@brianluce
There are those who wish to make excuses for unemployment, my argument is that there should be no excuse for unemployment when you can create your own job instead of relying on others to furnish said job to you.
I completely agree that for those less inclined it is a damn shame that regulations in government have crippled the job prospects we should expect to go to our citizens.

@cbrandin
This I know of Al Gore it was meant an attempt at sarcasm..
As it is the most common propagandistic belief, I agree!
Internet was created by Tim Berners lee, at least it is to him the creation of which deserves the most credit.
It is truly scary how much propaganda is passed as fact daily much of which goes unnoticed by the passive populous.

There are those who wish to make excuses for unemployment, my argument is that there should be no excuse for unemployment when you can create your own job instead of relying on others to furnish said job to you.

This approach don't work.
First, you can't just "create" your own job. You need money to buy thing necessary for this job, hire people you need for this job, produce or do something that is useful for other on this job.
Second, most people are unable to create "their own job". They can work and do that you ask them to do, but not make their own job. It is nature thing.

So, problems with jobs are not the cause and goverment only are not to blame.
Goverment and big business had been doing good thing - they wanted to save or increase average income being uncompetitive themselfs.

@KCG

Unfortunately, each goverment is located on planet Earth :-(
So, they can't just do that you think is good.
Saving uncompetitive jobs is agaist all capitalism nature, as you keep job that produced much less income per product, so owners money drop. If you move jobs outside, you get it all - they are competitive, and give you much more money.

@KCG
Not to imply that you are slow, but your adversarial tone is unwarranted. Maybe you should read what I wrote again and yes government is the biggest contributor to unemployment sorry to break it to you.
<<<<<<<<<<<<< How does rephrasing your rhetoric adversarial? And why read your post again when you confirmed and verified my rephrasing of it?<br />And how does government destroy jobs again? We've had a 30 year cycle of deregulation. What do you think caused the housing bubble which in turn crashed the economy?
Sounds like B list right wing radio talk show nonsense.

The scary part is that this is how 80% of the population thinks. Will never be able to fix the problems because the problems require logical solutions... not emotional ones. And people will always respond to these with hostility, because real logic sounds threatening.

Thhis is also simple nature. The less you use your brain, the better you feel and the less energy you consume.
Nature prefers dumb people, not totally dumb, god forbid, but the one that will be able to fill out credit forms :-)

@bwhitz
Sorry but you've got a few too many non sequitors to be demanding logic from others. Sweep your own kitchen first. Besides, you challenged me a few posts back to cite examples of your shoddy reasoning and conclusions, I gave you a an example and you never bothered to retract or defend your arguments. And now you've got more questions for me? No thanks. Especially on a point as widely accepted as deregulation of the housing finance industry caused a bubble which ignited the meltdown of the economy. That's pretty basic non partisan stuff. Even right wing radio and tea party goofs generally accept that premise. As V says, Credit forms to "dumb" people = disaster.

@KCG
Mortgage companies were not forced to give anyone loans. They WANTED to loan money and were writing loans as fast as they could for one simple reason: Money.
Everything you write has some partisan barb attached -- that's why it sounds like right wing radio. Democrats weren't even in charge when the bubble burst. What a canard to keep raising their specter. The crash had nothing to do with misplaced compassion. Repeat, nothing to do with misplaced compassion and utopian fantasy. Sheesh. This is hopeless.

@Vitaliy
loans (and resulting bubbles) are not the problem, they are solution for much mroe serious problem. Worked fuckingly well. But it is temporary solution.
>>>>>>>>>>>

I'm lost. What's the problem and how does giving hi risk loans to unqualified people solve it?

@KCG "I do agree with you about the deregulation that caused the housing bubble, there was also regulation put in place that forced and in some cases allowed mortgage companies to give mortgages to give people who could not afford it in the first place, under the guise of fairness, and grand liberal utopian fantasy. Eventually reality would rear its ugly head."

