly i've worked for a corporation. ive even worked for a 'corporation' that was comprised of two people as sole share holders. are you trying to tell me that corporations who employ lawyers would pay them 2 cents an hour if there was no minimum wage? car mechanics making 30$ an hour would get paid 3 cents an hour with the minimum wage gone? the MW is a HURDLE its not a floor, because productivity determines wages. think about the argument you are making. its totally legal for a corporation to pay a brain surgeon 7.25$ an hour. if all hospitals offered surgeons this compensation, how many would accept arrangement? sure companies would want to pay 'rock bottom wages.' they'd like to pay employees nothing, and employees would like to make infinity. but the market determines the productivity of labor. 18th century candle stick makers thrown into producing candles against a factory worker would fail miserably in the market place. nope, never said its something easy to do. im just stating fact. doctors make a tremendous amount of money because they worked to attain a certain highly valued skill set. the market places less value on a cashier. because it takes time to become productive if you naturally have low skills, this is why the average blue collar worker reaches his highest productivity after working for 20 years. you usually dont start out at the top. by the time the worker is 50 years old, he is generally nearing his peak in productivity i'd say it was very stupid to go into 80K in debt for nothing. this is just silly and shows a complete lack of understanding of economics. think about it for a second. you can pay someone to dig a house foundation with a teaspoon. you can also pay someone to dig a foundation with earth moving equipment? who is worth more? the tea spoon using digger is completely priced out of the market. his labor is not even worth 5$ an hour, its probably worth negative 5, against a back hoe. so if you need to be able to buy a 5$ gallon of gas, you need to stop digging foundations with teaspoons and get a back hoe and make 30$ an hour so you are saying that people literally make 7.25 an hour for their entire lives? most stats show that the majority of minimum wage earners are at this level for under 2 years and are mostly teenagers. so then what are you arguing for? your entire case is in defense of the MW and then you are saying you are against it. the examples were to show how much government involvement and inflation have driven prices to extremely high rates which seems to be the entire hysteria behind your posts. instead of engaging in this quasi class warfare stuff, why not look at the real problems? insurance is high because the government essentially runs it. energy is high because of the same reasons. its no coincidence that the most regulated sectors are the ones with rapidly increasing prices and those with little regulation experience falling prices.

calculating wages based on competition in the same field is only one factor. its sort of like when you sell a car, sure you look to see what the competition is charging, but you are ignoring how that price was determined in the first place. it was determined by millions of market actors engaging in free trade. an employer can ask for someone to work for .2 cents an hour, but how many takers is he going to have if the market has determined the productivity of a certain worker to be 9.50? you can ask 10,000$ for your car because you heard someone sold the same car for that, but if you can only find someone to pay you 5,000$ after months of trying to sell it, how much is the car worth? i have a friend who was a landscaper and worked for a company. he made something like 15$ an hour or so. he was telling me how he started watching his boss go and bid these jobs, like 500$ bucks for an hours worth of work for 2 people. so the guy got fed up with seeing how much cash flow that came in and went started his own company. he didnt have enough money to buy his own machines so he rented them per hour. he quickly found out that the 500$ for an hours work was not enough for him to pay his 1 employee, so he had to let him go. so he was working for himself. by the time it was all over he gave up on the business and got a job doing something else because other companies found more efficient ways to get things done fast and cheaper than him. its the same with employment. low skilled workers have an advantage, they have the advantage of being able to work for low wages. because they have this, they have a job if they want it and the person who wants to make 20$ an hour for 5$ worth of work doesnt. you also have to consider that there is more to labor costs for an employer than just wages. if he gets vacation time, this gets factored into his salary. you have to factor in social security, unemployment insurance, workmans comp, medicare, income and employment taxes, sick days, as well as healthcare or any other sort of compensation that is factored in. so if someone makes 30K a year, the total cost of this is probably double the wages the worker receives. if you want to bring inflation into the equation and you want to fix this problem, and since the MW is not a floor, but a hurdle for wage earners, you must eliminate the cause of inflation, the central bank. ANY WORKER, not just a doctor or whoever is being paid the lowest the company can get away with. just like when you buy a pair of shoes or food, you tend to purchase the stuff at the 'lowest price you can get away with.' we already agreed on this. the employer would like to pay the worker 0 and the worker would like to get paid infinity. the way the wages are determined is by the productivity of the worker. i've asked the question numerous times, but no one wants to answer it. how can you pay a worker producing 5$ worth of stuff an hour, 30$ per hour and stay in business? yet this seems to be the solution offered by your side. if people need to make more money, they need to get a better skill set, work more instead of demanding a 30 hr work week and a months vacation, and increase their productivity.

