Why I think there are still poor people and people without medical care

Because our government is totally controlled by the military industrial complex.

In 2006, the people gave the Democrats a mandate. Stop the war.

They haven't made any progress in doing so. One can only assume because the government no longer answers to or represents the people.

Case in point

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20080401_a_submarine_to_fight_al_qaidas_navy/

A Submarine to Fight al-Qaida’s Navy

Excerpt

Yup, 9/11 has made a lot of people rich. Weapons contractors, security contractors, mercenaries, and politicians.

You wanna know why 28 million Americans are going to be on Food Stamps next year? Because our wealth is being bled away in boondoggles and corruption.

So before anyone cries to me about health care, or foreign aid for country "X" in crisis "Y", take a look at how our past, current and future prosperity is being transferred to the military and financial class.

Wake up people. This isn't about Democrats vs. Republicans. The Republic has been hijacked.

 

Did anyone in Congress say or indicate the sub was to fight al-Qaida?

It seems to me that the author of the article just made up that fact and feels that his use of the word "presumably" makes that okay.
Do you agree with him that the sub was intended to fight al-Qaida?

There is plenty of facts to support your arguments, and yet you highlight what was the least relevant claim in that article, weakening your argument.

 

Did you have an unsatisfying childhood or something?

I haven't had time to speak to everyone in Congress, but the Liberty Caucus and Black Caucus assures me that it is not.

Talk to his editor.

Absolutely. You know Saddam had a kickass navy and air force when we invaded Iraq! You can never be too prepared to fight terists!

It wasn't the least relevant claim. Why would we be investing in an $81 billion dollar submarine when the country is broke and people are crying for socialized medicine?

I specifically pointed that out, because I loathe Lieberman. He's a POS. If he's not going to stand up for Americans, but instead his lobbyist buddies, then maybe he needs to be submarined!

 

A comment like that is beneath you, or so I thought. It looks like I give you too much credit.









You are more transparent with each post.

 

I'd call this idea, either juvenile or immature. It tends to jump in logic from one area.....outrageous expenditures from the department of defense to a jump in logic about people being poor, homeless, on food stamps, etc.

There have always been poor. There are poorly educated, untrained folks in this and every society. They are less skilled to be able to get the kinds of reasonable jobs that would enable them to raise their status.

But that has been true for thousands of years. Guerilla, there were probably similar if not larger percentages of Americans in this type of status during the years you keep referencing when government was small and non-intrusive.

On the other hand, I read the link. I'm outraged by the spending. Its so huge, so unmonitored, so tied to a system of pentagon buying and contractors providing without any kind of effective oversight at any level.....starting with;

Do we need this stuff?
What is going to cost to get it?
Are we going to buy it and be tough on contractors?
Will we cancel contracts where the contractors can't deliver?

Do we need this stuff...one year later?

There are a 1,000 opportunities to rip into the defense speding....its just not being done.

Its wasteful to a large degree.

Frankly, I think the govt. s*cks now. While I find the Bush administration especially loathesome, I think there is too much money tied into politics and too much direct cozying between politicians and those that raise money for them. Its legalized accepted corruption. Its all the politicians and both parties.

I found it appalling in the last few days. FAA personnel testified before Congress detailing how safety and security checks on passenger planes were ignored. Cripes. That is f*cking with the safety of citizens pure and simple.

I could only imagine how within a corrupt system with pols getting money at the top, bureaucrats might be bought off, or convinced to be lax on something as critical as safety. How pathetic.

And then to top that off a bipartisan congress passed legislation to pass tax breaks to home builders. That is a result of pure lobbying by interest groups on behalf of the home builders.

That industry is not investment heavy. If they are busy they hire...if they are slow they fire people. They don't need the tax breaks. Its a disgrace to pass that kind of special interest tax break at a time of so much debt.

I don't believe in the RP school of thought though I share a disgust with a govt. that is intrisically tied in with special interests and is being bought and sold.

I'd approach the answers differently.

Still, I think the jump from spending money on defense to implying that it is causing and increasing poverty is a big big logic jump......and missing a lot of steps in the middle.



On a different tack, I wouldn't say the dems had a clear mandate to end the war. Their majority victory in 2006 ended up being narrow, and especially narrow in the senate. Dems can't get a 60 vote majority that they need in the senate to get changing legislation.

It is the frustration of democracy.

 

A little bit more on this tax break for home builders from bipartisan congressional efforts to deal with the crisis in mortgage defaults.

