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RE: Welcome to the Dark Age - 2/6/2010 12:10:24 AM   
DemonKia


Posts: 5521
Joined: 10/13/2007
From: Chico, Nor-Cali
Status: offline 		The savings for the state from cannabis legalization come not just from turning it into a legal & taxable commodity but just as significantly from the wholesale closure of prisons that I expect will accompany it's legalization.

In '95 the SF Chron ran a series on cannabis & prisons & stated that fully a quarter of all the criminally incarcerated individuals in the US at that time were imprisoned strictly for cannabis-related crimes -- cultivation, distribution, possession, etc. That's a lot of prisons, prison guards, etc, etc.

Good thread, Animus.

I vote we chop the defense budget in half the first year & then in half again the second year, & maybe do it again the 3rd & even 4th years . .. . . . But I just might be a bit of a radical .. . . .

Oh, actually, the obvious one is to start a Jobs Corp again & hire people all over the place to do all kinds of necessary work. Universal single-payer health care & hire thousands of mental health care workers (who are clearly needed). Fully fund drug treatment programs . . .. . I could go on . . . . . But I'm sure I opened myself up enough as is . . . . . .

& tax the rich. Not the most popular opinion, I know, & yet . .. . .. In the 1940's, 1950's, & 1960's the top individual-income tax rates in the US ranged from 77% to 94% .... . .

For example, Social Security's big 'problem' would be fixed for the next half century by simply applying SS withholding taxes to incomes over the $100,000-ish cut-off that exists now. It's what I think of as the MC Hammer fix.

Yeah, some rich people won't have to worry about their retirement but there are plenty of MC Hammers in the world who are briefly rich, for a decade or two. Then they burn thru all that money & are back to being ordinary joe-blows like the rest of us. & thus it's perfectly legit to collect SS-withholdings on rich people's incomes, too . .. . . .

Of course, ya know I'm just sittin' here, holdin' my breath over that pile of wishfulness, lol . . ...

The flip side is that it appears that the powers that be (the corporacracy & their proxies) are doin' their damnedest to recreate all the 'best' parts of the Great Depression & Japan's lost decades, so I'm feelin' pretty optimistic that in a coupla years we may be ready to quit voting the interests of the top 1% of income earners & start voting the priorities that serve the bottom 99% -- but I might be kinda Pollyanna-ish, lol . .. . . .

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The Verbossinator

(in reply to AnimusRex)
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RE: Welcome to the Dark Age - 2/6/2010 1:19:28 AM   
NeedToUseYou


Posts: 2297
Joined: 12/24/2005
From: None of your business
Status: offline 		Not exactly related but I just was reading our local news radios website (well one town over, 20 miles), and this was listed.

edited: it's related because it shows how desperate cities are for any employment.

It is a huge pretty new, I think about 10ish years warehouse with office area, and the city will give free rent for 3 years, with the option to buy at anytime, to anyone that can bring 300 jobs and use it plus the lease afterwards would be structured at break even for the city. Yeah, things are getting sorta desperate, I guess.

That's in a nearby town to here, but they all function as unit economically.

http://www.wjbdradio.com/?f=news_single&id=20248

Anyone want to go in on the dildo factory, you've always dreamed of? Free Rent!!!

Seriously, though that building is to big for anything I could think of alone. I wish it was a quarter that size, that would be awesome.

If someone does end up utilizing it via this post, my finders fee is 10K. You'll make that back in a couple months in rent savings!!!!


< Message edited by NeedToUseYou -- 2/6/2010 1:26:38 AM >

(in reply to DemonKia)
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RE: Welcome to the Dark Age - 2/6/2010 5:55:14 AM   
Moonhead


Posts: 16520
Joined: 9/21/2009
Status: offline 		They could surely raise a lot more legalising and taxing cocaine than they could dope, I'd have thought.

