Free Republic

Hmm...

"Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination."

"If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them."


"And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet."

"Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh."

"Nevertheless neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord."

"let every man have his own wife, and every woman have her own husband."

How much more clear does the Bible need to be?

There's a special place in hell reserved for excrement like this.

"It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones."
Luke 17:2

CIA employees are allowed to engage in political outside of work, just like anyone else.

I lived in Brazil for 2 years as a missionary. The problem is that there aren't enough guns in Brazil. Normal people usually do not own a gun because they can't afford them. The "Civil" police carry .22, and .38 pistols. If you shoot someone with a .22 or .38 it's really gonna hurt and tick them off.

The "military" police usually carry 9mm pistols and sometimes have some sort of "assualt" rifle.

The police are always outgunned and outnumbered by the criminals, drug dealers, and thugs who all have AK-47's and Glocks which are illegal for a civilian to own.

Nevada is the state that keeps re-electing Dingy Harry Reid. There is hope for Nevada in that it borders the reddest state in the union.

But then again, oil is the 2nd most abundant liquid on the planet, and look how expensive it is.

Interesting. H, Al, and Fe are some of the most abundant elements on the planet.

The Bush Administration is no longer advocating open borders, but time will tell if it's lip service or not.

No one's blamed Bush yet, so here we go....

This happened because of Bush and global warming.

Keep dreaming. The politicos in washington will never give up the power that the current tax code gives them.

You really ought to go read this: http://www.financialsense.com/stormwatch/2005/0624.html

There doesn't exist any official measure of inflation. I can see several things increasing in cost in the economy. Based on anecdotal evidence, I would say that inflation is 6-7%.

Where do we start??

gasoline prices - up 100%

crude oil - up 50%

gold - up 20%

other commodities - up in the double digits

health care - up 10% per year, every year since I can remember

food - up ~10%

house prices - up 15%

college tuition - up 10% every year

How can you with a straight face say that inflation is at 2%????

The Boskin Commission recommended several changes in the CPI which were then implemented. With these changes, the CPI can be easily manipulated downwards.

Substitution:

The CPI used to be computed each month using a fixed basket of goods. The BLS now uses substitutions in their monthly computations of the CPI. If beef prices rose, it was assumed that people substituted chicken. If chicken prices rose, then consumers would switch to fish. If all these prices rose, well consumers would become vegetarians or maybe start eating Alpo dog food.

Weighting:

Instead of straight arithmetic weightings the BLS began to use geometric weighting. The benefit of geometric weighting is that it automatically gave a lower weighting to those items in the CPI that were rising in price and higher weightings to items in the index that were falling in price.

Hedonics:

The BLS also adjusts prices for quality. Hedonics adjusts the prices of goods as a result of the increased utility a consumer derives from a product.

Last year the price of a 27" TV was adjusted for quality improvements. The 27" TV had a retail cost of $329.99. It was decided that the new model, which still sold for $329.99, had a better screen. After putting this improvement through the governments complex hedonic adjustment model it was determined that the price of the TV fell by $135, concluding that the price of the TV had actually fallen by 29%! The price reflected in the CPI was not the actual retail store cost of $329.99, but $194.99. The problem is that if I go to Worst Buy to buy that TV, I would still pay $329.99.

Another example: A 2005 model car, which went from $17,890 in 2004 to $18,490 in 2005. After adjusting for quality items and making antilock disc brakes standard, the BLS adjusted the actual $600 price increase down by $225. The problem is that the price of the car in dealer showrooms is still $18,490.

The CPI is "program produces monthly data on changes in the prices paid by urban consumers for a representative basket of goods and services." But monetary inflation has a direct impact on the prices the consumer pays. Why shouldn't house prices be in there? Why not taxes?

Maybe you ought to go and study economics because you obviously don't have a clue as to how the CPI can be manipulated. You also don't understand why inflation is evil and is the bane of all economies with fiat currencies.

We could have 10% inflation, and through manipulation the CPI could come out and say 0%. The government has no problem with lying to the American people and stealing from them. Whether inflation is 1% or 10% it's still a tax on your savings and is morally wrong.

Taxes you pay are your expenditures on public goods (defense, etc.)

Sometimes it is, but most of my tax money goes towards socialist, wealth-redistributing, vote-buying scams. As I also mentioned ealier, the scientific method requires one to reserve judgment until evidence is gathered.

