No one said it was. I'm always amazed at how many illogical arguments you can pack into just a few sentences (ad hominem, straw man, etc). Ok ... you are passing gas again (i.e. chaff). None of that is related to the topic at hand.
Well, to a degree that is true. Moneyed interest groups can and do buy legislation. That's a political problem and the only to correct it is to regulate special interest money out of our political system. And that problem will always exist until the political problem is solved. It has nothing to do with the size of government. It has everything to do with how government is structured.
No, I mean the best processes that are routinely used in businesses across the land everyday. Why would anyone blame the Koch for what happened in Flint? The boogieman in Flint are the water officials. They allowed acidic water to pass through their pipes. Water is and should be monitored for acidity. If the water is to acidic, lime is added to the water. Somebody in Flint wasn't doing their job. None of that has anything to do with the subject mater at hand here even if it were true which it isn't. Oh...poor babies. Things are so tough for you. You are spoiled. You don't know what tough is. When I graduated from college, the unemployment rate was over 10 percent and inflation was running amok, it was called stagflation. When I was born, US debt in relative terms had never been higher before or since. My generation paid for the bills of the previous generation too. It's how it works. My generation as yours has received all the benefits of the generations who went before. My aunt, who died just a few years ago, probably paid no more than a few thousand dollars in payroll taxes over the course of her lifetime. She probably withdrew from the Social Security system more in six months than she paid into the system during her lifetime and she was on Social Security for nearly 3 decades. That isn't the case today, because more than 3 decades ago, Social Security taxes were raised on my generation to pay for our retirement. For more than 30 years, baby boomers (i.e. my generation) have over paid into the Social Security and Medicare system in anticipation of our retirements. That's why the Social Security and Medicare programs today have trillions of dollars in surpluses. And those surpluses are for the most part sufficient to fully fund those programs for decades. So your assertion is just factually incorrect, but that isn't a new thing for you. Your generation has and will receive much from mine. Your generation is receiving the best and most advanced technologies man has ever known. Back when I was born simple medicines like penicillin were considered wonder drugs, and the drug cabinets were barren. We didn't have many drugs back then. There were no MRI's or any of the advanced diagnostic tools. And computers, except for a few in government, were almost nonexistent. Now they are everywhere. Cars weren't as safe as they are today. Products in general were not as safe as they are today. Lead was everywhere, in gasoline, in paint. There has been an explosion in technologies and that technology has led to longer and more prosperous lives. Cry me a river, you don't know what hardship is Michael. Most people don't start out at the top. They start out as I did. I worked 20 hours or more during high school. I worked nights, sometimes all night washing dishes and waiting on tables at an all night restaurant. Then I worked at a grocery store for a dollar an hour. And then I went into the military. I didn't earn much in the military either. So don't tell me you are "all tapped out". You don't know what work is Michael.
I don't doubt you did. I similarly worked my arse off. My first job was when I was 11 and I worked 4-5 hours a day delivering papers - to eat. Living on 40 dollars a week in a single-mother farm isn't exactly the high-life Joe. So, I know all about work. From 11 until now, I've always worked. And, I like my work. I worked hard to get a job I liked. I also stocked shelves - 20 hours or more during highschool. I found it was quite fun. It's not about working. It's about stealing and cheating. Yes, your generation did work hard - in many ways harder than those preceding yours. But your generation also stole at lot. Maybe not as much as your Aunts, sure, they were the first, so they took the most per their input. But, make no mistake, your generation took more and left less. To your generation, what's 'fair' is using the State to enforce monopolies. These can be outright, such as licencing scams (see Florist licences, medical licences, etc...) or using regulatory capture to outright prevent competition or make is extremely difficult to compete. Then there's the Unions. They've destroyed so many private companies that the only ones left are Public Unions. And I have no problem with Unionization - IF it's Private. But, when the company goes belly-up, don't expect the State to bailout your pensions. Then there's the extreme fictionalization - culminating in the TBTF and the bailing out of your (and my) stock portfolio's. THAT is NOT fair. Add to it the expansion of the NSA, the MIC the PIC. And now you want the Millennials to pay for healthcare??? WTF??? Steal much? This is a fact. Sorry Joe, but the numbers don't lie. WaPo: Baby boomers are what’s wrong with America’s economy The rest of the article and linked studies are in the above link. As an aside, you'll probably want to retract your support for B.Sanders. I heard Ron Paul suggest he's possible the next best now that his son left that race. You remember? Paul-bot that LibTurd who stood in front of Congress and stated the Federal Reserve would destroy housing for most Americans in America. LOL... what would he know! One way a B.Sanders could pay for all the Social Programs he proposes, is to ensure anyone connected to Banking who's in the top 10% and/or a SlumLord is taken to the cleaners. That'd claw back some of "The People's" money Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Yes, healthcare is broken, the fix is to end Government enforced monopolies and hyper-regulation. Insurance companies LIKE making money, they'll like bringing medical doctors that are properly trained into their networks. People like safe high quality service - they'd probably like to have fMRI every 6 months. ALL sorts of services and new goods could be produced IF the State gets OUT of healthcare. But, if you instead do what B.Sanders wants, then you can expect to pay more, get less, and probably be killed off by Government-run monopolistic DiseaseCare. This most likely WILL happen. Healthcare costs are sky rocketing, services are dropping and Medical Error is the #2 reason Americans die.
