my platform as presidential candidate

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Are we talking about the do-able, or the ideal?

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876 .

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Monday, April 1, 2019 2:49 AM

REAVERFAN

If you lived in the US, I'd suggest you vote for Bernie in the primary.

Since you don't, fuck off.

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Monday, April 1, 2019 3:19 AM

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

I believe these are doable, but would take an extraordinary team. The biggest hurdle is getting a buy-in from the voter. But that I think can be solved by plain talk - by speaking the simple truths that people know to be true.

For example, on the economy, I think people know that a system with persistent un- and under-employment is in plain terms built to make people desperate for work. And that leads to hostilities between groups as they contend for an advantage to secure themselves. We wouldn't have the struggles today between whites and blacks, browns and yellows, men and women, young and old, if there was a fair opportunity for everyone.
A 'fair deal' message, I think, would speak to people.

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Are we talking about the do-able, or the ideal?

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876 .

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Monday, April 1, 2019 3:25 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Hmmm... because I have a whole laundry list of things that I think are essential for the USA to recover economically and socially, but none of them are do-able. I don't think yours are either. Not that there's anything fundamentally impossible about what you propose, but you'd be fighting powerful vested interests.

So, I'm going to stick with the ideal.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876 .

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Monday, April 1, 2019 3:35 AM

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
fighting powerful vested interests

Revolutions can happen with just words.

At one point my sig line was "The hardest thing to change is a mind". But it's doable. People just need to see that it's within reach.

Not that I think I'm 'the one' to either craft or present the plan. But several someones out there are.

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Monday, April 1, 2019 5:31 AM

JO753

rezident owtsidr

Mine iz http://www.7532020.com/

----------------------------
DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early

http://www.7532020.com .

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Monday, April 1, 2019 7:51 AM

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

I've copied most of it here:

KaN YQ KoWNT, SUKRZ?
(click on Cyrus's quote to see & hear it)

If you're keeping count, you know the present is certainly not ours.

The wealthy are hogging up all the money. Uncle Scam is a basket case that can't even run an honest election.
The entire economy is set up like a giant cattle ranch with us as the cows. The stupid bad guys are running free, murdering us with bullets and drugs. The smart bad guys are running companies, selling us bullets and drugs.
We The People are working overtime, yet still picking which bills to not pay every month.

I'm writing this in January 2017, a week before Trump's inauguration, feeling like we are about to reboot the first decade of this millenium. Reboot as in the bigger bolder faster turbocharged 4K HD on steroids with a sparkling drop of retzin version! (in case you aren't getting it - that means bad. VERY bad.)

It doesn't take a genius to figure out that money in the electoral system is the problem.

It's bad enuf with giant corporations doing everything they can to squeeze us dry while ruining the planet, but when money starts writing the rules we live by, eventually we wont be able to live at all.

Money has been the lifeblood of politics from the beginning, but generally speaking, it's been kept at a level.
Now that the party-of-the-rich has nearly complete control and the president himself is a desperate wannabe-billionaire, job #1 for them will be to lock in the next and all future elections. Then we're totally, completely and permanently screwed.

Do not make the mistake of thinking America can't possibly become an official oligarchy rather than just the virtual oligarchy it is now. Those rich suckers can count. And they are counting on your apathy and inattention to let their congressmen, senators, governors and Trumps tweek the levers just a little bit more without any pesky watchdogs interfering.

Trust me, it'll be GREAT! You wont believe how unbelievable it will be, believe me! FANTASTIC trust me.

I, for one, do not trust them. I can count, and can see what this adds up to: they win, we lose.
My name is JO 753. I am running for President of The United States of America because I believe that We The People still have a chance to own the future and I can help make it happen.

A VISIoN FoR THe FUTURe

It's not enuf to talk about how bad the current administration is and say I can do better. It's too tempting to pick up the weapons of party politics that forget the wisdom of together we stand, especially when you can claim 'they started it'. No. 'Better than the other guy' is just an excuse to set a low bar. There has to be a promise based on actual ideas, positive ideals, real goals.

We must set our sights with optimism on the best we can imagine, not the minimum we can settle for.

Any fool can think up ways it can go wrong. Real leaders think up ways to make it happen.

