American Elections '08

[H.M.S. Stargazer]

hmm. How do these work exactly. Can someone explain the primaries and how they work in determining the candidates?

[Epinephrine]

hmm. How do these work exactly. Can someone explain the primaries and how they work in determining the candidates?

Each party has a national convention where there are delegates which vote on their choice of candidate. Each state sends their own delegates from the state party. How those delegates are set is determined by some formula roughly equal to population. Delegates who go to the convention generally don't change their vote and vote according to the primary vote in their state. Each state has their own primary and their own way of selecting delegates.

For instance in Iowa, the republicans have everyone vote, and then they take the total percentages to send a representative amount of candidates. For the democrats, as I understand it, each district had mini-elections and then the top few candidates from each district would send a delegate representing the top few people in that district. Then the total of all these districts' delegates are sent to the national convention. It's a pretty dumb system really, and when you consider each state and each party in each state have their own rules, in the very end you have very few people actually determining the president of the united states.

[H.M.S. Stargazer]

So Clinton, Obama and Edwards are the 3 democrats so far?

[Cops]

You misconcieve tariffs to be this absolute and abominable policy

Once again you misconceive what I actually said, instead of actually reading what I said you just assumed. If you weren't so eager to pull out your thesaurus you might know that I already said that from a protectionist stand-point tariffs are necessary to insure that we keep jobs here, in our own respected countries. Sometimes Metalheadz your ego and pompous attitude makes me not want to respond to you. For someone who claims to be of high intelligence you really lack some basic abilities, but good work with the thesaurus, I see your skills are ballsy as ever.

Cops, uncharacteristically simplistic I must say. You gave banana's as an example and I think this is indicative the type of goods sold by early developing countries: agrarian and primary. Such goods are not in competition with highly developed countries because it is often the case that regional factors (weather, resources) are vital e.g. Oil-Iran, Coffee Beans-Costa Rica. It is on this basis that your argument against tariffs is flawed as countries demanding such goods would not wish to impose tariffs in such situations as there would be no financially beneficial alternative.

There's nothing simplistic of any type of 'good' that allows countries to feed their people, just because the product is worth less compared to oil it does not make it any less important. Unfortunately you're wrong, there is many alternatives for bananas and other types of fruit for that matter. The IMF made it so the UK had to buy bananas from other parts of the world at a higher price, instead of allowing a good trade agreement between two countries to continue.

As far as oil goes, I'm sure there's a lot more to it. Considering that much of America's supply comes from the middle east. Our economy is fueled by oil, it's become essential in our every day lives, where as bananas are replaceable by another fruit. You're drawing my argument about a fruit that is not essential to something that we as western society view as being very-essential.

Tariffs (practically speaking) are only ever used when domestic businesses are weaker than foreign competition; this paradoxically sustains the premise that tariffs are domestically beneficial. You misconcieve tariffs to be this absolute and abominable policy and you overestimate the necessity for international equity: self-interest is a prerequisite to growth and in many cases specialisation. It may not be as efficient as capitalism, but it can keep make weak industry and thus employment sustainable.

Fine we agree that from a protectionists stand-point tariffs is a good way to make sure your society over-all benefits, but you're still taking what I said about a product that we as humans do not necessarily 'need' in our every day lives and applying to something we do 'need'. Even if oil isn't necessarily considered a 'need', I am only labeling it of higher importance than one singular fruit because we have changed our lives, cities, homes, based on the ability to get from place to another.

[Cops]

Obama = El Presidente

[ConcreteSchlyrd]

All choices available, I'm okay with that.

[H.M.S. Stargazer]

Huckabee versus Obama!

[the_paul]

Obama ftw. Especially over Huckabee

[RednaZ]

Oprah Winfrey vs Chuck Norris

[Cops]

All choices available, I'm okay with that.

As long as Obama is still in the race I'm happy.

[PaulOakenfold]

Here is the 90 minute democratic debate from the other night between the 4 leading democratic candidates, full transcript on the side and all:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2...HIC.html#video

[MetalHeadz]

Once again you misconceive what I actually said, instead of actually reading what I said you just assumed. If you weren't so eager to pull out your thesaurus you might know that I already said that from a protectionist stand-point tariffs are necessary to insure that we keep jobs here, in our own respected countries. Sometimes Metalheadz your ego and pompous attitude makes me not want to respond to you. For someone who claims to be of high intelligence you really lack some basic abilities, but good work with the thesaurus, I see your skills are ballsy as ever.

For fuck sake Cops, I thought I could have a decent enough argument with you here. Once again I threaten someones opinions and they get all emotional. To be straight though (and confirmed after your suggestion of revision of what you said), you clearly maintained the negatives of free marketism and tariffs and didn't seem to recognise their necessity in certain situations. But whatever, I don't expect anything different anymore. Disappointingly, it seems as if my language rather than my points offended you and what's with the 'thesaurus' jokes eh, ever heard of a vocabularly?

