Clinton Clutches Americans Money, Yelling "ITS MINE! ALL MINE!"
demograt.whiner
>...Oklahoma Republican Rep. J.C. Watts said,
>"I say shame on the president for turning his back on people
>at a time in our nation that the economy is strong."
>
>"If we can't give the American people some of their money back
>in an economy like this, when can we give them their money back?"
>Watts asked...
(full article at url above)
The answer, of course, is that greedball liberals have no intention of
giving back any money to any taxpayers - because they want to spend
every last dime on Big Government.
rose...@idt.net
Oh, the shame of it all
Building roads, schools, funding education, providing those needed
things that individuals or even separate states can't accomplish on
their own.
YOu're one really stupid twat.
The money (albeit some eaten up by bureaucracy) is "returned" to the
people one way or another.
It's just that we don't return it to a FEW people.
hamilton
The GOPs want to pretend they are balancing the budget by making
the Census which has been scheduled literally for over 200 years
an 'emergency' and by inventing a 13th month and pushing costs into
2001 -- i.e. the usual GOP level of financial honesty -- and then
they have the gall to want to ladel money into the pockets of the
wealthy, raise interest rates on the poor and middle class as a result
and not pay down the multi trillion Reagan debt and whine about
how Clinton won't give us our money back.
for once even the exceedingly ignorant American people are too smart
for this one. [the same people who givbe W high marks on foreign
policy expertise]
jo...@my-deja.com
"demograt.whiner" <nos...@nospam.non> wrote:
> http://www.foxnews.com/news/wires2/0924/n_rt_0924_28.sml
>
> >...Oklahoma Republican Rep. J.C. Watts said,
> >"I say shame on the president for turning his back on people
> >at a time in our nation that the economy is strong."
> >
> >"If we can't give the American people some of their money back
> >in an economy like this, when can we give them their money back?"
> >Watts asked...
>
> (full article at url above)
>
> The answer, of course, is that greedball liberals have no intention of
> giving back any money to any taxpayers - because they want to spend
> every last dime on Big Government.
Well, to be fair, I think they're more concerned about paying off that
absurd debt that Reagan saddled us with. You can say what you want
about "tax and spend" liberals but at least they make a show of trying
to collect the money before they spend it. Unlike the right-wing
cretins like Reagan who ran up a huge debt without any concern for its
affects on the economy because he knew he'd be dead before it became a
real problem.
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
sal...@my-deja.com
"demograt.whiner" <nos...@nospam.non> wrote:
> http://www.foxnews.com/news/wires2/0924/n_rt_0924_28.sml
>
> >...Oklahoma Republican Rep. J.C. Watts said,
> >"I say shame on the president for turning his back on people
> >at a time in our nation that the economy is strong."
> >
> >"If we can't give the American people some of their money back
> >in an economy like this, when can we give them their money back?"
> >Watts asked...
>
> (full article at url above)
>
> The answer, of course, is that greedball liberals have no intention of
> giving back any money to any taxpayers - because they want to spend
> every last dime on Big Government.
First of all, your taxes are the result of votes by your elected
representatives according to the constitution. If you don't want to
pay your taxes, you can leave! And take your family with you.
Secondly, you cut taxes in a poor economy, increase them in a good
economy. That way, it's counter cyclical and makes some sense.
Thirdly, you rant about "greedball liberals" but the liberals aren't
spending the money on themselves, they're spending the money in
investments in people and infrastructure which will increase earning
power and efficiency for all of us. The alternative is to sink back
into the third world.
Fourth, the real argument is....are we going to pay off our debts (to
ourselves in the form of national debt and to our children in the form
of social security and medicaid) or are we going to give tax money to
the richest folks in the economy? NO CONTEST.
But it is increasingly a pleasure to see the Republicans lose their
pose of "fiscal responsibility" to the Dems. One less stick for them
to demogog with.
demograt.whiner
>The GOPs want to pretend they are balancing the budget by making
>the Census which has been scheduled literally for over 200 years
>an 'emergency' and by inventing a 13th month and pushing costs into
>2001 -- i.e. the usual GOP level of financial honesty -- and then
>they have the gall to want to ladel money into the pockets of the
>wealthy, raise interest rates on the poor and middle class as a result
>and not pay down the multi trillion Reagan debt and whine about
>how Clinton won't give us our money back.
>
>for once even the exceedingly ignorant American people are too smart
>for this one. [the same people who givbe W high marks on foreign
>policy expertise]
The American people have been "exceedingly ignorant" only in permitting
leftwing tax-and-spend Democrats to confiscate ever more of the money
we work so hard for, to pay for Pork and Bureaucrats in DC,
and wasteful, meddlesome Big Brother programs.
Now that the economy is strong, it is time for Dems to give some of
the money they took away from Americans, back to the people who earned it.
The money does not belong to the government. The government did not
earn it. The government did not work for it. In fact, the
government made it more difficult to earn with layers of stupid,
unnecessary regulations.
The money belongs to the people who worked for it.
It CERTAINLY does not belong to Bill Clinton.
rose...@idt.net
>The American people have been "exceedingly ignorant" only in permitting
>leftwing tax-and-spend Democrats to confiscate ever more of the money
>we work so hard for, to pay for Pork and Bureaucrats in DC,
>and wasteful, meddlesome Big Brother programs.
The money is spent on infrastructure, education, via the system of
federalism.
Perhaps you don't "get it".
Republicans want to stop federalism because they understand the the
political power of a populous state is great, not only for the money
but for the votes.
Smaller populated, larger area states have NO chance to compete at the
federal table unless "wealth" is redistributed.
Attacking "waste" is a bullshit whine. If you took all the picky pork
spending (a million here, a million there) you wouldn't have enough to
cover the cost of toilet paper for the military for one year.
IF corporations, and the extremely wealthy paid (after write offs)
their FAIR share, we could have tax relief.
rose...@idt.net
>> Building roads, schools, funding education, providing those needed
>> things that individuals or even separate states can't accomplish on
>> their own.
>Which of the things you mentioned above can't be done by local
>government? I don't see a single thing.
The interstate highway, border to border in MY state, is nearly 400+
miles long. There are 700,00 souls (not taxpayers) in the state.
That highway is 230 south of the nothern towns, (generally 70 to 80
miles apart).
The cost for us would be a burden (if you even get past the laugh
test) is not even discussable.
OHIO, OTOH, has 7,000,000 (souls) to build a road that spans 1/2 the
distance.
You get the idea?
Knopp
> In article <7sfp72$q3g$1...@bgtnsc03.worldnet.att.net>,
> "demograt.whiner" <nos...@nospam.non> wrote:
> > http://www.foxnews.com/news/wires2/0924/n_rt_0924_28.sml
> >
> > >...Oklahoma Republican Rep. J.C. Watts said,
> > >"I say shame on the president for turning his back on people
> > >at a time in our nation that the economy is strong."
> > >
> > >"If we can't give the American people some of their money back
> > >in an economy like this, when can we give them their money back?"
> > >Watts asked...
> >
> > (full article at url above)
> >
> > The answer, of course, is that greedball liberals have no intention of
> > giving back any money to any taxpayers - because they want to spend
> > every last dime on Big Government.
>
> Well, to be fair, I think they're more concerned about paying off that
> absurd debt that Reagan saddled us with. You can say what you want
"...one of the key contributors to our current budget imbalance has been
the heavy spending that this nation undertook during the Cold War. Our
nation ran up the deficit because there was a strong consensus in the
nation as a whole that we needed to spend whatever it took to assure our
survival as a nation, and to prevail over the "Evil Empire" that was the
former Soviet Union."
"It was a successful strategy, and the funds expended toward that goal
constitute one of the best investments our nation has ever made."
Sen. Robert C. Byrd (DEMOCRAT) West Virginia, March 25, 1997
----------------------------------------------------------------
If only he could see that the huge amounts of cash they appropriated
toward our failed welfare state, our silly Social Security ponzi
scheme, and his huge pork factory down in "Almost Heaven", was an
unsuccessful spending strategy and some of the worst investments our
nation has ever made.
> about "tax and spend" liberals but at least they make a show of trying
> to collect the money before they spend it. Unlike the right-wing
Bawhwhahahahahah!!!!
> cretins like Reagan who ran up a huge debt without any concern for its
> affects on the economy because he knew he'd be dead before it became a
> real problem.
We've seen the effects to the economy that winning the Cold War has
had. Slick's been able to cut the miltitary spending down in huge
amounts, helping Congress to actually balance the budget.
Knopp
Yes. Interstate Highways passes the test. NEXT!
Rob Findlay
Knopp <kno...@NOSPAM.hotmail.com> wrote:
> If only he could see that the huge amounts of cash they appropriated
> toward our failed welfare state, our silly Social Security ponzi
> scheme, and his huge pork factory down in "Almost Heaven", was an
> unsuccessful spending strategy and some of the worst investments our
> nation has ever made.
The so called failed welfare state, has only cost around 700 billion
since the New Deal era, hardly a drop in the bucket.