If you've looked me up on the web, you may have gotten the impression that I am some sort of starry eyed idealistic idiot-genius who doesn't know human nature so can't understand why his plans will never fly in the real world. Or you may have a strong sense of true conservatism and feel that I'm a threat to those values.

I don't have any money. I don't have any contact at all with the wealthy or any political heavy weights. And clearly, I don't know how to knot a tie. But if voters continue to judge candidates by their wealth and past political experience, the oligarchs of the world will be able to pick who you can vote for, ensuring a win for themselves no matter who wins the election. Liberal or conservative, they don't care; their speech writers will tailor the message to get your vote.

Read this site. Most of the ideas are my own. All of it fits my philosophy. None of it is intended to trick you into supporting me. What you see is what I will fight for. When facts & lojik are on my side, I don't care if the rest of the human race says no. Comprimise is usually necessary, but you can't start with a pre-comprimised position. I say aim for the best future, the perfect solution, the highest ideal because aiming for less will surely get you less.

The federal government is the 'brain' of the nation. It has to not only be cognizant of today's reality, but both the risks and opportunities of the future for as far into the future as possible. If it fails, at best, we will not realize our full potential. At worst, we will find our end.

The person with the job of directing the federal government must have the greatest level of intelligence, forsight, empathy and imagination available to humans. With luck, it will be enuf.

GUN INCIDENT TAX

THE 2ND AMeNDMeNT

"A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of
the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."

Were you expecting at least a few long paragraphs and probably a bunch of numbered sections, subsections
and articles? I was. But no - that's The 2nd Amendment in it's entirety. There is nothing more to it.
As crude and simple as the guns of the era in which it was written.

Also as unreliable and dangerous. It has literally blown up in our faces, killing us instead of
protecting us from tyranny and foriegn adversaries.

To the rest of the civilized world, we look like insane idiots. The US has more annual fire arm
related fatalities than All the other civilized nations combined. All the nations that are comparable
or worse than us are war zones of one kind or another so can't really be counted as civilized.

The only real life 2nd Amendment freedom fighters are drug merchants shooting at cops while trying to
escape. They WILL lose their freedom if they get caught! In their minds, they are only trying to conduct
free trade and the government is overstepping, violating their rights.

And seriously, the only time gun advocates rise up in protest is when they fear their 'gun rights' are under
consideration for even the mildest new regulation. They do not utter a peep on any other issue that
involves the limits of the government, let alone show up en masse armed for war.

Even if they did, the idea that a bunch of guys with pistols and rifles would scare Uncle Sam into changing
his mind about a new law or that they could prevail if The Military decided to take over is ludicrous.

Whatever the founding fathers had in mind when they wrote the 2nd amendment, (it is rather vague
and contradictory) they failed to consider how much technological advancements could increase the
power and deadly efficiency of fire arms in the future. They weren't crazy, so if they'd been given
a hint, I'm sure they would have emphisized the part about well regulated and put a few
stipulations on shall not be infringed.
FLINTLoK PISTL
KRQZ DiUFRaM
Click the pix to see these guns in action.

PRoLIFeRATIoN

The main factor driving the gun problem is proliferation - too many guns everywhere. Anybody who wants one
can get one quickly and cheaply. Guns are left in easy reach of toddlers. Depressed teenagers can take the
easy way out using the 'emergency self defense' device their parents bought to protect the family. Burglars
cheerfully add them to the bounty, supplying their fellow bad boys with the prefered tool of their trade.

America is at a level of saturation that makes it impossible for a city or even a state to effectively
regulate them. The violence in Chicago is proof of that, not that the laws themselves are bad.

During fierce debates in The Skeptic's Society and Marylin Vos Savant Forums (see below) I realized that
guns are not an essential component of our society, unlike cars, which gun proponents often compare
them to due to the similar annual fatality numbers. Every gun in the country could dissappear tonite
and tomorrow morning the rest of our society would roll right along as usual. If all the cars and
trucks in America disappeared, the entire country and much of the rest of the world stops moving.

