patrick.net

Polish--

Here's a different take on the budget and military spending.

http://www.warresisters.org/pages/piechart.htm

tatupu70 says

theoakman says

Actually we do. You should see the budgets for the FDA, SEC, FCC, and every other regulatory agency.

Well, since you brought it up, I would assume that you would actually post the budgets of those agencies and what % of the US budget they represent. That’s how you argue a point–with supporting evidence.
theoakman says

It is possible to decrease the spending of the Federal Government by 90% while increasing regulatory measures

Really–90%? Of the overall budget? Please share how you would accomplish this. ie–what would you cut and by how much.

Rofl, why don't you look them up for yourself. You act as if my point was not valid because I didn't post the budgets. As far as accomplishing this...it's pretty simple. Stop spending 1 trillion dollars on the overseas military budget. There, I just eliminated 33%. Want another 33%? Eliminate all subsidies for corporations. Do you need another 20? Roll back the budgets of all Federal Government Agencies to their 1998 levels. Oh yeah, and I would eliminate the Department of Homeland Security. I'm pretty sure that would be more than enough.

theoakman says

You act as if my point was not valid because I didn’t post the budgets.

Your point wasn't valid because it was incorrect. I challenged you to post the actual budgets because I knew you wouldn't--it would show how wrong you are.

theoakman says

Stop spending 1 trillion dollars on the overseas military budget.

We agree on that much anyway. Cutting the military budget is the only way to make a meaningful change in the budget. The FDA, SEC, FCC consume very little of the budget...

theoakman says

Want another 33%? Eliminate all subsidies for corporations.

While I don't necessarily disagree with that option it doesn't reduce the budget. It would raise our tax base and increase government revenues. Which is just as good at reducing deficit, but we were talking about reducing spending and not increasing revenues.

theoakman says

Do you need another 20? Roll back the budgets of all Federal Government Agencies to their 1998 levels.

Would you adjust the budgets for inflation or roll them back to their actual 1998 levels? Either way, that most certainly wouldn't give you 20%. Maybe 1%.

Again--Take some time to actually research the budget. You might be surprised at where the real spending goes..

First, in response to tatupu70's link. It's from a war resister league and, get this, lists NASA as a "military" agency as well as the State Department. Do you really expect the USA to close down it's Embassies across the world?

I used numbers from Wikipedia which few would accuse of being a hotbed of right wing politicos. They refer to the cbo numbers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_United_States_federal_budget Here's the CBO breakdown of 2007 (GW Bush year)

Military+VeteransBenefits: $654B
SS/MC/MC: $1,256B
Everything else (plus debt): $710.9

That comes out to the military comprising 25% of the overall budget.

In regards to Nomograph's asking: "Can you please explain how you have been personally targeted for being a white male?" This reminds me of New Jersey politicians who used to say to the press: "What's the Mafia?" Let's play a little game: If universities and large corporations advertise saying "women and minorities encouraged to apply", then who doesn't qualify under that critera to be encouraged to apply? For someone who claims to lecture me about deceitfulness (unfounded, of course), you're playing dumb and Orwellian doublespeak games. Accusing conservatives of having a victim mentality is a laughable projection when the whole leftist agenda is about robbing Peter, whose "rich" because he's baaad, to pay Paula and various other victim entitlement groups.

I'm merely (ok, not just merely) observing that if you slush out goodies like welfare Santa to other leftist welfare groups, why not me too? Oh, wait, that won't work because socialist democracy is 2 wolves and 1 sheep deciding what's for dinner. Oh, wait, Obama is slushing money over to Wall Street, mostly white males. Tee hee. So the system works after all! Doesn't that make you happy to know how great the system is working out for you? Good luck with that "free" health care (Oh, wait, it's just taxing your own insurance.)

tatupu70 demonstrates selective logic: "The FDA, SEC, FCC consume very little of the budget…"

Agreed. And if the FDA, SEC, and FCC were the ONLY parts of the budget besides the military then you'd have a great point. You seem to have forgotten about social insecurity (thanks FDR) and medicare/medicaid (thanks LBJ). So if you totally ignore real numbers than your commie paradise will work out just fine.

As I said above, that's a neat allegory for your whole crazy, granola eating, hypocritical racist, sexist, corrupt agenda: You claim to "care" about everyone, except only to rob from the rich, while sneering about how you'll rob from stupid white male working class voters. Oh, except in Taxachusettes where they have OFFICIALLY woken up! Oh, and you'll also get a perfect government to take care of you except that the politicians you elect to rob and steal are dishonest and rob from you to send money to Iraq and wall street!