From the above article in WaPo: Baby boomers are what’s wrong with America’s economy My generation, Gen X, is in far worse financial shape than our parents were at the same age. Millennials are even worse off than we are. Soon after the Great Recession ended, the Pew Research Center reported that middle-class families were 5 percent less wealthy than their parents had been at their age, even though today’s families work a lot harder — the average family’s total working hours has risen by a quarter over the past 30 years — outside the home, and even though they’re much likelier to include two wage earners. The ensuing recovery has made things worse. Middle-class families owned fewer stocks, businesses and homes in 2013 than they did in 2010, according to calculations by New York University economist Edward Wolff. Meanwhile, future generations will have to pay the costs of weaning the world from fossil fuels and/or adapting to warmer temperatures, rising seas and more extreme weather. (Estimates vary, but some projections suggest they could total trillions of dollars for America alone.) They will also have to shoulder the burden of keeping America’s retirement promises to the boomers. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the rising costs of Social Security and government health care that will stem from an aging population will consume two more percentage points of America’s economic output by 2040. If policymakers don’t find the revenue to pay for it all, the CBO projects that the national debt will climb past 100 percent of annual gross domestic product — quadruple its post-World War II low. And yet almost no one suggests that boomers should share the pain of shoring up those programs. Folks my father’s age like to say they’ve paid for those benefits, so they should get them in full. But they haven’t. The Urban Institute has estimated that a typical couple retiring in 2011, at the leading edge of the boomer wave, will end up drawing about $200,000 more from Medicare and Social Security than they paid in taxes to support those programs. Because Social Security benefits increase faster than inflation, boomers will enjoy bigger checks from the program, in real terms, than their parents did. --o-- I personally find stealing reprehensible. It falls in the same category as making a living out of selling sex from vulnerable young adults: boys or girls, as prostitutes; taking advantage of the working poor, profiteering off colleagues and friends, lying, slumlording, drug pushing, cheating, physical abuse, etc.... it's deplorable behavior, IMO.
By the time I was 11, I was orphaned, and mowing lawns and working in a seed store to earn money, and I worked full-time while attending college full-time. And did I squawk about paying for my aunt's or my grandfather's Social Security or Medicare as you have done? No I didn't. My grandfather didn't pay not one red penny for his Medicare, because he retired before the program existed. No it isn't. It's about your ideology and identity politics. We have been through this countless times. Taxation isn't stealing. I never accused my grandfather or aunt of stealing as you have done. In part, because they didn't steal a single thing. Hogwash, we have been down this road many times. One state out of 50 licences florists....cherry pick much? Unfortunately, you cherry pick and misrepresent a lot. Do you have any evidence to back up any of your accusations? No you don't. Yeah, I get it, you don't like taxation. But that doesn't make taxation theft as you have repeatedly asserted. Nor do you like the science of economics. You would rather the economy sink into decades of depression rather than to use tried and proven solutions, the same solutions which prevented such a depression 7 years ago when the economy was losing nearly a million jobs a month and shrinking at a 1o percent rate and more with each passing month. Yes everyone knows you think taxation is theft, but that doesn't make it so. And the numbers don't lie, and they don't support your assertions. As I said before, in the 80's baby boomers dramatically increased their Social Security and Medicare taxes in order to fund their retirements. That's why the Social Security and Medicare programs have trillions of surplus tax dollars sitting in the Social Security and Medicare trust funds. Those trillions of dollars were paid by the baby boomers to fund their retirements. So your accusations are just flat out wrong. My generation hasn't solved the corruption problem in our government. It hasn't eliminated the influence of money in out polity. But is something no generation has been able to do. Over time our system of government has gradually become less and less corrupt. The Citizens United ruling was a big step backward. What you are doing Michael is playing a very nasty game of identity politics based on misinformation and outright lies.
Taxation isn't theft, nor is it suborning prostitution or the child sex trade, or drug pushing, or physical abuse or any of the many other things you claim it to be. Your generation isn't any worse off than any previous generation. In fact you are far better off than any previous generation in the history of mankind. You are healthier, you will live much longer. You have more conveniences than any human on the planet has ever had. You have more stuff.
