U.S. AAA rating downgraded. by oldenglanddry

REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

U.S. AAA rating downgraded.

POSTED BY: OLDENGLANDDRY
UPDATED: Tuesday, August 16, 2011 16:20
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Thursday, August 11, 2011 4:44 PM

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)

By the way, these are the nations Rappy considers truly "free", according to Wiki:

Quote:
Countries that never had a television or broadcasting licence
4.1 Europe
4.1.1 Andorra
4.1.2 Estonia
4.1.3 Liechtenstein
4.1.4 Luxembourg
4.1.5 Monaco
4.1.6 Spain
4.2 North America
4.2.1 Canada
4.2.2 United States
4.3 Asia
4.3.1 China (mainland)
4.3.2 Hong Kong
4.3.3 Iran
4.3.4 Vietnam
4.3.5 The Philippines
4.4 Africa
4.4.1 Nigeria

So it seems we're in great company alongside those other "freedom loving" countries like China, Iran, Vietnam, and Nigeria, which are all necessarily infinitely more "free" than England, according to Rappy's latest metric of freedom.

"Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservatives." - John Stuart Mill

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Friday, August 12, 2011 3:43 PM

KWICKO

Meanwhile, S&P came right out and said it on Thursday:

Quote:
A Standard & Poor’s director said for the first time Thursday that one reason the United States lost its triple-A credit rating was that several lawmakers expressed skepticism about the serious consequences of a credit default — a position put forth by some Republicans.

Read more:

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0811/61147.html#ixzz1UrwVb8jS

"Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservatives." - John Stuart Mill

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Friday, August 12, 2011 4:17 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Doesn't matter what the S&P says. Doesn't matter what the US Chamber of Commerce Says. Doesn't matter what ANYONE says... the TP knows what the problems is, by god. And they know the answer, too.

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Friday, August 12, 2011 9:09 PM

RIONAEIRE

Beir bua agus beannacht

I do think people should continue to have to pay for cable, but the basic five channels or whatever, including PBS (I love PBS and its great for kids and grownups too) should remain free, they always have been, aside for buying the TV of course, which has lately been made harder because one can't pick up an old black and white from a garage sale anymore because of those blasted converter boxes and the digital TV thing. Yes I'm a Ludite about certain things, if it ain't broke don't fix it is kind of how I often feel. If someone wants to pay to get better picture quality because regular isn't good enough for them then that's their choice, but digital is a pain in the arse because it always cuts out in the middle of my history documentaries and the news so I miss stuff, bastards. My dad has cable at our house, but my other house doesn't have it so I miss stuff when the signal cuts out and it still comes down to wiggling the antanna, though its harder now because its not just a lil static, its complete blank screen, progress huh? (insert sarcastic face here).

Even though I wouldn't go for this, I think if they wanted to get something like a TV license they'd have to call it a TV tax instead, because that seems less weird and creepy to me, though I still oppose the idea.

"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya

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Saturday, August 13, 2011 6:20 PM

DREAMTROVE

i'm going to come at this from an unusual angle, which doesn't really have much to do with my situation, ie, that no one who lives here has tv, which i recognize from earlier discussions is very alien to some people. But fromm a completely different corner:

I agree with Riona, people should have to pay for the service, and here's my reasoning:

The service costs money to produce. If someone is delivering it for free, that means it's being subsidized. If it is subsidized, that means the message has been corrupted*. If the message is corrupted by govt and industry, then it is propaganda. There's no good reason to support the bombardment of the american people with propaganda. If tvis to be worthwhile, it has to be competitive content that people will pay for. I actually think they should pay by the show, not by the channel. A dollar seems fine. If you're going to watch an hour of Tv it is already costing you a bear minimum of $7 in opportunity cost.

* the advertising scheme is thinly veiled payola. Hammering someone with 192 iterations of the same suburu ad has no positive effect** on marketing. What the company is doing is buying positive influence with the network. That's why the ad spots are so gorram expensive, which in turn determines the cost of production for shows.

** i'm not guessing of course, I used to work as an efficiency expert analyzing the efficacy of marketing strategies, mechanisms and crunching numbers, or writing computer bots to crunch numbers. I know that some people have posted that in theory there could be a positive market affect; I feel confident in saying that in practice this is very far from the case. It is a form of influence peddling.

All of these are imho reasons why having the service free is a terrible idea both for the quality of content and the corruption issues.

That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.

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Tuesday, August 16, 2011 4:20 PM

RIONAEIRE

Beir bua agus beannacht

I don't think people should have to pay for standard channels, I think you misunderstood me. I came at it fiery saying no charging for regular channels and no TV licenses, I'm very opposed to the idea, so you can't be in agreement if you think people should have to pay. I only think people should have to pay for extra stuff like cable.

"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya

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