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Bob Newhart was awesome. Wasn’t Hec Ramsey crammed in there somewhere for a little while?

I know, right?

You mean this one? Directed by Steven Spielberg no less.

McCloud, with Dennis Weaver.

ROTFL! "We need another VietNam to thin out their ranks a little." ROTFL! Classic.

I used to believe this but then, well … look around.

Another good one. So far every show was one my family watched regularly. Space 1999 Moving On Kung Fu (of course) Rockford Files

Ok, you sucked me in. I NEVER missed an episode of this one. My hands down favorite 70s TV show ever, bar none.

What? No more Kolchak fans?

It’s one of my faves too. I rewatch it every now and then when I’m feeling nostalgic for the 70s.

Looking around this forum lately I’d say we don’t need governments for that. We’re doing a pretty damn good job of it ourselves.

Man, you just don’t get it. We’re going to TAX our way to prosperity and security. Oh wait, we’ve got to do one more thing. Maintain a rigidly enforced hegemony. You know, looking at that again, it kinda reminds me of something.

Haha really? Tokenization of commodities (even real money in this case) by Blackrock is irrelevant to gold backed digital currency testbedding in Zimbabwe??????? Btw, I've seen the token called the (invader) Zim. Not sure where Zig comes from.

Your first comment is patently false and there is an abundance of real life evidence and experience to demonstrate that fact. I’ve presented just a tiny little bit of it above, which, if past experience with you is any guide, you’ll probably just blithely dismiss as “not compelling.” Your second line above merely amounts to saying “let them eat cake.” I guess it’s always nice when you can offload most of the suffering necessary in the attempt to reach your own glorious view of the way things ought to be onto others. It makes it so much easier to make those “difficult” decisions, I’m sure.

Now see? There IS a market based solution for almost every problem!

Here are a couple more quick ones: Kidney stones are a pretty common medical issue here in the US. Every year about a quarter million people are hospitalized for kidney stone treatment. In 1985, 1149 died due to complications arising from kidney stones. Well, back in 1984 a West German company had developed-ed a new lithotripter machine that could be used to destroy kidney stones from outside the body using shock waves. The procedure is much less invasive, painful and dangerous than then traditional kidney stone surgery. In order to “protect” US medical equipment manufacturers, not a single one of which was even contemplating a machine like the West German lithotripter at the time, the US slapped a hefty tariff on the machine. One hospital, upon importing just one lithotripter paid a tariff, just the tariff of $189,964.32?!? As one might imagine this insane tax discouraged a great many from quickly adopting this life-saving technology and as a result there were many unnecessary deaths and many many more patients had to endure the much more painful and invasive traditional treatments. Another:

Good call. Can’t wait to pay even more for everything so a bunch more indolent dullards can be made safe and secure in their brand new government jobs!

Tell that to the American poor and middle class who at the moment are burdened by levels of price inflation that are really putting a bite on them. I’m sure they’d be delighted to pay even higher prices for the goods and services they need every day in order to accommodate the protectionist tariffs you and Swordy delude yourselves into believing will help them out. “In the long run,” of course. If they survive intact to see it.

ROTFL!

Is this the kind of delusional crap you “learned” from Ian Fletcher’s book? That big hearted foreign companies, in response to your attempts to mulct them, simply roll over and take it? And not even just take it, they go even further acting like true philanthropists and LOWER their prices just cause they have such charitable hearts? Wow, that’s some real Pollyanna shit right there. It defies common sense and reason. I hate to break it to you but out here in the real world, where real people are interacting, that is not what actually happens. Let’s take a look at one real life example to illustrate. Back in 1986 US officials, at the prompting of industry lobbyists no doubt, decided that the American red cedar shake and shingle industry needed a bit of “protection” so they slapped a 35% tariff on red cedar shakes and shingles. At the time the supply of red cedar here in the US was extremely limited so we were importing a lot of our shakes and shingles from Canada. Well the high tariff devastated the Canadian shake and shingle industry. Many Canadian workers lost their jobs. But hey, those are Canadians, right? Who gives a shit about Canadians? Let ‘‘em starve, right? It turns out that Canadians gave a shit about other Canadians losing THEIR high paying jobs, so Canada retaliated by slapping high tariffs on American computer parts, Christmas trees, tea bags and cider. Naturally that had a negative impact on those American industries. But back to cedar shakes and shingles. Back here in the US there were a few people who held long-term contracts to purchase cedar at pre-tariff prices. Those guys became millionaires overnight.

^^^^THIS is a fact.^^^^

Another good, short read on the topic. htthttps://mises.org/mises-wire/immorality-protectionismp://

Oh! You’re THAT ONE! Sadly for you, once again, I too have radically changed my position on this over the years, based upon actual evidence though. You see, back in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s I was an America Firster and believed vehemently in protectionism. Only once I started actually studying a little about the topic of economics, and also finally realized how morally reprehensible protectionism actually is, did I actually embrace free trade. You should refrain from making those kinds of assumptions about people. You would look less foolish if you did.

Sadly, for you anyway, “all logic and history” do not prove me, or Ron, wrong. They do quite the reverse actually. But hey, you do you.

As I recall, he was back within a few minutes asking what the hell a wire stretcher was and what it looked like. So dad told him but by then he was getting a bit suspicious so we eventually let the cat out of the bag and told him the gag. He was less than amused, which made it even funnier. Dad could do that shit with a totally straight face btw.

Back in the 1980s I was helping my dad remodel a small apartment building he and mom had bought. One of my sons was helping out one day too. We were stringing electrical wire to and from new panel boxes we’d installed. I, of course was much to old and way too experienced in dad’s warped sense of humor to fall for it, so my dad sent my son out to the truck for avwire stretcher. Wackiness ensued.

Aren't those right next to the wire stretchers for electricians?

Hey, they're not using them anymore.