And that's the world YOU DESERVE tovarisch!

SF ace says

believe it Patrick, a partner at a large firm once, expressing how poor he is showed us how his 15K weekly draw is less than 6K take home. (of course a lot of it is partnship unit payback and partner pension) But besides fed and state income tax, there is social security and medicare which runs at about 9%, then there is the employer portion for an equal amount (which you can argue could have been yours instead of the government) and business tax based on payroll. Then there is exemption phase-out and surtax for the high income earner.

That "partner" is a fucking idiot if his take home is only $6k on $15k coming in. More likely you're just making this up, but I'll bite:

The top tax rate that you'll ever pay in CA is ~45% (35% federal, ~10% state)

Anyone who thinks you pay 9% for FICA has clearly never seen a pay stub of a highly paid individual. At $780k a year this guy is paying less than 3% for FICA.

Assuming he has absolutely no deductions (he's single, he doesn't contribute to his 401k, he doesn't own a home..) -- his take home pay will be a minimum of about $8500 a week -- and I highly doubt that someone who is smart enough to be earning $15k a week is dumb enough to not have significant tax shelters.

...and this is A LOT more money than he would have taken home at any time in the 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, or 00s.

This really is public information, you know. We don't have to debate and argue over whether taxes were higher at some other time between WWII and now -- google can tell you what taxes you'd be subjected to at any of those times.

Why is it that the only people I ever see complaining about taxes are people who hardly pay any?

PolishKnight says

The “50% of the budget is the military” is a popular, usually leftist, fib. Most of the budget is now interest payments on the debt, social insecurity and medicaid/medicare. The rest, including the military, is gravy. Tee hee.

The military is gravy? $1T+ is *gravy*?

SS and Medicare are definitely big items -- and if we didn't have them the deficit would be *larger* than it is today (because SS still runs a surplus).

The proposed budget for 2010 puts "defense" spending at about 28% -- a larger component of the budget than any other item.

Add those three things together and you're looking at about 85% of the budget.

Pretending that defense spending isn't the largest component of the budget doesn't make it true.

You can't fix the budget without drastically reducing defense spending -- by at least 50% (well, you could always raise taxes...)

PolishKnight says

Military+VeteransBenefits: $654B
SS/MC/MC: $1,256B
Everything else (plus debt): $710.9
That comes out to the military comprising 25% of the overall budget

A few observations:

Including SS/MC/MC in the discussion is debatable. As they are trust funds, theoretically outside the budget, an argument can be made that they shouldn't be included in this discussion. After all, the SS trust fund buys government bonds--so they are really a separate entity.

Next--we are talking about ways to reduce spending. The debt service is not an appropriation--you can't really reduce your spending there, so it's not relevant either. But, even if you want to include the debt service, we're still at just under 50% using your numbers. And I guarantee you that there is military spending hidden in the areas you call "everything else"

PolishKnight says

Agreed. And if the FDA, SEC, and FCC were the ONLY parts of the budget besides the military then you’d have a great point.

Polish-- The Oakamn brought up the FDA, SEC, and FCC--not me. I was only trying to show him where he is wrong...

Thanks for all the posts, I should have checked back sooner! I need a bit to read and digest all of this...

SF Ace--

The point is that it's not taxes making his take-home pay so low.....

LOL, just got sent this video. Apparently this is an official video put out by the Carly Fiorina (former CEO of HP) campaign in her bid for office in CA. I post it here because of the last comment's discussion of sheep and wolves. They're featured prominently in this video

FCINO.com/
youtube.com/watch?v=yo7HiQRM7BA

The youtube site is the same video, just funny unfiltered comments appearing below the video. Remember, this is official campaign material!

"Seriously the message gets lost in the flowery crap and personal attacks."

nuff said.

PolishKnight says

I’ve already addressed your challenge for me to show you ONE SINGLE EXAMPLE of a “laissez faire economy prospering

I must have missed it. What is the laissez faire economy that is prosperous?

Tatupu, I said your question is loaded similar to: "Have you stopped beating your mother?" You equate "laissez faire economy" to anarchy when I am not proposing such a thing. This is while you whine that I'm unfairly catagorizing you as a socialist. Amazing.

