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hey shane,

I think it's noble that you're trying to tackle at economics, but in my opinion you might have confused some things.

"The free market tends towards full employment"
If you mean by that statement that a working economy usually has an high employment rate, then I agree with you. But to me it sounded like you were trying to say that the standard for a (free market) economy is an employment rate close to 100% (or higher then 98%).  This would be wrong. The only economy system that can provide full employment is the planned economy. If fact full employment would be catastrophic for a free market system. Full employment leads to drastic inflation.

Example: Lets say you have 3 people. Person a has a good education and has already some job experience. Person B also has a good education, but he's a complete newbie and needs some on the job training. Person C only has a mediocre education, as well as a criminal recored.

If there are 2 free spots, both person A and B get hired, person C stays unemployed.

Since person A is already experienced, he gets 1500$ person B just 1000$. Now, if person A is good at bargaining, he might get 1600$ or 1700$, but if he demands a 3000$, his employer is going to say, yeah right, drop him and hire person C for 900$. Since person C is unemployed and desperately needs the money he is probably going to take the job.

If there are 4 free spots, then not only do all 3 get hired, but person A can also demand a million dollars. After all there is no possible way for him to get unemployed. The only way the company can pay the 3000 is to raise the price for there product. Suddenly B and C are stuck in a financial crisis, but not for long. They go to their employer and also, demand 3000$. Naturally their employer also raises the price of their product, and person A suddenly can buy the same for 3000$ as the last month for 1500$.

Full employment leads to drastic inflation. Drastic inflation is extremely bad for the free market.

A failing Internet connecT1ö#@~,.....   error 404

What does that make me? An Atheist, or Agnostic? I didn't say I believed in one, I just said I hope there is one and would be glad if there was.

A dreamer?

I'm with you on the Pot part. I mean pot is one of the safest drugs ever (about as bad as caffeine). Now I'm not saying that you should take dope, all drugs affect your body in some way, but pot is way safer then alcohol or cigarettes.

In Germany the police in Leipzig actually pushed for legislature that would make it legal for citizens to grow 3 plants of weed, because the dealers cut the drug with lead.

But I see a problem with meth. You can make it yourself, so why buy it in a store? I mean, of course some people will buy the stuff if it's legal, but when you look at the software pirates, if you can get it for free, people will jump on it.
And then we got the addiction problem. As far as I know, meth is extremely addictive. Even one shot is enough with certain preconditions.

There is a broad consensus among economists that minimum wage laws distort the price mechanism and hurt the very people they are intended to help. Almost three-quarters (73%) of labor economists believe that an increase in the minimum wage increases unemployment. Only 6% believe that an increase in the minimum wage increases employment. When asked which of three policy alternatives (the minimum wage, the earned income tax credit, general welfare) best helps poor families, only 9% of economists cited the minimum wage (70% cited the earned income tax credit).Both supporters and opponents of the minimum wage assert that the issue is a matter of ethics and social justice involving worker exploitation and earning ability. Supporters claim that increases in the minimum wage increase workers' earning power and protect workers against employer exploitation. Opponents claim that increases in the minimum wage increase unemployment; and the unemployment caused outweighs the benefits to minimum wage workers who remain employed, while allowing businesses to more effectively exploit the minimum wage workers who remain.

As far as I know, the minimum wage is often a slogan used by a lot of socialistic party's to try to buy voters.

I guess, like in any debate, both sides have good points, but I haven't done the research to know the in's and out of this, so don't take my word.

In my opinion, all the great names of paleontology are the best example of confusing Greek and Latin names used in modern science to confuse people.

There are millions of creatures, and when they find a new one, they open a Latin dictionary at a random page, take the next best word and ad -saurus.


Tada, new creature name.

@Sinlingual: But your signature is German 

But the Methodist Church thanked Prof Dawkins for "getting God onto London buses".

Rev Jenny Ellis said: "We are grateful to Richard for his continued interest in God and for encouraging people to think about these issues."

See, these are the kind of religious people I like. Actually, I never had any problems with religious groups in Europe (mostly Germany). This of course might be related to about 120 years of oppression.

In fact, most people I know are atheists. And the religious one are extremely moderate. (I had some discussions with them and they agreed with me about 90% of the time. C'mon, thats no fun. Where are the German creationists?) Before I visited the USA I actually believed that no one on earth could be as deluded as all these atheist groups claim.

...

Ok, might be that an public high school in the middle of a "economically disadvantaged" area in a major city in the bible belt isn't the proper place for an 16 year old rural German kid, but still ...

America, you really need to pull yourself together

Note: I haven't seen Penn's video either, so I'm just responding to the posts above, NOT to Penn's video.


Hey all,

Might of course be that I'm too moderate for this Forum, but since this debate seems to be a bit one sided, let me jump in.

So your argument is that your an atheist and therefore not an agnostic. So it is fair for me to say that you are a gnostic? (like a-theist is a non theist, so is an a-gnostic a non gnostic)

Now lets dig up the definitions and look at your claim ...

Atheist: Someone who holds no believe in a God or Gods.
Agnostic: Someone who claims that they do not know or are unable to know whether God exists.

Therefore a gnostic is:
Someone who claims that they do know whether God exists.

A gnostic atheist is therefore: Someone who holds no believe on God and claims to KNOW GOD EXISTS.

This is a common misconception.

Theism and Atheism are about believe. Gnosticism and Agnosticism are about knowledge.

Of course most Atheists are also Agnostics and most Theists are Gnostic's, but there are also Agnostic Theists.


Mfg Chrisch

I really dig the math clock ...

But I think there's a spelling mistake at number 9.

(3x/x)^3 is 27, isn't it? or did I just misread?