The Terrible Sweal

I would like to see this "evidence"; ... So you suspect that over a dozen different courts have ALL been bamboozled?

Worldnet Daily and Newsmax? Good god! Could you have found any less reliable sources?!

The evidence is the SHE, Terri, would not have wished to continue in such a 'life'. Suffering is totally beside the point.

Yes, it's the idea that Hollywood would show anything substantially simulating the actual experiences of the victims I find implausible.

Let me add to the bitching. Gender-war feminism serves as an ideological substitute for thought, rather than a useful analytical framework. No matter what the issue, no matter what the facts, gender-war feminism will always produce the same analysis (much like the Austrian School of 'economics', or the creation scientists in 'biology', or the medieval church Scolastics). Producing the same analysis no matter what the facts is not a useful practice when it comes to making choices. RB seems to have swallowed whole and thoroughly internalized the dialect of gender-war feminism. Unfortunately, her emphasis on this dialect frequently interupts her ability to dialogue.

Unfortunately, that is NOT clear. It's been clear to several courts that Terri would have wanted to be let go. It's therefore clear that the husband has been pursuing her wishes. Your allusion to a monetary windfall is, in the absense of any valid basis to impugn the husband's motives, merely scurrilous.

Well, Walker-Bush is truly a dangerous, harmful, menace but on the question of sign the Schiavo bill or not, I don't think he can be criticized for bowing to congress. The question is whether an executive imperative exists to over-ride the legislature on this. Well, I don't see that there is really.

This is mistaken. If a person purchases a shirt for $10, they have determined that the shirt provides a utitly for them equal to $10. If they then buy and $80 shirt, they must have determined that that next shirt provided a utility to them of $80. Otherwise they would not have made the purchase. No. If you're willing to pay $1 for each item, they all have $1 utility value to you. "Explains" it wrongly. The reason a seller will offer higher volumes a lower per unit prices is because she can acheive cost savings due to scale at the higher volume. Which poses a problem for you, because your chart has mistakenly reversed the price axis by placing higher prices lower down. You say two separate markets, but there's a problem with that. You need to consider: Why are the markets distinguishable?* It's more accurate to say that in order for a divided market to exist something must be preventing arbitrage. Something like ... oh, say ... insubstitutability of supply or different utility calculations in demand.* (I.e. market based reason). What imaginary force ensure that they are 'kept separate'?

They should get real. The idea of a Hollywood movie actually 'simulating' what happened to those girls is completely implausible.

No. What I will say is that larger enterprises offer better return on investment beyond a certain point. Because a niche market is necessarily very limited, beyond a given level greater investment will not generate any returns. If I've got you right, you're saying that once every rich man has a $10,000 Rolex, there is no more return to be had from making Rolexes. So, by extension then, once every American has a $10 flag, there is no more return to be had from making flags. The difference being, as between the two, that the market for Rolexes may be, say 200,000 units, while the market for flags is 200,000,000 plus. So on Day Zero, an investor can buy either the Rolex company, or the American Flag company. How does he decide? Does he say to himself ... "hmmm American Flag will sell more units than Rolex can ever hope to. Well, that settles it, I'm buying American Flag."? Not if he's smart. Because without looking at the MARGIN on Rolex's vs. Flags he's going to come out looking pretty stupid when this comes out: Flag margin/unit $ 1 x 200,000,000 units = $200 Million Rolex margin/unit $ 9000 x 200,000 units = $1.8 Billion I am sorry, but that is a fundamental misunderstanding of economics. in fact, if I have $1000 I am better off to invest the first $10 in the company with the best return, the next $10 in the company with the next best return, and so on. Why would I invest in Ferraris no-one wants? Rather, if Ferraris pay better than Fords, I will invest in up to the exact number of Ferraris which I can sell at a better return than Fords. The moment the return on one more Ferrari falls below the return on making a Ford, I will stop making the Ferraris. But I won't do that UNTIL the return for Fords is better than for Ferraris. This is BECOMING simply impossible. Just earlier you said: "But wealth is not measured in rate of return, and wealth was what von Mises was discussing." Now you say "become a lot wealthier". Every time I ask you which one you mean you switch over to the other. Anyway, it is not an 'obvious' point; it is an incorrect point, as I have demonstrated.

Exactly. Conjectures about the life expectancy in Hong Kong are entirely just that. Hence, life expectancy figures in Hong Kong are of very little probative value in this discussion. Thank you for making this point so eloquently clear!

Oh, I'm not forgetting it. Since it amounts to a restatement of your/Mises erroneous position, using different words, what I'm doing is denying/refuting it. Rather than chase our rhetorical tails, however, let's go back to the basic points. 1. Investment is driven by a desire for a return, and selected based on the rate of return offered (with the risk calculated in the return numbers. 2. Rate of return is a calculation: net return/amount invested. 3. Net return is a function of Margin and Scale. Is there any of that so far that you disagree with? I thoguht he was discussing wealth generation, and what it implies about investment choice. Perhaps it would be useful for you to give a broad reclarification of Mises point so we don'tend up conferring pointlessly. Where did you refute my evidence? I don't see any dispute that Americans have more consumer goods and higher incomes or that Hong Kongers and Singaporeans live as long or longer than Scandinavians! Ignoring you interlocutors points is an interesting approach to conversation. Regarding consumer goods(and disposable income), I have disputed that they represent a useful picture of quality of life. Your answer to that point was the relevant but not exhaustive life expectancy discussion. As I pointed out, life expectancy is also difficult to draw conclusions about because of the uncertainty of causes and effects. (The italisized portions highlight the refutations I have tendered.)