For the record, I do think that socialist economies enjoy limited success just as so-called "laissez faire economys", as you define them, enjoy limited success. The Russian Czars, for example, were around for almost a thousand years and ushered Russia from a primitive backwater to a world power and this is BEFORE Josef Stalin took credit for "modernizing" Russia (which really meant he starved half the population to death, bungled an attempt to invade Germany and got outsmarted, and barely survived due to help from the capitalistic west!)

Lest we need to remind you, the housing bubble was propped up due to easy government money and continues to cost taxpayers as Obama just announced a policy to "lift" home prices. I'm sure that's evil GW's doing somehow...

PolishKnight says

Lest we need to remind you, the housing bubble was propped up due to easy government money and continues to cost taxpayers as Obama just announced a policy to “lift” home prices. I’m sure that’s evil GW’s doing somehow…

No, actually it was caused by poor oversight and regulation, allowing underwriting standards to go to crap.

PolishKnight says

Tatupu, I said your question is loaded similar to: “Have you stopped beating your mother?” You equate “laissez faire economy” to anarchy when I am not proposing such a thing. This is while you whine that I’m unfairly catagorizing you as a socialist. Amazing.

Can you answer a question without putting words in my mouth? I don't equate laissez faire economy with anarchy. I equate it to a free market economy with little to no government regulations.

And I don't recall complaining about you calling me a socialist, either. How about you just worry about answering a question instead of telling me what I believe...

So-the question is: Do you have an example of a laissez faire economy prospering?

Hahaha! This is like saying that the problem with the foxes guarding the henhouse was that there weren't ENOUGH foxes! Yeah, the way to stop Obama from blowing more money is to give him more money.

Ok...

PolishKnight says

Hahaha! This is like saying that the problem with the foxes guarding the henhouse was that there weren’t ENOUGH foxes! Yeah, the way to stop Obama from blowing more money is to give him more money.
Ok…

Your analogies leave a little to be desired. Are you saying the SEC was in bed with the banking industry? Because I would probably agree that was the case--and was part of the problem.

More pot calling kettle activity: You whine about me putting words into your mouth and then restate that I have to use your definition of a free market economy with Somalia being an example of such yet not it's not an anarchy.

I don't buy into your claim you're not a socialist. Your silly denial of the obvious only shows that you're engaged in congative dissonance mental gymnastics. The truth will set you free! Embrace your inner commie!

"Are you saying the SEC was in bed with the banking industry?"

No. I'm not saying that. Read for comprehension. I said Obama and the Democrats were and are in bed with the banking industry. I never mentioned the SEC.

However... with all of Obama's huffing and puffing, we'll have to wait and see what he does with the SEC... Good luck waiting on that.

PolishKnight says

No. I’m not saying that. Read for comprehension. I said Obama and the Democrats were and are in bed with the banking industry. I never mentioned the SEC

Well, that's completely ridiculous. In case you've forgotten, the housing bubble occured long before Obama was President. So, Obama had nothing to do with how the housing bubble happened.

PolishKnight says

More pot calling kettle activity: You whine about me putting words into your mouth and then restate that I have to use your definition of a free market economy with Somalia being an example of such yet not it’s not an anarchy.

I've never mentioned Somalia. I think you're confused. I just want you to name one country that is prosperous with little to no government regulation. It's pretty simple.

tatupu70 says

So-the question is: Do you have an example of a laissez faire economy prospering?

The US in the 1800's is the best example.

"laissez faire"? What is so hands off about 1% interest rates in 2001-2003 and 2 government backed enterprises buying up trillions of dollars in mortgages? And in case you forgot, George Bush had a couple of "stimulus" packages of his own.

"Need I remind you that there was no 6 year bubble and bust cycle until Reagan started to rip apart the New Deal controls?"

Yeah, it was Reagan who removed the 'controls' on Congress to require banks and Acorn to slush $700K loans to illegal immigrants earning $14K a year...

Hahahahaha!

Yeah, like California energy "deregulation": Prohibit "bad" power such as nuclear, coal, and oil to generate electricity and instead require that magic windmills and tree hugging power be built (which isn't economically feasible) and require utilities to buy power at "market" rates which then shoot through the roof. Somehow, that didn't work.

Next on the agenda: legislation to make PI equal 3.

Stealing causes social instability. Thats why it is illegal.