The legislation is estimated to cost over $15 billion dollars over a number of years.

The largest part of it...estimated at $6 billion would go to home builders.

Here is a cut and paste on the home builder issue:

I know something about the construction industry. I worked in the commercial real estate industry for over 2 decades.

The home building industry is not capital intensive. Most heavy equipment is leased. Frankly, when construction slows the holders of the heavy equipment that normally make a ton by leasing this equipment are the ones that take a beating.

In any case the home building business isn't capital intensive.

Home building is a mix of huge publicly held companies and very fractured with lots of small privately owned groups.

Land purchases are financed in so many disparate ways. If publicly held mega builders are holding onto land inventory that might have a teeny teeny teeny impact on capital markets. It is so negligible to be considered inconsequential. Publicly held builders in their own rights are a tiny part of total equity and the funds they have tied up in land are dramatically inconsequential to total impact on equity problems.

I'd think it would be better somewhat if a bill of this sort was tied in with forcing the companies to keep employees being paid and working.....

Nah....how do you enforce and watch that.

When builders are busy they add personnel. When they are slower they fire people. Its always been that way.

The above article goes to the meat of the issue IMHO. The builders association puts tons of money into politics. This year they cut off the spigot. Makes sense, I'm sure their members have less money to support the association.

So the association drives hard at the congress and gets a lot of money in the form of extended tax loss periods.

If the builders don't have demand....they aint building....with or without the tax breaks. They aint hiring in that case with or without the tax breaks.

The tax loss carryover benefit goes directly into the pockets of businesses and principals of businesses that support the association.

It does nothing for anyone but the very top of businesses that support this special interest...and the money that gets thrown into politicians.

Its an ugly way to run a government. Its a disservice to people that are hurting from the real estate/mortgage crisis/credit crunch.

Its piss pour politics.

 

Eisenhower warned us all.

Did we listen?

 

Not at all. We have supposedly entrusted the government with the war on poverty, the war on illiteracy etc. But much of the spending goes to boondoggles and foreign adventurism.

Poor people don't have lobbyists. Raytheon does.

Now I'm not saying it's a perfect analogy, but I'm trying to make an editorial point.

I'll take your outrage however I can get it. Right, left, up, down , black, white, these are things we should all find common cause for concern.

I completely disagree. I've talked to many swing voters. They voted (D) because they wanted a change with the foreign policy. The Congressional approval ratings are indicative of how they have betrayed the people who voted for them. They tanked as soon as the first opportunities to defund the war came up and they swallowed their tongues. Consider, the Congressional approval ratings bombed only 6 months in after an overwhelming populist driven turnover.

 

I also was frustrated by efforts to stem the war. Still the Dems could never get a 60 vote majority in the Senate on a single vote having to do with the war. The dems don't have 60 senators. On top of that Lieberman is a pro war voter.

Of interest, the closest the dems got on any vote of this type was the one that would have limited the tour service time of soldiers to 12 months rather than the current 15 months.

From what I have read recently in the news, this has come up again. Bush has been briefed by many in the military strongly urging tours to 12 months. Supposedly he is leaning to go with whatever Petraus suggests in the next week or two.

If Petrayus suggests we need more troops in Iraq for a longer period it will probably be unlikely Bush will okay returning tour duties to 12 months.

I guess we will see what happens.

Of further interest there was an article in the Washington Post describing the relationship of Bush and Petrayus. The article suggests Bush responds particularly to Petrayus and not to other voices on the Iraq war.

In one sentence it discussed the perspective of limiting tour duties to 12 months versus the Bush perspective on "winning in Iraq". The unattributed source said that Bush would lean toward keeping more soldiers in Iraq and not changing the tour duties in an effort to "win."

 

I think that it is more than just a lack of medical the war is responsible for, imagine what 1 trillion dollars could have done to an America which is now dieing. Also a trillion dollars spent overseas is worth several trillion when spent in America when the money is spent employing Americans etc. I think the terrorists would be very happy to see what their 9/11 attack has done to the massive economy. They never would have hoped that it would have all gone this well.

 

Thanks an excellent point imthunder. Money spent in the domestic economy would keep circulating.

Money spent overseas is a subsidy to the foreign power, and weapons are wealth destruction because they have only one purpose, and it is to destroy (life, property).

It would be interesting to see if anyone has done a study to show the growth factor of a single dollar spent in the domestic economy. Then apply that factor to the $1 trillion.