The welfare state is hardly been a failure. The high turnover of the
welfare rolls demonstrates that it does it's intended job.
What would you do with them otherwise? Let them starve? Die? Oh yeah
it's their own fault for being poor. The "market" serves everyone who
behaves in a market like fashion. That's right just rely on
the 'invisible hand' it will guide us all to utopian perfection.
> > about "tax and spend" liberals but at least they make a show of
> > trying
> > to collect the money before they spend it. Unlike the right-wing
>
> Bawhwhahahahahah!!!!
Now are you crying because you're to dense to answer the argument? Or
is it an involuntary reaction when having the truth presented to you?
Typical "borrow and spend" conservative rhetorical bullshit.
> > cretins like Reagan who ran up a huge debt without any concern for
> > its affects on the economy because he knew he'd be dead before it
> > became a real problem.
>
> We've seen the effects to the economy that winning the Cold War has
> had. Slick's been able to cut the miltitary spending down in huge
> amounts, helping Congress to actually balance the budget.
Cold War? oh you mean the 'welfare state' for the military industrial
complex? Read Chomky's "Deterring Democracy" he demonstrates that while
a moderate threat did exist, it was grossly exaggerated. The "pentagon
papers" corroborate this.
--
Rob Findlay
- unbel...@uswest.net
- http://come.to/unbeliever
--
But, that's the whole point of corporatization -- to try to remove the
public from making decisions over their own fate, to limit the public
arena, to control opinion, to make sure that the fundamental decisions
that determine how the world is going to be run -- which includes
production, commerce, distribution, thought, social policy, foreign
policy, everything -- are not in the hands of the public, but rather in
the hands of highly concentrated private power. In effect, tyranny
unaccountable to the public.
Noam Chomsky, in "A Corporate Watch Interview With Noam Chomsky"
silverback
wrote:
>In article <240919992336525932%kno...@NOSPAM.hotmail.com>,
> Knopp <kno...@NOSPAM.hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>> If only he could see that the huge amounts of cash they appropriated
>> toward our failed welfare state, our silly Social Security ponzi
>> scheme, and his huge pork factory down in "Almost Heaven", was an
>> unsuccessful spending strategy and some of the worst investments our
>> nation has ever made.
>
>The so called failed welfare state, has only cost around 700 billion
>since the New Deal era, hardly a drop in the bucket.
>
>The welfare state is hardly been a failure. The high turnover of the
>welfare rolls demonstrates that it does it's intended job.
>
>What would you do with them otherwise? Let them starve? Die? Oh yeah
>it's their own fault for being poor. The "market" serves everyone who
>behaves in a market like fashion. That's right just rely on
>the 'invisible hand' it will guide us all to utopian perfection.
Whats needed and needed now is a wealth tax. I don't know if you seen
the analysis of the latest Forbes list, but the one I have seen shows
the riches 400 people in the country have a combined wealth of $1
trillion. Now thats enough money to take care of much of the poverty
at a 100,000 thats enough money to build 10,000,000 houses for the
poor. They could put in some sweat equity during the building and then
be given the home. That alone would go along ways towards eliminating
poverty. Or it could be used to lop off about 25% of the national
debt. And mind you thats just the richest 400. What could we do with
the money from the rest of the rich? Say anyone with over a million. I
don't have the figures but I bet that sum totals far more than a
trillion simply because there are far more millioniares than there are
billioniares.
*****************************************************
GDY Weasel
emailers remove the spam buster
For those seeking enlightenment visit the White Rose at
http://www.spiritone.com/~gdy52150/whiterose.htm
Do your patriotic duty and vote for your favorite blithering idiot at
http://www.spiritone.com/~gdy52150/award.html
======================================================
Michael Ejercito's solution to global warming
If the goverment wanted to end global warming, it would use its
nuclear arsenal to put enough dust into the atmoshpere
to reduce sunlight, creating a nuclear winter.
And just to prove to the world that Dan Quayle
has nothing over him, Micheal wrote.
"the problem is not people are not being
paid enough,but the costs of goods and
services are too high."
************************************************
Gary L. Dare
: We've seen the effects to the economy that winning the Cold War has
: had. Slick's been able to cut the miltitary spending down in huge
: amounts, helping Congress to actually balance the budget.
... after borrowing $104 billion from Social Security taxes.
Meanwhile, military readiness is imperiled, staff underpaid,
cruise missile stocks dangerously low. Now, Congress wants
to cut NASA's budget by 10% ...
But a $3 Billion ship that the Navy doesn't need will be built
in Trent Lott's district.
--
Gary L. Dare
g...@ripco.com
Ripco, Chicago's Oldest Online Information Service
jo...@my-deja.com
> toward our failed welfare state, our silly Social Security ponzi
> scheme, and his huge pork factory down in "Almost Heaven", was an
> unsuccessful spending strategy and some of the worst investments our
> nation has ever made.
You have the nerve to admonish him about "ponzi schemes" and then
defend the grandaddy of all of them? Reagan's alleged economic boom
which was financed by paupering future generations? If Robert Byrd
wants to kiss the right cheek of the body politic by buying into
Reagan's idiotic political schemes, that's his business. The fact of
the matter is that the Republicans who cheer Reagan as the man who
brought down the "evil empire" are the same ones who have been telling
us for decades that communism is a fundamentally unsound idealogy and
it will collapse under its own weight. If you bother to take a close
look at what caused the Soviet Union to go belly-up, you'd see that the
problem was the rampant corruption, waste and blind idealogy...
incidentally, very similar vices to those in which Washington indulged
during Reagan's corrupt and criminal administration. Say what you like
about Clinton, (personally, I think he's a lying weasel and every bit
the disgrace to the office that Reagan was) and his legal troubles, but
the Reagan Administration still holds the record for the number of high-
level members who ran afoul of the law or had problems with a little
concept called "ethics". How many special prosecutors had to poke into
Edwin Meese's actions as Attorney General? Four? Last time I heard
anyone tally up the count, nearly 250 members of Reagan's gang in
Washington drew the attention of various law-enforcement or ethics
enforcement organizations.
> > about "tax and spend" liberals but at least they make a show of
trying
> > to collect the money before they spend it. Unlike the right-wing
>
> Bawhwhahahahahah!!!!
>
> > cretins like Reagan who ran up a huge debt without any concern for
its
> > affects on the economy because he knew he'd be dead before it
became a
> > real problem.
>
> We've seen the effects to the economy that winning the Cold War has
> had.
Reagan didn't win the cold war. He just happened to be in the right
place at the right time and was able to take credit for the USSR going
down on his watch.
>Slick's been able to cut the miltitary spending down in huge
> amounts, helping Congress to actually balance the budget.
Actual military spending was a relatively small portion of the debt.
I'm talking about the gargantuan, across-the-board increases in every
sort of federal spending that Reagan allowed and in many cases actually
promoted. He figured he could get the economy out of the tailspin
(that Johnson started, Nixon and Ford escalated and Carter proved
unable to slow) by shovelling out the pork barrel with both hands.
That's like solving the homeless problem by handing out credit cards.
What happens when the cards are at their limit? All this money has
been pissed away and who gets to pay?
Fortunately for Reagan, the computer revolution happened and tossed
some much-needed economic growth our way. If it hadn't, if it weren't
for people like Bill Gates and Andy Grove, we'd all be heading south to
Mexico to find work.
Now the Republicans are trying to take credit for trying to hand out
tax-cuts funded by a budget surplus that exists mostly in the minds of
Washington bureaucrats. It only goes to show that politicians are very
good at planning to do what they think are good things with other
people's money.
Personally, I think any actual budget surplus that shows up should be
earmarked to pay down the debt before anyone can even think about tax-
cuts or shoring up Social Security.
jo...@my-deja.com
Rob Findlay <unbel...@uswest.net> wrote:
> In article <240919992336525932%kno...@NOSPAM.hotmail.com>,
> Knopp <kno...@NOSPAM.hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > If only he could see that the huge amounts of cash they appropriated
> > toward our failed welfare state, our silly Social Security ponzi
> > scheme, and his huge pork factory down in "Almost Heaven", was an
> > unsuccessful spending strategy and some of the worst investments our
> > nation has ever made.
>
> since the New Deal era, hardly a drop in the bucket.
Yes, but it does prove an interesting point: You can't get rid of
poverty by giving money to poor people.
> The welfare state is hardly been a failure. The high turnover of the
> welfare rolls demonstrates that it does it's intended job.
If you mean its intended job is to spend taxpayer's money, then I'd say
it does this job quite well.
> What would you do with them otherwise? Let them starve? Die? Oh yeah
> it's their own fault for being poor. The "market" serves everyone who
> behaves in a market like fashion. That's right just rely on
> the 'invisible hand' it will guide us all to utopian perfection.
Why is it then that "poor people" who come from some parts of the world
(Carribean islands, Latin America, Canada, Europe, Middle-East) for
example) have little trouble finding work and supporting themselves and
proving that American really is the "land of opportunity"? Why do
people who are born here seem to have so much trouble doing exactly the
same thing?