Inflating the money supply (inflation) causes the loss of wealth from everyone, it is stealing. The government and the FED are causing social instability by practicing unwise monetary policy...ie: creating money to spend (inflation)... allowing them to spend beyond their budget. A government which steals from its citizens is a government fully engaged in tyranny.

(BTW, leave out your childish and pathetic retoric "oh, so what you are saying is we don't need teachers, cops and firefighters?" Whine, whine, whine... GROW UP ).

"This isn’t theory, this is exactly the way it works in nations hit by hyperinflation. It’s a very effective way to redistribute wealth back to where it belongs and to reset the system."

Sounds like an endorsement of "“laissez faire conditions”...

Please be polite.

Wiki has a pretty good page on the subject: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laissez-faire

But in answer to your actual question, certainly. If I didn't then my comments would be total gobbledy-gook and you wouldn't feel a need to resort to such snide comebacks.

All that said, I perhaps should have included this quote from you instead of the above: "Assuming labor is indeed a supply and demand market, the working class will not suffer any loss since wages will be forced higher by competition"

Hmmm, sounds like the "invisible hand" at work!

Polish-
I think you are confused about a couple of things.
#1--I don't think you really understand what Socialism is. Why don't you do a little research--it might open your eyes so you can respond more intelligently.
#2--You seem to believe that Democrats and liberals want Socialism. That couldn't be further from the truth.
Hope that helps you...

Nomograph/winston says

AdHominem says

the free market by definition does not allow for things like minimum wage. A free market can have some regulations (in fact it must) such as penalties for fraud, breech of contract etc… but there can be no free market when restrictions on price, wage etc… are brought into the picture.

In other words, regulations YOU approve of are okey dokey, but regulations you don’t approve of are not.
If there is no regulation of labor, their can be no border enforcement or immigration laws to hamper free market labor. Are you suggesting we have completely open borders? Anything less is, by your definition, is government interference in markets (i.e. tyranny).

No, in other words government should not infringe on the rights of people to make contracts (free market) with one another. No one has the right to tell me what is and isn't fair with regards to commerce, even if it is "for my own good". Government's role is to protect freedom, that is what our Declaration of Independence stated. Once government starts telling the market what price or wage isn't fair the market isn't free.

Your border analogy wouldn't pass a 6th grade reasoning exam. Protecting American borders and regulating who and what is allowed in and out has nothing to do with whether or not there is a free market in wages.

Are you afraid of freedom?

AdHominem says

Are you afraid of freedom?

Why do you keep asking that. We've already established that Nomo is a freedom hater. As am I. And several others here.

Nomograph says

shouldn’t I be able to make a contract with a Colombian farmer to grow, extract, process and import cocaine and heroin into the US?

Yes. And if it were legal it would also be rather unprofitable.

Nomograph says

make any claims I want about said product

No, not if they are fraudulent statements.

Nomograph says

Shouldn’t I be able to put heroin in soda and sell it to kids?

I didn't know you could make heroin soda, but with their parents permission this ought to be legal.

But I know that kind of freedom can be scary to you and the other Winston's

Nomograph says

Obviously you haven’t studies history.

Obviously you haven't studied ("studies") grammar.

If people could legally grow their own, drugs would probably cost about what a head of lettuce costs.
Or maybe a sack of flour if it requires refining.

Nomograph says

The actual reason for the two income problem is that beginning in the early 60’s households began to have two incomes and housing prices adjusted accordingly. Prior to that 99% of households were single income, with the wife staying at home.

Did you notice how I took the only statement you made out of your post and the rest was Ad Hominem?

In response to your false statement: OK, so women started working outside the home. This meant more income. The money to pay these women was not taken from men, rather it was created out of thin air (printed and or added to the balance sheets on banks). This is INFLATION.
Your FED and the corrupt fractional reserve banking system made this possible.

Perhaps you could get your logic correct before you go accusing others of needing an education.

Furthermore there is an explosion in credit and deficit spending beginning in the 1980's. Do you really care to debate that? And is not the FED's inflationary policy NECESSARY to allow the credit expansion that finances these credit expenditures?

PolishKnight says

Free market “laissez faire conditions” (not anarchy government) have worked for most of human history

What the hell kind of nonsense is this?

Human history was mostly dictatorships (monarchies, empires, warlords, etc.) ruling over subsistence farmers and fighting endless wars.

The idea of "Free Markets" was considered radical and new when Wealth of Nations was published.

