A post I made elsewhere that fits here much better.

OmniNegro · Post by **OmniNegro** » Sat Nov 03, 2012 6:19 am

There was a time you could go to a library and look up a confirmed fact that the Earth is flat.

I simply dispute what looks wrong to me. That does not mean I am right, but does not forbid me from being right either.

There is much more to life than facts that will be proven true one day and proven false another. Experience tells me to believe what I actually see.

Emerald · Post by **Emerald** » Sat Nov 03, 2012 6:43 am

OmniNegro, you wouldn't happen to post on GitP as willpell, would you?

I really hope so, because I'd hate to think that there are two people out there who think probability and statistics are bullshit, believe their own senses over evidence and theories, don't know the definition of "socialism" or many other government-related words, and think they know how things "really" work while everyone else is a fool. Having even two people who are uneducated, self-centered, and deluded to that degree polluting fairly rational gaming forums is two too many.

OmniNegro · Post by **OmniNegro** » Sat Nov 03, 2012 6:53 am

Emerald, why do you and others keep insisting I do not know the meaning of the word socialism?

I do not post on GitP. And I do not know anyone by the name willpell. Sorry to disappoint you.

I also do not disregard probabilities. Statistics are only ever reliable over extreme amounts of time. Otherwise all manner of crazy shit would be bound to happen regularly. (Moreso than already does, that is.)

You presume without any evidence that I do not know things, and that I believe things. You presume I am uneducated. Delusion is a matter of opinion though. I cannot and will not attempt to contest that. Nor will I contest being self-centered. What honest Human could?

And let me turn your own words against you. Why exactly would you *NOT* believe your own senses over statistics and probabilities? Are you hallucinating at the moment? That would explain much.

Juton · Post by **Juton** » Sat Nov 03, 2012 7:30 am

I think I missed something. Why are you replying to someone named 'OmniNegro' who registered like 3 days ago so he could just start trolling? He could not be more obvious if his screen name was 'IamaTroll69'.

I would love it if this board stopped feeding the trolls. Barring that could you at least not reply to shitty trolls? This place would be better off if we made them work for their lulz.

OmniNegro · Post by **OmniNegro** » Sat Nov 03, 2012 7:37 am

Are you implying there is something wrong with my handle?

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sat Nov 03, 2012 8:15 am

OmniNegro wrote:You presume without any evidence that I do not know things, and that I believe things

We presume them based on the ample evidence presented in your posts. Because literally every single word you have said about socialism is proof that you have no fucking clue what it means.

I even gave you the actual definition, government ownership of the means of production, and at this point, I'd tell you to look up the definition, except of course, that you believe that dictionaries are fake, and written by evil official lies, so the real definition of socialism must be whatever stupid thing you think up in the next twelve seconds.

OmniNegro · Post by **OmniNegro** » Sat Nov 03, 2012 8:36 am

Oh Kaelik! Lol. And now you presume that I am illiterate or failed to notice your definition. And add to that the claim that I believe only what I make up.

Just for your information, I did not bother to pick apart the flimsy strings binding your first post together because it was as well written as stupid shit smeared on filthy public bathroom walls.

Continue insulting me and I will get upset and hurt your weak and frail mind with more words you pretend to understand whilst you fling stones from your glass house.

Here is an alternative: Pretend to have won since you are the mighty and knowledgeable one who made up shit about someone you do not know based solely on what you failed to understand in my initial post. Then ignore me and crown yourself queen of the Universe.

Otherwise I can go on for days. And I will be here when you get off your throne and decide you need to correct me some more with your incompetence.

erik · Post by **erik** » Sat Nov 03, 2012 10:48 am

Omni, if you are going to dispute every factual information without contesting it with confirmable/disputable factual evidence of your own, then it is impossible to have any sort of meaningful conversation with you as it relates to facts.

You made claims that seem fantastical about GDP and spending. These are things with real numbers that can be looked up easily. The research was done, and demonstrated with evidence that your claim is not just wrong, but wildly wrong. You made claims about the a word, and were offered an explanation of the word as its definition actually entails and you have rejected that definition for your own.

You can do that, but it has no place in a meaningful discussion and there's no point in continuing it.

Aharon · Post by **Aharon** » Sat Nov 03, 2012 10:59 am

This thread amuses me, so I'll invest more time in it despite being rather certain that it won't amount to anything.

@OmniNegro
Your handle contains "Negro" which, combined with your posting style, can be construed as an attempt to offend.