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I like to think he was eaten by rats, in the dark, during a fog. It's what he would have wanted...
(Simon R Green on the late James Herbert)

(in reply to AnimusRex)
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RE: Welcome to the Dark Age - 2/6/2010 2:10:19 PM   
pahunkboy


Posts: 33061
Joined: 2/26/2006
From: Central Pennsylvania
Status: offline 		http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/06/eco-shocker-turbine-light-concept-uses-wind-to-light-highways/

(in reply to Moonhead)
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RE: Welcome to the Dark Age - 2/6/2010 2:37:56 PM   
Moonhead


Posts: 16520
Joined: 9/21/2009
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quote:

ORIGINAL: pahunkboy

http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/06/eco-shocker-turbine-light-concept-uses-wind-to-light-highways/

If a city is skint how are they going to afford to build stuff like that, medication boy?

_____________________________

I like to think he was eaten by rats, in the dark, during a fog. It's what he would have wanted...
(Simon R Green on the late James Herbert)

(in reply to pahunkboy)
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RE: Welcome to the Dark Age - 2/6/2010 2:45:24 PM   
pahunkboy


Posts: 33061
Joined: 2/26/2006
From: Central Pennsylvania
Status: offline 		.


< Message edited by pahunkboy -- 2/6/2010 2:54:34 PM >

(in reply to Moonhead)
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RE: Welcome to the Dark Age - 2/6/2010 3:15:36 PM   
thornhappy


Posts: 8596
Joined: 12/16/2006
Status: offline 		This is the bad part: "while the concept lacks a lot of firm details so far".  That usually means there is no final design, maybe no prototypes, and no firm price.

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RE: Welcome to the Dark Age - 2/6/2010 3:25:22 PM   
Moonhead


Posts: 16520
Joined: 9/21/2009
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quote:

ORIGINAL: thornhappy

This is the bad part: "while the concept lacks a lot of firm details so far".  That usually means there is no final design, maybe no prototypes, and no firm price.

Yep. Just like the Lockheed Starfighter as modified for the German market.

_____________________________

I like to think he was eaten by rats, in the dark, during a fog. It's what he would have wanted...
(Simon R Green on the late James Herbert)

(in reply to thornhappy)
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RE: Welcome to the Dark Age - 2/6/2010 6:57:51 PM   
Aneirin


Posts: 6121
Joined: 3/18/2006
From: Tamaris
Status: offline 		My suspicion is aside from the Dutch, nobody will legalise pot for the simple reason that they need people working to make the economy work, how many pot heads will be working every day, all day....yeah man, I will think about getting work tommorrow man, but today I just can't be bothered...perhaps ok now there is unemployment, but what about when the country gets moving again, there won't be a work force that can be bothered.

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Everything we are is the result of what we have thought, the mind is everything, what we think, we become - Guatama Buddha

Conservatism is distrust of people tempered by fear - William Gladstone

(in reply to Moonhead)
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RE: Welcome to the Dark Age - 2/6/2010 8:17:39 PM   
AnimusRex


Posts: 2165
Joined: 5/13/2006
Status: offline
quote:

I vote we chop the defense budget in half the first year & then in half again the second year, & maybe do it again the 3rd & even 4th years . .. . . . But I just might be a bit of a radical .. . . .

Oh, actually, the obvious one is to start a Jobs Corp again & hire people all over the place to do all kinds of necessary work. Universal single-payer health care & hire thousands of mental health care workers (who are clearly needed). Fully fund drug treatment programs . . .. . I could go on . . . . . But I'm sure I opened myself up enough as is . . . . . .

& tax the rich. Not the most popular opinion, I know, & yet . .. . .. In the 1940's, 1950's, & 1960's the top individual-income tax rates in the US ranged from 77% to 94% .... . .

For example, Social Security's big 'problem' would be fixed for the next half century by simply applying SS withholding taxes to incomes over the $100,000-ish cut-off that exists now. It's what I think of as the MC Hammer fix.



You know what is so hysterical, or hysterically sad, is that most of what you wrote was centrist political thinking in the US from 1932-1980. The CCC, the WPA, and other jobs creation programs, the high marginal tax rates on the rich....it was all very conventional.

Nowadays, you would be accused of "pallin' around with terrists" if you said those things during a campaign.


P.s. the decades of the 1940's and 1950's, living under those very same programs, were considered by many to be the high water mark of American prosperity and freedom.
Just sayin'.

