Rysheed Jordan - Skills for Life

Can this thread get back to Rysheed Jordan and perhaps lay off the only civilized people in the Middle East?

Can always rely on Poison to be the voice of reason

Can always rely on Poison to be the voice of reason

As per usual.

Quote from: Ez_Uzi on June 12, 2016, 12:24:29 PM

Building my capacity ...

Yeah well you're not doing a very good job. See how easy this is to read with just a slight bit of editing?

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I mentioned Israel because it was in 2014 the highest subsidized country by the US, and so in a similar boat as Germany and France in terms of their economic development and prospects. Obviously there is no relation to antisemitism.

Okay, but Israel is irrelevant to a discussion of countries that have a lower poverty rate because it has a higher poverty rate. Antisemitism is a popular past time among progressives, who mask their distaste for The JEWS in terms of sympathy for the Palestinians and condemnations of Zionism. Whereas a lot of them just don't like Jews. I'm happy to believe that you're not a bigot but it was a strange thing to pull out of the air.

Quote

I believe in a way you are arguing for me when you are say capitalism is based on natural rapaciousness and venality - only the primitive human emotions. An economic system in which private property rights, individual profit and self-interest motive, concentration of capital and to what end and so on. Territorial expansion was not just because someone one day got up and said hey lets go f**k with people ... oh i see some Native Americans around who have lots of land and other natural resources so lets take it from them for the fun of it.

I'm certainly not arguing for you: I take you for a naif. You seem to think that man is perfectible, whereas human beings are the most pernicious species of vermin nature has ever suffered to crawl across the face of the earth.

I don't take your point about conquest. Territorial expansion happened for the same reason lions hunt gazelles. And yes I do believe that someone just woke up one day and said let's go kill them and take their stuff. Let's kill those people because they're a different color and let's kill those people because they have a different god and let's kill those people because their women are hotter than ours. The common theme is let's kill, not the free market. The Normans didn't invade England because they were capitalists, they did it because they were pirates.

Quote

You yourself say that Capitalism has been the biggest engine of social change; i want to acknowledge the negative aspects as well. I will however concede that the market mechanism is agnostic and is not to blame for the vagaries of human greed. I complete understand the logic of the markets. But an economic system that incentivizes individual short-term gain over larger social benefits may at times lead to social problems such as crime in which people poach elephants or traffic humans for self gain.

Yes, capitalism isn't perfect. But capitalism doesn't make people kill elephants. Until recently most poached ivory ended up in China. Are the Chinese capitalists? The western slave trade in the main involved the Portuguese and Spanish crowns buying African captives from African monarchs to farm sugar cane for Iberian noblemen in Brazil. That had nothing to do with the free market.

Quote

On the flip side Capitalism does not cause altruism, however there is a budding literature on the economics of altruism, to understand what causes altruism. Rather our species is not just primitive emotions ... we developed empathy, love and compassion.

Shurg. Chimpanzees are empathetic when it suits them and my dogs love me and my dogs are pretty primitive.

Quote

It might take a while for people to understand the link to poison ... it might take some time for people to figure it out while the baker goes on murdering and take the money and run. Case in point asbestos, etc etc etc.

Poisoning people is both a crime and a tort. Only a sociopath poisons someone intentionally and doesn't think he's doing wrong. No one knew asbestos was poison. When they found out they stopped using it because the cost of continuing to use it outweighed the cost of finding a substitute. Certainly there are cases where cost benefit analysis contributed to human misery - exploding Ford Pintos for example or Bhopal. But those behaviors were already illegal and evil. Of course there are cases where the public good requires collective action. But in the US today everything is couched in terms of the public good and everything requires collective action. We are no longer citizens of a representative government, we are subjects of a repressive one.

Quote

I am not sure what the balance is between amount of law and amount of freedom. In the case of the decentralized market economy, if on a level playing field , it provides individuals with many freedoms to act and be. However, some institution will have to decide on the rules of the game, especially where public interest is involved, and for me, I trust a much much more devolved government ... akin to what Gandhi had in mind.

The balance between law and freedom is simple: there should be the fewest number of laws and the most amount of personal liberty that does not infringe on your neighbor's. If by devolved you mean smallest, we're in agreement.

