Polycarp–search my posts with the word “legitimate”–the most complete statement of my theory is probably the onm in a GD thread titled something like "what is a legitimate government function.
Tacoloco–My philosophy is about what I think the government should do, it’s not about how much tax I pay. If the government only did what I want it to do, I would gladly pay higher taxes than I do now if it were ever necessary.
In a leaded-paint sauce, it would seem.
Yeesh Duke. I don’t avoid questions I find uncomfortable. I just find it difficult to respond to your posts. You always start with this morass of bullshit that I have to untangle before getting to your question, and then your question no longer makes sense once I’ve shown that your premise was faulty. Also, you have an odd habit of stalkerishly quoting from my posts in unrelated threads.
So, I’m done with you (other than to point out in later threads that I’m done with you, and why, for the benefit of other posters). If you think this means you “win” because I am unable to respond to your brilliant posts, then fine, you think that.
Trying to have a discussion with you is like dealing with a creationist discussing evolution or something–your posts directed at me don’t even rise to the level of being wrong, they just have everything all turned sideways.
If you want to ask me a question or ask me for a cite or just plain argue with me about something, then I will respond. But I’m not going to try to disentangle your mischaracterizing lead-ins anymore.
But whatever windmill will you tilt at now?
Probably not. But the greater majority of us, I dare speculate, think that handing the matter over to private charities is the suggestion of someone who does not take the issue seriously, or suffers from some cognitive impairment.
I could start a thread about how Trans-Europe Express is my favorite Kraftwerk record and a healthcare shouting match would erupt in under 15 posts.
It’s a Godwin’s-law-type-deal.
I was enjoying the parts about Bunning being a butthole. Man, what a butthole, right?
Actually, it’s not just those tings. In one of the old culrlcoat threads, he said that he used a government student loan to pay for college. It’s only when a government action doesn’t benefit him that it ceases to be a legitimate function.
42fish, I’ve discussed that ad nauseum (maybe with your stupid ass, hard to keep track of all the stupid asses around here). There’s nothing hypocritical (or otherwise bad) about taking something from the government that I don’t think should have been provided in the first place. You aren’t even smart enough to make an actual argument to the contrary–you just say “he took student loans!” and think that’s an argument in and of itself.
To be fair to 42fish, he didn’t actually use the word “hypocritical” in his post. He could have legitimately been making an observation about, uhh, let’s call it “convenience-based flexibility.” 
That said, I did once meet a Libertarian Party member, who refused to accept government-provided housing for himself and his new wife because he saw it as outside the purview of legitimate government expenditures (he was a warrant officer in the Army, IIRC).
I think you misunderstood my suggestion (if that’s what you’re referring to). The usual system is: the budget, allocating x mio for ministry x, y mio. for ministry y and so on, is passed let’s say on 28.2.2009 to run for one year. Some weeks before it ends, the politicans get together in parliament and start debating/ arguing on how much can be cut / needs be raised for health, education, military, welfare, etc. If they don’t finish their arguing to pass the new budget in time, then the old budget continues until they do.
So if the new budget finally is passed on 10th of march, for 10 days no federal employees had to be sent home without money; no welfare receipents or seniors went hungry or ill.
I mean, I only hear about one country, the US, in the news every damn year whenever a budget has to be passed, that x thousand of employees are sent home without paycheck- or in this case, welfare people go hungry and seniors can’t get medical care and doctors aren’t paid.
In my country, the politicans are also arguing about the budget, but the police keeps on working and welfare people continue to eat and doctors get paid.*
If the voters, who elected Bunning to do a job - making good laws, not go to baseball games or play power games - and who, as taxpayers pay his wage, can’t punish him directly because he’s not up for election again, can the other senators put a fine on him for shirking his duty for a baseball game? Damaging the reputation of the senate or something? I don’t know if the workhours of a Senator are specified, or not, but surely going to baseball games for fun instead of a session is not his job description?
This is quite wrong. It used to be believed in the previous decades, because when business boomed, they also hired people for the production. But in the last two decades, both low-end (plastics to China) and high-end (computer programmer to India) production has been moved elsewhere. Now, when Walmart makes a billion profit, the jobs are in China, and the only jobs here are underpaid service clerks with no necessary skills, because they have to be cheap.
Big corporations can make money simply by investing in the finance market, without making new jobs. Most of the new jobs created recently are of the cheap, low-skills, short-term variant.