What I realized on July 20th 2012 is that guns are effectively a HOBBY! And everybody in America, even
those of us who are against guns, are subsidizing the major cost of that hobby. Some estimates put the
annual cost of fire arm fatalities, injuries, property damage and law enforsement at over 250 billion
dollars, dwarfing the value of the entire industry, which is around 15 billion.

Since it is extreemly difficult to amend the Constitution, even if the National Rifle Association allowed
their pet senators and congressmen touch the 2nd Amendment, some way of balancing it out is needed.

GUN INCIDeNT Tax

In a nut shell, the GIT moves the entire monetary cost of fire arms to the owners, lobbying organizations and manufacturers - anybody and everybody with a stake in the hobby of private citizens owning guns gets to help pay for all the resulting death, injury and destruction. No more freeloading!

Adding a function to an existing agency, or even starting a whole new one is a much lower hurdle to clear than amending the Constitution. In addition, framing it as a matter of not freeloading will make it harder for the supposedly self sufficient quazi-Libertarian minded Republicans to object.

The GIT would work alot like insurance. All legal gun owners, manufacturers and proponent organizations would recieve a quarterly bill that would reflect the cost incurred during the preceding period caused by guns. The more deaths, robberies, injuries and property damage, the higher their bill will be. Because proliferation is the problem being addressed, the more guns and gun related stuff someone owns, the bigger their bill. Manufacturers and proponent organizations would be billed relative to their size.

Most of the money would be used to pay for the expenses created by gun incidents. Families of the deceased would be compensated something like 5,000,000$, (with adjustments for the circumstances of each case, of course) and similarly hefty payments to injured victims on top of paying their medical expenses. All emergency medical servicers would be paid by the GIT system for treating victims. Police and fire departments would be paid for their time and expenses.

People who's property is damaged by a gun would not have to worry about finding the perpetrator.
For example, simply report the bullet hole in your windshield to the police and the repair will be covered by the GIT system. No need to try to track down where the bullet came from.

Keep in mind that this is not an alternative to the existing legal system. Crimes will still be prosecuted in the courts. Murderers will still go to prison. Assailants can still be sued by the victims.
Additionally, there will be legal penalties for attempts to scam the system. It would obviously be very tempting for terminally ill patients to give their families a parting gift.

One of the claims made by advocates is that guns deter crime. So to help pass the GIT, it will include compensation for when that actually happens. Somebody chases away a crook, the value of whatever he would have gotten away with is credited to the system. Prevent a murder or scare off a rapist and a big standard credit is added. Maybe some bonus could also be payed to the gun wielding 'good guy' in the incident. Now how could the NRA possibly be against the GIT if guns are doing so much crime prevention?
From what they say, The government will actually have to tax us to help pay all the good guys with guns!

The practical effect on the gun lobby will be that they will do a 180 and favor laws that tend to reduce gun proliferation and usage. This reveals one of the fundamental problems with the current situation - the motivation is backwards! The more mayhem there is, the more guns they sell!

To speed up the reduction in proliferation a generous buy back program could be instituted. Full retail, with a 100$ minimum paid for voluntary turn ins, no questions asked. This will work particularly well for illegal guns in drug infested areas.

Just like cars, all guns will need to be registered by their owners. Owners will be licensed and tested and will need to notify the government whenever they buy or sell a gun, including who from or to. They will need to check the license of the buyer with an online registry. Any suspicion of illegal intent must be reported wether the sale is completed or not. Failure to do so could result in a fine or jail.
Unregistered guns will be confiscated when found. Unless they have reported them as lost or stolen owners will be fined if their guns are found in anybody else's possession anywhere except at their own residence or while they are present to supervise it's use. Owners will have authority over how their gun is used and some fraction of responsibilty for all consequenses of it's use.

Confiscated or turned-in guns will be stored indefinitely in a secure armory. Owners will also be able to store guns there for free and retain ownership. This will be a good option for when they go on vacation or are otherwise not at home for an extended period to prevent unauthorized use, accidents and theft.
All guns in the armory will be subject to inspection and analysis at any time if they are suspected of being used in the commission of a crime.