Quote

HDI is not a measure of happiness but a broader measure of well-being. It is based on a concept that Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen developed (for whom the idea of maximum freedom is key), and the index was also developed another south asian economist Dr. Mahbub ul Haq (both inspirational to me). The 8th position is telling that an economy of 16trillion when we factor in health and education falls to number 8. Whereas Norway with an economy of .5 trillion is number 1. Germany is higher because they do better in health and education as well and invest in their people.

In the first place, the difference between Germany and the US in 2014 was .01, 916 vs 915. So evidently they're not doing a whole hell of a lot of investing. In the second place Germans have an inflated GDP because there are 200,000 US soldier and dependents there who pump billions of capitalist dollars into the economy. By all means bring them home and let the Germans protect themselves from Putin and let's see how their economy fares. And in the third place US life expectancy suffers because of a high accident rate and crime, notably homicide and drug use, which are endemic to pathologies that result at least in part from flawed and faulty centrally planned government policies. 

Quote

Zambia is becoming more market oriented. What one has to keep in mind however is the baseline following the rape and pillage. Zambia only gained independence in 1964 and current poverty rate has come down to 60 percent in a short time but it is the figure of 42% in extreme poverty that is also heartening. Anyhow I am not Zambian nor live in Zambia. I am conducting economic research here on elephant poaching to determine the most effective way to address this crime

I'd give the elephants guns. A well armed population is a safe one.

are you guys using the OECD report on israel and poverty rate from a few years ago ? 2 biggest groups that comprise poverty there are the arabs and the ultra orthodox. The ultra orthodox having something like 6 or 7 kids per family and they barely work and are over 10% of the population  and gaining rapidly. They used to live off govt child subsidies and Ben N cut back subsidies for children a few years ago I think and that drove their numbers up. They shouldn't be sending their kids to just study the torah anyway. I have clients there an they hat that big time because their own kids serve in the military automatically and their kids don't and don't even study anything to enter the work force. Their poverty numbers were something like over 50% recently.  Arabs there the numbers were real high also. Something like 50%poverty. Funny thing is we had less of a problem walking in arab communities than ultra orthodox communities when we were there. Female wears shorts over there and they are freaking rude to you and tell you to get off their street meanwhile it was public street

Quote from: Foad on June 12, 2016, 03:33:38 PM

Quote from: Ez_Uzi on June 12, 2016, 12:24:29 PM

Building my capacity ...

Yeah well you're not doing a very good job. See how easy this is to read with just a slight bit of editing?

Quote

I mentioned Israel because it was in 2014 the highest subsidized country by the US, and so in a similar boat as Germany and France in terms of their economic development and prospects. Obviously there is no relation to antisemitism.

Okay, but Israel is irrelevant to a discussion of countries that have a lower poverty rate because it has a higher poverty rate. Antisemitism is a popular past time among progressives, who mask their distaste for The JEWS in terms of sympathy for the Palestinians and condemnations of Zionism. Whereas a lot of them just don't like Jews. I'm happy to believe that you're not a bigot but it was a strange thing to pull out of the air.

Quote

I believe in a way you are arguing for me when you are say capitalism is based on natural rapaciousness and venality - only the primitive human emotions. An economic system in which private property rights, individual profit and self-interest motive, concentration of capital and to what end and so on. Territorial expansion was not just because someone one day got up and said hey lets go f**k with people ... oh i see some Native Americans around who have lots of land and other natural resources so lets take it from them for the fun of it.

I'm certainly not arguing for you: I take you for a naif. You seem to think that man is perfectible, whereas human beings are the most pernicious species of vermin nature has ever suffered to crawl across the face of the earth.

I don't take your point about conquest. Territorial expansion happened for the same reason lions hunt gazelles. And yes I do believe that someone just woke up one day and said let's go kill them and take their stuff. Let's kill those people because they're a different color and let's kill those people because they have a different god and let's kill those people because their women are hotter than ours. The common theme is let's kill, not the free market. The Normans didn't invade England because they were capitalists, they did it because they were pirates.

Quote

You yourself say that Capitalism has been the biggest engine of social change; i want to acknowledge the negative aspects as well. I will however concede that the market mechanism is agnostic and is not to blame for the vagaries of human greed. I complete understand the logic of the markets. But an economic system that incentivizes individual short-term gain over larger social benefits may at times lead to social problems such as crime in which people poach elephants or traffic humans for self gain.