When efficiency lost a lot of jobs in the primary sector, factories in the secondary sector opened up. When the secondary sector automatized (robots and China), jobs opened up in the tertiary sector (computer programmers and such). Now these jobs are lost, too, overseas, but which sector is going to open up?
This is why an overhaul of the whole system (e.g. citzens wage) is being proposed by serious scientists, and not only dreamy utopists.
No. There are always more people out there, or companies more willing to hire an Indian with a different culture than a 50 year old (because of their prejudices, not because lack of skills) - that was in the last IT boom in the late 90s, before it crashed.
People with high skills are unemployed because they are too old, or the wrong gender or whatever. Their files go into the wastebasket without being given a chance because there are new young people who just finished school eager to work for a pittance.
So i guess that even though I think stealing is wrong, there’d be nothing hypocritical about it if I decide to loot your mansion and your yacht?
Oof, swing and a miss 42fish. Keep trying to make a real argument, it’s entertaining.
Trans-Europe Express?!! Man I am so sick of listening to those train noises I need a doctor. And if there was universal healthcare, I could get one, rather than being railroaded by insurance companies from here to Düsseldorf city. :mad:
Actually, I like TEE, and my country has health care, so this is just a joke. Shhh.
We disagree then. I see companies in my area using H1 visas to import foreign software jocks because there aren’t enough native born ones. I see engineers being recruited from competing companies all the time. I see job listings for healthcare, education, energy, other admin-friendly positions.
Now I’m in the DC area and we do better than most, mainly because, well, we’re better than most.
Has there been an upheaval in jobs in this country over the last 24 months? Sure. But that will change, in time. Will the jobs be the same? Of course not. I’m sure the buggy whip manufacturers were pretty pissed when Henry F figured out that assembly line thingy. People who cannot adapt are fucked. Too bad, so sad. But that’s life.
There are definitely more service jobs than before, sure. That’s evolution, especially at the lower end of the spectrum. The lower-skilled and lower-educated is getting screwed, and it will get a hell of a lot worse. Sucks to be them. Their historical jobs are now in Mumbai, or Shanghai, or sometimes taken up by a Salvadorian willing to haul bricks for 10 hrs for $30/day.
And before you ask, yes I’m in favor of some kind of social safety net, for education and retraining. But it’s not a permanent lifeline - it should be a temporary boost. Otherwise human nature will get lazy and trapped in a cycle of Government dependency… which of course is what many American liberals want, as it guarantees a constant contituency for the Democratic party and keeps them in power (at the expense of their souls).
I have heard this repeated so many times and it completely flies in the face of my experience. I hang around liberal policy types a lot. We often talk about the optimum level of public assistance to ensure overall economic efficiency. What you typed has never even once come up. Can you cite even one person that holds that belief? I am honestly baffled that you believe that. Apologies if you were being sarcastic and that went right over my head.
As someone dumped out of the job market by the current recession I agree, there should be a safety net for a temporary boost - but there isn’t one! I would DEARLY love to retrain to another profession but there are NO training funds, no training programs out there for me. It seems that even though my current degree is obsolete/useless/unwanted the mere fact I have one eliminates me from all job retraining/educational programs. Geez o’ pete, just help me get a freakin’ CDL and my chances of employment go up, but at this point I have no money and there is no help for me to get such a thing. You don’t always have to pay for 4 years of college to make the difference here, sometimes just a little thing would get a person back to work and independent but there is no help unless you’re a high school drop out or a single mother with school-age children. And I don’t want to cut the aid programs for those people, they need help, but a lot of other people who don’t have children or who went to school (to make “buggy whips”) now need help and yet there is nothing for them.
I can get food stamps. Great. I can eat. But my landlord won’t take food stamps (and it would be illegal in any case) and the wait for public housing in my area is years long - there is no help for the likes of me for rent, utilities, clothing, or even frickkin’ soap so I have proper hygiene for the job interviews I must go to.
There is no lifeline, there is no boost, temporary or otherwise. When your unemployment runs out you’re on your own and you are screwed unless you can get charity or relatives or friends to help you out.
So… yes, let’s talk about a temporary safety net… of any sort… for those dumped out of the workforce and would like to get back into it.
well, maybe I’m getting whooshed. I know tons of people who think that. Yes, most of them are upper middle class and not on the dole.
(snip)
(this one is reasonably thoughtful, how to meld strongheld religious beliefs and doctrine with conservativism, which supposedly, according to the left, seeks to abandon the poor)
OK, who’s going to tell him? I would, but I’m chuckling, maeks it hard to tpye.