 

I'd like to ignore that and go into my fantasy world where gas is still 99 cents a gallon.

 

I don't know of studies per se, but I'd suggest looking at academic journals. Its basically studied under terms like money velocity.

Two areas that generate an enormous amt of velocity.....or spending and respending domestically; real estate and domestic travel.

Real estate is mostly an entirely domestic and very significantly a regional phenomena. People buy homes, hire movers, buy stuff for the house or garden. Brokers, attorneys, insurance people, deed work, etc. all receive payments on home or building purchases. Furniture, paint, tools, gardent equipment, etc etc etc gets spent on real estate. It puts enormous velocity into spending.

One reason the recession is so severe is it hit a business type that generates enormous additional money velocity within the economy.

A second industry that has tremendous money velocity is domestic travel.

Travel often results in the travelor spending far more than at home. Rental cars, hotel stays, dining out every night, taxis, etc. etc. etc.

One argument for bailing out the large airlines is that they generate huge volumes of local business. Right or wrong its one of the arguments that have been used over time.

 

@Earl, exactly. Velocity. Both the speed and endurance of transmission.

Just a sidebar, bailing out any industry is a problem for the following reason.

Say I as an entrepreneur know that my industry of dog walkers gets subsidized. In fact, dog walking is considered an essential service, so the government provides some regulation via oversight and certification, but they will also provide dog walking for the disadvantaged, and prop up dog walking businesses in all areas, regardless of demand, so that this essential service is provided universally.

So I open a dog walking operation. Then another. I look for locations where I don't have to compete, and where I can collect my subsidy for doing something -OR- nothing.

And I'm not alone. 100s of thousands of entrepreneurs are attracted to a "no-lose" industry such as this. Get certified, comply with regulation and blammo, revenue. You don't need to attract customers, you don't need to satisfy your customers, you just have to satisfy the government.

This is malinvestment. When there is overinvestment in an industry and it swells in size beyond consumer demand. The moral hazard and misallocation of resources comes from government determination of what is essential and what is not. Basically, government trying to determine the collective result of millions of independent consumer decisions based on everything from weather, to personality to season, to any number of other conditions.

Universality of service is a good example of misallocation of resources. In order to make a service like say, air travel universal, there would have to be universal demand. But we know not everyone does or can afford to fly. So by subsidizing air travel when demand dips, means that people end up paying for flights they never take. In essence, the price goes up.

Sorry to diverge on that.

Back to topic,

http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/batfe_spends131.html

Government spends $3 million to harass a small business owner. I wonder how much medication that would have bought? How many kids could have received dental care? How many surgeries that may have covered?

I'm not arguing that the government should spend the money more wisely, I'm arguing that they have so much money and so much power, they are squandering our wealth. In the hands of the individual consumer and tax payer, that money would go a lot further.

 

govt is not the only source for what some and you call mal investment. I call it cr@ppy.

Liquidity is a huge source.

In the late 90's early 2000's tremendous money went into web businesses. It was primarily entrepreneurial money and venture money.

So many stupid ideas without real monetary value. No monetary value at all.

A new language erupted to secure investment capital. "eyeballs" it had nothing to do with making money.


The liquidity build up occurred over the 90's with lots of business successes.



Should govts bail out some businesses. I'd say in some cases it is critical. If not why have a govt.

How you make the decision is difficult no doubt. The elements that are considered in deciding on bailouts or not should be very very considerable.

When the great depression occurred the govt stepped in because you had a huge amt of the population that was starving, dying, out of work, etc.

Good reasons to step in. Otherwise, why have a govt. or a country.

Should the govt have bailed out big airlines and major businesses like the auto manufacturers in the past.

In retrospect I wish not.

Should the govt bail out the banking industry. I lean toward doing so. Keep the underlying financial system afloat to keep the economy working.

Should the govt underwrite home builders. Aw a waste and a pure example of money politics.

should the govt give the oil companies $1.8 billion/year in tax benefits (credits or writeoffs-I'm not sure) for the next decade? Give me a break. Talk about an industry that doesn't need it.

I see nothing wrong in having a limited govt influence in certain selected elements of the economy over periods of time. Could it lead to mal or cr@ppy investment? yeah probably. Would it make that big of a difference? I doubt it.

 

My bad choice of words. You are absolutely correct. Malinvestment isn't reliant on government, it can happen in a completely free market.

