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Jodi Moisan
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Joined: 19 February 2008
Location: United States
Posts: 6832
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| Posted: 14 February 2010 at 11:35am | IP Logged | 1
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What about the interests of those future generations who'll probably end up holding the bill for all the expansive programs being proposed by the current government using those taxes to be levied upon them?
If they are really concerned about spending, they need to be more concerned about the amount we spend on wars, we like to start. Spending on health care for our citizens doesn't even come close to past conflicts the previous administration got us in to. Sad thing is, our soldiers still have to fight to get great health care after they put their life on the line and beg for better equipment while they are serving. Somebody is getting rich and this is the spending that will live on to future generations.
 2009 budget chart
Edited by Jodi Moisan on 14 February 2010 at 11:36am
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Joseph Gauthier
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Joined: 11 March 2009
Posts: 1421
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| Posted: 14 February 2010 at 11:36am | IP Logged | 2
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Rich, despite everything else you've written, your argument is a sieve because you've chosen not to account for two key factors. The first being that a man goes into business, not to provide jobs, but to make money. You claim that earlier discussion seeks to present only one side of an equation, but in truth, there's only one side. Ultimately, wages are capital expenditure; money spent to make money.
The second point you've chosen not to take into account is the power of the consumer; as consumer, you have the freedom to refrain from purchasing the product. You twice referred to the t-shirt as your t-shirt, but it doesn't become your t-shirt until you purchase it. A business is under no obligation to provide you with a product, and you're under no obligation to purchase the product placed on the market. That's rational capitalism.
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Knut Robert Knutsen
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Joined: 22 September 2006
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| Posted: 14 February 2010 at 1:13pm | IP Logged | 3
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"The second point you've chosen not to take into account is the power of the consumer; as consumer, you have the freedom to refrain from purchasing the product. " The power of the consumer is based on the consumer having disposable income, which requires a decent wage, which is only possible for most people through the power of union negotiations and government regulation. It also depends on lower proportional taxes for poor people than for rich people and affordable government services (including healthcare) that don't eliminate disposable income. Otherwise, the consumer is only "free" to choose the cheapest and crappiest goods and services available, sometimes even below the level that would be considered necessary for subsistence. If every business considers wages solely and in isolation as an expenditure, and seek to minimalize it as much as possible, without strong forces in opposition to negotiate the wages up, capitalism ultimately strangles itself by seeking to minimize the disposable income of their employees, without consideration of the fact that their employees are also their potential customers. They slowly, but surely, kill the consumer demand for anything but the cheapest products. As it is, you have lots of "parasite" companies driving down the wages of their employees while gambling on other businesses paying their employees enough to afford to buy consumer goods. The system only works as long as most of the businesses pay a decent living wage as opposed to the absolute minimum wage possible that "rational capitalism" seems to demand. Rather than being the enemy of capitalism, it is the mixed economy of Keynes and other "socialist" policies that have kept capitalism alive by restraining its self-destructive tendencies.
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Matthew McCallum
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Joined: 03 July 2004
Location: Canada
Posts: 2711
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| Posted: 14 February 2010 at 1:30pm | IP Logged | 4
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Knut,
I am forever a sceptic towards welfare reform, because it mostly seems like it's about taking away benefits indiscriminately and the people who are most in favor of welfare reform also seem least interested in ethical reform of the banking, stock market, insurance and financial industry. It seems one-sided to me, and that's disturbing.
If you look at the my paragraph immediately preceding the one you quoted on your post, you'll see I called for the SEC, FCC and FDA to get back to their jobs looking out for the interests of the people. I could add a bunch more acronyms and letter-agencies to the mix that need to be held accountable.
We have people concerned about overpopulation and climate change, who talk about tipping points, points of no return and likening our situation in those concerns to the proverbial "doubling bacteria in the test tube" that is only one generation away from destruction. One cannot look at the budget numbers without those same sort of arguments and Cassandra warnings springing to mind.
The resolution of this matter is not an either/or choice. Everything has got to be on the table, looked at with a critical eye.
More than a decade ago, a series of books with the common theme of reinventing government received considerable circulation. I'm becoming more convinced by the day that we're going to need to step back, to seriously consider zero-based budgeting and a systematic restructuring of government agencies.
Let's put the focus on human investment rather than public maintenance. Let's get government back to doing not only what it should be doing (being the watchdog, the referee, the protector) but also back to doing what it does best (executing large-scale capital projects for the national good, like the construction of vital infrastructure, space exploration, applied sciences and the like).
This is an effort that cannot be accomplished in a single business quarter. This will likely be a multi-generational commitment toward restoration, and necessitate an involved, informed and vigilant electorate. It will take electing politicians focused on the common good rather than the narrow wedge interests that divide us. It will take the emergence of a media less interested in the horse race, vapid sensationalism and feelings. And it will take vigourous discussion to foster understanding, bridge our differences and rebuild unity.
Forum threads like this one are an excellent start.
Edited by Matthew McCallum on 14 February 2010 at 1:32pm
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Matthew McCallum
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Joined: 03 July 2004
Location: Canada
Posts: 2711
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| Posted: 14 February 2010 at 1:43pm | IP Logged | 5
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Jodi,
Your source for that budget pie chart you shared -- The War Resisters League -- has a modest degree of bias in its presentation. For the full scope and scale of the discussion, I'd recommend the more objective US Government Spending Web Site which dispassionately covers spending by all three levels of government. |
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Jodi Moisan
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Joined: 19 February 2008
Location: United States
Posts: 6832
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| Posted: 14 February 2010 at 2:08pm | IP Logged | 6
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I did find this after seeing your post Matthew, I actually got the picture of the pie chart on another source but that site you linked could have been the original source.