< Message edited by AnimusRex -- 2/6/2010 8:18:58 PM >

(in reply to DemonKia)
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RE: Welcome to the Dark Age - 2/6/2010 8:20:40 PM   
truckinslave


Posts: 3897
Joined: 6/16/2004
Status: offline 		I really hate this. California so should have been first.

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RE: Welcome to the Dark Age - 2/6/2010 8:26:08 PM   
truckinslave


Posts: 3897
Joined: 6/16/2004
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Silence8

I don't know whether this is related, but I've noticed an upsurge in parking enforcement lately. Of course, there's really nowhere to park (in the city), and metered spots have an hour-limit, and parking lots cost the same as the ticket. Ugh.


My last parking ticket, in Key West, was a decade ago and almost $50. Those must be some expensive lots.

(in reply to Silence8)
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RE: Welcome to the Dark Age - 2/6/2010 8:48:32 PM   
truckinslave


Posts: 3897
Joined: 6/16/2004
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quote:

ORIGINAL: thornhappy

This is the bad part: "while the concept lacks a lot of firm details so far".  That usually means there is no final design, maybe no prototypes, and no firm price.

Let's not forget financing.

(in reply to thornhappy)
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RE: Welcome to the Dark Age - 2/7/2010 1:10:42 AM   
rachel529


Posts: 197
Joined: 4/29/2008
Status: offline 		the dutch unemployment rate is under 5%.  plus, a sizable chunk of the population already uses marijuana on a recreational basis... 

(in reply to Aneirin)
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RE: Welcome to the Dark Age - 2/7/2010 1:22:27 AM   
Justme696


Posts: 3236
Joined: 1/7/2008
From: Royal kingdom of the Netherlands
Status: offline
quote:

yeah man, I will think about getting work tommorrow man, but today I just can't be bothered


perhaps it says soemthing about the people in a country...but it doesn't happen here in the Netherlands..else you loose your job.
If you visit here..you notice that most of the "public" pot smokers are tourist that visit our little Sodom and Gomorra.
To us..it is nothing special. Most people don't even use it. Students enjoy it..as they discover life and try many things.


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RE: Welcome to the Dark Age - 2/7/2010 2:35:04 AM   
Aneirin


Posts: 6121
Joined: 3/18/2006
From: Tamaris
Status: offline 		Exactly, it is why I do not consider the ingesting of cannabis to be such a danger the authorities suggest, but they will not legalise it because of fear.If say it was legalised, there would probably be a rush to try out the new novelty, but like all novelties, they pass from favour and I certainly do not believe the consumption of cannabis always leads a user onto other  drugs any more than alcohol does, as there will always be the addict type person, and the non addict type person. A person who has an addictive element in their make up might take more than is healthy, and again might not, for there are many causes of addictions. I am one such addictive person, it is how I came to be a smoker, like everyone else, I can easily get cannabis, but I have tried it, but I don't feel the need to do it, I am it seems rightly or wrongly I prefer alcohol and with that the government cuts it's tythe. Despite the government drive to rid us of our addictions, hey, as a smoker and drinker, I pay more tax to the government, my choice. But the mind boggles as to why the government wants less tax as every person who heeds the governments directives, is one less additional tax payer. When all of our addictions are gone, I wonder where the government is going to get the money it has lost, for I certainly do not believe ailments caused by smoking and drinking are the main drain on the health service, it is just that our addictions are a convenient political scapegoat other than say, the elderly.

_____________________________

Everything we are is the result of what we have thought, the mind is everything, what we think, we become - Guatama Buddha

Conservatism is distrust of people tempered by fear - William Gladstone

(in reply to Justme696)
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RE: Welcome to the Dark Age - 2/7/2010 5:33:45 AM   
DemonKia


Posts: 5521
Joined: 10/13/2007
From: Chico, Nor-Cali
Status: offline 		A lot of that cannabis-kills-your-motivation stuff is propaganda & cop-out; sure, if you want it to, if that's a convenient excuse, but there's plenty of people who use cannabis to motivate, too, lol . . . . . That particular canard reminds me of all those drunks who blame the booze for their bad behavior (of whatever flavor). & all of that reminds me that we're not far removed from the-devil-made-me-do-it . . . . . . .