THe NRA

The 2nd amendment may have been a good idea when the new nation was struggling against existing threats and those that were within the memory of living people and guns were relatively weak, but the many advances of technology, radical differences in the structures of society and the realities of the relation between the government and the citizenry and America's position in the world, it serves no purpose. And, thanks mostly to the efforts of the NRA and other lobbying organizations exploiting it to bend gun laws to their benefit, it is a severe detriment.

The NRA poses as a representative of America's gun owners, but they are really all about the money.
More guns = more violence = more fear = more gun sales.
Like a giant leech, they are literally living off our blood.

Their favorite catch phrase is "the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun."
You'd think that someone in the NRA or amongst the millions of gun enthusiasts could have come up with something less moronic by now. Maybe it's because they want to believe it so avoid thinking it over.
I will list 4 reasons why it is a foolish perspective and the basis of bad policy.

1. A good guy with a gun is 1 second away from becoming the bad guy. How many stories of accidental firings killing a family member do we hear every year? How many bad decisions by gun toting citizens and cops killing the wrong guy or a bystander? How many stories of momentary anger taking over and the previously clean record punctuated by a murder/suicide?

2. The bad guy has the advantage of surprise. He knows when and where he is going to strike.
The good guy can usually only start shooting after the bad guy has already started his attack. Before that, he is often just another face in the crowd. And thanks to the hi rate of fire, he can get off many shots before the good guy has even figured out where the bullets are coming from. And if he knows who the good guy with a gun is, guess who gets the first bullet to the head.

The producer of the FPS Russia show (see the Kriss link above) was murdered a few years ago. Shot down in spite of being a world class fire arms expert with access to all the finest weapons in the world.
The bad guy gave no warning to make it a fair fight. The gun in the good guy's hand can not defend him against The bullet headed for his heart. There is no strategy to defend against this.

3. The bad guy needs a gun to perform the duties of his profession - coersion, property damage, pain, injury, murder - a gun is vastly superior to all other weapons. He knows when he is going to need it so can leave it at home when he isn't working. His 'carry-to-use efficiency' can easily exceed 90%.

The good guy must have it with him whenever he goes out if he wants to have any chance of ever being THE good guy with a gun. We aren't in a state of total mayhem yet, so his carry-to-use efficiency is depressingly, utterly dismal. Perhaps .00000001%? Hard to calculate, based on news reports of citizens shooting bad guys commiting crimes divided by non-existant statistics of how many other good guys were carrying guns divided again by how many years they had been doing so without scoring.

The bad guy can thank the NRA for making it so easy for him to acquire the main tool of his trade.
The good guy can thank the NRA for burdening him with a virtually worthless weight on his hip, not to mention the expense, daily chore and awesome risk.