Here is the real mindfrak on this though. "Why have a gov't?" is a very good question.

The government cannot do anything that we "the free people" can do, except perhap use mass force or coercion.

If an industry needs to be saved, why do we bailout the people who have run it badly, instead of allowing a competitor or other entrepreneur to buy it up for cheap and salvage the industry?

There is an immense amount of moral hazard in determining who gets bailed out, and who does not. It is a transfer of wealth. It does take from the many, and give to the select few. Outside of government, it would be considered highly illegal.

As far as the Depression, government intervention exacerbated it. The government did nothing that couldn't be done by the private sector. We have to remember that the government doesn't have super powers. It can only do a couple things we as private citizens cannot (economically). It can inflate the currency, it can monkey with the interest rates, and it can tax. That's it.

The only problem is, no government in history has been self-limiting. Government always grows. Today's federal government is likely several hundred orders of magnitude larger than the Founder intended.

We don't control our government. There are black ops programs that one or less of the three branches is even aware of. Departments have in some regards become sovereign, within the government. Politicians operate autonomously from their constituents. Waste and fraud are so rampant, that they no longer even shock or outrage us. We've been conditioned to expect politicians to lie and cheat. Sadly, our expectations now float in the gutter.

The limited government philosophy is about clutching the leash tightly, and never allowing the tiger off of it. Because like anything powerful, government can be for good, or evil. And sadly, I believe that unchecked, unmonitored, secretive, coercive government inevitably becomes evil.

 

Well, not if we all go in expecting to not agree.

Right, but I don't believe that it's either one absolute or another. There is room for shades of gray.

Sorta the liberty or death argument. It's ok for them to steal from us, because it's too painful to change the system so they can't?

Again, there are more possibilities than two extremes. I'd hesitate to call 100 years of non-stop growth and inflation "self correction". Can we name one government agency that has been closed (completely) in the last 25 years? Of course not. Government is never obselete. Failure gets more funding, institutions get rolled into other institutions.

If there was any evidence of a government that shrinks, I'd buy the notion of self-correction. Because I am not for armed rebellion or insurrection. I'd like to see peaceful democratic change.

Well, it became the largest because of the interventions. Instead of sticking to laissez-faire, it was promoted by regulation, government intereference, FED manipulation etc. The Depression wasn't "one day prosperity, one day poverty". It took 6 years to blossom, and another 2 years to fester.

The least accountable for sure. It's actually been good timing that Bush has been so bad, because he has given a lot of energy to the patriot, freedom, old right, libertarian, classic liberal etc movements.

Is it fixable with a Clinton, McCain or Obama? Probably not. These are career politicians in the Congress who have enabled the 8 years of Bush-ism. They are the same folks who have been voting for the insane spending, the civil rights and constitutional infringements, the war etc.

Only my opinion, but I don't see much difference with these candidates when it comes to what really matters. The root issues, not the superficial talking points of the day, week, month, year...

Your last line is very intriguing. How would you take the money out?

My take is that the money is payola for preferential power. In my opinion, you have to trim the power, to limit the influx of payola.

Thoughts?

 

first of all here is a germ of an idea I saw. its great. I love it.

If a pol gets any kind of organized or special interest money above a certain relatively low amount.....he must recuse him/herself from voting on issues that impact that group.

Like a judge. Of all the lamebrained ideas in the world....how politics can work from an independant basis if financed by special interests is the worst idea for democracy.

The association for lameblamed forum posters/ alfp gives senator dumb@ss x dollars.

dumb@ss must recuse him/herself from voting on issues having to do with forums/the internet etc.

How great. they can't win. they can't give the legislators money.

Besides that I'd strictly eliminate all aggregate money every which way from elections. Shorten election periods. Eliminate aggregating money. Eliminate money from groups. Eliminate everything from any kind of group source.

Kick out big money.

Make total election spending relatively small. That kills advantages of wealthy.

Election funding is no longer a simple case of free speech. It is a big nasty buisness with enormous consequences.

Take out the money. I know in Britain election periods are very short. Do the same here. This presidential election period is way too long. Its never gone on so long. A waste of hot air.

Any group that wants to advertise issues on its own....force to reveal all contributors. Make their membership and financing sources COMPLETELY transparent. Let's see who is ponying up money for different causes.

Put ex judges and wise old people in charge of the enforcement and review.


I love the idea of recusing pols that get money from interest groups. Think of it. It would tie up the pols and the interest groups.