There's nothing simplistic of any type of 'good' that allows countries to feed their people, just because the product is worth less compared to oil it does not make it any less important. Unfortunately you're wrong, there is many alternatives for bananas and other types of fruit for that matter. The IMF made it so the UK had to buy bananas from other parts of the world at a higher price, instead of allowing a good trade agreement between two countries to continue.

I'm not aware of that IMF case, but it sounds very suspect to me as the IMF does not usually get involved in such procedure.

where as bananas are replaceable by another fruit.

You underestimate the power of demand. Government regulation rarely overides public demand unless it is absolutely unavoidable, it doesn't make economic sense.

Fine we agree that from a protectionists stand-point tariffs is a good way to make sure your society over-all benefits, but you're still taking what I said about a product that we as humans do not necessarily 'need' in our every day lives and applying to something we do 'need'. Even if oil isn't necessarily considered a 'need', I am only labeling it of higher importance than one singular fruit because we have changed our lives, cities, homes, based on the ability to get from place to another.

Ok, product elasticity is important.

[Cops]

For fuck sake Cops, I thought I could have a decent enough argument with you here. Once again I threaten someones opinions and they get all emotional. To be straight though (and confirmed after your suggestion of revision of what you said), you clearly maintained the negatives of free marketism and tariffs and didn't seem to recognise their necessity in certain situations. But whatever, I don't expect anything different anymore. Disappointingly, it seems as if my language rather than my points offended you and what's with the 'thesaurus' jokes eh, ever heard of a vocabularly?

Because saying that they are necessary for our societies to keep our jobs is not recognizing the necessity of these harsh implications? I recognize that it's a double edged sword my friend, you on the other hand haven't realized that I already know this, have said this, understand this, have mentioned this several times.

I'm not aware of that IMF case, but it sounds very suspect to me as the IMF does not usually get involved in such procedure.


You underestimate the power of demand. Government regulation rarely overides public demand unless it is absolutely unavoidable, it doesn't make economic sense.


Ok, product elasticity is important.

The IMF did this to benefit South America, as well as themselves. They were selling their product for much less than Jamaica, once Jamaica was barred from selling their products South America jumped in and sold them for far less. They were also able to pick up a few new customers.

The point of removing the UK from trading with this particular product was to force this industry to crumble, the US was able to get their fruit cheaper from other countries, if Jamaica's industry was allowed to thrive the price would have forced the South American prices to go up (The South American countries were quite happy selling this product for much less than Jamaica). Tell me why the IMF is so concerned with the U.S agenda? Oh yeah I forgot, they run it.

Like you said you don't understand this case, so there's no point fighting this argument because unless you read up on it then we're just wasting our time. The bottom line is that the IMF has fucked over more countries than I could possibly list, and you'll probably agree with me on this point.

[Vatican Assassin]

Not everyone who knows how to describe different things with different words is using a thesaurus. This is an intricate, complicated, and convoluted subject which requires the use of punctilious, scrupulous, and meticulous language in order to understa...oh I can't go on with this joke anymore too much alt tabing go fuck the world some more you free market scum.

That being said, its pretty clear metalhaze is using a thesaurus. Check out this quote:

I would argue that the result of 'world economics' is to liberate nations and peoples from shackles of poverty and unemployment. It a system which allows elevation and alleviation above subsistence and laborious means of living.

Now listen to me say this, and tell me if it has any meaning what-so-ever. Ok, ready? Here it is: "World economics allows alleviation above substinence and laborius means of living." WTF does that even mean? And what is this system of "world economics" these guys are talking about. World ecomics is just a little vague, wouldn't you say? When was the last time you heard someone say something was "allowing alleviation" of something? Just say what you mean, don't use big words just for the sake of it. You make some really good points metal, such as reminding us that taxes are helpful toward the quality of life, which often gets left out of free-market equations, but sometimes you just lose me.

[MetalHeadz]

That being said, its pretty clear metalhaze is using a thesaurus.

Meh, if you knew me in real life you wouldn't say that.

Check out this quote: Now listen to me say this, and tell me if it has any meaning what-so-ever. Ok, ready? Here it is: "World economics allows alleviation above substinence and laborius means of living." WTF does that even mean?

It's vague no doubt, I was merely using the terminology Cops presented me with initially. I meant it to mean that the appreciation of economic processes in an international environment can allow highly developed/modernised countries to help the underdeveloped/subsistence based countries work themselves out of poverty and hardship. The acknowledgement that there could be other factors other than the traditional 'they're just lazy'/laissez faire assumption is essential in developmental studies. In a broad sense, the debate is very convoluted as you postulate but to assume that a non-interventionist strategy is appropriate is narrow minded.

That's all I meant by it.