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Dan8267
2014 Feb 11, 4:20am
if it was that easy to eliminate the bad cops and hire good oenms why don;t you think that action has not ALREADY been taken
Currently, who hires cops? Cops do. If even 10% of cops were honest, the systematic crime in police force would be exposed and prosecuted, thus we can conclude that at least 90% of cops are complacent in police crime. Why would such criminal cops hire honest cops? They'd prefer cops who stick up for other cops no matter what.
Firing and hiring must be done by people outside the police force.
why do you think it would be taken with a greatly reduced military
I do not know what you are asking here.
The US government doesn't even bother prosecuting big banks that admit to having laundered money for the big drug cartels, why do you think they'd go after big arms dealers?
Politicians are in bed with the big banks. I doubt these politicians would be OK with Boeing selling U.S. military secrets and products to the Russians, the Chinese, and North Korea. If they are, kick them out of office.
I can only provide solutions, not the fiat or the political will to implement them.
curious2
2014 Feb 11, 4:28am
To me that suggests that conservatives don't like accurate, truthful data as it doesn't support their crazy perceptions of reality.
Most people are instinctively tribal, and substitute tribal loyalty for the hard work of analyzing data. The question, "What do the data say?" requires much effort to answer, and there is a risk of error. The question, "What do my tribal leaders say?" is much easier, and the brain tends to substitute easier questions for harder ones. Sadly, people don't notice the substitution, and believe they've answered the harder question when they haven't. Kahneman's Thinking Fast and Slow is fascinating on intellectual substitution.
It is a peeve of mine that the discrete words "conservative" and "liberal" have both been hijacked as tribal labels for policies that are neither conservative nor liberal. Even more bizarre, self-styled "Christian conservatives" hijack the phrase "natural law," substituting (of all things) Biblical law instead. When the founders of the republic, enlightenment thinkers who considered themselves liberal and conservative and who tended to believe in natural law, wanted somebody to write the Declaration of Independence, they turned to Thomas Jefferson (a lawyer), who would never have mixed up words like that. Alas, in their name, lesser lights stir these words into such mud that the concepts get lost; George Orwell warned about misuse of language rendering proscribed thoughts impossible. As he wrote, try to imagine a "not ungreen" field, and you'll see what sloppy language can do to the thought process.
Why would such criminal cops hire honest cops? They'd prefer cops who stick up for other cops no matter what.
Police departments tend to have a culture of loyalty; though I don't know what % are criminal, cultures of loyalty can enable that. The same can be said of politicians though, which is why I remain skeptical of campaign finance reform: if you ask incumbent politicians to write the rules by which challengers can unseat them, you'll tend to get rules favoring incumbency and the same type of patronage networks that put the incumbents in office.
I can only provide solutions, not the fiat or the political will to implement them.
And this is where the comment returns to the OP. Solutions are comparatively easy; probably most people of reasonable intelligence and education can draw up a balanced budget that would eliminate the debt. The issue is, the budget is written by politicians whose patronage networks receive the spending and depend on it, and those politicians are elected by people who don't want to pay taxes. So, you get more spending and lower taxes. To eliminate the debt, one would need to reform the process that produced it. Figuring out how to do that is a hard question; balanced budget amendments can help, but there can be ways around those, e.g. pensions and other unfunded commitments (loan guarantees, etc.), and so an amendment would require careful drafting to prevent circumvention.
Paralithodes
2014 Feb 11, 5:33am
Soldiers get paid shit. The vast majority of the war industry's profits go to parasitic scumbags like defense contractors, lobbyists, and mercenaries. The 10% of the defense budget I keep in my plan above is enough to pay for soldiers in peace time.
Nice attempt at bait-n-switch though.
And here's another reason conservatives wouldn't go along with your plan. You don't know shit about what % of the defense budget goes to service member pay and benefits, not even what they are paid.
You said cut the defense budget by 95%, but have absolutely no idea what impact this would have on those serving.
One would think such a highly intelligent person as you proclaim yourself to be would think through your plan just a little bit.
There is no bait and switch here - just an exposition of your ignorance of the facts behind your plan to cut defense spending by 95%.
New Renter
2014 Feb 11, 10:36am
Firing and hiring must be done by people outside the police force.
Again Dan you are mixing arguments. Decimating the military will not reform the police forces. I am not arguing such reform is not necessary, just pointing out one does not lead to the other.
why do you think it would be taken with a greatly reduced military
I do not know what you are asking here.
