Metal Reviews

NAFTA as a whole would make the founding fathers turn in their graves, not only economically does it destroy the country in terms of job loss, but its more or less for the benefit of corporations solely and not the American populace. Some things you should look into is how the Trans Texan corridor will dry up American ports, how one of the provisions more or less gives corporations a courty system, and just generally the loss of American jobs to lower wage workers. From a purely market system for our country this is horrible, yet for corporate capitalism this is purely business.

The Founding fathers and our nations history is one that had the right idea of giving charters to corporations. The whole system got fucked over and created the monstrosity we have today, when the money found its way into the body politic, and the lobbyists wrote the pharmaceutical laws, the national security laws granting contracts, and bastardized concepts such as the. Citizens united ruling, retroactive immunity for telecom companies that spy on American citizens, and criminal outsourcing. The fusion of state and corporation has done immense damage to our country more so than any terrorist attack, and with shills from the Tea Party and spineless self pandering politicians as we've seen with both parties,nothing will change unless things return to the former system of charters Id wager.

Oh I am anti-NAFTA to the core.
The corporations call the shots (both sides of the aisle), you and I both know this.
It is un-American, to say the least, and the government taking a role in securing corporate profits is obviously not what the founding fathers had in mind when talking about free market policy.

I live in Cali, man, I know all about the illegal situation, trust me.

As for Prison privitization its an issue I'm rather neutral on though leaning more towards it being wholly unrealistic. If it shifts the concept of incarceration onto the company, and there are no real issues of human rights, no inmate boxing like in Cali, and they can do something about gangs I'm all for it. But here in AZ its been a fairly controversial issuem with neocons like Kyl and Brewer aiming for them, and the few traditional conservatives along with dems voting them down on issues of human rights and accountability

Agreed.
Prison is prison, I don't see what difference it makes if someone profits from the situation.
It's not as there are new laws being created solely for the purpose of locking people up. And, no the Arizona bill is not a law created to lock people up. It is a bill that says the existing federal law should be enforced at the state level, since the feds are not doing so.
And the fed / state method of funding the penal system is costly in regards to tax resources, anyway, so if a private company can provide the means of incarceration, all the better.
But a clear provision must be made that would not allow corruption of the law, or the creation of new laws, for profit. This is an important provision, for obvious reasons.

One thing I don't know about (perhaps someone can fill me in) is: to what extent is the role of private corp's in regards to the management of said prisons?

Dictatorships instantiated by us intervention and propped up by mnc investments? Get a hold of yourself, mess. The political is always intertwined with the economic. Privatization essentially makes the mncs have sovereignty leaaving the dictator a despotic facade.

Wow, how can you live with yourself living in such an evil country?
Why don't you move to Cuba or something, live the dream?

yes, yes... we all know... everything is the fault of the US.

You're like a broken record.

Care to make a guess as to what those third world countries were like before the US came around?
You act as if all these despotic hellholes were thriving beacons of utopian democracy before the US sank its evil fangs in their neck.
Textbook Marxism 101 notwithstanding, those countrys were hellholes before the CIA got involved. In fact, I'd wager they were worse. Now, I am not for our government getting involved with other nation's government, period, but don't make it sound as if the only reason countries like Haiti and Zimbabwe are shit holes is because the CIA propped up some pissant dictator; those countries would be ruled by some form of dictatorship regardless, and you know this. This isn't one of your greenhorn classrooms where the minds are still young, soft and pliable, after all; you will have to supply the whole story, not only the part that fits into your agenda.

The Arizona immigration law was lobbied by the prison racket. That's just for starters. Wanna see drugs legalized? Even if that bill ends up on a state floor the prison lobby will throw so much money behind it's defeat it will be impossible.

The fact that these companies get the same money the state would have spent, but instead horde the money for the stock holders, is telling. No, they don't do it cheaper, they just have much much looser guidelines to follow so they treat people like cattle.

Our governement is a Corporate Fascist state. They were seriously hoping to shut down healthcare clinics and eliminate medicare yesterday so their health industry friends can profit off of it.

The Arizona bill was created to do what an existing federal law is supposed to do but doesn't. What does any of the above have to do with anything regarding SB1070? It's a red herring, plain and simple.
I actually do not want to see drugs legalized, so it's not even an issue here.

Are you of the opinion that criminals should not be punished?



Source to back that up?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arizona_SB ... nd_passage

How does that fit into your narrative about benefits to private corporations?