the examples i used are merely to illustrate the theory. its much easier to see on the extremes. i am factoring in the cost of things. if someone cannot afford to live the lifestyle of someone who makes 100K a year on a 20K a year salary, then you just cant say....'but you have to factor in the cost of things...' if one wants to make more money, they must produce more in the way of goods or services. the pricing mechanism is determined by proper resource allocation. i dont really understand what you are proposing when you say 'you must factor in the cost of things...' are you suggesting we start mandating wages or something similar? that is the only conclusion i can draw from someone making that statement. the reason the 3$ an hour wage earner is 'falling off the payroll' is because the govt has outlawed his job and with the welfare state in place, the incentive is to collect the check rather than work, gain skills and climb the latter to great economic successes. in a free society, some of this is true. for instance, walmart pays wheel chair bound greeters. the market has simply determined a productivity level for these people and obviously it is above minimum wage. it still makes no economic sense for a business to socialize wages and subsidize non productive workers. but if that is their wish, so be it. you may be right, but the odd thing as pointed out by walter williams very eloquently is that most people earn minimum wage only for a very short period of time before climbing the ladder. but yes, some people have low skills, some people dont want to excel in life... and well....that is there choice. life is what you make it. so what is your solution to this? crime is already illegal and you said you dont support a minimum wage...soooo im sort of really no getting your argument. again, repealing the minimum wage today will not abolish anyones job that has a productivity higher than minimum wage, any more than repealing the MW would make doctors earn .2 cents an hour. if someone has a skill set valued at 9$ an hour, and the 7$ minimum wage is repealed, he'll still make 9$ an hour. the min. wage isnt a floor, its a hurdle that one has to jump over in order to be employed. no, a minimum wage hamburger flipper might not all flock to harvard (actually that would be a bad move...who wants 200K in debt and still not be able to get a job?)but they generally progress up the ladder. it wasnt so long ago when regulations and taxes were less burdensome that a person could, without a high school degree, support a family, own a house and did pretty well. in the 50's, someone who wanted to go to college could easily pay for it buy working part time. average college tuition was something like 300$ a year. extrapolate that today and you'll how much the education-industrial establishment is raking people over the coals due to inflation and the massive government influx of free money driving up the prices of schooling. the average health insurance policy in the 1960's cost under 10 bucks a month. sure, getting an education, bettering yourself, and learning a trade is not easy. life isnt easy. its just a matter of deciding how hard you want it. we dont have mandated equality of result in america, we have the freedom to choose our own destiny. i think there is a WHOLE lot more to factor in on this equation that just saying we need to keep the MW even though you dont like to solve crime. if just throwing money at the criminals in society fixed anything, crime should of been done away with a long time ago. a much better solution would be to stop breeding entire generations of people to be dependent on the govt. if these people actually had to work and support themselves entirely on their own, most of this problem would disappear. other than the fraction of the population that just want to rob and kill people. this will always exist. in fact the welfare state is to blame for most of this, such as breaking apart the family, which arguably the most important factor in all this. as walter williams is fond of saying...'the black family survived slavery, but it couldnt survive the welfare state.'