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_percentage_of_the_federal_bud get_is_spent_on_the_military
I am trying to find an actual govt. site but haven't. My husband is an accountant so I think creative accounting is making a play here.
I had read this and it just made me so sad.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_co ntributors/article3419840.ece
Edited by Jodi Moisan on 14 February 2010 at 2:15pm
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Rich Rice
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Joined: 08 April 2008
Posts: 195
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| Posted: 14 February 2010 at 4:25pm | IP Logged | 7
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Joe, stop chewing those simple pills. You're a eatin' em like JuJu beans.
A man goes into business to make money, not create jobs.
Well, dude, a man IN THE WORLD goes into business IN THE WORLD to make money IN THE WORLD. We're not talking about his business, his money. We're talking about 'the world.' You know, the physical context in which said person attempts to make money. You know, context matters.
I'll say it again, you make money by selling things. (Could Capitalism get any more rational than that???) Selling things assumes someone is going to come in the door with enough cash to buy what you have. It's not a which comes first, the chicken or the egg. The system -the world, my life, your life- depends upon both. People who are successfully selling things need people. People to make things, ship things, stock things, supply things, advertise things.... you know, jobs. If no one is buying, then there's no need for those people. No jobs. :-(
Presently, there is not enough capital in the system to create enough spending/buying/shipping/stocking/supplying/advertising to keep America fully employed. You can't rely upon the people who have money to make a consumer economy run. A millionaire may the cash to buy a Snickers. But there are only so many Snickers a millionaire will consume. The folks at Snickers (wanting to make money) need to S-E-L-L a LOT of Snickers, which means they need a LOT of people with the cash in hand to buy. -The entire consumer sector has to be well off enough for the engine to run. Especially if you're talking about putting 30 million Americans back to work.
For the longest time, the fuel that kept our buying/selling engine humming near full employment was -as I said- home equity and credit. That capital had dried away. Presently, it is the Federal Government pumping money into the system that has the engine burning brighter. But at some point, society has to wake up to the fact that too much of our Government Policy is devoted to pushing capital to one segment of the system. And the system -as a whole- cannot sustain enough employment to support us all.
The larger society gets, the more essential it becomes to care for the whole.
Fat sellers and starved buyers won't work. Fat buyers and starved sellers won't work. You need a bit of a belly on both.
Now Joe, go. Go get yourself an Ipad. Get a new Ford while you're at it. A second home wouldn't hurt. Go and make that business guy some money. You might even create a job doing it. :-)
(Assuming that business guy does not use your hard earned cash to give himself a bonus.... do a business take over and lay off employees.... ship that job overseas....)
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Matthew McCallum
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Joined: 03 July 2004
Location: Canada
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| Posted: 14 February 2010 at 11:50pm | IP Logged | 8
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Rich,
Have you ever read The Fountainhead, or seen the movie? After reading your last post, I would be very interested in your thoughts on that work.
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Johan Vikberg
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Joined: 08 August 2009
Location: Sweden
Posts: 188
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| Posted: 14 February 2010 at 11:53pm | IP Logged | 9
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At a time when Americans feel increasingly isolated from their elected representatives
I am always surprised to hear about this alienation from Obama – he and Ronald Reagan are the only two presidents in recent history that I could have that ”beer” with!
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Knut Robert Knutsen
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| Posted: 15 February 2010 at 12:14am | IP Logged | 10
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I was always surprised at the people who said George W. Bush was "a guy they could have a beer with". Really? A president who's a recovering alcoholic and drug addict and they wanted to have a beer with him? How much do these people hate America? I thought that was the funniest part of the "beer summit". I know Obama got ridiculed for it, and W. probably wouldn't have been. But W. could never have held a "Beer Summit" because he was a recovering alcoholic.
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Matthew McCallum
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| Posted: 15 February 2010 at 12:27am | IP Logged | 11
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Jodi,
What I like personally like about the US Government Spending Web Site is that it's an "all in" calculation that gives you an idea of the full scope of resources being redirected to all the various levels of government.
While not new information to me, the Times editorial is troubling reminder and the costs have undoubtedly grown in the two years since its publication. Regardless of where one stands politically on the Iraqi and Afghani conflicts, you cannot casually dismiss the tremendous economic, social and human costs brought on by those wars.
In much the same vein as that Times piece, I'm currently finishing up The Edge Of Disaster by Stephen Flynn, a book that details the lack of resilience our nation has towards natural and man-made disasters. At its heart, however, the work shows how we have been poor stewards of assets built by previous generations and is a call to arms on how we need to revitalize our democracy to redress our shortcomings. It's sobering reading, and I highly recommend it.
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Jodi Moisan
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Joined: 19 February 2008
Location: United States
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| Posted: 15 February 2010 at 1:37am | IP Logged | 12
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In much the same vein as that Times piece, I'm currently finishing up The Edge Of Disaster by Stephen Flynn, a book that details the lack of resilience our nation has towards natural and man-made disasters. At its heart, however, the work shows how we have been poor stewards of assets built by previous generations and is a call to arms on how we need to revitalize our democracy to redress our shortcomings. It's sobering reading, and I highly recommend it.
Thanks I'll have to check that out.
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