Yes, capitalism isn't perfect. But capitalism doesn't make people kill elephants. Until recently most poached ivory ended up in China. Are the Chinese capitalists? The western slave trade in the main involved the Portuguese and Spanish crowns buying African captives from African monarchs to farm sugar cane for Iberian noblemen in Brazil. That had nothing to do with the free market.

Quote

On the flip side Capitalism does not cause altruism, however there is a budding literature on the economics of altruism, to understand what causes altruism. Rather our species is not just primitive emotions ... we developed empathy, love and compassion.

Shurg. Chimpanzees are empathetic when it suits them and my dogs love me and my dogs are pretty primitive.

Quote

It might take a while for people to understand the link to poison ... it might take some time for people to figure it out while the baker goes on murdering and take the money and run. Case in point asbestos, etc etc etc.

Poisoning people is both a crime and a tort. Only a sociopath poisons someone intentionally and doesn't think he's doing wrong. No one knew asbestos was poison. When they found out they stopped using it because the cost of continuing to use it outweighed the cost of finding a substitute. Certainly there are cases where cost benefit analysis contributed to human misery - exploding Ford Pintos for example or Bhopal. But those behaviors were already illegal and evil. Of course there are cases where the public good requires collective action. But in the US today everything is couched in terms of the public good and everything requires collective action. We are no longer citizens of a representative government, we are subjects of a repressive one.

Quote

I am not sure what the balance is between amount of law and amount of freedom. In the case of the decentralized market economy, if on a level playing field , it provides individuals with many freedoms to act and be. However, some institution will have to decide on the rules of the game, especially where public interest is involved, and for me, I trust a much much more devolved government ... akin to what Gandhi had in mind.

The balance between law and freedom is simple: there should be the fewest number of laws and the most amount of personal liberty that does not infringe on your neighbor's. If by devolved you mean smallest, we're in agreement.

Quote

HDI is not a measure of happiness but a broader measure of well-being. It is based on a concept that Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen developed (for whom the idea of maximum freedom is key), and the index was also developed another south asian economist Dr. Mahbub ul Haq (both inspirational to me). The 8th position is telling that an economy of 16trillion when we factor in health and education falls to number 8. Whereas Norway with an economy of .5 trillion is number 1. Germany is higher because they do better in health and education as well and invest in their people.

In the first place, the difference between Germany and the US in 2014 was .01, 916 vs 915. So evidently they're not doing a whole hell of a lot of investing. In the second place Germans have an inflated GDP because there are 200,000 US soldier and dependents there who pump billions of capitalist dollars into the economy. By all means bring them home and let the Germans protect themselves from Putin and let's see how their economy fares. And in the third place US life expectancy suffers because of a high accident rate and crime, notably homicide and drug use, which are endemic to pathologies that result at least in part from flawed and faulty centrally planned government policies. 

Quote

Zambia is becoming more market oriented. What one has to keep in mind however is the baseline following the rape and pillage. Zambia only gained independence in 1964 and current poverty rate has come down to 60 percent in a short time but it is the figure of 42% in extreme poverty that is also heartening. Anyhow I am not Zambian nor live in Zambia. I am conducting economic research here on elephant poaching to determine the most effective way to address this crime

I'd give the elephants guns. A well armed population is a safe one.

are you guys using the OECD report on israel and poverty rate from a few years ago ? 2 biggest groups that comprise poverty there are the arabs and the ultra orthodox. The ultra orthodox having something like 6 or 7 kids per family and they barely work and are over 10% of the population as of over 7 years ago and gaining rapidly. They used to live off govt child subsidies and Ben N cut back subsidies for children a few years ago I think and that drove their numbers up. They shouldn't be sending their kids to just study the torah anyway. I have clients there an they hat that big time because their own kids serve in the military automatically and their kids don't and don't even study anything to enter the work force. Their poverty numbers were something like 67 %.  Arabs there the numbers were real high also. Something like 50%poverty. Funny thing is we had less of a problem walking in arab communities than ultra orthodox communities when we were there. Female wears shorts over there and they are freaking rude to you and tell you to get off their street meanwhile it was public street

Thr Hasidic village of Kiryas Joel (approximately 30k residents) in Monroe, NY has the highest poverty rate, highest rate of food stamps, and most children per family in the nation and a median household income of $15k.