Maybe, just maybe, what you call "poverty" isn't really an end to which
a person comes when they have been unlucky but rather a symptom of a
larger problem in attitude and mentality. I'm not saying that all poor
people in this country are lazy or unmotivated, obviously that is an
absurd statement to make. However, it is no more absurd that the
opposite absolute that there are no poor people who are lazy and
unmotivated.
Poverty is not a simply problem and even if it were it wouldn't have a
simple answer. That being said, I think it is foolish to hold up the
"welfare state" as a good thing simply because it has successfully done
what it was intended to do: cost the taxpayers a lot and grow to
provide government jobs for people who couldn't find work in the public
sector.
I think some people would benefit from being told by the government to
"work or starve".
Others actually do deserve help and should get it. If you can figure
out an ironclad way of telling the two apart, let me know. I know
exactly where to take the idea and we can share the Nobel Prize for
economics.
jo...@my-deja.com
gdy5...@nospamspiritone.com (silverback) wrote:
> On Sat, 25 Sep 1999 20:48:21 GMT, Rob Findlay <unbel...@uswest.net>
> wrote:
>
> >In article <240919992336525932%kno...@NOSPAM.hotmail.com>,
> > Knopp <kno...@NOSPAM.hotmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> If only he could see that the huge amounts of cash they
appropriated
> >> toward our failed welfare state, our silly Social Security ponzi
> >> scheme, and his huge pork factory down in "Almost Heaven", was an
> >> unsuccessful spending strategy and some of the worst investments
our
> >> nation has ever made.
> >
> >The so called failed welfare state, has only cost around 700 billion
> >since the New Deal era, hardly a drop in the bucket.
> >
> >welfare rolls demonstrates that it does it's intended job.
> >
> >it's their own fault for being poor. The "market" serves everyone who
> >behaves in a market like fashion. That's right just rely on
> >the 'invisible hand' it will guide us all to utopian perfection.
>
Says who? You?
>I don't know if you seen
> the analysis of the latest Forbes list, but the one I have seen shows
> the riches 400 people in the country have a combined wealth of $1
> trillion.
How do you think they got that money? By creating businesses that
employ millions of people. Besides, most of the money is purely
theoretical. For instance, people have said that Bill Gates is worth
$80 billion. That doesn't mean he actually has that money in a bank
somewhere. It just means that his stock in Microsoft (and other
companies, I hope) happens to be worth that much. If he actually
cashed out, the amount would be far less. Something you have is
usually worth more on paper than what you will end up with if you
actually sell it to someone else.
>Now thats enough money to take care of much of the poverty
> at a 100,000 thats enough money to build 10,000,000 houses for the
> poor.
Why do you presume that people who don't have houses don't have them
because they're poor?
>They could put in some sweat equity during the building and then
> be given the home.
Why should they get special treatment? I'd love a deal like that but
I'm probably not what you would consider poor.
Plus, those sorts of things have been tried and they rarely work
because so many poor people aren't poor because they don't have money,
they're poor because they're lazy, self-indulgent and entitlement-
hungry.
> That alone would go along ways towards eliminating
> poverty.
We've spend hundreds of billions of dollars to try to eliminate poverty
and we've only proven that you can't get rid of poverty by giving poor
people money.
>Or it could be used to lop off about 25% of the national
> debt.
That's a fractionally better use of the money because by doing that, we
could reduce the cost of running this country. Don't forget that
interest on the debt is one of the biggest (if not THE biggest) single
item in the budget. If you reduce the cost of running the country, you
reduce the amount of money you need to take from working people and
they can spend it on the sorts of things they'd buy if they had the
money... A new car, maybe a washing-machine for the house, etc...
that creates new jobs which increases the tax base and means still
lower taxes for everyone.
> And mind you thats just the richest 400. What could we do with
> the money from the rest of the rich? Say anyone with over a million. I
> don't have the figures but I bet that sum totals far more than a
> trillion simply because there are far more millioniares than there are
> billioniares.
Boy, I sure hope you're kidding. It must be nice to be able to do such
good things with other people's money. There's a word for people like
that. The word is "thief". If you want to play Robin Hood, go do it
somewhere else.
Why do you assume that the money the rich have just sits around? Don't
you figure that these people invest their money in stocks, or maybe if
they're lazy they'll just put it in the bank and the bank, then the
bank can invest it.
Anyway, this money doesn't just sit around, it pays for other people to
do their jobs which, in turn invigorates the economy. Taking all this
money away from these people won't do anything good.
[snip]
>
> Michael Ejercito's solution to global warming
>
> If the goverment wanted to end global warming, it would use its
> nuclear arsenal to put enough dust into the atmoshpere
> to reduce sunlight, creating a nuclear winter.
What an idiot.
> And just to prove to the world that Dan Quayle
> has nothing over him, Micheal wrote.
>
> "the problem is not people are not being
> paid enough,but the costs of goods and
> services are too high."
Well, he's right here. He just doesn't express himself clearly
enough. I assume his point is that if the government spent less, it
could stop taxing businesses. This would cause the prices of good and
services to go down because businesses just pass the costs of those
taxes onto their customers in the form of higher prices.
Better yet, let's do away with our current tax structure completely and
switch to a national sales tax.
> ************************************************
Darth Sidious
to help noneone. They want MORE layers of beauracracy. Money is
allocated to roads and education. The demobrats feel more money is
needed to create programs to wipe everones ass!
--
--------------------------------------------------
"wipe them out.....all of them!"
Darth Sidious episode I
Darth Sidious
to help noneone. They want MORE layers of beauracracy. Money is
allocated to roads and education. The demobrats feel more money is
Rob Findlay
jo...@my-deja.com wrote:
> In article <7sjcei$dsh$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
> Rob Findlay <unbel...@uswest.net> wrote:
> > In article <240919992336525932%kno...@NOSPAM.hotmail.com>,
> > Knopp <kno...@NOSPAM.hotmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > If only he could see that the huge amounts of cash they
appropriated
> > > toward our failed welfare state, our silly Social Security ponzi
> > > scheme, and his huge pork factory down in "Almost Heaven", was an
> > > unsuccessful spending strategy and some of the worst investments
our
> > > nation has ever made.
> >
> > The so called failed welfare state, has only cost around 700 billion
> > since the New Deal era, hardly a drop in the bucket.
>
> poverty by giving money to poor people.
No, but you can make their existence much better easily and cheaply.
Considering that so much wealth has been earned in this country what’s
wrong with helping out the poor? Oh I forget that’s an “eeevillle”
social goal.
>
> > The welfare state is hardly been a failure. The high turnover of the
> > welfare rolls demonstrates that it does it's intended job.
>
> If you mean its intended job is to spend taxpayer's money, then I'd
say
> it does this job quite well.
About 1 percent of the budget. Interesting thing is that the S & L
bailout cost about the same as
welfare would for about 20 years. Yet I don’t hear conservatives
railing against deregulation.
>
> > What would you do with them otherwise? Let them starve? Die? Oh yeah
> > it's their own fault for being poor. The "market" serves everyone
who
> > behaves in a market like fashion. That's right just rely on
> > the 'invisible hand' it will guide us all to utopian perfection.
>
> Why is it then that "poor people" who come from some parts of the
world
> (Carribean islands, Latin America, Canada, Europe, Middle-East) for
> example) have little trouble finding work and supporting themselves
and
> proving that American really is the "land of opportunity"? Why do
> people who are born here seem to have so much trouble doing exactly
the
> same thing?
>
> Maybe, just maybe, what you call "poverty" isn't really an end to
which
> a person comes when they have been unlucky but rather a symptom of a
> larger problem in attitude and mentality. I'm not saying that all
poor
> people in this country are lazy or unmotivated, obviously that is an
> absurd statement to make. However, it is no more absurd that the
> opposite absolute that there are no poor people who are lazy and
> unmotivated.
Why is it that conservatives can’t talk about welfare without
demonizing the poor?
> Poverty is not a simply problem and even if it were it wouldn't have a
> simple answer. That being said, I think it is foolish to hold up the
> "welfare state" as a good thing simply because it has successfully
done
> what it was intended to do: cost the taxpayers a lot and grow to
> provide government jobs for people who couldn't find work in the
public
> sector.
>
> I think some people would benefit from being told by the government to
> "work or starve".
It will be more like “work AND starve” if the conservatives have their
way.
> Others actually do deserve help and should get it. If you can figure
> out an ironclad way of telling the two apart, let me know. I know
> exactly where to take the idea and we can share the Nobel Prize for
> economics.
It’s easy, the ones that are white christian and male property owners
deserve all the help they can get, oh wait we’re already doing that
it’s called corporate welfare.