4. The bad guy without a gun has the opportunity to grab the good guy's gun. The bad guy
with a crummy gun can shoot the good guy and take his expensive nice gun. The more good guys there are walking around with guns, the more opportunities there are.
~~~~~~~~

As proven by Japan and other countries with bans or near bans on private ownership of guns, the thing that really stops a bad guy with a gun is to keep him form getting it in the first place.
The NRA's crusade to put a gun in every hand has proven that doing the opposite of a ban has the opposite effect on the bad guys - they are empowered. A DUH! level of predictability.

The fundamental function of government is to create and enforce laws that benefit the citizens; to increase the level of civilization. Our government is failing miserably in this case, for the 2nd Amendment and all the laws dependent on it are doing the opposite.

The NRA will see the Gun Incident Tax as an existential threat, so will fight like never before.
It will take the power of the office I am running for to defeat them.
_____________________________________________________

FRiDAY, 6/16/2017 UPDATe - HYPoCRISY ?

Paul Ryan said "an. attack. on. one. of. us. is. an. attack. on. all. of. us.", addressing Congress
about the attack on Republican Congressmen on Wednesday during their baseball practice by
James Hodgkinson, a disgruntled Bernie Sanders supporter.

I don't know why, but his attempt to emphasize by stopping after every word just sounded bad.
It sounded kind of stupid rignt off the bat, but something about it left a bad taste that's still lingering 2 days later.

Probably just the obvious fact that he was essentially stating that Congress doesn't care about 90 or so citizens who die every day, just don't shoot at them.

MoNDAY, 2/26/2018 UPDATe - BaCKLaSH

2 weeks ago a disturbed 19 year old killed 14 students and 3 adults at Stoneman Douglas High in Florida. There was the usual thoughts and prayers bleating from politicians and finger pointing in every direction away from guns by the NRA.

As empty as it sounds considering the Sandy Hook massacre, maybe it is different this time.

The surviving students are raising a sustained rukus. Repealing the 2nd amendment is being brought
up in the media. A dozen big companies have cut ties with the NRA. Republican Senators and
Congressmen are being berated in town hall meetings. Even Trump found himself sitting in a meeting
with the students and other gun control activists in the White House.

Perhaps most telling, the NRA's new spokeswoman, Dana Loesch, is getting consistently bad press for her Kellyanne Conway style nonsense delivery. She gets tripped up by high school kids in public debates. The news anchors cut off her desperate conspiracy theory rants. Her demeanor is even worse than her predecessor and boss, Wayne LaPierre's, which is saying alot.

The idea being bandied about by Trump and the NRA is to arm teachers. It is about as stooopid as you can get without crossing into outright slapstick comedy, but they can't understand that.

So, I'm thinking this time could be different. If they push that thru, even on a trial basis and the obvious predictable incidents occur, the backlash could be amplified.

$$$$$$$$$$$

"The main thing about money, Bud, makes you do things you don't want to do."
- Lou Manhiem, Wall Street

MoNEY: SeRVANT oR MASTeR ?

Money is one of the foundational inventions that makes civilization possible. It enables the efficient transfer of value from one person to another and a way to store value that doesn't take up much room and wont rot away.

Perhaps it's most amazing function, money can work as artificial co-operation. When someone has an idea for a big project thats a little hard to imagine the benefits of, money makes it happen.

Go back to 1889, gather a thousand men in a muddy field and explain to them how, if they spend 5 years building a giant factory where they are standing, then 5 more in that factory making a thousand copies of your 'automobile' invention, they could all be riding those around instead of horses.

See? It does not work. There has to be some way to motivate people to work on stuff that's not going to be of near term benefit to them. You may be able to get a hand full of your best buds to co-operate on something relatively small, but the big projects that make up our civilization require money to work.

Unfortunately, the invention is not perfect. It has a dark side.

The same compactness and mobility that make it work also make it easy to steal. Every idea ever intended to improve it's efficiency also made it easier to steal larger & larger amounts.

It is supposed to be like oil in a machine, not the reason the machine exists. Banks are only supposed to help move and store money, not be a money making venture in themselves. The entire financial system is supposed to be like plumbing - the pipes and valves that get the fluid to where it needs to go, not a wealth extraction machine.

Money is supposed to work for us, not be our boss.

We are living with the consequenses of allowing our invention to run amok.

There is an ocean of money floating way up in the stratosphere that us ordinary people can hardly see, let alone reach. It's that BIG MONEY we only see on TV, so it doesn't seem real to us.
We only know it's there, we don't feel it. We don't really believe in it.
It's in the same fantasy world as I Dream of Jeannie.

But it really is there.

We see only glimpses of it with stories of Bill Clinton getting a million bucks to talk for an hour.
Lebron James getting a 77,000,000$ contract. Angelina Jolie getting 30,000,000$ for 1 movie. Bill Gates on his way to becoming the first trillionaire.

Aside from the celebrities, we only see a hand full of names occasionally mentioned in the financial news.
