Eturnalshift wrote:
I'm well aware of the defense's budget -- in fact, I can say with certainty, that I'm more aware of it than any of the people around here. Equipment is expensive. Research is expensive. Defense, wars, intelligence gathering -- it's all expensive.
Are we getting our money's worth?
Eturnalshift wrote:
However, if you're main beef is with the military and the 'bloat' in the budget, then how can you continuously advocate for MORE GOVERNMENT and MORE REGULATION?
History pretty consistently shows a positive correlation between more government and regulation and a more prosperous society.
The few countries that manage to turn long-term downhill trends around don't manage to do it through individual citizens looking out for themselves, they do it through assertive, proactive government. If you think otherwise prove some examples - can you?
The high wages and prosperity this country enjoyed in the first half the century were guaranteed in large part by the government coming in and telling businesses what they had to do and could not do - safety regulations, universal power/telecom coverage, union-mandated wages. High wages and safe products - at government insistence - drove half a century of prosperity.
Eturnalshift wrote:
This President has done nothing but add bloat to the government.
Can you give specific examples?
Eturnalshift wrote:
All regulation costs money. All expanses of government cost money.
The definition of economy is flow of money. The question is whether or not the flow of that money is generating mass prosperity. If you want to argue that which costs money is bad then you are in effect arguing against a good economy.
But obviously that isn't what you really mean. What you really do mean is that you buy into the propaganda that tries to advocate that money should only flow one direction: uphill.
Eturnalshift wrote:
Instead, you're going to be fixated on the military (for whatever reason) because they're a bunch of child-raping, woman-slaying, civilian mashing, bomb-dropping, city destroying assholes who have to legitimate purpose. After all, their sole existence is to kill civilians... or, at least that's what you're suggesting. (PS: You're fucking filth.)
What about the Pakistani military? What about the North Korean military? What about the Russian military?
What makes think ours alone wear their briefs outside their pants?
Eturnalshift wrote:
Did you know that the 10-year cost of ObamaCare could've added 20% more to the Federal Education Budget over that same time? Also, did you know that the spending of the federal budget is largely paid out in terms grants to students? Did you ever find it coincidental that the cost of tuition keeps rising and that the cost the government is loaning rises alongside the tuition hikes? Did it ever occur to you that the subsidizing of an individuals college education will, like all other subsidies, artificially raise the cost of tuition? Instead, you'd rather push more money into a system which is bloating due to that same injection of funds, so more kids can get worthwhile educations like "Womens Studies", "Psychology", "General Studies", "Classical Literature" and whatever else? That's a high price tag for them to receive an education and then march on Wall St. against those evil fat cats that paid for their tuition.
It's a serious problem, no denying that.
But as Azelma himself can testify, the catalyst is the awkward corporate socialist situation we have now. Our system has neither the advantages of a private nor a public solution, while afflicted by the disadvantages of both.
50 years ago, the educational system was fully funded by the government. When they stopped doing that during Vietnam and the Reagan years, private industry took up the slack and turned education into a shell game.
Take the CSU system in CA. They are legally forbidden from charging tuition, because of their mandate to provide universal education to all qualified persons. But because of the stubborn refusal of CA's wealthiest to pay in (lol Prop 13), they tack on a bunch of "mandatory fees", and corporations come in like flies to honey to offer loans and appeal to cronyism to sell gold-plated shit.
A private system is not an option for all the reasons we learned the hard way in the Middle Ages and from countries that take that approach (and also because a privatized graduate education system would destroy democracy). If you eliminate the impossible...
Eturnalshift wrote:
I've never said we should completely eliminate these benefits -- I think they need to have a serious assessment and restructuring. They're not solvent and you know it!
The military isn't solvent. Corporate America isn't solvent.
You aren't solvent.
Eturnalshift wrote:
I think we should have systems in place which force the recipients to do service work to the government/community in exchange for assistance, and I think we should offer programs which gives incentive for people to invest their own money in their own security.