--
Rob Findlay
- unbel...@uswest.net
- http://come.to/unbeliever
--
If a Martian were asked to pick the most efficient and humane economic
systems on earth, it would certainly not choose the countries which
rely most on markets. The United States is a stagnant economy in which
real wages have been constant for more than a decade and the real
income of the bottom 40 percent of the population declined. It is an
inhumane society in which 11.5 percent of the population, some 32
million people, including 20 percent of all children, live in absolute
poverty. It is the oldest democracy on earth but also one with the
lowest voting rates among democracies and the highest per capita prison
population in the world. The fastest developing countries in the world
today are among those where the state pursues active industrial and
trade policies; the few countries in the world in which almost no one
is poor today are those in which the state has been engaged in massive
social welfare and labor market policies.
Adam Przeworski
Zepp
Leroy Tyrebiter, Jr.) wrote:
>On 24 Sep 1999 12:01:38 GMT, "demograt.whiner" <nos...@nospam.non>
>wrote:
>
>>http://www.foxnews.com/news/wires2/0924/n_rt_0924_28.sml
>>
>>>...Oklahoma Republican Rep. J.C. Watts said,
>>>"I say shame on the president for turning his back on people
>>>at a time in our nation that the economy is strong."
>>>
>>>"If we can't give the American people some of their money back
>>>in an economy like this, when can we give them their money back?"
>>>Watts asked...
>>
>>(full article at url above)
>>
>>The answer, of course, is that greedball liberals have no intention of
>>giving back any money to any taxpayers - because they want to spend
>>every last dime on Big Government.
>
>Clinton proposed to cut fed spending, as a piece of the economic pie,
>by about ten percent. He delivered on that promise.
>
>Look, for instance, at the percent of our work force working for the
>feds - down, in actual numbers, by about 300,000 - back to the
>percentage of the mid thirties - when govt was tiny.
>
>The fed govt is smaller now - not bigger.
Even as the Republicans whine about not getting the big tax cut, they
are admitting that in order to implement their preposterous budget,
they will have to break their oft-repeated promise not to cut into
Social Security funding. That's without the tax cut.
Ooops.
Shit-o-dear.
How embarrassing.
>
>
>>
>>
>
>George Leroy Tyrebiter, Jr.
**********************************************************
"Bush could shoot up on Larry King Live and *still* beat Gore!!!"
. -- Pissy, demonstrating that he thinks the election is
bought and in the bag, and it doesn't matter if G-Dub
is a junkie or not.
**********************************************************
Not dead, in jail or a slave?
Thank a liberal!
Liberalism Resurgent, Steve's brilliant
and well-documented page, is mirrored at
the following locations:
http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo
http://home.att.net/~jbvm/Resurgent
http://www.wtrt.net/~blarson/institute.htm
http://www.aliveness.com/kangaroo
http://resurgent.virtualave.net
Warning: Contains ideas
************************************************************
Pay your taxes so the rich don't have to.
Ken Kinser
jo...@my-deja.com wrote:
> In article <7sfp72$q3g$1...@bgtnsc03.worldnet.att.net>,
> "demograt.whiner" <nos...@nospam.non> wrote:
> > http://www.foxnews.com/news/wires2/0924/n_rt_0924_28.sml
> >
> > >...Oklahoma Republican Rep. J.C. Watts said,
> > >"I say shame on the president for turning his back on people
> > >at a time in our nation that the economy is strong."
> > >
> > >"If we can't give the American people some of their money back
> > >in an economy like this, when can we give them their money back?"
> > >Watts asked...
> >
> > (full article at url above)
> >
> > The answer, of course, is that greedball liberals have no intention of
> > giving back any money to any taxpayers - because they want to spend
> > every last dime on Big Government.
>
> Well, to be fair, I think they're more concerned about paying off that
> absurd debt that Reagan saddled us with. You can say what you want
> about "tax and spend" liberals but at least they make a show of trying
> to collect the money before they spend it. Unlike the right-wing
> cretins like Reagan who ran up a huge debt without any concern for its
> affects on the economy because he knew he'd be dead before it became a
> real problem.
>
Is that why Clinton's State of the Union call to save SS before anything
else has morphed into save and expand SS, Medicare, and education? There is
only one way the debt will get paid down. Quit spending the damn money!
Both sides want to spend the entire surplus. Niether side is serious about
paying down the debt. The only difference is the Reps want to spend some of
the money on tax cuts and the Dems want to spend it all on programs.
Ken
zepp, a weasel
The GOP is finally admitting that their goofy notions on how to
fabricate a budget can't be done without cuting into social security.
And that's without the big tax cut!
Oh, the embarrasment. All die.
>
**********************************************************
The following quote shows that while Republican idiocy
might be blatent idiocy, it is also tenacious idiocy:
"It [GOP money policy] reflects a reversion to the old
idea that the tree can be fertilized at the top instead
of at the bottom -- the old "trickle-down" theory".
---Harry Truman, 5/13/44
http://www.scruznet.com/~kangaroo/LiberalFAQ.htm
Also mirrored at: http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo
silverback
geesh you may not be the smartest damn greed head alive but damn if
you don't get an A for being the most creative. So now bill gate's 80
billion dollars is only theorical. Damn if you weren;t serious that
would be a fairly decent joke.
>$80 billion. That doesn't mean he actually has that money in a bank
>somewhere. It just means that his stock in Microsoft (and other
>companies, I hope) happens to be worth that much. If he actually
>cashed out, the amount would be far less. Something you have is
>usually worth more on paper than what you will end up with if you
>actually sell it to someone else.
>
and now he bitches about commission sales and taxes.
>>Now thats enough money to take care of much of the poverty
>> at a 100,000 thats enough money to build 10,000,000 houses for the
>> poor.
>
>Why do you presume that people who don't have houses don't have them
>because they're poor?
>
um maybe I remember all the homeless that raygun threw into the
street.
>>They could put in some sweat equity during the building and then
>> be given the home.
>
>Why should they get special treatment? I'd love a deal like that but
>I'm probably not what you would consider poor.
>
you are definitely poor in the brains part.
>Plus, those sorts of things have been tried and they rarely work
>because so many poor people aren't poor because they don't have money,
>they're poor because they're lazy, self-indulgent and entitlement-
>hungry.
>
more right wing bullshit.
>> That alone would go along ways towards eliminating
>> poverty.
>
>We've spend hundreds of billions of dollars to try to eliminate poverty
>and we've only proven that you can't get rid of poverty by giving poor
>people money.
>
nope thats another big right wing lie.
>>Or it could be used to lop off about 25% of the national
>> debt.
>
>That's a fractionally better use of the money because by doing that, we
>could reduce the cost of running this country. Don't forget that
>interest on the debt is one of the biggest (if not THE biggest) single
>item in the budget. If you reduce the cost of running the country, you
>reduce the amount of money you need to take from working people and
>they can spend it on the sorts of things they'd buy if they had the
>money... A new car, maybe a washing-machine for the house, etc...
>that creates new jobs which increases the tax base and means still
>lower taxes for everyone.
>
houses for the poor
>> And mind you thats just the richest 400. What could we do with
>> the money from the rest of the rich? Say anyone with over a million. I
>> don't have the figures but I bet that sum totals far more than a
>> trillion simply because there are far more millioniares than there are
>> billioniares.
>
>Boy, I sure hope you're kidding. It must be nice to be able to do such
>good things with other people's money. There's a word for people like
>that. The word is "thief". If you want to play Robin Hood, go do it
>somewhere else.
>
nope what we need is a wealth tax say 50% of everything over 5 million
decling to zero with lesser amounts of net worth leave the firstr 500k
exempt.
>Why do you assume that the money the rich have just sits around? Don't
>you figure that these people invest their money in stocks, or maybe if
>they're lazy they'll just put it in the bank and the bank, then the
>bank can invest it.
>
the poor can invest money too if they had some.
>Anyway, this money doesn't just sit around, it pays for other people to
>do their jobs which, in turn invigorates the economy. Taking all this
>money away from these people won't do anything good.
>
nonsense
>[snip]
>
>>
>> Michael Ejercito's solution to global warming
>>
>> If the goverment wanted to end global warming, it would use its
>> nuclear arsenal to put enough dust into the atmoshpere
>> to reduce sunlight, creating a nuclear winter.
>
>What an idiot.
>
>> And just to prove to the world that Dan Quayle
>> has nothing over him, Micheal wrote.
>>
>> "the problem is not people are not being
>> paid enough,but the costs of goods and
>> services are too high."
>
>Well, he's right here. He just doesn't express himself clearly
>enough. I assume his point is that if the government spent less, it
>could stop taxing businesses. This would cause the prices of good and
>services to go down because businesses just pass the costs of those
>taxes onto their customers in the form of higher prices.
>
>Better yet, let's do away with our current tax structure completely and
>switch to a national sales tax.
>
>> ************************************************
>>
>
>
>Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
>Before you buy.