to me you are just ignoring completely how wages are determined. im sure you wont work for minimum wage because you have a productivity that is much higher than minimum wage. look at this whole thing another way. lets just assume that everyone who wants to buy something would like to ideally buy it for 0. and everyone who buys labor services (employers) would like to buy it for 0. lets also assume there is no govt minimum wage. you put an add in the paper to hire two new lawyers at your firm. you offer .50cents an hour. how many lawyers are going to apply for this? wages ALWAYS tend to be near to ones marginal revenue product. as i explained previously, you cannot simply hire someone and pay them 20$ an hour and have them only produce 5$ worth of stuff an hour. i really do not understand what is so hard to grasp about this concept, but many people just cant seem to figure it out. flip it around. you hire someone to cut your lawn. you are buying labor services. the lawn boy wants to make positive infinity per hour and you want to pay negative infinity, but through the market place, competition and free trade, the average market price for this size lawn might be 50$. the market figures it out and the rate the worker gets is near his marginal revenue product. the MW is not a floor. wages are determined by productivity. if you remove the minimum wage and you are currently making 20$ an hour turning wrenches at an auto shop, you will still make 20$ an hour. the only thing that is going to happen with a minimum wage repeal is people who have a lower than minimum wage productivity will now be able to work. this is of course, leaving out the perverse moral hazard of the welfare state which makes it much more beneficial to low skilled workers to figure out how to draw a check than work at their market wage. how does one make more money and bring themselves out of poverty? they learn more skills, they increase their productivity and they will then get paid accordingly. i offer you MW supporters this: why dont you go and start a restaurant?. pay your employees 30$ an hour to flip hamburgers or whatever the 'living wage' is. give them a month off, 45 sick days, stipends, full paid for health care and housing in single family homes in nice neighborhoods. you have to charge 105$ per hamburger to cover your costs. you are not showing a profit. how long do you think you will stay in business? and for those that didnt want to start the business but support the MW, will you buy 105$ hamburgers when you can get one for 5$ at a drive thru at the same quality? i'd imagine, you'd buy the 5$ one. you see, there is only one difference between the MW supporters and people like myself. we both want to pay as little as possible for something and receive the most amount of money possible for our services, goods, etc. the only difference is, y'all want to mandate it. i want the market to determine it because i value freedom.

your argument is BASED on the theory that it is a floor. and yes, people with a productivity level BELOW govt mandated minimum wage would now be employed if they so wanted to be, if MW was repealed although you claim your argument is based on the MW being a safety net and not a floor, it necessarily means that if it is not a floor, than people with with low productivity wont be employed because the employer will lose money. now, lets put this into play. you are able to produce a product for your employer that takes one hour and brings your employer a total of 5$. how long can this employer stay in business if you are paid 25$ per hour? lets look at it another way. if you think that competition and productivity do not drive wage prices, then you MUST believe that a brain surgeon will be making somewhere around 2 cents an hour if the minimum wage is repealed. all the MW law does is outlaw private transactions between consenting adults at non government approved rates. and since it makes no economic sense to pay someone more than their productivity value, (employer goes broke) the employer will simply not employ someone in the position that has a productivity value of 5$ per hour when he is mandated to pay this person 8$ (or whatever the min wage rates are due to federal and state laws) i'll ask it again, if this 'safety net' is a viable model, why can we not just raise this net to 10K per hour and make every rich? i'll go ahead and answer this for you, since you eluded it last time. if the MW was raised to 10K per hour, there would be no jobs and no market because probably less than 1% of the people have a productivity this high.

well, the argument paul puts forth is not really radical at all. especially if one has a basic understanding of economics and removes the class warfare/hysteria goggles for a second. in order to believe the minimum wage 'helps the poor' by raising wages, you must believe that the minimum wage is a 'floor' under wages. even a casual examination reveals this to be nonsense as wages are determined by productivity. if you remove the minimum wage, brain surgeons wont make less nor will they be earning pennies as most minimum wage advocates imagine. the minimum wage is nothing but a hurdle in which one has to jump in order to get a job. you must produce atleast the federally mandated minimum wage in goods/services in order for an employer to hire you. if you have two broken arms, you cant be a paper hanger. or *insert similar example here* therefore if your productivity in the paper hanger business is 0, you cannot get paid 7.50 or whatever the minimum wage is as the employer will be losing 7.50 for every hour he pays you. so in effect, low skilled jobs are outlawed by minimum wage laws. furthermore, if all we have to do is pass a law making to make people richer or make people make more money, why in the world, dont we just raise the minimum wage to 10,000K an hour and we'll all be rich?