Concerning inflation: You are right, inflation does hit you more than other segments of society. It not only includes the bare neccessities you mentions, which roughly doubled in price in 5 years, corresponding to about 20% inflation for those goods (assuming this is a true observation and not your feeling - I have no idea what these things cost in the US).
Rent and luxury goods like computers are also included in this calculation. Of course, that means little to you because you can't afford them anyway. If you could, comparatively, inflation wouldn't hit you so hard.

Other than that, I have to agree with the general sentiment here about you not accepting any arguments/explanations at all. What's wrong with the data The Vigilante and Tarkis Flux provided? It's certainly not Fox News.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Sat Nov 03, 2012 2:41 pm

I don't watch prices very closely, but I don't count more than a forty percent rise in food prices over the past decade. Also, food prices are not the same thing as inflation. Wages sure as hell haven't doubled in the last five years.

At least part of the rise of food prices is due to things like increasing use of ethanol, droughts, and unrest in food-exporting countries.

Aharon · Post by **Aharon** » Sat Nov 03, 2012 4:58 pm

The reasons for the rise in prices don't really matter from an economic point of view. The definition of inflation is "In economics, inflation is a rise in the general level of prices of goods and services in an economy over a period of time." So you only look at the prices, not at the wages, when determining inflation.

Ted the Flayer · Post by **Ted the Flayer** » Sat Nov 03, 2012 5:05 pm

My eyes tell me that when someone dismisses all sources as wrong, they have a one in several billion chance of being Nikolai Tesla, and the rest of being a dingbat. Sorry, my negro, but I am going with what my eyes tell me.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat Nov 03, 2012 5:14 pm

Aharon wrote:The reasons for the rise in prices don't really matter from an economic point of view. The definition of inflation is "In economics, inflation is a rise in the general level of prices of goods and services in an economy over a period of time." So you only look at the prices, not at the wages, when determining inflation.

That is completely wrong. In economics, wages are considered to be a price. The commodity is labor, and the amount you pay for it is the prevailing wage. Overall inflation does indeed include wages, because wages are a price.

Now, people mostly talk about inflation to mean consumer prices, which is a subset of inflation that doesn't include wages or commodities that ordinary people don't buy (like barrels of crude oil or tungsten ore).

Peak Oil being what it is, the price of gasoline is going to go up relative to other things. The simple fact that we are running out of oil means that gas prices will on average rise. They will rise in nominal dollars, and they'll rise in real dollars as well. But it is simply factually true that while gas prices have risen both absolutely and relatively from five years ago, They haven't fucking doubled.

Gas is very expensive right now. It's expensive in nominal and real dollars compared to what it has been in the past. It is like this because there are more cars on the road and there is less oil in the ground. But while a price of $3.90 today may be a lot, it wasn't $1.95 in 2007. You can just look this shit up. In 2007, gas cost three dollars and seven cents. Now go to a gas station, any gas station in North America, and check to see if you can get a gallon of gas for less than $6.14. You can. Therefore, the price of gas hasn't fucking doubled in the last five years.

-Username17

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Sat Nov 03, 2012 5:35 pm

Aharon wrote:The reasons for the rise in prices don't really matter from an economic point of view. The definition of inflation is "In economics, inflation is a rise in the general level of prices of goods and services in an economy over a period of time." So you only look at the prices, not at the wages, when determining inflation.

You don't really get inflation. Inflation is when a fixed quantity of money decreases in actual value. That's not the same as products becoming more expensive. If the food supply decreases, food will become more expensive because the actual value of food has gone up. If he amount of money in circulation doubles, food will get more expensive but people will still be able to buy the same amount. That is inflation. See, labor is a good/service too. So if the price of things is rising but wages aren't, either there's a supply/demand mismatch or people are getting stealth pay cuts.

It should be pointed out that most inflation calculations specifically and openly exclude food and oil prices because they jump all over the place for reasons completely unrelated to the money supply.

Aharon · Post by **Aharon** » Sat Nov 03, 2012 6:25 pm

@Frank
I was not aware of that fact, thanks. For practical purposes, though, most institutions use the inflation rate, which is calculated using the consumer price index, so I think saying I was completely wrong is stretching it.

@Gas prices
Actually, there was a low point in gas prices in 2008, when it went down to 1.61$ (according to this site: http://gasbuddy.com/gb_retail_price_chart.aspx). Probably, OmniNegro remembers this or a similar low point and uses it as comparison.

@name_here
And how do you measure the decrease of the actual value of a fixed quantity of money? By looking at what products you can buy for it (=> Consumer Price Index).
By your definition, rising prices without rising wages wouldn't qualify as inflation. But although you can still use your money to pay a certain kind of commodity (wages of workers), you can't buy other stuff (food). That does correspond to a decrease of the actual value of the money - it's purchasing power is lower than before.