*****************************************************
GDY Weasel
emailers remove the spam buster
For those seeking enlightenment visit the White Rose at
http://www.spiritone.com/~gdy52150/whiterose.htm
Do your patriotic duty and vote for your favorite blithering idiot at
http://www.spiritone.com/~gdy52150/award.html
======================================================
Michael Ejercito's solution to global warming
If the goverment wanted to end global warming, it would use its
nuclear arsenal to put enough dust into the atmoshpere
to reduce sunlight, creating a nuclear winter.
And just to prove to the world that Dan Quayle
has nothing over him, Micheal wrote.
"the problem is not people are not being
paid enough,but the costs of goods and
services are too high."
************************************************
jo...@my-deja.com
gdy5...@nospamspiritone.com (silverback) wrote:
> On Mon, 27 Sep 1999 16:41:47 GMT, jo...@my-deja.com wrote:
>
> >In article <37ed35b0...@news.spiritone.com>,
> > gdy5...@nospamspiritone.com (silverback) wrote:
> >> On Sat, 25 Sep 1999 20:48:21 GMT, Rob Findlay
[snip]
> >>I don't know if you seen
> >> the analysis of the latest Forbes list, but the one I have seen
shows
> >> the riches 400 people in the country have a combined wealth of $1
> >> trillion.
> >
> >How do you think they got that money? By creating businesses that
> >employ millions of people. Besides, most of the money is purely
> >theoretical. For instance, people have said that Bill Gates is worth
>
> geesh you may not be the smartest damn greed head alive but damn if
> you don't get an A for being the most creative. So now bill gate's 80
> billion dollars is only theorical. Damn if you weren;t serious that
> would be a fairly decent joke.
I didn't say it was ALL theoretical, just most of it. Do you actually
think Bill gates could go to his accountant(s) and ask for $80 billion
in cash with a reasonable expectation of getting it?
> >$80 billion. That doesn't mean he actually has that money in a bank
> >somewhere. It just means that his stock in Microsoft (and other
> >companies, I hope) happens to be worth that much. If he actually
> >cashed out, the amount would be far less. Something you have is
> >usually worth more on paper than what you will end up with if you
> >actually sell it to someone else.
> >
>
> and now he bitches about commission sales and taxes.
It's got nothing to do with commissions and taxes. Let's say you have
a house that you own free and clear and an appraiser tells you it is
worth $200,000. Do you actually *have* $200,000? Of course not.
You've got to sell the house. Since you just have one house, there is
a reasonable chance you will actually get that $200k assuming the
appraiser's estimate was accurate. Of course, you'll have to pay taxes
and all sorts of fees to sell the house but let's not worry about that
now.
Now, lets say that you own every house in the neighborhood - all 50 of
them, and you decide you want to sell them all at the same time. Do
you seriously expect that you're going to walk away with $10 million?
Of course not. When you try to sell a large number of something, you
drive down the price of that thing because buyers will be looking for a
deal.
There is absolutely no way that Bill Gates could sell all of his
Microsoft stock without driving the price of it down significantly.
Then there is the tax and commissions he would have to pay. He may be
worth $80 billion on paper but there is little chance of him being able
to convert that to liquidity without taking a big hit.
> >>Now thats enough money to take care of much of the poverty
> >> at a 100,000 thats enough money to build 10,000,000 houses for the
> >> poor.
> >
> >Why do you presume that people who don't have houses don't have them
> >because they're poor?
> >
>
> um maybe I remember all the homeless that raygun threw into the
> street.
Don't just blame poor, dumb Ronnie. He couldn't have done it without
the help of the ACLU and other leftie groups.
> >>They could put in some sweat equity during the building and then
> >> be given the home.
> >
> >Why should they get special treatment? I'd love a deal like that but
> >I'm probably not what you would consider poor.
> >
>
> you are definitely poor in the brains part.
Why? Because I don't think poor people deserve to be coddled?
> >Plus, those sorts of things have been tried and they rarely work
> >because so many poor people aren't poor because they don't have
money,
> >they're poor because they're lazy, self-indulgent and entitlement-
> >hungry.
> >
>
> more right wing bullshit.
I'd be insulted if I weren't a registered Democrat and a dyed-in-the-
wool liberal. Now, I'm just amused.
> >> That alone would go along ways towards eliminating
> >> poverty.
> >
> >We've spend hundreds of billions of dollars to try to eliminate
poverty
> >and we've only proven that you can't get rid of poverty by giving
poor
> >people money.
> >
>
> nope thats another big right wing lie.
Check the budget figures...
> >>Or it could be used to lop off about 25% of the national
> >> debt.
> >
> >That's a fractionally better use of the money because by doing that,
we
> >could reduce the cost of running this country. Don't forget that
> >interest on the debt is one of the biggest (if not THE biggest)
single
> >item in the budget. If you reduce the cost of running the country,
you
> >reduce the amount of money you need to take from working people and
> >they can spend it on the sorts of things they'd buy if they had the
> >money... A new car, maybe a washing-machine for the house, etc...
> >that creates new jobs which increases the tax base and means still
> >lower taxes for everyone.
> >
>
> houses for the poor
What about them?
> >> And mind you thats just the richest 400. What could we do with
> >> the money from the rest of the rich? Say anyone with over a
million. I
> >> don't have the figures but I bet that sum totals far more than a
> >> trillion simply because there are far more millioniares than there
are
> >> billioniares.
> >
> >Boy, I sure hope you're kidding. It must be nice to be able to do
such
> >good things with other people's money. There's a word for people
like
> >that. The word is "thief". If you want to play Robin Hood, go do it
> >somewhere else.
> >
>
> nope what we need is a wealth tax say 50% of everything over 5 million
> decling to zero with lesser amounts of net worth leave the firstr 500k
> exempt.
It would never pass in this country. But, if you really want to live
like that, there's always Sweden. Proof that socialism not only works,
but it isn't necessary to kill and/or subjugate millions of people to
make it work. The right-wingers hate that.
> >Why do you assume that the money the rich have just sits around?
Don't
> >you figure that these people invest their money in stocks, or maybe
if
> >they're lazy they'll just put it in the bank and the bank, then the
> >bank can invest it.
> >
>
> the poor can invest money too if they had some.
Fortunately, the poor in this country live in a place where they can
make all the money they want.
> >Anyway, this money doesn't just sit around, it pays for other people
to
> >do their jobs which, in turn invigorates the economy. Taking all
this
> >money away from these people won't do anything good.
> >
>
> nonsense
Why nonsense? What about the millions of poor immigrants who come to
this country with nothing but the clothes on their backs and, in many
cases, not even speaking our language - but they still manage to claw
their way at least into the middle class and in many situations, into
real wealth? In case you hadn't noticed, this is the land of
opportunity.
But you don't like to talk about that because it doesn't fit into your
view of the poor as victims of the rich.
jo...@my-deja.com
Rob Findlay <unbel...@uswest.net> wrote:
> In article <7so5mp$h59$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
> jo...@my-deja.com wrote:
> > In article <7sjcei$dsh$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
> > Rob Findlay <unbel...@uswest.net> wrote:
> > > In article <240919992336525932%kno...@NOSPAM.hotmail.com>,
> > > Knopp <kno...@NOSPAM.hotmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > > If only he could see that the huge amounts of cash they
> appropriated
> > > > toward our failed welfare state, our silly Social Security ponzi
> > > > scheme, and his huge pork factory down in "Almost Heaven", was
an
> > > > unsuccessful spending strategy and some of the worst investments
> our
> > > > nation has ever made.
> > >
> > > The so called failed welfare state, has only cost around 700
billion
> > > since the New Deal era, hardly a drop in the bucket.
> >
> > Yes, but it does prove an interesting point: You can't get rid of
> > poverty by giving money to poor people.
>
> No, but you can make their existence much better easily and cheaply.
Why should you want to reward or encourage poverty?
> Considering that so much wealth has been earned in this country what’s
> wrong with helping out the poor? Oh I forget that’s an “eeevillle”
> social goal.
Yes, I think it is evil to encourage people to be poor. It is better
to encourage them to not be poor.
> >
> > > The welfare state is hardly been a failure. The high turnover of
the
> > > welfare rolls demonstrates that it does it's intended job.
> >
> > If you mean its intended job is to spend taxpayer's money, then I'd
> say
> > it does this job quite well.
>
> About 1 percent of the budget. Interesting thing is that the S & L
> bailout cost about the same as
> welfare would for about 20 years. Yet I don’t hear conservatives
> railing against deregulation.
That's because most conservatives are hyocrites. However, if you're
pissed off by the S&L crisis, a fair share of the blame rests on
liberal politicians. After all, they were the ones who insisted on
raising the FSLIC insurance ceiling to $100,000 so that the S&Ls could
throw away even more of the taxpayer's money.
Again, because they are hypocrites. That's why I'm proud to be a
liberal.
I've also had extensive experience in not only being poor but dealing
with other poor people. That's how I know that a significant portion
(not all of course or even most) of poor people are living exactly the
way they want to live and, frankly, where they deserve to live.