You may be confused, but it is not because of me. I am not sneaking in anything. The point of investing is to earn a return. Return is measured in the amount received as a proportion of the amount invested. This is really a side point. But look, if you are unaware that there is a profoundly robust relationship between return on investment and profit per unit, then it will take more work than I'm ready to do to edify you. No. Net turnover, net revenue and net profit are the key financial indicators of a company. We are not talking about the 'financial indicators of a company', whatever you may imagine them to be. Do you deny that rate of return is the relevant question when assessing incentive to invest???? Possibly. AS INDICATORS OF THE LIKELYHOOD OF A DESIRE RATE OF RETURN. Come on Hugo, your love of a dispute is leading you into an absurd argument. BUT WHAT IS THE RATE OF RETURN??? We've been discussing my evidence for 5 pages. We've been refuting your evidence for 5 pages, so when you tendered the same tired lines, I assumed you had additional evidence you wanted considered. But by what measure? You seem to have forgotten the larger part of the exchanges which have transpired on this thread so far. Again, where is your evidence?

But focusing on absolute returns rather than on the rate of return makes a mockery of the very point (I think) you're trying to make. Investing is driven by the return. If you can invest $100 in a large company for a return of 1% or in a small company for a return of 9%, which one would you chose? ??? If I can sell mine for $90, don't I make more money? If I can't sell mine for $90, you've just recycled an example I've already dealt with a couple of posts above. They are. You're just trying to quibble by claiming that "profit" should not be measured in net for the business but only per unit sold. First, I'm only using unit costs and margins to simplify and demonstrate the real point about profitability. This is not merely quibbling. Rate of Return is the relevant question when assessing incentive to invest. Ergo, if Mises is purporting to identify a general rule about investment on something else that ignores the rate of return, he is simply not making any sense. Oh really? What is your evidence?

I don't know whether his 'legal interest' in the case come directly from the marriage, or whether he holds some kind of testamentary Executor-type capacity she may have signed before the accident. Whichever, it is clear the husband is acting out of a conscientious beleif about what Terri would have wanted. I think it's quite noble of him to ppursue this case out of conscienciousness when he could so easily have abandonned her. You and other right-wingers (it would not be correct to call this attitude "conservative") say that sort of thing as if 'the courts' are some sort of independent interest group, rather than an irreplaceable democratic institution. What are you really calling for, though? Mob-rule , I guess. Fifty-fifty if you ignore the fact findings of several courts regarding the evidence of her likely wishes. When did you stop beating you wife? But it has been determined that her wishes would be to not continue. It seems to me that your position requires us to either disbelieve or disregard what (apparently) her choice would be. Apparently, however, it is entirely improbable. The part of her brain capabe of these things is completely gone. It hurts her. It ignores (what the courts found to be) her wishes. It sacrifices her individual dignity to satisfy emotioanlistic preoccupations of others. If you put a dollop of babyfood in Terri's mouth, she won't even try to swallow it. How then, can tube-feeding be called 'life running it's course'?

Are they wrong to believe such things? Obviously, they are wrong if they believe Albertan are a monolithic group. But with that qualification, are they wrong to see the self-consciously 'proud Albertan's' as a paleolithic group? Certainly there ARE rednecks in Alberta. And you can't deny that rednecks are narrowminded ... that's one of the defining characteristics! And are you disputing that religious conservatives proliferate in Alberta, or that religious conservatives want to push their agenda on others? Either would be a hard case to make, I think. Pardon me if I point out that this certainly supports the idea that identifying an Albertan identity to take pride in is a bit difficult.

Oh yeah, there sure do seem to be a lot of bogeymen poking their heads out here!

Snate reform requires constitutional change, and there is insufficient political need and collectuve goodwill to attempt that journey right now.

People, people! Let's grab a little reality here! Everyone knows that Communism was just a front for the secret Rosicrucian/Zionist coalition (whose Grand Viziers meets each year at the Bilderbegger conferences).

Given that Hussien was assiduously catered to by US goverments for years, that you should make such a comment, suggests either that you think readers here are such idiots they will believe such bilge, or that you are.

I hope in a few years we will see this case as the high water mark of fascist theocracy's attacks on civil western society. This case has it all asfar as showing the religious right to be the depraved, unprincipled gang they truly are. What do we see here? Contempt for individual rights. Contempt for the constitution and the rule of law. The unauthorized appropriation of a human being's person and identity into the service of the religious causes of others. And to cap it all, crass political pandering, even more more eagerly sought than tendered for a change. It's time for Americans to take a collective breath and halt their mad hurtling rush into a new Dark Age.

Great post kimmy.

Monty: Site Monty linked to... Thanks for sharing a site full of gross ethnic chauvinism. It was ... illuminating.

I won't go there with you, Michael. However, you comments have helped distill what I've been trying to get at, and I think I've got it pinned down now. I think there are such things as warranted and unwarranted varieties of pride. If we agree it is possible for people to hold an honest/reasonable recognition of the meritorious conduct of another, then it seems plausible that an individual might hold an honest/reasonable recognition of him or herself. Warranted pride in oneself, then, is plausible. Further, an individual holding may hold warranted pride toward a group, provided (1) the merit is genuine, and (2) is properly identified with the proposed group. To take kimmy as our specimen, she cites valid enough meritorious elements to justify pride in an individual: endurance, industriousness, etc. But I think there is a problem in claiming those merits as distinctively characteristic of an Alberta vs. a Canadian identity, because: 1) endurance and industry are characteristics Canada can claim justifiably as well as Alberta; 2) Canadian industry and endurance has contributed substantially to accumulating the material evidence cited for Albertan industry and endurance; In short, the 'Albertan' identity-group cannot establish a distinctive claim to these acknowledged merits.

This brings a hole new meaning to the expression "Holy Flying F..."!