We do not know the names of hundreds of super rich individuals, thousands of hedge fund managers, countless overpaid corporate executives and myriad rich for whatever people.

That ocean was created by greedy people with lots of money figuring out increasingly complex and effective ways to use money to extract more & more from everybody else. They long ago perfected the art & science of making the wealth created by the workers of the world vanish before we are even aware that it exists, immediatly materializing in their pockets, only occasionally visible to the rest of us as mind boggling numbers, lavish lifestyles and crazy expensive merchandise.

A question that I have never heard asked by the media or any politician is this: What Herculean effort producing what astounding accomplishment resulting in what incredible benefit to our society can any of these super rich individuals claim to justify the amount of wealth they have taken from all of us?

We already know the answer is none, so now another question presents itself: What good is the system that makes their wealth grabbing possible?

Again, we know the answer is none. 'They' will launch into long explanations concerning
capitalism, free trade, supply & demand, market forces, etc. etc. etc. Their condescending lecture will be full of quotes from PhD experts and long dead theorists to remind you that you are nobody to be questioning them! But really, it will only add up to how it came to be this way, not why it is of benefit to anybody but the rich.
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

There are 3 movies I like to watch that are about money:

Wall Street

Glengarry Glen Ross

Boiler Room

And theres a book I often recommend that explains how and why things got so out of
whack leading to the collapse of 2008: The Looting of America.

Watch and read, my friends. Watch, read and understand.

INCeNTIVe FAILURe

There's no real incentive for Wall Street to not break the law if the penalty is a tiny fraction of the profit to be made. And if someone occasionally goes to prison, so what? A little danger makes the game more exiting!
Plus, seeing some fall guy in a fine suit being led away in cuffs on the evening news does wonders for the public perception that the regulators are on the job. 'No need to look into it. Saw it on 60 Minutes.
They're cracking down on that now. No further attention required.'

The entire financial 'industry' seems to operate with an attitude that all the money is theirs and it's their duty to squeeze as much out of the rest of us as possible. If there isn't a regular trickle of people losing their houses and factories going out of business it's a sign that they can dial up the pressure. When there is a crash, maybe they have a clearer idea of where the limit is, now that they've seen the other side of it.

What is obviously needed is some serious pain for irresponsible behaivor. Something so scary to them that any 'opportunity' they see for mischief is immediatly rejected.

THe PeNALTY

Any failure caused by financial institutions will result in cancelation of all debts owed to them, up to and including a total meltdown like we saw in 08.

For example, if you have a mortgage on your house and the bank crashes, the house is yours, free and clear!
If Wall Street puts the world's economy into a tail spin again, whatever payments you were making to a financial institution are OVER! The house, car, student loan, commercial property, etc.. Everything!

Furthermore, to discourage all sorts of sneaky deals and negligence, if a real company goes out of business due to excessive debt pressure thru no fault of the management, the former employees who can't pay their debts are off the hook!
THIS MAKeS LoTS oF ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢

The most likely effect of this is that we will never see another stock market meltdown. The boom and bust cycles that somehow always screw the little guy and leave the big guys wealthier than ever will stop.
The Gordon Gekko wannabees that currently infest the world will be on the endangered species list.

If there are failures, they will almost always be the result of outright easily provable criminal fraud rather than gray area negligence or something that can be claimed as an innocent result of market forces. And even if it's due to market forces beyond the control of the institution in question or the entire industry, same result for us so same penalty for them! People pulling down king's ransom salaries to run these productless money moving businesses should have the keen awareness and great forsight that the job requires.

If this sounds unreasonably harsh, it's only because we have been living in a financial environment created by the money shufflers for our entire lives. The normal deal is an outrageous raw deal. The fact that it's been
institutionalized for centuries does not make it any less outrageous.

If you think it can't work - that the entire system will fall apart - you are mistaken. You aren't seeing the big picture. You are ignoring the massive wealth inequality the current arrangement has produced.

STRUCTURAL REFoRM

Financial regulation in the US is handled by a confusing tangle of federal, state
and local agencies. This can only make it easier for crooks to operate and honest financial businesses to make mistakes. Scrap the whole mess and replace it with single agency chartered with the job of serving the interests of the public rather than the businesses they are supervising.

As President, I will not be appointing Wall Street insiders to run The Federal Reserve or the consolidated regulatory agency. Previous Presidents apparently had the notion that it takes an insider to understand the business, but we can see where that got us - institutionalized cleptomania and continuous boom & bust cycles.