> > Poverty is not a simply problem and even if it were it wouldn't
have a
> > simple answer. That being said, I think it is foolish to hold up
the
> > "welfare state" as a good thing simply because it has successfully
> done
> > what it was intended to do: cost the taxpayers a lot and grow to
> > provide government jobs for people who couldn't find work in the
> public
> > sector.
> >
> > I think some people would benefit from being told by the government
to
> > "work or starve".
>
> It will be more like “work AND starve” if the conservatives have their
> way.
Right, that's why real liberals (as opposed to weasels like Bill
Clinton and Ted Kennedy) have to stick up for them.
> > Others actually do deserve help and should get it. If you can
figure
> > out an ironclad way of telling the two apart, let me know. I know
> > exactly where to take the idea and we can share the Nobel Prize for
> > economics.
>
> It’s easy, the ones that are white christian and male property owners
> deserve all the help they can get, oh wait we’re already doing that
> it’s called corporate welfare.
Which has to stop as well. Personally, I think there should be a
consitutional amendment that expressly and explicitly forbids all
federal subsidies for businesses. For example, we should abolish the
USDA, whose sole purpose is to shovel out huge chunks of taxpayer's
money to farmers who, despite what Willie Nelson may think, are more
like Archer Daniels Midland than the 19th centure image of a family
farm. Any sort of regulation of food quality and content can be
handled by the FDA, there's no reason for the USDA to even exist.
> --
> Rob Findlay
> - unbel...@uswest.net
> - http://come.to/unbeliever
> --
> If a Martian were asked to pick the most efficient and humane economic
> systems on earth, it would certainly not choose the countries which
> rely most on markets. The United States is a stagnant economy in which
> real wages have been constant for more than a decade and the real
> income of the bottom 40 percent of the population declined. It is an
> inhumane society in which 11.5 percent of the population, some 32
> million people, including 20 percent of all children, live in absolute
> poverty. It is the oldest democracy on earth but also one with the
> lowest voting rates among democracies and the highest per capita
prison
> population in the world. The fastest developing countries in the world
> today are among those where the state pursues active industrial and
> trade policies; the few countries in the world in which almost no one
> is poor today are those in which the state has been engaged in massive
> social welfare and labor market policies.
> Adam Przeworski
What a bunch of ignorant tripe. So Adam thinks that because 11% of the
US population lives on a family income of less than $12,000/year, that
America is a bad place to live? Robbish. The average family income of
the rest of the world is approximately $800/year once you subtract out
the US. So, who is better off, the average non-american or someone who
is dirt-poor by American standards?
One thing Adam never did was to actually give an example of a country
that is better than the US. I mean, he described a theoretical country
in general terms but never actually gave a name. Was he talking about
Germany? France? Sweden? Japan?
Ken Kinser
jo...@my-deja.com wrote:
It's worse than that. Every penny of every deposit was repaid. Even those
IN EXCESS of $100,000.
Ken
Andrew Northbrook
>> About 1 percent of the budget. Interesting thing is that the S & L
>> bailout cost about the same as welfare would for about 20 years.
>>Yet I don’t hear conservatives railing against deregulation.
>
>That's because most conservatives are hyocrites.
True. To a certain extent, though, the S&L crisis wasn't so much by
deregulation as it was by inconsistent deregulation, & no political
willpower to enforce the regulations that remained.
>However, if you're pissed off by the S&L crisis, a fair share of the blame
rests on
>liberal politicians. After all, they were the ones who insisted on raising
the FSLIC
>insurance ceiling to $100,000 so that the S&Ls could throw away even more
of the
>taxpayer's money.
Exactly so. Reagan signed it into law, but he wasn't the only guilty
party -- a lot of Democrats were irresponsible as well.
>> Why is it that conservatives can’t talk about welfare without
>> demonizing the poor?
>
>Again, because they are hypocrites. That's why I'm proud to be a
>liberal.
Some of us are perfectly capable of talking about welfare without demonizing
the poor. I have a good friend who spent years as a welfare counselor. He
told me that he felt welfare was unnecessary, & that what was needed was a
revival of charity spirit. He also told me, though, that he felt there were
too many federal regulations regarding charity, & that's one thing holding a
lot of people, particularly small businesses, from doing so.
Consider another friend of mine who spends a lot of his spare time
dumpster-diving. One day, he stumbled across an entire freezer-section worth
of food, just a short while after it had been dumped out by a grocery store
because the power to the freezer-section had gone out. Because the food had
thawed to a certain point, regulations forbid them to give it away, so they
have to throw it out, instead, even though it's perfectly good. I think
that's a shame. My friend the welfare counselor said the same thing, about a
trip to Washington, DC -- he couldn't believe the stuff that federal
agencies were just throwing away, because it was easier & more
cost-effective for them to do so than it was to donate the material to
charity.
>I've also had extensive experience in not only being poor but dealing
>with other poor people. That's how I know that a significant portion
>(not all of course or even most) of poor people are living exactly the
>way they want to live and, frankly, where they deserve to live.
Hmmm... interesting. If you hadn't insisted otherwise elsewhere in this
post, I'd swear you were one of those "mean-spirited" conservatives... :) :)
:)
>Right, that's why real liberals (as opposed to weasels like Bill
>Clinton and Ted Kennedy) have to stick up for them.
Just out of curiousity, who do you consider a "real" liberal, & why?
--
think about it,
Andrew Northbrook
Democracy is a good thing, except for the large groups of stupid people..
silverback
>In article <37efd300...@news.spiritone.com>,
> gdy5...@nospamspiritone.com (silverback) wrote:
>> On Mon, 27 Sep 1999 16:41:47 GMT, jo...@my-deja.com wrote:
>>
>> >In article <37ed35b0...@news.spiritone.com>,
>> > gdy5...@nospamspiritone.com (silverback) wrote:
>> >> On Sat, 25 Sep 1999 20:48:21 GMT, Rob Findlay
>
>[snip]
>
>> >>I don't know if you seen
>> >> the analysis of the latest Forbes list, but the one I have seen
>shows
>> >> the riches 400 people in the country have a combined wealth of $1
>> >> trillion.
>> >
>> >How do you think they got that money? By creating businesses that
>> >employ millions of people. Besides, most of the money is purely
>> >theoretical. For instance, people have said that Bill Gates is worth
>>
>> geesh you may not be the smartest damn greed head alive but damn if
>> you don't get an A for being the most creative. So now bill gate's 80
>> billion dollars is only theorical. Damn if you weren;t serious that
>> would be a fairly decent joke.
>
>I didn't say it was ALL theoretical, just most of it. Do you actually
>think Bill gates could go to his accountant(s) and ask for $80 billion
>in cash with a reasonable expectation of getting it?
yup
>
>> >$80 billion. That doesn't mean he actually has that money in a bank
>> >somewhere. It just means that his stock in Microsoft (and other
>> >companies, I hope) happens to be worth that much. If he actually
>> >cashed out, the amount would be far less. Something you have is
>> >usually worth more on paper than what you will end up with if you
>> >actually sell it to someone else.
>> >
>>
>> and now he bitches about commission sales and taxes.
>
>It's got nothing to do with commissions and taxes. Let's say you have
>a house that you own free and clear and an appraiser tells you it is
>worth $200,000. Do you actually *have* $200,000? Of course not.
>You've got to sell the house. Since you just have one house, there is
>a reasonable chance you will actually get that $200k assuming the
>appraiser's estimate was accurate. Of course, you'll have to pay taxes
>and all sorts of fees to sell the house but let's not worry about that
>now.
>
so you are just a whiner
*****************************************************
Darth Sidious
until they all are poor".
>
> Whats needed and needed now is a wealth tax. I don't know if you seen
> the analysis of the latest Forbes list, but the one I have seen shows
> the riches 400 people in the country have a combined wealth of $1
> trillion. Now thats enough money to take care of much of the poverty
> at a 100,000 thats enough money to build 10,000,000 houses for the
> poor. They could put in some sweat equity during the building and then
> be given the home. That alone would go along ways towards eliminating
> poverty. Or it could be used to lop off about 25% of the national
> debt. And mind you thats just the richest 400. What could we do with
> the money from the rest of the rich? Say anyone with over a million. I
> don't have the figures but I bet that sum totals far more than a
> trillion simply because there are far more millioniares than there are
> billioniares.
>
> >
> >
> >> > about "tax and spend" liberals but at least they make a show of
> >> > trying
> >> > to collect the money before they spend it. Unlike the right-wing
> >>
> >> Bawhwhahahahahah!!!!
> >
> >Now are you crying because you're to dense to answer the argument? Or
> >is it an involuntary reaction when having the truth presented to you?
> >
> >Typical "borrow and spend" conservative rhetorical bullshit.
> >
> >
> >
> >> > cretins like Reagan who ran up a huge debt without any concern
for
> >> > its affects on the economy because he knew he'd be dead before it
> >> > became a real problem.
> >>
> >> We've seen the effects to the economy that winning the Cold War has
> >> had. Slick's been able to cut the miltitary spending down in huge
> >> amounts, helping Congress to actually balance the budget.