Quote from: mjmaherjr on June 19, 2016, 11:33:42 AM

Quote from: Foad on June 12, 2016, 03:33:38 PM

Quote from: Ez_Uzi on June 12, 2016, 12:24:29 PM

Building my capacity ...

Yeah well you're not doing a very good job. See how easy this is to read with just a slight bit of editing?

Quote

I mentioned Israel because it was in 2014 the highest subsidized country by the US, and so in a similar boat as Germany and France in terms of their economic development and prospects. Obviously there is no relation to antisemitism.

Okay, but Israel is irrelevant to a discussion of countries that have a lower poverty rate because it has a higher poverty rate. Antisemitism is a popular past time among progressives, who mask their distaste for The JEWS in terms of sympathy for the Palestinians and condemnations of Zionism. Whereas a lot of them just don't like Jews. I'm happy to believe that you're not a bigot but it was a strange thing to pull out of the air.

Quote

I believe in a way you are arguing for me when you are say capitalism is based on natural rapaciousness and venality - only the primitive human emotions. An economic system in which private property rights, individual profit and self-interest motive, concentration of capital and to what end and so on. Territorial expansion was not just because someone one day got up and said hey lets go f**k with people ... oh i see some Native Americans around who have lots of land and other natural resources so lets take it from them for the fun of it.

I'm certainly not arguing for you: I take you for a naif. You seem to think that man is perfectible, whereas human beings are the most pernicious species of vermin nature has ever suffered to crawl across the face of the earth.

I don't take your point about conquest. Territorial expansion happened for the same reason lions hunt gazelles. And yes I do believe that someone just woke up one day and said let's go kill them and take their stuff. Let's kill those people because they're a different color and let's kill those people because they have a different god and let's kill those people because their women are hotter than ours. The common theme is let's kill, not the free market. The Normans didn't invade England because they were capitalists, they did it because they were pirates.

Quote

You yourself say that Capitalism has been the biggest engine of social change; i want to acknowledge the negative aspects as well. I will however concede that the market mechanism is agnostic and is not to blame for the vagaries of human greed. I complete understand the logic of the markets. But an economic system that incentivizes individual short-term gain over larger social benefits may at times lead to social problems such as crime in which people poach elephants or traffic humans for self gain.

Yes, capitalism isn't perfect. But capitalism doesn't make people kill elephants. Until recently most poached ivory ended up in China. Are the Chinese capitalists? The western slave trade in the main involved the Portuguese and Spanish crowns buying African captives from African monarchs to farm sugar cane for Iberian noblemen in Brazil. That had nothing to do with the free market.

Quote

On the flip side Capitalism does not cause altruism, however there is a budding literature on the economics of altruism, to understand what causes altruism. Rather our species is not just primitive emotions ... we developed empathy, love and compassion.

Shurg. Chimpanzees are empathetic when it suits them and my dogs love me and my dogs are pretty primitive.

Quote

It might take a while for people to understand the link to poison ... it might take some time for people to figure it out while the baker goes on murdering and take the money and run. Case in point asbestos, etc etc etc.

Poisoning people is both a crime and a tort. Only a sociopath poisons someone intentionally and doesn't think he's doing wrong. No one knew asbestos was poison. When they found out they stopped using it because the cost of continuing to use it outweighed the cost of finding a substitute. Certainly there are cases where cost benefit analysis contributed to human misery - exploding Ford Pintos for example or Bhopal. But those behaviors were already illegal and evil. Of course there are cases where the public good requires collective action. But in the US today everything is couched in terms of the public good and everything requires collective action. We are no longer citizens of a representative government, we are subjects of a repressive one.

Quote

I am not sure what the balance is between amount of law and amount of freedom. In the case of the decentralized market economy, if on a level playing field , it provides individuals with many freedoms to act and be. However, some institution will have to decide on the rules of the game, especially where public interest is involved, and for me, I trust a much much more devolved government ... akin to what Gandhi had in mind.