The former is a good idea. The latter is not. The latter is a shell game.
The actual idea behind that sort of thing is using government to pressure people in giving even more of their wealth to non-accountable fat cats. If they lose your retirement funds because of lies then what?
Eturnalshift wrote:
The Democrats would rather us believe we have to support a person from cradle-to-grade, like the 'Life of Julia' illustrated, but I don't think that's right. That's unsustainable. If we had some way of doing a dollar-for-dollar match on saving for the poor, that would be better... wouldn't it? Instead, you think it's better to simply give people money with nothing in return. You're completely fine with the bottom fifty percent of America paying their 'fair share', which is absolutely nothing, and in many cases, a paycheck. "Fair Share" is giving money to the poor and expecting NOTHING in return? Give me a break. Everyone should pay something.
You pay for what you get and the poor don't get very much at all.
The definition of morality, charity,
tzedakah, is to give with no expectation of return. It is an imperative for us as a moral society to take care of those who cannot take care of themselves. No one wants to be weak and helpless. People on welfare are not "living the life".
Productivity today is so astronomical that it is probably possible for everyone to have a middle-class standard of living with only a third of the population employed. How many people work in power, water, food, construction compared to the amount of work that gets done? How many people are employed building the ubiquitous iPods and iPads made at that one factory in China?
Make no mistake, I am not saying that mass unemployment is a laudable social vision. I'm just saying that the "economic sustainability" and "productivity/growth" arguments are fatally flawed and a new wisdom is needed.
The great question is: how can super-productivity be harnessed into popular prosperity? I cannot escape the conclusion that the answer is high taxes and high public spending. Not on welfare but civil works and education. Unfortunately the corps won't support it because they see such things as a threat to their power.
Eturnalshift wrote:
And without getting too long on these points, I'll just list some responses and you can figure out what they go to:
* If you want to pay more in taxes, then feel free to do so. No one is stopping you.
We're not rich. Conversely if our country asked us to make sacrifices - for the country - I at least would be willing to make them.
Eturnalshift wrote:
* If we didn't protect America's Oil Interests, then how would the middle-class and poor ever afford to travel to and from work, or heat their homes, or afford food?
Considering how much it cost to get to the moon versus how much it cost to blow up a bunch of third-world countries (a tiny fraction the cost even adjusted for inflation), I can't help but believe that research is a more cost-effective way of getting out of this mess.
You believe in the power of innovation, no? Then surely you must believe that if government didn't provide the oil for private industry then they would find some other energy source to satiate their greed. Or is welfare okay only if it involves corporations, guns, and silly costumes?
The oil will be gone sooner or later. So we will be in that boat eventually, no?
Seems to be one of those "you can sit in that boat under your own power or you can get thrown into it" sort of situations.
So how would we make do without oil?
Well, first off, and certainly in the short run, probably higher employment and lower productivity (labor taking the place of cheap energy).
Second, mass transit, and the building of infrastructure optimized for energy-efficiency and costly, scarce oil. Synthetic plastics and fuel plants, biofuel plants, tree farms, aggressive recycling programs, etc.
Look at the Greatest Generation. They didn't have unlimited material resources so what did they do? They scrounged up every last bit of usable material. Everyone's seen the pictures of them running around scrounging up recyclables for the war effort, most of us have seen they still do things like save rubber bands and bits of cloth.
70 years ago the Germans and Japanese were cut off from oil supplies so what did they do? They manufactured oil, with chemical technology way far more primitive than what we have today. If the Axis could do it 70 years ago why do you think we couldn't do it, better, today?
Eturnalshift wrote:
* Those greedy Republicans, who favor lower taxes, are provably more charitable than Democrats.
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Because "charity" is tax-deductible. If they couldn't triple dip (because donations are deducted at book not market value, e.g., Blizzard's old server blades) we'd see just how charitable they might be.
