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**blackpaw** · Sep 13, 2012, 05:58 AM

Good lord, is your tin foil hat on firmly?

**Goeroeboeroe** · Sep 13, 2012, 07:02 AM

I don't always agree with GreyGeek, but he's certainly not a tin foil idiot and is always very well informed.
You can read more about it here (among many, many other places): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-P...ic_Partnership

**blackpaw** · Sep 13, 2012, 07:05 AM

Ok, my apologies for the flip comment, uncalled for.

The TPP is of genuine concern, but the dramatic hysteria of the original article only serves to trivialise the issue.

**HalationEffect** · Sep 13, 2012, 07:07 AM

Hmm, this looks to be about the TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) trade agreement... a tin-foil hat might actually be warranted in this case.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans_Pacific_Partnership

There's some pretty worrying stuff in there.

@GreyGeek - unfortunately, the website you linked to is so full of histrionics and hyperbole that it makes the people who are worried about the TPP look like a bunch of foaming-at-the-mouth radicals. I'd almost suspect it was created by the people who support TPP, in order to damage the credibility of their opposition...

**whatthefunk** · Sep 13, 2012, 07:28 AM

Its very easy to bring these big corporations to their knees. Stop buying crap from them. Big Tobacco? I quit years ago and it was a lot easier then people usually think. Big Oil? Havent owned a car in a decade and can get around town faster and cheaper by bike than by car anyways. Of course goods are delivered by oil powered vehicles, but I try to buy local to minimize transportation. Big Pharma? I believe that around 90% or medicines that are prescribed to people are unnecessary. Havent had a prescription filled in maybe five years? Walmart? Havent set foot in that hell hole in a long, long while. And the funny thing is that although my monthly salary is lower than a lot of people I know, Im never broke and have money in the bank while most of my friends with better jobs than me are searching their sofas for coins at the end of the month.

**Goeroeboeroe** · Sep 13, 2012, 07:42 AM

The site GreyGeek linked to is indeed not very descriptive. It's meant for people to support online petitions. If you subscribe on Avaaz, you get an e-mail about a subject with much more text. In that e-mail is the link to the side GreyGeek gave.
But although that text is very short, there's not a single word in it that's not true.

**Qqmike** · Sep 13, 2012, 08:22 AM

I, for one, happen to agree with your philosophy and lifestyle, whatthefunk. Conservation, basics, minimalist, some degree of comfortable austerity, whatever you wish to call it. I believe most of us Boomers in USA (certainly the group w/DOB 1946-1955) were raised that way. When the coffee pot broke, your dad would get out the soldering gun and fix it, or at least try to fix it for half a day before giving up. (And that coffee pot, well, you didn't try to make love to it. It was a basic, well made appliance you hoped to own for life, it made coffee (not sex), it was a solid quality appliance with a 15-page instruction-and-tip manual for the proud owner. And it was made in the USA, a very good thing if you care about quality and durability.)

But there's a problem, a big one. The modern US economy, for example, depends upon people spending money to buy THINGS, and now services. There's a problem, a big one, we need more factories to make THINGS (as opposed to services). There's problems, like cash flow generating big profits for big executives at big companies who pocket the profits for themselves and yet depend upon an American workforce they are paying just $8-$12 an hour with shaky benefit packages. (In case you haven't noticed, most benefit packages are best geared to upper income employees, not $10/hour folks who can't even afford to take advantage of the benefit, such as contributing 3% to profit-sharing savings to be matched. And at $10/hr, with a max cash out-of-pocked on your health insurance (IF you have health ins) of, say, $1500-$2500/year, you can't afford a major disease like cancer (which would effectively take back $2/hr or more of your $10/hr for that year). Ad nauseum. By now, we all know.) As George Bush once coaxed us in US, Go buy something!

So, whatthefunk, if everyone here were like you (and I and others trying to live rationally), the economy would go straight to hell in a hurry.

**whatthefunk** · Sep 13, 2012, 08:45 AM

The economy is going straight to hell anyways. The problem right now is that nobody has any money to buy anything because the rich have already taken it all from us and arent giving it back in the form of pay raises, benefits, taxes, etc. The US economy is propped up on debt, false hope, government intervention, and inaccurate ideas about the true nature of capitalism. In fact, Im beginning to think that spending money actually hurts the US more because for every dollar you spend, a little more trickles up never to be seen by normal folk again.