Yes. Spot on. The government did actually force companies to do this...

@brianluce "Sorry but you've got a few too many non sequitors to be demanding logic from others. Sweep your own kitchen first. Besides, you challenged me a few posts back to cite examples of your shoddy reasoning and conclusions, I gave you a an example and you never bothered to retract or defend your arguments"

Yes I did. All of my arguments stem from the logic (or facts) of evolution. I said that the economy is nothing more than an advanced way of rating our physical and intellectual performance. Before an economy, a species only relied on physical traits to adapt and evolve. A monetary system now allows intellect to be rewarded as well as just physical labor. Those with the best and brightest ideas should be rewarded along side those who physically work hard... since allot of the time in our modern world... labor only exists because of someone elses intellectual idea.

If you take from the productive end of society and give it to the non-productive end... be it physically or intellectually, then you will run into problems and effectively stop the evolution of society if it goes unchecked.

There... that basically sums up all my statements. There are no "non-sequitors" here... unless you are trying to prove evolution to be false. If the humans of the past were able to some how divide up their physical traits, so that "everyone was treated fairly and equally" then we would have not evolved. The same applies to the current world and our more advance selection system... the economy.

"Sorry but you've got a few too many non sequitors to be demanding logic from others."

Please point one out again then. I don't remember you doing this... sorry if I missed it.

Of, course, there are things like corruption and such that play into this... but we must first come to a contradiction-free premise before when can arrive at any logical solutions. Saying something like "we're morally obligated to help each other" is not a premise nor is it even a fact... since it is derived from ones subjective view on morality. If an answer to any problem involves the justification of "morals" than it is to be considered incorrect immediately.

@bwhitz
I've already pointed out enough or your errors, false dichotomies, reduductionism, oversimplificaton, factually wrong statements (like economies are rating systems, wtf?), Not going to read through THAT again.

Interesting that you deny the existence of morality. You feel zero obligation to fellow human beings, you think the law of the jungle does and should govern us apparently and that large segments of society should be cast aside and marginalized because you've deemed them inferior and unproductive. I sure am glad I don't live in your world, and wow would I hate to be in a foxhole with you when the shit hit the fan...assuming you believe all this stuff.

@brianluce "I've already pointed out enough or your errors, false dichotomies, reduductionism, oversimplificaton, factually wrong statements (like economies are rating systems, wtf?), Not going to read through THAT again."

Not really. You're kind of just saying I'm being contradictive without actually pointing out the contradictions. And you say my facts are incorrect, but you are not providing others in place of them...

Most things are very simple. People like to believe things are more complicated than they are as an excuse for not understanding them. There are only a few principles that the entire world operates on... they can get complicated in the implementation (as things build and build on each other)... but the premises most things are based on are very simple. In fact, most every argument that you'll have about politics/religion/ect... in the end is actually just Free Will vs. Determinism, weather someone is aware of it or not.

And yes, the economy is basically a performance/value rating system. It rates how well business is doing, how much products are worth, and how much an individual's worth is in comparison to everyone else. Money is the realization of this idea that gives us a tangible and physical medium to trade and pay debts to others' services and products. You perform a task, you're compensated for that task (based on it's relation and value to society as a whole), and then with money (Labor in tangible form), you're able to trade for someone else's. The more valuable the labor you perform, the more you are compensated (paid), and ultimately, the more labor or products you can trade for. What else would it be? If this is incorrect then please let us know otherwise...

"You feel zero obligation to fellow human beings"

Well, this isn't true, you just made that up. But either way... this is an individuals personal choice. You cannot just imply that all people are obligated and indebted to one another. The only time something, to me, is really "immoral" is if you make a choice that sacrifices someone else's. So even if you take money from the rich and give to the poor... that's still immoral. You cannot justify taking something away from someone just because someone else has less of it.

@Vitaliy_Kiselev

It's ok... I don't mind a long debate every once an a while. Unless you want us to stop clogging up your bandwidth... :)