A libertarian society with a well-functioning and adequate government, sure. Not otherwise. Check that with the Palestinians, Tibetans, Sri Lankans, Bengals, Pakistanis, Afghans, South Africans, Central Americans, Sri Lankans, Irish, etc etc etc. And you are posting in a forum populated from a real life example - the United States. That reduces the gain in freedom from being able to cross the border. Why do you think fundies and racists and communists and so forth will become tolerant, non-authoritarian, self-segregating, insular people when you get rid of governmental curbs on their behavior? Maybe it's inexperience. In the US we have had a fair amount of actual, real world experience with the kinds of segregation that fundies and racists employ when the government allows them free reign. It gets pretty ugly. They do lots of "disturbing" the freedom of others.
If you read your article, you'll find that the reasons for your generation's woes trace to the boomers's turn toward deregulation of industrial capitalism coupled with their attempts to roll back the New Deal in the US - in particular, their abandonment of paying for government by taxing the wealthy.
Remember that when the Progressive State taxes you 99% of your assets, income and property. And try to remember, it's not stealing - when the State does it. State needs a kidney, you have one, lets take it. Oh, I mean 'tax it'. The US Constitution had to be amended to make it legal to tax laborers' income. See, had the State taken their income prior to that amendment, then is WOULD have been stealing. After passing the amendment it became legal to steal. But make no mistake, it was still stealing. Just because Slavery was legal at one time, did not mean Slave Owners were stealing the labor of those Slaves. Which, is exactly what Income Tax is doing. As a matter of fact, NO AMERICAN alive when the Income Tax was passed would have supported it, had they thought it would tax them. In fact, what they were told / sold (primarily poor Southerners) was a "Tax on the Rich". Well who just got bailed out on the backs of T-Bonds that would never be sold without being able to auction of the future labor of children not even yet born. Not all Taxes are the same. No one has a problem paying a toll or an entry fee AND drives on the road or enters the park. If they have a problem with it, then they just don't use that service. Those types of 'taxes' are fair and moral. Forcing someone to pay on their labor is stealing - which is why the US Constitution had to be amended, because before then, such a thing would have been illegal. Oh, and what did this act bring? Let's see: The Great Depression, WWII, the nuking of Japan, firebombing of Korea, chemical warfare against Vietnamese children, bailing out the richest most corrupt crony Bankers in history, Never Ending War, the NSA and etc....
You mean the New Deals. They didn't work, this is why they were 'rolled back' and many more are still being rolled back. Like the State's raisin theft in CA. As for deregulation of finance - this is a myth. Finance was and is highly regulated. Is it a mess? Yes. Will more regulation fix it? No. What will fix it is mass bankruptcy, which should have happened in 2008. Oh, and 2015 was a record breaking year for Federal Regulatory Capture. This is an objective fact. The rent-seekers have never had it better, both a rich fat tax base to steal from and a State to bail them out because they're Too Big To Fail.... what a joke.
Income Tax was theft before the US Constitution was amended. Argue with the history books Joe, this is a fact. It's also a fact that the Millennials have LESS and your generation had MORE. Sure, a lot of Baby's were done over, by other Baby's. But, as a generation, The Baby's had it all, took even more, and left their kids and grandkids with less. Again, argue with the numbers. Whereas you (and I) had opportunity to lift our selves out - they don't. Instead they can look forward to paying for the opportunities your generation had. OR, maybe a demagogue will be elected and "Redistribute' for the Good of Society. Who knows? Could even be Bernie?
LOL.... Marco Rubio proves he's a Cylon Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Make no mistake, a psychopath like Christie would be horrendous as a POTUS (just imagine the number of innocent people this guy knowingly sent to the chair as a Public Prosecutor) - but, it was still funny watching him rip this dipshit conartist in half. As an aside, I heard a Progressive political scientist mention the other day, that according to his analysis, Hillary Clinton would be the candidate most likely to start WWIII. Apparently she's tight with the most blood thirsty, evil psychopaths America has ever puked up. Both in the military and the criminals who finance the military.
The US Government has NO problem raising money iceaura. Jesus, we went what, 10-12 TRILLION dollars in debt during Obama's mismanagement alone. You seem to think this is a money problem. If only we had enough 'money'. New Flash iceaura, the State issues our currency, and can and does create nearly unlimited supplies of it. It's not about not having enough fiat currency units. Having enough fiat currency units is not the problem.