> >
> >Cold War? oh you mean the 'welfare state' for the military industrial
> >complex? Read Chomky's "Deterring Democracy" he demonstrates that
while
> >a moderate threat did exist, it was grossly exaggerated. The
"pentagon
> >papers" corroborate this.
> >
> >--
> >Rob Findlay
> > - unbel...@uswest.net
> > - http://come.to/unbeliever
> >--
> >But, that's the whole point of corporatization -- to try to remove
the
> >public from making decisions over their own fate, to limit the public
> >arena, to control opinion, to make sure that the fundamental
decisions
> >that determine how the world is going to be run -- which includes
> >production, commerce, distribution, thought, social policy, foreign
> >policy, everything -- are not in the hands of the public, but rather
in
> >the hands of highly concentrated private power. In effect, tyranny
> >unaccountable to the public.
> >Noam Chomsky, in "A Corporate Watch Interview With Noam Chomsky"
> >
> >
> >Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
> >Before you buy.
>
> *****************************************************
>
> GDY Weasel
> emailers remove the spam buster
>
> For those seeking enlightenment visit the White Rose at
> http://www.spiritone.com/~gdy52150/whiterose.htm
>
> Do your patriotic duty and vote for your favorite blithering idiot at
> http://www.spiritone.com/~gdy52150/award.html
>
> ======================================================
>
> Michael Ejercito's solution to global warming
>
> If the goverment wanted to end global warming, it would use its
> nuclear arsenal to put enough dust into the atmoshpere
> to reduce sunlight, creating a nuclear winter.
>
> And just to prove to the world that Dan Quayle
> has nothing over him, Micheal wrote.
>
> "the problem is not people are not being
> paid enough,but the costs of goods and
> services are too high."
> ************************************************
>
--
--------------------------------------------------
"wipe them out.....all of them!"
Darth Sidious episode I
jo...@my-deja.com
Then you should learn a little more about how the financial world
works. Let's start easy, do you think Microsoft stock would go up or
down if Bill Gates suddenly announced that he was completely divesting
himself of it?
> >
> >> >$80 billion. That doesn't mean he actually has that money in a
bank
> >> >somewhere. It just means that his stock in Microsoft (and other
> >> >companies, I hope) happens to be worth that much. If he actually
> >> >cashed out, the amount would be far less. Something you have is
> >> >usually worth more on paper than what you will end up with if you
> >> >actually sell it to someone else.
> >> >
> >>
> >> and now he bitches about commission sales and taxes.
> >
> >It's got nothing to do with commissions and taxes. Let's say you
have
> >a house that you own free and clear and an appraiser tells you it is
> >worth $200,000. Do you actually *have* $200,000? Of course not.
> >You've got to sell the house. Since you just have one house, there
is
> >a reasonable chance you will actually get that $200k assuming the
> >appraiser's estimate was accurate. Of course, you'll have to pay
taxes
> >and all sorts of fees to sell the house but let's not worry about
that
> >now.
> >
>
> so you are just a whiner
I'm not whining, I'm just telling you how it is...
Hmmm, nothing to say about any of this? Nice to know you finally agree
with me.
jo...@my-deja.com
"Andrew Northbrook" <ruthe...@rocketmail.com> wrote:
> jo...@my-deja.com wrote:
> >> About 1 percent of the budget. Interesting thing is that the S & L
> >> bailout cost about the same as welfare would for about 20 years.
> >>Yet I don’t hear conservatives railing against deregulation.
> >
> >That's because most conservatives are hyocrites.
>
> deregulation as it was by inconsistent deregulation, & no political
> willpower to enforce the regulations that remained.
It all comes back to political corruption. The people who are actually
sufficiently deluded to believe that making a huge campaign
contribution to a politician doesn't buy any special treatment. The
next time someone asks you why it should be illegal to dontate $50,000
to a politician's re-election, ask them why it is illegal for a cop to
let someone buy him a donut and a cup of coffee.
Bottom line: giving money/gifts/favors to public figures is called
"bribery" and it should be illegal.
> >However, if you're pissed off by the S&L crisis, a fair share of the
blame
> rests on
> >liberal politicians. After all, they were the ones who insisted on
raising
> the FSLIC
> >insurance ceiling to $100,000 so that the S&Ls could throw away even
more
> of the
> >taxpayer's money.
>
> Exactly so. Reagan signed it into law, but he wasn't the only guilty
> party -- a lot of Democrats were irresponsible as well.
Particularly Democratic Congressman St. Germain who authored the bill.
> >> Why is it that conservatives can’t talk about welfare without
> >> demonizing the poor?
> >
> >Again, because they are hypocrites. That's why I'm proud to be a
> >liberal.
>
> Some of us are perfectly capable of talking about welfare without
demonizing
> the poor.
Since when is speaking the truth demonization. Some poor people are
poor because they're lazy and stupid. To deny that is as foolish as it
is to claim that all poor people are that way.
>I have a good friend who spent years as a welfare counselor. He
> told me that he felt welfare was unnecessary, & that what was needed
was a
> revival of charity spirit.
That's a little short-sighted. Welfare does serve a necessary purpose,
it is just that people have politicized the issue and perverted the
spirit of welfare. We need to get back to the original concept.
>He also told me, though, that he felt there were
> too many federal regulations regarding charity, & that's one thing
holding a
> lot of people, particularly small businesses, from doing so.
No argument there...
> Consider another friend of mine who spends a lot of his spare time
> dumpster-diving. One day, he stumbled across an entire freezer-
section worth
> of food, just a short while after it had been dumped out by a grocery
store
> because the power to the freezer-section had gone out. Because the
food had
> thawed to a certain point, regulations forbid them to give it away,
so they
> have to throw it out, instead, even though it's perfectly good. I
think
> that's a shame. My friend the welfare counselor said the same thing,
about a
> trip to Washington, DC -- he couldn't believe the stuff that federal
> agencies were just throwing away, because it was easier & more
> cost-effective for them to do so than it was to donate the material to
> charity.
I definitely think that the government should not destroy surplus food
bought from farmers to keep prices artificially high. It should also
not pay farmers to do it themselves.
> >I've also had extensive experience in not only being poor but dealing
> >with other poor people. That's how I know that a significant portion
> >(not all of course or even most) of poor people are living exactly
the
> >way they want to live and, frankly, where they deserve to live.
>
> Hmmm... interesting. If you hadn't insisted otherwise elsewhere in
this
> post, I'd swear you were one of those "mean-spirited"
conservatives... :) :)
> :)
Not everything those "mean spirited conservatives" say is wrong.
Remember, you don't have to be nice to be right. The fact of the
matter is that any society will contain a certain number of parasitic,
manipulative freeloaders. Any system of welfare and charity must take
that into consideration and conduct itself in such a way that the
freeloaders cannot ruin the system for the other people who need and
deserve the help.
>
> >Right, that's why real liberals (as opposed to weasels like Bill
> >Clinton and Ted Kennedy) have to stick up for them.
>
> Just out of curiousity, who do you consider a "real" liberal, & why?
There are quite a few of them. None in the White House now,
unfortunately. I think Bob Kerrey is a real liberal. John Kennedy was
one. Fritz Hollings is. I'm sure there are more but I can't think of
any off the top of my head.
If you want to know if you're a real liberal, here are some questions
you should ask yourself...
1. Can someone be so poor that they can't clean up their own yard?
2. Should an accused murderer be acquitted because he had a bad
childhood?
3. Should rich people pay less in taxes than poor people?
4. Would privatizing an organization like the FDA automatically be a
bad thing?
5. Should insurance companies be allowed to make medical decisions?
6. Should the government prohibit "immoral" activity like drug use or
prostitution even in cases where no one is injured?
If you answer 'yes' to any of these questions, you're not a real
liberal. If you answer 'no' to all of them, there's a good chance you
are.
There only singificant difference between a libertarian and a real
liberal is that the liberal realizes that a little government
involvement in life is not only inevitable but beneficial. After all,
there are times when the only thing worse than the government getting
involved in a situation is the government NOT getting involved. That
should be the test.
> --
> think about it,
> Andrew Northbrook
> Democracy is a good thing, except for the large groups of stupid
people..
>
>
Andrew Northbrook
>I definitely think that the government should not destroy surplus food
>bought from farmers to keep prices artificially high. It should also
>not pay farmers to do it themselves.
When I was in the Army, I had a friend who'd grown up on a dairy farm in MN.
The government paid him $50K a year to destroy a large portion of the milk
he produced, because they didn't have any way of getting it to where it
would do some good, or something silly like that.
>1. Can someone be so poor that they can't clean up their own yard?
Yes, if they don't own a yard.
>2. Should an accused murderer be acquitted because he had a bad
>childhood?
No. If he/she is guilty, he/she should be punished.
>3. Should rich people pay less in taxes than poor people?
No. Nobody should pay taxes.
>4. Would privatizing an organization like the FDA automatically be a
>bad thing?
No.
>5. Should insurance companies be allowed to make medical decisions?