Hehehe, living here in northern Cali I can tell you from first-hand experience that a very large swathe of the working population regularly use cannabis.

For example, the word is that the software industry doesn't drug test cuz they'd have lots fewer employees, & that's all about the cannabis -- writing code is apparently very boring & using cannabis makes the work more tolerable for lots of code monkeys . . . . I've heard similar about construction, if you can picture that.

All of that is very hush-hush, lol . . . . One of the ways to tell whether lots of employees of a given industry use cannabis regularly is to see which ones don't drug test, especially when it would otherwise seem like they oughta. & even those that do drug test do not necessarily eliminate based on cannabis. The word I've heard is that Costco had an unofficial policy of ignoring cannabis on drug tests for a very long time.

&, of course, as far as employment is concerned here in Cali, cannabis has been legal for over a decade. Given the legal protections provided by the Americans with Disabilities Act, medical consumers of cannabis are protected from employment repercussions to their usage. They fear no drug test on that account . .. . . .

& none of that has any impact on the hard, mathematical fact that California cannot afford the prisons it's built, especially under its current, escalating fiscal & political crisis. Circa 2012 or 2013, possibly as late as 2015, I actually do expect to see Cali legalize cannabis entirely, for everyone. & it'll be purely about the economics, sometime after the state basically declares bankruptcy & has no choice about making drastic choices. C'mon, visualize it with me . . . . . .


&, Animus, I absolutely hear ya. It's hysterically funny to hear policies plugged by Eisenhower get referred to as 'socialist', fucking roflmao funny . . . . . . . Or to look back at some of Nixon's domestic policy proposals (health care & welfare) with wistful nostalgia & a longing for missed opportunities for progressives. I think the Chinese musta cursed us cuz we be livin' in some very interesting times, lol . . . . . .

(in reply to Aneirin)
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RE: Welcome to the Dark Age - 2/8/2010 8:22:50 AM   
cuckyman


Posts: 471
Joined: 3/25/2009
Status: offline 		The people are fed up with underwriting govenment spending and money going down government rat holes...if you want government services...PAY for them yourself...only the rest of us choose not to be that dumb...... I could care about cops and fireman sucking us dry with 90% pensions for sitting on their asses....they can't solve crimes only hassel motorist and eat free donuts..... bout time they got a dose of reality...just like independant business owners were forced to change...they will or perish..... a new day is dawning, and government is not in the agenda to come.... government will be the LAST place you will look to find security..... that is what it should be..... I worked for my money, and I am NOT about to give it assholes that think they own it and me.....

(in reply to AnimusRex)
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RE: Welcome to the Dark Age - 2/8/2010 8:29:43 AM   
cuckyman


Posts: 471
Joined: 3/25/2009
Status: offline 		More bloviations!.... the dems used Fanny and Freddie to hand out loans to losers and grenaded the rules of responsible lending to use the funds as an 'affirmative action' scheme to buy votes from the ghetto dwellers..... and now it has exploded in their face....trying to blame Bush or some other entity is an excercise in propaganda for the failing Obama poll numbers...... it ain't gonna work there 'brain'.... why not begin anew by reading Milton Freedman's 'Free to Choose'...it might get your mind a little more expanded about what really is going on ...... but, alas, libs only read what supports their communist college professor's views that were supplanted in the weak minds of liberal students....and so it goes....

(in reply to Brain)
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RE: Welcome to the Dark Age - 2/8/2010 8:39:18 AM   
Moonhead


Posts: 16520
Joined: 9/21/2009
Status: offline 		Liberals aren't communists, dearie. You'll do a lot better taking a patronising and condescending tone towards people if you can get that one straight in your head before opening your mouth.

_____________________________

I like to think he was eaten by rats, in the dark, during a fog. It's what he would have wanted...
(Simon R Green on the late James Herbert)

(in reply to cuckyman)
Profile   Post #: 40
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