The balance between law and freedom is simple: there should be the fewest number of laws and the most amount of personal liberty that does not infringe on your neighbor's. If by devolved you mean smallest, we're in agreement.

Quote

HDI is not a measure of happiness but a broader measure of well-being. It is based on a concept that Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen developed (for whom the idea of maximum freedom is key), and the index was also developed another south asian economist Dr. Mahbub ul Haq (both inspirational to me). The 8th position is telling that an economy of 16trillion when we factor in health and education falls to number 8. Whereas Norway with an economy of .5 trillion is number 1. Germany is higher because they do better in health and education as well and invest in their people.

In the first place, the difference between Germany and the US in 2014 was .01, 916 vs 915. So evidently they're not doing a whole hell of a lot of investing. In the second place Germans have an inflated GDP because there are 200,000 US soldier and dependents there who pump billions of capitalist dollars into the economy. By all means bring them home and let the Germans protect themselves from Putin and let's see how their economy fares. And in the third place US life expectancy suffers because of a high accident rate and crime, notably homicide and drug use, which are endemic to pathologies that result at least in part from flawed and faulty centrally planned government policies. 

Quote

Zambia is becoming more market oriented. What one has to keep in mind however is the baseline following the rape and pillage. Zambia only gained independence in 1964 and current poverty rate has come down to 60 percent in a short time but it is the figure of 42% in extreme poverty that is also heartening. Anyhow I am not Zambian nor live in Zambia. I am conducting economic research here on elephant poaching to determine the most effective way to address this crime

I'd give the elephants guns. A well armed population is a safe one.

are you guys using the OECD report on israel and poverty rate from a few years ago ? 2 biggest groups that comprise poverty there are the arabs and the ultra orthodox. The ultra orthodox having something like 6 or 7 kids per family and they barely work and are over 10% of the population as of over 7 years ago and gaining rapidly. They used to live off govt child subsidies and Ben N cut back subsidies for children a few years ago I think and that drove their numbers up. They shouldn't be sending their kids to just study the torah anyway. I have clients there an they hat that big time because their own kids serve in the military automatically and their kids don't and don't even study anything to enter the work force. Their poverty numbers were something like 67 %.  Arabs there the numbers were real high also. Something like 50%poverty. Funny thing is we had less of a problem walking in arab communities than ultra orthodox communities when we were there. Female wears shorts over there and they are freaking rude to you and tell you to get off their street meanwhile it was public street

Thr Hasidic village of Kiryas Joel (approximately 30k residents) in Monroe, NY has the highest poverty rate, highest rate of food stamps, and most children per family in the nation and a median household income of $15k.

Wow. Didn't know that. I have some hasidic clients in williamsburgh but they own companies but they have a ton of kids some who don't work  but my clients are self sufficient for the entire family. The funny thing is they generally only do business with other hasidic people in their businesses but for some reason they like me the Irish guy and have known them now for over 20 yrs. Real estate booming in their communities in bklyn. They basically buy buildings and lots and make them bigger and sell or rent to other mostly other hassidic families and some of their blocks are largely hassidic now. But these clients of mine are pretty generous and have a foundation that they donate a lot to for their community but oh man their kids have tons of kids too. One client has a whole building now filled with his own family be he is now great grandfather even though he is only my dads age so you can imagine how big his family is

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To the extent that the Israeli economy is less robust than the German one it's because Israel spends an obscene amount of money and time defending itself from anti semites who believe that it should not exist as a country and that its inhabitants should be murdered. To the extent that you compare Israel and Germany I assume you are being ironic, because without Auschwitz there would have been no need for Israel.

Just to be clear about the need for Israel, we both know the facts of history of the need for Israel goes back to 1891 with the advent of the term called Zionism by Theodore Herzl and the identification of Palestine of the Jewish homeland. Fast forward to 1917 and to the Balfour Declaration (a key declaration to the establishment of a jewish homeland) and the intense debate surrounding it in the UK on whether Jews can be English .. strangely antisemites and zionists agreed ... the joint answer was that they could not and that a Jewish homeland had to be created in what was then the British-administered Palestine. Strangely also the people who most opposed the Balfour Declaration were not the Arabs (who gives a damn about them) but the elite British Jewry. These elite British Jews actually published open letters to newspapers saying no way jose and we aint going along with this British backing for a Jewish home in Palestine. Because if we do and the declaration goes ahead we are not going to be British elite anymore.