No. Insurance companies aren't qualified to make medical decisions -- they
should make insurance decisions, & leave medical decisions to doctors.
>6. Should the government prohibit "immoral" activity like drug use or
>prostitution even in cases where no one is injured?
No.
>If you answer 'yes' to any of these questions, you're not a real
>liberal. If you answer 'no' to all of them, there's a good chance you
>are.
Damn, I'm almost a liberal, by this standard. Except I consider myself a
libertarian.
jo...@my-deja.com
food
> >bought from farmers to keep prices artificially high. It should also
> >not pay farmers to do it themselves.
>
in MN.
> The government paid him $50K a year to destroy a large portion of the
milk
> he produced, because they didn't have any way of getting it to where
it
> would do some good, or something silly like that.
>
>
That wasn't the question. Also, you could apply it to apartment
buildings, the sidewalks in front of the building, lots adjacent to the
building, etc... The real question is that why do so many "poor"
people in the US live in such filth and sqalor, yet people in others
countries that are much poorer than the poorest Americans manage to
keep what little space and few things they have so nice a tidy?
> >2. Should an accused murderer be acquitted because he had a bad
> >childhood?
>
> No. If he/she is guilty, he/she should be punished.
>
> >3. Should rich people pay less in taxes than poor people?
>
> No. Nobody should pay taxes.
So the government should operate on voluntary contributions?
> >4. Would privatizing an organization like the FDA automatically be a
> >bad thing?
>
> No.
>
> >5. Should insurance companies be allowed to make medical decisions?
>
> No. Insurance companies aren't qualified to make medical decisions --
they
> should make insurance decisions, & leave medical decisions to doctors.
Which is exactly why we need a national health-care system modeled
after the one in Canada.
> >6. Should the government prohibit "immoral" activity like drug use
or
> >prostitution even in cases where no one is injured?
>
> No.
>
> >If you answer 'yes' to any of these questions, you're not a real
> >liberal. If you answer 'no' to all of them, there's a good chance
you
> >are.
>
> Damn, I'm almost a liberal, by this standard. Except I consider
myself a
> libertarian.
Like I said before, there's not a lot of difference between a real
liberal (as opposed to people like Bill Clinton and the stereotype that
people like Rush Limbaugh perpetuate) and a libertarian.
The really funny thing is that many people who call themselves
libertarians are actually anarchists.
RHA
>In article <7t0sgu$8...@dfw-ixnews13.ix.netcom.com>,
>food
>> >bought from farmers to keep prices artificially high. It should also
>> >not pay farmers to do it themselves.
>>
>in MN.
>> The government paid him $50K a year to destroy a large portion of the
>milk
>> he produced, because they didn't have any way of getting it to where
>it
>> would do some good, or something silly like that.
>>
>>
>
>That wasn't the question. Also, you could apply it to apartment
>buildings, the sidewalks in front of the building, lots adjacent to the
>building, etc... The real question is that why do so many "poor"
>people in the US live in such filth and sqalor, yet people in others
>countries that are much poorer than the poorest Americans manage to
>keep what little space and few things they have so nice a tidy?
Your implied argument, that a sense of poverty is relative is
correct, but then you'd explain why *you* want more than a
tidy hovel. If you'd be disatisfied, then others would too.
What do you think the result would be if they not only saw
no way out of their relative poverty but realized some people
were actively working to keep them poor?
Think of it this way: People were getting very wealthy through
the stockmarket...not poor people because they don't buy stocks
or have 401Ks. Greenspan said the stockmarket was a case of
unreasonable exuberance. So he's raising interest rates to
create unemployment to lower consumer demand which in turn
lowers earnings which lowers stock prices. So the poor must
lose their jobs to lower stock prices.
>
>> >2. Should an accused murderer be acquitted because he had a bad
>> >childhood?
>>
>> No. If he/she is guilty, he/she should be punished.
>>
>> >3. Should rich people pay less in taxes than poor people?
>>
>> No. Nobody should pay taxes.
>
>So the government should operate on voluntary contributions?
>
>> >4. Would privatizing an organization like the FDA automatically be a
>> >bad thing?
>>
>> No.
>>
>> >5. Should insurance companies be allowed to make medical decisions?
>>
>> No. Insurance companies aren't qualified to make medical decisions --
>they
>> should make insurance decisions, & leave medical decisions to doctors.
>
>Which is exactly why we need a national health-care system modeled
>after the one in Canada.
>
>> >6. Should the government prohibit "immoral" activity like drug use
>or
>> >prostitution even in cases where no one is injured?
>>
>> No.
>>
>> >If you answer 'yes' to any of these questions, you're not a real
>> >liberal. If you answer 'no' to all of them, there's a good chance
>you
>> >are.
>>
>> Damn, I'm almost a liberal, by this standard. Except I consider
>myself a
>> libertarian.
>
>Like I said before, there's not a lot of difference between a real
>liberal (as opposed to people like Bill Clinton and the stereotype that
>people like Rush Limbaugh perpetuate) and a libertarian.
>
>The really funny thing is that many people who call themselves
>libertarians are actually anarchists.
>
>> --
>> think about it,
>> Andrew Northbrook
>> Democracy is a good thing, except for the large groups of stupid
>people..
>>
>>
>
>
>Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
>Before you buy.
--
rha
jo...@my-deja.com
<B17631EF65DC1A08.195E4FD1...@lp.airnews.net>,
ri...@new-orleans.neosoft.com (RHA) wrote:
> In article <7t2pjd$756$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, <jo...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> >food
> >> >bought from farmers to keep prices artificially high. It should
also
> >> >not pay farmers to do it themselves.
> >>
farm
> >in MN.
> >> The government paid him $50K a year to destroy a large portion of
the
> >milk
> >> he produced, because they didn't have any way of getting it to
where
> >it
> >> would do some good, or something silly like that.
> >>
yard?
> >>
> >
> >That wasn't the question. Also, you could apply it to apartment
> >buildings, the sidewalks in front of the building, lots adjacent to
the
> >building, etc... The real question is that why do so many "poor"
> >people in the US live in such filth and sqalor, yet people in others
> >countries that are much poorer than the poorest Americans manage to
> >keep what little space and few things they have so nice a tidy?
>
> Your implied argument, that a sense of poverty is relative is
> correct, but then you'd explain why *you* want more than a
> tidy hovel. If you'd be disatisfied, then others would too.
> What do you think the result would be if they not only saw
> no way out of their relative poverty but realized some people
> were actively working to keep them poor?
Some people will always find it easier to play the role of the victim
than to actually pull themselves out of poverty. For those people, I
have little sympathy. Particularly when they are making these
complaints in the "land of opportunity". Let's look at that for a
moment. Opportunity isn't a guarantee of any kind of outcome, just the
chance at an outcome equal to the effort you put into it. I have such
a hard time hearing people say that they don't see any way out of
poverty when people all around them are more or less easily finding
jobs and bettering themselves.
You want to end poverty in this country tomorrow? Set up an exchange
program in which people who have been on welfare for more than, say, a
year, are sent to countries where real poverty exists... Countries
like Mexico, India or Romania. Let them see what it is like to really
not have any opportunity. Then, as part of the exchange, a citizen
from the country they're visiting comes here and has a chance to make a
good live for themselves. Here's the catch, if the immigrant gets a
job here and stays off public assisstance, the switch is made
permanent. The freeloader stays wherever we sent him and the hard-
working immirant gets automatic citizenship.
You'd see those welfare roles dry up pretty quick.
And what's this crap about the rich actively working to keep other
people poor?
> Think of it this way: People were getting very wealthy through
> the stockmarket...not poor people because they don't buy stocks
> or have 401Ks. Greenspan said the stockmarket was a case of
> unreasonable exuberance. So he's raising interest rates to
> create unemployment to lower consumer demand which in turn
> lowers earnings which lowers stock prices. So the poor must
> lose their jobs to lower stock prices.
Look, I'm not an economist, so you'll have to explain the correlation
between raising interests rates and increased unemployment.
Besides, people lose their jobs every day. It is called "technological
progress". Now, don't tell me you're going to hop on board with the
Luddites and attack computer technology because it eliminates jobs...
For every job eliminated by computers, 5 more are created. Sure, there
are people who will suffer as a result of this: people who are
unwilling to learn new skills and stay ahead of the unemployment axe.
The funny thing is that for all the talk about unemployment, I work in
the computer industry and I see nothing but people whining about how
there aren't enough people to fill the jobs that are available. So
there a person who loses their job at the assembly line because the
company wants to send the semi-skilled labor south of the border where
it is cheaper and where the environmental laws are up for sale like
everything else.
That person might have sensed what was in the wind and attended a few
night classes at the local community college and learned about
computers. Then, then the factory closes, they're the first one
rehired at a new job that, just purely by coincidence, happens to pay
more and have better benefits. Even better, they don't have to wait
for the company to close. They could learn about computers and quit
their mindless, repetitive factory job before the factory closes.