I'm not writing a scientific paper or dissertation here.

We need a paramilitary BSF (Border Security Force), just like India.

This is not a crime, just "misconduct."

It's hard to define intrinsic value. Here's a good website about it:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/value-intrinsic-extrinsic/

Most people think gold has intrinsic value, but what basic human need does it satisfy? What does it do other than look pretty? My cat sees no value in my gold and silver coins, but we both see value in a tasty, juicy T-bone.

How can you believe that inflation is only a couple of percentage points? Have you seen the price of food, energy, and housing?

You ever hear of the Boskin Commission? The CPI is manipulated downwards to hide inflation. This was started early in the Klinton administration and they manipulate it downwards through hedonics, substitution, and weighting. House prices aren't included in the CPI, "owner's equivalent rent" is. Taxes aren't included in the CPI either.

What do I mean by overstimulate? The Fed uses monetary policy to stimulate the economy. It does this through the creation of credit (Fed Funds rate), and the printing press. If the Fed goes too far in stimulating the economy, it creates inflation. This is Econ 101. The Fed. Funds rate dropped to 1% and the money supply has increased by 50% since 2000. How can that not be going too far?

You have to be blind not to see that the dot com speculators left the stock market in 2000 and got into the housing market. At the same time, the Fed lowered the Fed. funds rate down to 1%, which is essentially free money, which caused mortgage rates to plumment. The low rates and decreased lending standards helped feed the housing bubble.

The artificially low interest rates made available a nearly limitless supply of money for borrowing in the housing market. That distorted the housing market and caused prices to go up.

What else could have caused the price of housing to go up 50% on a nationwide basis since 2000? Incomes since 2000 are pretty flat. You can't explain it with illegal aliens, they can't afford to buy houses.

Watch the blowhards in congress then proceed to bailout Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the idiots that bought a 500sq.ft. condo for $500,000 with an interest only loan. Bush, being the compassionate socialist that he is will sign it.

Market forces are influenced by people's confidence in that market. The Nasdaq crashed because some people lost confidence of it and started liquidating thier positions. The falling price then gave rise to the herd mentality which caused everyone else to start selling as well. Prices don't crash in the housing market, but they can go down significantely over time. A crash happens when people need to unload an asset at any price, but there aren't any buyers (suckers) willing to buy it. What will happen in the housing market is gradually people realize that prices won't go up anymore and all the marginal buyers have been scraped from the bottom of the barrel with the interest only ARM loans. In other words, there's no more suckers willing to buy at those sky-high prices. You have people trying to sell at their asking prices. Someone comes along and offers them less. They hold fast and insist that they know what their house is worth, after all it appraised for XXX,XXX and Joe Blow down the street sold it a few months back for a similar price. This may go on for awhile until the seller gives up selling or gives into one of the "lowball" offers. Then the neighbors realize that house prices are going down and want to get out of their house to lock in their profits. Does everyone see where this is going???? House prices can crash as far as the Nasdaq did, but would do it over a longer period of time. I predict that after housing prices have gone down 30-40% with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac belly up, we will have the Congressional blowhards come in and fix things the way they fix everything-congressional hearings. They'll say that "no one could have seen this coming....How did this happen?" Watch the blowhards in congress then proceed to bailout Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the idiots that bought a 500sq.ft. condo for $500,000 with an interest only loan. Bush, being the compassionate socialist that he is will sign it.

I don't know how you can say that Greenspan did not overstimulate the economy. Overstimulating the economy can be worse than doing nothing at all.

Even he admitted that there's some serious distortions in the economy. These distortions were caused the by excess money and credit created by the Fed. All that money and credit had to go somewhere and it went into the housing market.

Consumer spending is driving the economy. The increases in consumer spending came about as a result of more borrowing rather than through increased personal income. There's only so long that you can live on borrowed money.

That's what the tyrants would like you to think. Let's say that your house is paid off and you lose your job. You can't afford to pay your property taxes, the rent to your lord-the government. The real owners, the government, will come and take away your house from you. It's a crying shame that you should have to sell your house because you can't pay the taxes on it.

If you really own something, no one can take it away from you for any reason. I don't have to pay any taxes for owning stocks, bonds, gold, or just about anything else.