Some further facts were that Hitler initially wanted to banish the Jews from Germany so wasn’t completely hostile to the Zionist homeland idea. That’s why so many German Jews managed to survive after Hitler came to power by emigrating to Palestine. There was already an Israel firmly being established before Auschwitz's construction in 1940. I am only stating this to separate the substance from the polemics. If it means anything to you, I fully recognize the right of Israel to exist and self-determination just i am for palestinians' right to exist and self-determination. However often the term anti-semite, peppered with a vague mention of the Nazi holocaust, is used to distract debate.

Finally your initial comments were how france and germany's listing ahead of US on poverty is best explained by heavy US investment. To which i mentioned a counterfactual - Israel. If i knew you were so sensitive about Israel i would've mentioned Jordan. Your response is precisely the point i am getting to - Israel spends too many on military and not enough on investing in its people despite the heavy US aid. I hope we can leave Israel propaganda about murder out of this.

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Please don't tell me what I believe. I live with an inner monologue that makes Pink Flamingos look like It's a Wonderful Life. I know exactly what I think about human beings and it's not that with a little aromatherapy and fewer transfats they'll all become charitable and empathetic. It's that the ones who shouldn't be hung should be flogged.

You are entitled to your opinion. I believe that we are capable of great evil and great good, and what we do is based with the context of the structure and system we exist in and our own personal agency on whether we succumb only to our instinctual or rational side.

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I am not under any illusions about the market. All I believe is that it's demonstrably less worse than everything else.

Please present your facts.

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Look, say I agree capitalism causes crime. I do not believe that, I believe criminal behavior is endemic to the human condition and predates economics. But let's for shit and giggles say I agree that capitalism causes crime. Now, what else causes crime? Love, faith, truth, beauty, freedom, all those things. So what point exactly are you making? How about we start a campaign to disincentivize love and beauty, it'll lower the crime rate, whata you say, no more of that if I can't have her no one can stuff, whata you say.

I do not disagree on the human condition you paint; i agree it is part of who we are. To answer the question, one of the biggest causes of crime is power, which works to disenfranchise people, violate human rights, debilitates them, keeps them in a vicious cycle of poverty (say to African Americans in US continually perpetuated under modern capitalism). A second major cause is conviction and group mentality, I am here referring to the crimes against humanity that the Germans perpetrated against the Jews. Arendt gave a beautiful account of this in Eichmann in Jerusalem of how Eichmann - even though may be aware of the monstrous acts he was implementing - felt the conviction to the fuhrer outweighed any atrocity. The same findings by Arendt, to me, also explain the ISIS phenomena better. To conclude, whilst you are pointing to biological factors, i am pointing to social, economic, psychological, political, cultural factors within the realm of particular structures and systems. Other examples of criminal convictions are "The white man's burden" ... 

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You throw out these facts like they are meaningful. Whereas this is just a non sequitur. It has as much impact as saying that non small pox infected blankets have been deliberately used to keep people warm. So what. Some frontier sociopath killed some injuns by giving them a fatal disease. So what. If there was nothing in it for him he wouldn't have done it? So what. No one does anything unless there's something in it for him, it just depends on which something the particular human being thinks is important. Jeffrey Dahmer didn't eat people because of Adam Smith, he ate people because he liked the way they tasted.

Sure I agree. But it is in my interest also to cooperate to make sure that instead of undermining people, we all gain if we do not steal from the poor.


[...]

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In the first place, Nazism did not destroy Germany. That's like saying alcoholism destroyed an alcoholic's liver. Whereas it was the booze. The Germans were all Nazis until they weren't and then they were all shocked shocked I tell you by what that zany Hitler guy was doing. In the second place had the US simply went home after Berlin fell everyone in Germany would now be speaking Russian. There would be no United Nations, there would be no adjusted HDI, there would be no Germany as it exists today and there would probably be no Europe. That there is has nothing to do with German investment and everything to do with US investment. 