The very idea of "economics" is something that you simply can't apply to the world prior to the 1800s. Pre-industrial society simply does not work the same way as post-industrial society, and it's absurd to compare them.

PolishKnight says

Nonetheless, your little game provides me with the opportunity to elaborate on my answer, namely, that free markets have largely existed throughout history and that socialist intervention and redistribution are new (after all, it would hardly be radical or “progressive” if it was the default all along.)

Uh, sure, if you define "throughout history" as "the second half of the 19th century".

Marx saw what horrors could be created when a small group of powerful people controlled all the wealth (first monarchies, then the monopolistic industrials that nearly destroyed civilization in the late 19th and early 20th century).

So Marx proposed a third way, and as we all know that third way simply didn't work.

So that's how we wound up with the fourth way, which is the modern mixed-market economy that has driven unprecedented growth in global standards of living over the last 70 years.

There are perfectly measurable examples of all four of these economies, and the mixed market model has been infinitely better than any of them.

The closest example that anyone can come up with of a laissez faire economy that wasn't a complete clusterfuck is probably the late 1800s (post civil war) -- the period commonly called the "gilded age", and the one that free market fundamentalists look to as the ideal economic model.

Lets see how that worked out:

- Wealth gaps about the same as under monarchies (this is a *bad thing* for almost everyone. Nobody on this message board would have been included in the old definitions of "upper" or "middle" class. Only an idiot or a billionaire would defend it)

- Environmental damage that we still haven't recovered from in many areas (some of the great lakes weren't suitable for drinking water until the 1970s!)

- Perpetual corporate-fueled wars (just ask south america)

- Monopoly pricing situations on many basic necessities, notably food, transportation, and energy (monopolies are the *opposite* of free markets)

You think socialism appeared on the scene because people were so happy with the way things were going at the time? Do you realize that organized labor, environmental safeguards, and government regulation formed in order to *prevent* industrial economies from embracing socialism? It was small business owners who asked the government to intervene, to break up the monopolies, to protect intellectual property, and generally to protect them from the standard oils and us steels that were making any competition impossible.

Capitalism DOES NOT WORK WITHOUT REGULATION. It simply devolves into monopolies, which are exactly the same as socialism.

People who think businesses should just be allowed to do whatever they want without repercussion are falling for the repeatedly disproven claim that markets self correct. There was absolutely no market mechanism that was going to stop standard oil from bleeding every penny that they could out of the public and crushing any technology that threatened their monopoly -- at least not in human timeframe.

The claim that government regulation is the same thing as socialism is intellectually dishonest (or intellectually ignorant more likely). It's spewed by people who know nothing about macro economics and even less about running a business. Hell, they usually can't even handle their own personal finances.

Nomograph says

You are free to use any exchange medium you see fit, rather than rely upon your government.

This is untrue. There used to be private currencies, but that is no longer legal.

Nomograph/Winston says

You are free to use any exchange medium you see fit, rather than rely upon your government.

In a world where gubmint makes it legal to pay with potatoes and gold or silver bars you might be a genius. Here you are just a misguided liar Winston.

Nomograph says

Currency is NOT a meant to be a store of wealth.

Perhaps in your world Winston. But here on earth...

Aristotle defined the characteristics of a good form of money:

1.) It must be durable. Money must stand the test of time and the elements. It must not fade, corrode, or change through time.

2.) It must be portable. Money hold a high amount of 'worth' relative to its weight and size.

3.) It must be divisible. Money should be relatively easy to separate and re-combine without affecting its fundamental characteristics. An extension of this idea is that the item should be 'fungible'. Dictionary.com describes fungible as:

"(esp. of goods) being of such nature or kind as to be freely exchangeable or replaceable, in whole or in part, for another of like nature or kind."

4.) It must have intrinsic value. This value of money should be independent of any other object and contained in the money itself.

"It is provided to you as a courtesy by your government."

Actually, currency existed well before our government did. The US government adopted gold because Americans already excepted it universally. They later pulled a bait and switch on the US public.

AdHominem says

tatupu70 says
Affordability has only gotten better over time
maybe in the flyover states, but then again there is a reason they are flyover states.

I know this is a Bay Area centered website, but that statement cracks me up. I've lived on both coasts but given the choice, I'll live in the Midwest every time. There are a lot of good jobs in the Bay Area, no doubt, but what else is appealing? The astronomical cost of living? The cold summers? The horrible traffic? The "keep up with the Jones" attitude? No thanks.