Even if everybody were well paid and had money to spend, we would still be happily escorting ourselves to hell. Believe it or not, economies can not grow infinitely. At the root of every economy is labor and resources. 99% of the resources on the earth are finite. Even things traditional classed as renewable like trees, wind energy, and solar are technically not because they require land, which we are quickly running out of. Labor is also based on resources, mainly land and water, and so is also finite. Governments keep going on about expanding the economy but what they should really be doing is trying to stabilize it. When the economy expands, it means that either new consumers have entered the market or that new resources have entered the market. Either way, what it really means is that we are a tiny bit closer to being royally f#&@ed. This all is eventually going to result in a resource/population disaster on a scale that has never been seen before, and I fear that it will happen in my lifetime.

So really, the only thing to do is stop buying stuff from corporations and try to live simply.

**Qqmike** · Sep 13, 2012, 09:12 AM

whatthefunk, well, without doing an exhaustive research/documented project on it (as would GG or SR--both excellent at getting to the jugular), I happen to agree with you, off the cuff. What I was really thinking about, is what you hit upon: "... economies can not grow infinitely." What are politicians thinking when they hold that standard up (of 4% growth)? (Of course, we know why they throw the stuff out in their speeches for people to haggle about.) Live simply, stabilize so everyone gets "enough" (left undefined for now), and at the same time, do something to stabilize resource usage-and-renewal and population growth (pro-lifers and Christians will have to suck it up and go with the flow or there will be no flow). One thing about it: It's probably fairly certain that life will continue (evolved, in some form) on this planet (until hit with something truly devastating), but there is no guarantee that human life will continue.

**woodsmoke** · Sep 13, 2012, 09:26 AM

Don't know about the website, but I watched Hillary Clinton giving an address to the Ambassador of Morocco in which she said very pointedly in several ways that the U.S. didn't have any way to control despicable free speech.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021334862

But, it is patently apparent that people are dead because of either a "contrived" reaction to the video or a "real" reaction to the video, either tangentially, directly, or obtusely.

The Democrats, a few months ago brought a bill to "regulate" the internet,

which the Republicans "used stall tactics to stop".

And President Obama said that he was considering an "end run" around the thing with an executive order.

http://dailycaller.com/2012/08/06/wh...a-possibility/

And considering that there are now dead bodies that are there possibly, or possibly not, because of an "internet video".....?

One might wonder when the "next shoe will drop" about "regulating the internet for "our safety" " ?

So.....of the two parties......which NOW seems to be the one that wants a free and open internet?

woodsmoke

**whatthefunk** · Sep 13, 2012, 09:31 AM

Originally posted by woodsmoke View Post

Don't know about the website, but I watched Hillary Clinton giving an address to the Ambassador of Morocco in which she said very pointedly in several ways that the U.S. didn't have any way to control despicable free speech.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021334862

But, it is patently apparent that people are dead because of either a "contrived" reaction to the video or a "real" reaction to the video, either tangentially, directly, or obtusely.

The Democrats, a few months ago brought a bill to "regulate" the internet,

which the Republicans "used stall tactics to stop".

And President Obama said that he was considering an "end run" around the thing with an executive order.

http://dailycaller.com/2012/08/06/wh...a-possibility/

And considering that there are now dead bodies that are there possibly, or possibly not, because of an "internet video".....?

One might wonder when the "next shoe will drop" about "regulating the internet for "our safety" " ?

So.....of the two parties......which NOW seems to be the one that wants a free and open internet?

woodsmoke

This has absolutely nothing to do the OP.

**woodsmoke** · Sep 13, 2012, 09:34 AM

Hi Whatthefunk.

From the OP.

including limits on smoking laws, affordable medicines and free speech on the Net.

Only governments can enact laws.

woodsmoke

**whatthefunk** · Sep 13, 2012, 09:41 AM

Originally posted by woodsmoke View Post

Only governments can enact laws.

woodsmoke

Yes, and you Republicans want to get rid of porn on the net. Now whos taking away your internet freedom?
http://www.csindy.com/IndyBlog/archi...-for-your-porn
(Admittedly not the greatest source, but the fact that republicans are vowing to rid the US of naked people is true.)

**woodsmoke** · Sep 13, 2012, 09:58 AM

Hi Halation effect
I quite agree that the Republicans want to restrict porno.

But that is not what the OP was discussing.

And, also, pointing to bad behaviour by the Republicans in no way justifies the bad behaviour of the Democrats, point to bad behaviour by another person is one of the classic methods of deflecting from the original point.

The Democrats have a bill that gives the President unfettered control over ANYthing that is on the net.

He basically has that now through the "warrantless wiretaps" bill that the Dems foamed at the mouth at about Bush and that Pres. Obama has taken to about ten degrees more.

I didn't see the Dems going after Pres Obama on warrantless wiretaps when they burned Bush at the stake.

I'll let the Repubs go after porno all day long as opposed to the Dems just giving the Prez carte blanche.

woodsmoke

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