Metal Reviews

Just wanted to get in on this mega quote.
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Rupert Murdoch's been attacked in Parliament. I hate the fucking left in this country sometimes.

Who attacked ?

Some UkUncut bellend. How the police let protesters in in the first place... ye gods.

Interesting by-the-by - Metallica's manager's wife is the blonde around the main table third from left.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louise_Mensch

Not them, it appears : http://www.ukuncut.org.uk/blog/murdoch- ... cut-action

As for the woman : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_68QgX9g ... r_embedded is it her speaking at the beginning ? Hot.

Yes, and it was one of theirs - http://twitter.com/#!/jonniemarbles
Love the general response.

Marbles' madness.

A (genuine and honest) question to the US folks : I heard two days ago that Minnesota (iirc) went bankrupt. The guy was saying it was basically some Tea Party guys's fault. The same guy was also saying the same Tea Party was responsible of this thing between the Congress and Obama regarding the debt ceiling, which threatens not only the US, but basically the economy of the whole fucking world.
So, my question is simple : I don't know whether it's true or not - if it's not please explain - but if it is, those guys (tea party) are obviously traitors to the nation. The way I understand it, they'd rather flush the country down the toilet than see Obama reelected. So, why don't you put a bullet (or three) in their necks ?

amen. Umm us liberals are too fucking big of dick-munching candy asses to take responsibility of the issue and solve things with weapons. We cling to notions of discourse and deliberation which all the while are manipulated and unfair but enjoy the notion of arguing over public matters, i.e., I'm waiting for a cultural revolution and not a rehash of the Bolshevik rev.

Obama's too gutless to cut spending. Lifting the US debt ceilling is a temporary fix and one that doesn't solve the issue of US debt.

One day it will no longer be able to increase the debt ceiling because there will be no more capacity to pay the interest. That's when you have to start worrying.

The US has to make one of the following decisions to curb government debt:

1. Cut spending

or

2. Raise taxes


As 2 is about as popular as a root canal surgery, they have to focus on 1.

In all honesty, the cutting spendijg debate is nothing more than a smokescreen introduced by the tea potty in early 07 that has done little to change the massive spending instigated by Washington. When we get to the root of the issue this is hollow rhetoric, with both sides whether it be the Zionist neoconservatives in the republicans hooting and aping the corporatist shills in the tea potty hooting for spending cuts with the exception of the holy defense budget. Also, the democrats who believe we can magically fund social programs, when at timess the programs themselves act as a deterrent to an individual searching for work.

I am of the persuasion that I'd rather have the social programs, that benefit people as opposed to bombing Yemen but the broader point being our spending is reaching levels of untenability. I would like to see a day when Washington let's individuals opt out of certain programs, as opposed to mandatory issues such as Social security which is a decent idea, but obviously Trapt and I won't see any benefits as we age.

Assuming that Pax Americana is reaching its decline, I can say that the government got it all wrong towards the early start of the 21st century. I am still of the persuasion that our wars have gutted us more so than the spending on our own, but perhaps this is what little bit of liberal I have left in me, as I can never see a federal response such as lifting the debt ceiling as doin anything but momentarily staving off economic collapse

Blame the left, blame the right we've had a good run as a country, but even if a calamitous result is to be expected the greater example is that politicians will always be the scum of the earth.

I like the cut spending mantra as much as I love retards like Cenk Uygur telling me how much we need to tax the rich. The problem with cutting spending rises in the human cost, as poltician A realizes that his constituency receives so much an allocation of federal funds, hence the styming on part of both parties to keep the wonderful panacea of "spending cuts" at bay. You can talk about cutting federal department x until your blue in the face, and still not transcend the cost of overseas bases, deployment of forces, weapons development, base maintenance, training of foreign forces, proxy wars, contractors, and the overall benefits we pay to our forces. The glib little 400 billion figure the modern neoconservative right figures in, fails to account for those past expenditures, which are undoubtedly untallied so morons like Rand Paul and Marco Rubio can say we're hostlile to business.

What surprises me most and forgive me as I'm not an economist, and my personal views of mega corporations are far more hostile than even my loathe of the federal government, but how can people say that a higher corporate tax is taxing "success" thereby attempting to do mental gymnastics and playing it off as if taxing a corporation is the same as taxing an individual. I understand that the higher pool of risk in investment justifies a larger salary than the individual workers, and the standard response being that the individual drone can form his own company.

But let's take this argument to a level of another level, and say that a corporation is an individual and therefore a tax on it is as undesirable a bugaboo as a tax on an individual. What of the loopholes that are ascertained through the lobbyistsb in Washington who write certain corporate friendly bills, what of the corporate lobbyists that stand to gain from weaker antitrust legislation and a return to the charter system that grants them limited time and prevents them from monopolizing and weeding out competition that is central to the very core of the let's not tax corporations argument.

The way I see it its mere semantics, pro-corporate neocons justify the massive lack of economy by saying you have the choice not to work for Company A, when they control the very mechanisms that enable competition to exist, thereb y making their argument flawed. Is that a socialist comment I don't believe so, as corporations are not individuals unless run by one sole ceo and without a central board. Who stands to lose more the business owner harmed by needless federal regulations from his inception plus the inability to wager a competitive company to create jobs, or the corporation in all of its faceleness that writes the legislation and outsources jobs and reduces benefits crying "socialism". At least to me the choice seems fairly obvious

The issue of revolution would not benefit the modern left, as a majority of Americans no doubt favor less Federal control, not more. Though I concur for the most part

So, wanting to curb outrageous and unprecedented spending is treason, now? Hmmm.