I am pointing out that without a strong military there is no check for the corrupt police. None.
Dan8267 says
The US government doesn't even bother prosecuting big banks that admit to having laundered money for the big drug cartels, why do you think they'd go after big arms dealers?
Politicians are in bed with the big banks. I doubt these politicians would be OK with Boeing selling U.S. military secrets and products to the Russians, the Chinese, and North Korea. If they are, kick them out of office.
I can only provide solutions, not the fiat or the political will to implement them.
Think so eh?
http://www.nytimes.com/1987/06/22/opinion/submarined-by-japan-and-norway.html
You probably don't remember this but in 1987 it was discovered Toshiba of Japan and Kongsberg Vaapenfabrikk of Norway sold equipment for making ultra quiet submarine propellers to the Soviet Union. Up to that point Soviet boats were noisy and easy to track.
...The president of Toshiba Machine. MITI and the Chairman the Japan Machine Tool Industry Association, in knee-jerk reactions all called American charges trumped up. Later after employees of Toshiba Machine admitted installing the devices in Soviet shipyards, two presidents and one chairman in the Toshiba group had resigned and Prime Minister Nakasone had claimed that Toshiba had betrayed Japan, the government of Japan has prepared new legislation to be implemented to make certain that "what didn't happen" never happens again. Nevertheless, one of the leading business experts an Japan, Professor Gregory Clark (not an American, but an Australian), has called the new measures totally inadequate. Under the new legislation, if Toshiba were to do the same thing again, i.e. make a $17 million sale to the Soviets and inflicting $30 billion in damages to American security, the company would be subjected to a fine of 2 million yen ($14,000)...
...As a result of Toshiba's indiscretion, the US Army cancelled a contract with Toshiba on guided missile technology. The US Air Force also decided to review a $100 million bid by Toshiba for 90,000 lap top computers. It ultimately gave the contract to Zenith. The Defense Department has stopped all contracts with Toshiba Corp. The US Department of Commerce stripped the US subsidiary of Toshiba of its blanket authority to export products. Henceforth, any exports from the US by the firm will require approval for each transaction...
...The Japanese may have the last laugh however. Toshiba may have lost the $100 million contract to sell lap-top computers to the Pentagon, but in essence the Japanese still got the contract. Zenith ultimately won the contract, but the machines will be made by Sanyo Electric of Japan, and provided to Zenith on an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) basis. Indeed, according to Japanese press reports the Pentagon discretely asked Toshiba if it could build the computers at its US factory before the Pentagon backed down due to possible negative publicity ramifications. ...
Dan8267
2014 Feb 12, 3:21am
You said cut the defense budget by 95%, but have absolutely no idea what impact this would have on those serving.
There would be fewer of them. Again, public sector jobs bad, private sector jobs good. Having so many public sector jobs hurts private sector jobs. All conservative politicians, radio, and news programs repeat that mantra ad nauseam. Are you saying that conservatives have been lying for the past 50 years?
There is no reason we can't cut our military to the same levels as the British empire (a 90% cut) or even further as we have massive stockpiles of weapons.
Plus, public sector employees New Renter says
Again Dan you are mixing arguments. Decimating the military will not reform the police forces.
Agreed. They are separate issues.
I am pointing out that without a strong military there is no check for the corrupt police. None.
I've never seen the military stop corrupt police forces in my lifetime. I'd like to see that, but I don't buy the argument that the military keeps us safe from the police.
I also think there are other ways to keep us safe from the police like having a civilian taskforce that can issue arrest warrants for cops, having cops tried by civilians outside the existing court system in order to avoid inherent conflicts of interests, and using cameras extensively to record police action.
Also, we can disbar judges who issue warrants that should not have been issued. We can limit the number of warrants the state can issue to x% of the population per year, thus making warrants rare and valuable and thus less prone to be wasted on fishing expeditions and harassment. There are lots of reforms we can make.
Dan8267
2014 Feb 12, 3:24am
Think so eh?
The U.S. has the exact same problem to deal with as the U.N. considers lifting the sanctions on Iraq. It's a matter of law enforcement, no different than preventing loose nukes from getting in the hands of enemy states.
New Renter
2014 Feb 12, 5:36am
Think so eh?
The U.S. has the exact same problem to deal with as the U.N. considers lifting the sanctions on Iraq. It's a matter of law enforcement, no different than preventing loose nukes from getting in the hands of enemy states.
You lost me, how is lifting sanctions on Iraq, (who as we all know does NOT have nuclear arms) exactly the same as punishing a private company guilty of selling crucial technology to our cold war foe?