They worked very well. For evidence, review your own postings in which you complain about all the bad stuff that has been happening since the rollback started in 1980+-. Wage stagnation, for example. Overgrowth of the Federal debt. Bubble and bust financial cycles. Infrastructure degradation. The country enjoyed fifty years of increasing prosperity in its freedom from those things the New Deal prevented - while paying off WWII, the biggest debt burden ever incurred by the US Federal government. I bet you didn't. For starters, you have no idea what a "Progressive political scientist" would look like. Second, you never hear anything from any source of reliable analysis - so there was no "analysis" involved. It has abandoned the sound policy of paying for one's government by taxing the wealthy. That is bad. No, we didn't. We've added about 6 trillion to the debt under Obama's budget and policy oversight, and Obama's management is responsible for about one trillion of that. You pretend to fulminate against all government, but your errors and historical fuckups and incomprehensions all lean the same way: against leftwing libertarian government, and toward rightwing authoritarian government.
The New Deals didn't work - which is why there was three of them. The Federal Government has analyzed our infrastructure and no it is not 'degraded' this is a flat out line of B.S. US Infrastructure is equivalent to Australia and slightly better than Canada, although there's not much difference. Our infrastructure is BETTER than that of Europe. Have you ever been to Greece, Germany and Japan? The trains in Greece are brand new, those in Germany are old. That same is true in Japan. Many old, perfectly functional, trains. Ripping out perfectly functional infrastructure for "Make Work" project (as B.Sanders proposes doing) is asinine. Not only is it wasteful, environmentally unsound, and leads to more debt; but it also ends up in the hands of CRONY companies that waste most of the Debt lining their pockets. Who knows? Maybe if we're lucky we'll end up with Hillary and then we'll see how much Warmongering she's able to get away with. Probably a lot. FactCheck.org: Obama’s Numbers (July 2015 Update) Total debt, counting money the government owes to itself, currently stands at nearly $18.2 trillion, up 71 percent under Obama. It should also be noted, Medical Error rate has risen along with functional illiteracy. Are you in favor of repealing the 16th amendment and ending the Federal Reserve Banking System? The last Libertarian of any note, was Ron Paul. You remember, that LibTurd? Crazy ole' kook Paul who wanted to End The Fed? LOL Guess what, now B.Sanders appears to want to Audit the Federal Reserve possibly ending it, as we currently know it. While crazy old B.SandTurd isn't against all warmongering, he certainly doesn't mind some murdering - if it's good for society, he does seem to think the F-ed Reserve System might be a little crooked, you know, with the bailing out all the cronys and funding the never-ending-wars on everything and everyone. Hitlery OTOH never saw a War she didn't like or Crony she wouldn't bailout at tax payers' expense. Why not? It's not her money.
Poll: Trump's lead in New Hampshire grows, while Sanders' edge shrinks "Let's Make America Great Again" LOL Awwwww, poor wittle Rubio. And he isn't concurrently running for office either. Poor him, looks like he'll have to go back to Honest Work as a D.C. Lobbyist. LOL
While not the source I was referring to, there's plenty of 'political analysis' that suggest Hillary would be the candidate most likely to start WWIII. From SputnikNews: Warmonger Hillary Clinton Architect of Syria, New Cold War A prominent economics professor and political thinker has penned an article in which he calls Clinton a “war candidate” in the pocket of the military industrial complex. Jeffrey Sachs (Columbia University) a world-renowned professor of economics, has authored a column in which he attacks presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton for her ties to the military industrial complex. Sachs, a senior UN advisor, bestselling author, and syndicated columnist, said Clinton’s decisions as Senator and as Secretary of State have put the US in danger and led to an unending state of conflict. From HuffPo: Hillary Is the Candidate of the War Machine There's no doubt that Hillary is the candidate of Wall Street. Even more dangerous, though, is that she is the candidate of the military-industrial complex. The idea that she is bad on the corporate issues but good on national security has it wrong. Her so-called foreign policy "experience" has been to support every war demanded by the US deep security state run by the military and the CIA. Hillary and Bill Clinton's close relations with Wall Street helped to stoke two financial bubbles (1999-2000 and 2005-8) and the Great Recession that followed Lehman's collapse. In the 1990s they pushed financial deregulation for their campaign backers that in turn let loose the worst demons of financial manipulation, toxic assets, financial fraud, and eventually collapse. In the process they won elections and got mighty rich. Yet Hillary's connections with the military-industrial complex are also alarming. It is often believed that the Republicans are the neocons and the Democrats act as restraints on the warmongering. This is not correct. Both parties are divided between neocon hawks and cautious realists who don't want the US in unending war. Hillary is a staunch neocon whose record of favoring American war adventures explains much of our current security danger. Just as the last Clinton presidency set the stage for financial collapse, it also set the stage for unending war. On October 31, 1998 President Clinton signed the Iraq Liberation Act that made it official US policy to support "regime change" in Iraq.