Yeah, I don't think that SB1070 is really a corporate interest type thing. In my view, the whole anti-immigration issue is more of a paranoia/race thing than anything else, considering that the crime and economic arguments that people like to throw out are pretty much a bunch of voodoo.

Regarding why we shouldn't be worrying about the deficit...

Don't know how much y'all know about basic economics, but Keynesian theory (accepted by pretty much everyone nowadays) holds that when the economy is not producing at full capacity (called Y*), it's because the demand side is not strong enough for the suppliers to want to produce at Y* (as opposed to the supply side not having the capacity to meet demand). So, when the economy is in the tank--as it is now, though we're technically not in a recession--the basic idea is that you want to stimulate the demand side so that the economy can get back to full capacity and everyone will be happy. There are two ways the government can do this: a. cut taxes and give people more money to spend, or b. increase government spending itself. Now notice: both of these things increase the deficit. So, basically, if the economy is doing bad (as it is now), it's not the fucking time to be worrying about the deficit...instead, we should be taking measures to help the recovery along--even if it means incurring a greater deficit. Deficit spending can actually be good when the economy is doing bad, if it means that demand is the better for it.

Here's why the deficit isn't such a big deal that it should take precedence over stimulating the shit economy.

If you just look at the numbers for the government budget, interest payments are 6% of total spending (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._ ... Y_2007.png). Is that a lot? Sorta...maybe even yes. But is that unsustainable? Fuck no. My prof recently said that he thought that interest would have to get up to 20-30% of the budget before it became something we should worry about. He's a little extreme, but still...it ain't that bad.

As for the "burden on the future", everybody forgets one crucial thing: the government debt is in dollars. If something happened and everyone decided to demand full payment on the debts, the government could just print a shitload of dollars and pay everything back. Not that that's ever, ever going to happen...because it almost certainly isn't. Point is that we're not going to see the type of disaster that comes upon countries who incur huge debts in foreign currencies.

Personally, I think that the state of the economy and job market is a much greater concern for now AND for the future. You don't think people entering the job market are going to be affected long-term by the state the economy is in? It really comes down to the ridiculous fucking ideology that big government is always bad. If Republicans are so concerned about the deficit, why does Ryan's budget proposal include tax cuts that cause the deficit to continue to grow despite the massive fucking cuts to government programs (in everything except defense spending, of course)? It's so frustrating. Here's a good article on that:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/08/opini ... aulkrugman

So yeah. Stop worrying about the deficit...

Firstly, debt =! deficit. Importantly, Keynes also said that you should save in a boom period if you wanted to spend in the bust - and I don't know about you guys over there, but there was no saving over here back in the good years, quite the opposite. As for printing money/quantitative easing, the problem there is inflation, and eventually hyperinflation, which is Very Bad. Paying off national debt with printed money = what

You're right that defence spending should be being hacked to fuckery over there. Otherwise, owing money is bad, and something should definitely be done - we Brits are currently paying more in interest payments than we are on national defence. Yeah, exactly.

The history of the CIA in the Twentieth century would be a great book, probably one of the most fascinating and at times blatantly corrupt bureau in the US.

Dude, with two seconds on google -

http://www.amazon.com/Legacy-Ashes-Hist ... 038551445X

It does not matter what "historically" AZ has done. The Prison special interests had a hand in drafting and making sure the law was voted on and passed. You don't need any proof other than the co-sponsors of the bill being paid untold hundreds of thousands to get their vote, in either perks or campaign financing. I don't have the numbers in front of me and you know it, nor will I look it up. If you care you find out how much the prison lobbies paid to have this bill drafted.

No, I am not in favor of giving a poor crack user 10 years and a college student probation for the same offense. Our prison system has become legalized slavery based on the economic benefits of the corps. involved and the financial standing of the defendants. It is defined as slavery to have any person work for basic sustenance. The kicker is that these people are CHARGED to be in prison and have a hefty debt coming out.

I guess you were not watching the news yesterday when the GOP wanted to hand out vouchers to pay for medicare and wanted to eliminate funding to "planned parenthood" that only receives 25% of the funds in question, which not one cent is used for abortions because that would be a federal crime.

The amount of bias in these comments are hilarious. You should get to salsa dancing.

Sorry but I can't take any of this seriously.

I knew you would say that

Still, the country is going to hell.

That's an understatement.