New Renter
2014 Feb 12, 5:55am
New Renter says
I am pointing out that without a strong military there is no check for the corrupt police. None.
I've never seen the military stop corrupt police forces in my lifetime. I'd like to see that, but I don't buy the argument that the military keeps us safe from the police.
Because officially the US military has been prevented from doing so since 1878
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_Comitatus_Act
Officially anyway.
Dan8267
2014 Feb 12, 6:57am
You lost me, how is lifting sanctions on Iraq, (who as we all know does NOT have nuclear arms) exactly the same as punishing a private company guilty of selling crucial technology to our cold war foe?
A few days ago on NPR -- I think it was the Diane Rehm Show -- they were discussing how the lifting or easement of sanctions against Iraq will let some French companies that are very interested in doing business there potentially increase Iraq's warfare capabilities. I don't have a link, but the gist of the story was that foreign and transnational corporations may, without even intending to do so, create regional instability and undermine U.S. or even world interests.
New Renter
2014 Feb 12, 7:11am
You lost me, how is lifting sanctions on Iraq, (who as we all know does NOT have nuclear arms) exactly the same as punishing a private company guilty of selling crucial technology to our cold war foe?
A few days ago on NPR -- I think it was the Diane Rehm Show -- they were discussing how the lifting or easement of sanctions against Iraq will let some French companies that are very interested in doing business there potentially increase Iraq's warfare capabilities. I don't have a link, but the gist of the story was that foreign and transnational corporations may, without even intending to do so, create regional instability and undermine U.S. or even world interests.
That's still very different from selling secret US military tech to its cold war foes for profit.
« First « Previous Comments 74 - 84 of 84 Search these comments
You want to eliminate the debt, cut military spending by 95%.
Deficit: $740 billion
Warfare Spending: $830 billion
Cutting 95% of warfare spending will eliminate the deficit and produce a surplus of $48.5 billion. Just by doing this one damn thing and not even touching anything else. Hell, even reducing by just 90%, would produce a surplus of $7 billion and we'd still be spending $83 billion a year, about as much as Russia and half of what China spends. The next 12 countries (U.K., Japan, France, Saudi Arabia, India, Germany, Italy, Brazil, South Korea, Australia, Canada, and Turkey), all of which are allies of ours, would spend in total $493.3 billion, which is more than enough to keep our most favored trading nation, China, and the crumpling Russia in check. It's not like we're going to lose our nukes either.
So, let's say we cut the warfare spending by merely 90%, which still keeps us as the biggest spenders in the Western alliance. Without any harm to national security -- hell, we'll be more secure since we won't have war profiteers creating instability and warfare to drum up profits, so the world would be far safer -- we have completely eliminated the deficit and created a surplus of $7 billion. And that's without touching Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, or any social services.
But we can do even better and increase the surplus substantially.
1. Eliminate the Department of Homeland Security, $35.5 billion
2. Eliminate the NSA and its cohorts, $75 billion
3. Eliminate the war on drugs, $15 billion just on the federal level. The savings on the state level would be a boon to local economies.
Again, without touching any social services, I've increased the surplus to $132.5 billion / year. With a national debt of $17,214 billion and interest payments of $220 billion / year, 1.278% average interest rate. The $132.5 billion/yr surplus is after paying the $220 billion/yr in interest. So the total debt payments is $352.5 billion in the first year. Without any budget changes other than taking the money saved by reduced interest payments and applying it to the debt payment, we would eliminate the debt by 2072, and that's without printing any more money ever again. And in 2072, we'd have about $570 billion in today's dollars surplus.
If we nationalize health care, we'd eliminate the need for Medicare and Medicaid, saving $717 billion/yr. The nationalized health care would be paid for by the income tax.
Doing this, increases our surplus from $132.5 billion to $849.5 billion, and our debt payments to $1.0695 trillion. This reduces the time to pay off the entire national debt, and America is debt free in the year 2030 with a surplus of about $1.3 trillion/yr, again without ever printing any more money, so that's today's dollars.
So there is no need for Grandma to eat cat food. Simply stop war-for-profit, illegal spying and wiretapping, TSA rapists, the evil war on people (er, drugs), and nationalize healthcare and our nation can be debt free and have a surplus of over $1.3 trillion/yr in as little as 17 years.
Fuck the CEOs who want your grandma to eat cat food. This plan is better and would actually work without cutting any social safety nets, any education, or any anti-poverty programs.