Not quite and in some cases incorrect. I dont have time for detailed answer on this. Hitler was already undermining its economy through massive price controls and rationing of food since 1936 to feed the war investments but it meant that by 1947 food production feel by 51% and industrial output by 33%. On the issue of US investments, that is also a red herring, Marshall Plan aid to Germany was not that large. We are talking about only $2 billion through 1954. Even during its peak, this aid was less than 5% of thei rnational income. In other words, it was peanuts. Ironically the countries that received heavy/heavier aid grew slower than Germany. At the same time, Germany was already making repayments well in excess of $1 billion. And the most important one i think was paying off the Allies (thank you US) to the tune of $2.4 billion annually to pay for occupying Germany. The positive bit was that the lack of need for investments in defense and heavy investments in the country coupled with what Alan Greenspan writes about policy changes that were really the trigger behind the German revival.

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You sure they didn't say pachyderms?.

Actually i think i have come up with the answer on poaching and management of this National Park. Kick the state out or rather contract the state to leave on the condition that the communities own the national park; maintain biodiversity and management. Privatized it, continue to make tourism money and capture it through a community cooperative, and then see what the poacher get anything.

You are a smart guy and surely I think you can understand that Israel's situation is unique and their need to spend a lot on the military and the need to carry a bigger stick than anyone else over there considering Iran wants to wipe them off the map amongst others

Get the heredi working and have them enter the draft like anyone else and make them get jobs, How much resources go to 10% of the population which aren't generating anything substantial in economic productivity but sucking money in handouts from the govt because they vote in blocks and end up carrying more weight than the other frayed groups and thus secure more perks and benefits for themselves. And do soon because I think 25% of 1st graders are heredi.  The arab working problem is more complicated. Not sure how you fix that one

MJ, who knew?  Another Hashomernik on the board.

Isn't there a problem in that the state is considered  illegitimate by many of the ultra  orthodox

I have lived and paid taxes in Rockland County since 1991 so I am going to inject myself into this Hasidic issue. From  social, political and economic points of view, strictly objective.

1. Social. The Hasidics have 0% interest in being part of the macro community. No interest in assimulating to the secular community, to the non-Jewish community, to the non-Hasidic community. They have no interest in educating their children beyond the Talmud and Old Testament.  The social community is all about the rabbi and men. Women are treated like crap and children are treated like crap. The rabbis refuse to let their yeshivas be inspected for fire code violations, and of course play the "anti-Semite" card like you and I inhale and exhale. Google sexual abuse Hasidic community. Google sexual abuse rabbi. Google yeshiva fire inspections.

2. Political The Hillary Clinton run for Senate that saw her win 1200-3 vote in the Hasidic community is an example, and not a one-off, of the "Bloc Vote".The "Bloc Vote" buses in voters from Brooklyn, and they monitor their own voters. Which equals corruption among elected officials, non elected officials. Google East Ramapo School District, google Kyrius Joel [which Mario Cuomo handed to them on a silver platter] Medicaid and social spending. Google Christopher St Lawrence.

3. Economic Lastly, but not the least. Not enough time and room on the internet to properly cover the economic destruction being applied to the macro community by the Hasidic population. Routinely have litters of 6-8 pups, all on social services. Their marriages are not recognized by the State of New York. So after the big wedding, Esther gets knocked up, Moshe runs off to Israel, and Joe and Joan Taxpayer get stuck paying; Section 8 for housing; Medicaid for health insurance; WIC for babies and toddlers; Food Stamps, and they only shop in kosher stores; and of course regular ol' welfare.. Yet, no politician says stop! Preet Bharara and Rockland County Executive Ed Day are the only public officials to attempt to pull this community from under their rock and cast light on what has been going on.

The Hasidic will not hold a door open for females, and has no interest in being part of society, but they will take and keep taking tax dollars generated by  the very each of us. If you think this sounds harsh, try living it for 25 years, especially when you get your tax bills.

Isn't there a problem in that the state is considered  illegitimate by many of the ultra  orthodox

yeah I don't know the whole story on that one but my hassidic clients in williamsburgh won't go to israel and they won't talk about why. That's one subject that is taboo to talk about with them.