Also, which inflation calculations are you talking about when you say they exclude food and oil prices? I'm pretty sure food is included in the consumer price index.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Sat Nov 03, 2012 6:39 pm

Core Inflation

If money will buy less of commodity A but the same amount of commodity B, then commodity A has become more expensive, in the sense that it requires more purchasing power to obtain.

Aharon · Post by **Aharon** » Sat Nov 03, 2012 7:02 pm

@Core Inflation
Thanks for the link.

@prices of commodities
Commodities becoming more expensive may be part of inflation, depending on your measure of inflation (Inflationary Spikes). I understand that it has no effect on core inflation, but core inflation is only one definition of inflation. While it may be very useful in a macroeconomic context, we began this discussion from looking at the situation of one individual. In this case. using a commodity price index is more appropriate, in my opinion

OmniNegro · Post by **OmniNegro** » Sat Nov 03, 2012 8:49 pm

Aharon wrote:This thread amuses me, so I'll invest more time in it despite being rather certain that it won't amount to anything.

@OmniNegro
Your handle contains "Negro" which, combined with your posting style, can be construed as an attempt to offend.

Concerning inflation: You are right, inflation does hit you more than other segments of society. It not only includes the bare neccessities you mentions, which roughly doubled in price in 5 years, corresponding to about 20% inflation for those goods (assuming this is a true observation and not your feeling - I have no idea what these things cost in the US).
Rent and luxury goods like computers are also included in this calculation. Of course, that means little to you because you can't afford them anyway. If you could, comparatively, inflation wouldn't hit you so hard.

Other than that, I have to agree with the general sentiment here about you not accepting any arguments/explanations at all. What's wrong with the data The Vigilante and Tarkis Flux provided? It's certainly not Fox News.

You and erik seem pretty reasonable, so I will not address most of your post. But my handle has been in use for decades. (Yes, plural for a reason.)

My handle is also incorrect. As was demonstrated by Nicholas at Gaslamp Games when he kindly asked me to change it to the correct Latin for "All Black" as in the color but not the race. I agreed to their insight and changed my handle there.

But it is only a handle. And over the Internet you have no way to tell my skin color. I am a Human. Perhaps a crazy one, but I identify by the handle I have been using for decades.

I would go on, but you can see many more replies cropped up while I slept. Good day to you.

OmniNegro · Post by **OmniNegro** » Sat Nov 03, 2012 9:05 pm

I already mentioned I have no faith in most if not all governmental numbers. Inflation to me is purely the reduced buying power that I need to live. As Aharon said, I cannot afford to spend my pittance on other things besides the necessities. So my observations of inflation do not reflect the cost of wages for workers I cannot hire, nor a million other things beyond my financial grasp.

That is probably half the reason I ignore what the government says about inflation. It may be correct and accurate when you include things like aircraft carriers and jumbo-jets and other things I would not want to consider even if I had the money. But it is certainly vastly skewed when looked at from my prospective.

As Aharon said, I remember a low point below two dollars per gallon from about five years ago. It was not gone overnight either. Mind that I do not drive since I would have to buy a car and insurance and then bother to maintain it and buy gasoline. But I still look at the pumps nearby to keep firmly grounded in what it sells for.

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Sat Nov 03, 2012 10:32 pm

So what, exactly, is your point, Omni? And why do you have no faith in government numbers?

Surgo · Post by **Surgo** » Sun Nov 04, 2012 1:40 am

OmniNegro wrote:There was a time you could go to a library and look up a confirmed fact that the Earth is flat.

No there wasn't, asshole. We knew that the Earth was round since the time of the ancient Greeks. The public library wasn't even invented until the Renaissance. Stop spewing shit and remove your head from the sand.

God, even your worthless metaphors are a complete and miserable failure.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sun Nov 04, 2012 2:13 am

OmniNegro · Post by **OmniNegro** » Sun Nov 04, 2012 2:52 am

Surgo wrote:
OmniNegro wrote:There was a time you could go to a library and look up a confirmed fact that the Earth is flat.
No there wasn't, asshole. We knew that the Earth was round since the time of the ancient Greeks. The public library wasn't even invented until the Renaissance. Stop spewing shit and remove your head from the sand.

God, even your worthless metaphors are a complete and miserable failure.

Why did Columbus board a ship without a Priest on board? Why were there no actual sailors on board? The answer is that a Priest would not get on a ship that would be doomed to fall off the edge of the flat Earth. And sailors would not board a ship without a Priest.

Your example is as worthless as your claim of mine.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sun Nov 04, 2012 2:57 am

Somebody please find crew records for Columbus' journey.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sun Nov 04, 2012 2:59 am

What the fuck!

Who the fuck did you think sailed the several ships if not sailors?

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