Blaming the tea party is ridiculous... they have been around for what? A few years now?

No, this countries convulsive death rattle is a bi-partisan affair and goes much further back than the last few years. Though Obama has made it infinitely worse through sheer incompetence and irresponsibility. Not to mention gangster style politics.
But to think that the next neo-con meat puppet in line for the presidency will make a difference is pure naivete.

Serious question: since Obama is the one really putting the boots to this nation, does the same sentiment regarding bullets apply to him?

I am not an advocate of "cut spending matra" for political gains. It has to be done in a manner that creates a more efficient public service without impacting upon service delivery.

At least here in Australia, government programs are run really innefficiently.

I'll use my own work as an example, followed by some more general examples.


I work for a government Mental Health service provider.

I currently manage a $15 million budget and have a forecast $1 million deficit if we have all vacant positions filled because funding is inadequate.

Due to government cutbacks my budget this year is reduced to $14m, creating a $2 m structural deficit.

Now this implies we have to slash $2 million worth of services.

What happens to all those poor mentally ill patients who will miss out on services due to cutbacks?

Answer: NOTHING

Current service is completely innefficient. E.g.

1. The Inpatient facility (or temporary asylum for those not in the know) has declining patient numbers and is running with a surplus of 5-8 nursing staff alone.

So cutting 5-8 staff ($500k - $800k) = no service loss.

2. Some of the community based case managers have case loads that are as few as 3 patients. Their allocation should be up to 20 clients.

Slash several inefficient lazy staff (say $300k = no service loss).

3. We run with an average of 20 vacancies out of 100 positions. Most are never filled and we have several positions that have not been filled in 5+ years). They do have funding assigned to them.

Say abolish 10 perpetually vacant positions = savings of $1 million = no service loss.

4. Receptionist pool at 2 different services is huge. Each one has about 3 receptionists, yet they probably don't see more than 20-30 clients a day.

Scrap 2 administrative positions = $100k = No service loss.

5. Doctor's get paid oncall for a ratio of 1 in 3 days but actually are oncall 1 in 6.

Reduce oncall allowance = $50k = No service loss.

6. We have 8 cars for community case managers and at any one time at least 4 are not being used.

Reduce fleet by 4 cars = $40k = no service loss.

We are meant to service 3% of the population. We serve 0.70%. That's how innefficient we are.

So we could save $1.7m - $2.0m with ease without any impact on clients.

Now I've also worked for the rural hospital sector and the local university who are just as innefficient.

At one stage we spent over $10 million on a computer program that was obsolete at the time we acquired it and never entered service.


Governments Australia wide are this innefficient. Here's some examples:

1. Over $1 billion spent on 11 1960's vintage SH-2 Seasprite helicopters after which the order was scrapped and the helos are in storage having never entered service.

2. Collins class submarine procurement - over $5 billion spent on 6 submarines that don't work and have issues with everything from water filtration to engines.

3. Spending millions of dollars on upgrading schools that were already scheduled to close within the next 6 months.

4. House Insulation Program - government funded insulating of homes. Scheme was badly implemented and led to 4 deaths and 100 house fires. Cost was $1 billion to implement and $1-$1.5 billion to reverse it and compensate all affected.

5. Hundreds of thousands of dollars being spent on commissions to look into saving Tamar River from siltation issues and no action ever being endorsed or undertaken.


I've read similar stories about British and US programs (e.g. $25,000 toilets brought for US Navy bases in the 1990s).

Hence Governments can slash a lot of funding without actually impacting any level of service delivery.

Wow talk about inefficiency and if it's that bad there, I can only imagine how horrid it must look for the Washington bureaucracy. This seems at least slightly manageable when compared to the 14 trillion dollars or so we're faced with, and all of those cuts seem fairly painless as opposed to the potential death knell for lots of welfare programs here in the states. Those cuts don't really have an adverse effect, as by the way I was looking at them half of those items aren't terribly useful anyway.

Corporation tax is generally passed onto the employees or customers anyway, the thinking goes, so shareholder profits should be taxed instead.

As for spending cuts vs tax rises, obviously both are needed.

http://www.economist.com/node/18928600

Massacring tea partyiers may make you feel better, but it wouldn't help the economy.

Of course not. We have a serious debt problem here as well, and I'm in favor of cutting expenditures AND raising taxes (in a cleaver manner). The treason thing wasn't about wanting to curb spendings as you say, but risking a catastrophic impact on Moody's and Standard & Poor's (and the like) ratings. That would kill you, and us in the process. Those guys claim having America's interests at heart, and yet they want to choke it to death. Riiiiight.



The guy's point (may I remind you I am not saying this is true, because I don't know) was that the Tea Party guys basically took control of the Republican Party. And that they are directly responsible of the current... fight ? Although the obvious thing to do would be to raise the ceiling in exchange of structural cuts on spendings.



OK, I'm not disagreeing.



Don't try to take me there. I'm no Obama fanboy/hater. I don't care. All I'm saying is that if a group of people (right-wingers, left-wingers, I don't care) are willing to risk the future of your country (and the rest of the planet with it), of the PEOPLE of your country, well... then they should be politically (not physically) taken down. And from where I stand - which is far away, granted - I don't feel Obama is one of that kind of people. He just wants to avoid the worst.

The people who ruled Greece the past 40 years were, that kind of people. I wouldn't mind see them in jail for the rest of their lives (the "bullet" thing was a figure of speech, obviously. Or was it ?)

Thanks Zad for the article. As you say, the best thing to do is making the curves converge :