MJ, who knew?  Another Hashomernik on the board.

my clients there have complained about them for years but in 2009 when we went there it hit home. Aside from some small stuff from jerusalem with them when we were in Eilat in the south we were doing atv riding in the negev desert for a day with a retired older military officer. We stopped and are hanging out in the middle of nowhere having tea just talking so I was asking him about when he served. He points 1 way and he said over that hill is egypt and then next to our town is jordan then he says look in the distance and do you see the lights far away on the water ? we did and he said that's saudi arabia. So he said while we go to sleep at night and feel for the most part safe in israel they never feel completely safe

Then he goes on about getting called in for the last big war etc and all the fighting but then all the sudden he goes on a rant about the hassidic's who add nothing to their country and don't send their kids to war and that it makes hims sick that his own kids might have to go fight for them while they sit at home and do nothing but read the torah.

It was really interesting to hear his perspective since my clients are dual citizens I always figured they were biased since they lived here first but hearing him then a couple of other israelis's all say the same thing kind of cemented it for me

I have lived and paid taxes in Rockland County since 1991 so I am going to inject myself into this Hasidic issue. From  social, political and economic points of view, strictly objective.

1. Social. The Hasidics have 0% interest in being part of the macro community. No interest in assimulating to the secular community, to the non-Jewish community, to the non-Hasidic community. They have no interest in educating their children beyond the Talmud and Old Testament.  The social community is all about the rabbi and men. Women are treated like crap and children are treated like crap. The rabbis refuse to let their yeshivas be inspected for fire code violations, and of course play the "anti-Semite" card like you and I inhale and exhale. Google sexual abuse Hasidic community. Google sexual abuse rabbi. Google yeshiva fire inspections.

2. Political The Hillary Clinton run for Senate that saw her win 1200-3 vote in the Hasidic community is an example, and not a one-off, of the "Bloc Vote".The "Bloc Vote" buses in voters from Brooklyn, and they monitor their own voters. Which equals corruption among elected officials, non elected officials. Google East Ramapo School District, google Kyrius Joel [which Mario Cuomo handed to them on a silver platter] Medicaid and social spending. Google Christopher St Lawrence.

3. Economic Lastly, but not the least. Not enough time and room on the internet to properly cover the economic destruction being applied to the macro community by the Hasidic population. Routinely have litters of 6-8 pups, all on social services. Their marriages are not recognized by the State of New York. So after the big wedding, Esther gets knocked up, Moshe runs off to Israel, and Joe and Joan Taxpayer get stuck paying; Section 8 for housing; Medicaid for health insurance; WIC for babies and toddlers; Food Stamps, and they only shop in kosher stores; and of course regular ol' welfare.. Yet, no politician says stop! Preet Bharara and Rockland County Executive Ed Day are the only public officials to attempt to pull this community from under their rock and cast light on what has been going on.

The Hasidic will not hold a door open for females, and has no interest in being part of society, but they will take and keep taking tax dollars generated by  the very each of us. If you think this sounds harsh, try living it for 25 years, especially when you get your tax bills.

Friends of my family that live in Monsey said it has been horrible for as long as they remember. Add in tax evasion on top of everything else.

Quote from: 96 Schermerhorn Street on June 20, 2016, 03:11:23 PM

Isn't there a problem in that the state is considered  illegitimate by many of the ultra  orthodox

yeah I don't know the whole story on that one but my hassidic clients in williamsburgh won't go to israel and they won't talk about why. That's one subject that is taboo to talk about with them.

God was to establish  the state ( Israel ) not man, Hence the state of  is not legitimate

The first national article on him since he was incarcerated. He's waited 1.5 years for his trial that is about to start this month. A moving piece. Where does Sheed fall in terms of St. John's all time talent pool? Top50? Top 5-10 PG? Linked below:

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2730989-the-fall-of-rysheed-jordan-how-the-streets-of-philly-swallowed-an-nba-prospect

The first national article on him since he was incarcerated. He's waited 1.5 years for his trial that is about to start this month. A moving piece. Where does Sheed fall in terms of St. John's all time talent pool? Top50? Top 5-10 PG? Linked below:

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2730989-the-fall-of-rysheed-jordan-how-the-streets-of-philly-swallowed-an-nba-prospect

The person I I feel bad for is Steve Lavin. He tried his hardest, because there are more important things than winning, and yet came up just short.