That is over with my administration! No more banks and billionaires writing their own rules.

A FAIR DAY'S PAY FoR A FAIR DAY'S WoRK

Not much agreement between employers and employees on that idea.
That's why The Government needs to be involved.

Unfortunately, how much one gets payed to do whatever type of work is based mainly on tradition rather
than some connection to real tangible measurable benefits to the employer or society. Whenever workers
appeal to Uncle Sam to settle a dispute, 'prevailing wage' usually wins the argument for the employer.

The attitude seems to be that if you choose to be an employee, you are a chump who is lucky to be
getting anything at all from the company for your time and labor. Better do exactly as told, kuz there
are stacks of applications this high cluttering the personnel office!

As a model maker and tool maker the most I ever got was about 23$ per hour, even tho the jobs required a great amount of knowledge, skill, intelligence and talent - more than many medical professions require.
Millions of tradesmen in hundreds of different technologies are trapped under an inequitable pay ceiling.

Even more unfortunately, while us honest working chumps are thinking 'fair pay' everybody else is playing by 'as much as I can possibly grab'!

Lawyers, politicians, ball players, crooked appliance repairmen, singers, dentists, corporate executives, bureuacrats, news readers, shock jocks, real estate salesmen, etc. etc. etc. - a long list of professions that can grab massive piles of cash with no consideration at all for the value of the work they do to 'earn' it. Whatever they can shovel into a wheel barrow and slink away with is rightfully theirs.

Think about these points:

• Employment for most people is a raw deal, especially if the job involves physical work on tangible products.
If its feasible to outsource or automate your job, good luck asking for a raise. The company will complain that raising wages will automaticly require raising prices, causing sales to decline. Then in the next news report they will justify the CEO's 50,000,000$ salary with 'you have to pay that kind of money to attract good people'.
And it seems like half the time, this super genius will be the same guy who golden parachuted out of a tech company that went under some years ago.

• Now that the Republicans are firmly in control of the federal government and the majority of states, we can expect wages to stagnate or decline. They always fight tooth and nail against any organized wage increase demands, ESPECIALLY minimum wage increases, even becoming emboldened during their echo chamber campaign rallies to loudly proclaim their opposition to ANY minimum! And mark my words, ladies, don't be surprized when you hear about them trying to undermine the Lilly Ledbetter act.

• A sensible strategy for us working chumps is to trade as little of our precious time as we can for the meager stipend they graciously allow us. The words 'fair' and 'earn' are meaningless. There is no real reason why the CEO of the megacorp you work for gets paid 1,000x more than you do. You are probably as smart as he is and I bet you'd risk taking his job at half the price with no golden parachute if you fail!

SLAVeRY

Outright slavery started to fall into disfavor in the 1700's. Altho many of America's founding fathers wanted to kick this country off to a good start by banning it, too many others were slave owners and adamantly opposed to such a radical idea. It took about 3/4 century and civil war before slavery only sort of ended here in America and our greatest leader was murdered for his accomplishment.

I say sort of because it really only changed to less obvious forms.

Perhaps the biggest revolution was that wealthy people and companies found that paying a wage to employees is much easier and cheaper than owning slaves. Instead of having to house, feed, cloth and care for workers, just give them money and let them do all that for themselves! All you have to do is pay them as little as they will settle for. Not hard at all to find people who can do the work for less than it would have taken to run a slave operation.

In the 1800's a variety of scams emerged that effectively got work done for zero or lower cost. Many were based on paying workers in 'company script' which could only be redeemed at company owned businesses.
Men could begin their employment with real money saved and soon find themselves flat broke and forced to choose between continuing to work at a loss or leave in debt to the company.

The so-called 'employers' got away with this mainly by having thugs on the payroll to suppress any complaints.
Taking a job in a mining town could be a fatal mistake, not only from hazardous working conditions, but also for trying to leave with money in your pocket.

If you have any Fiscal Conservative notions about the Department of Labor and unions being the evil enemies of the heroic job creator capitalists, you need to read up on how bad things got before Uncle Sam finally stepped in to put some limits and regulations in place. Not that they did a good job - to this day, you are lucky to make a living wage and will probably get fired if you complain about unhealthful and hazardous working conditions.

Not a huge difference between slavery and employment if you are permanently trapped by a lack of money in your louzy job and living in your parent's attic or a crappy subdivided apartment crowded with similarly underpaid workers.

TIMe & eMPLoYMeNT

I am going to establish some fundamental principals here.

TIMe

It is your most precious resource.

It doesn't matter if you are an unemployable Skid Row jib head felonious bum or Bill Gates, you have at most 500,000 hours of conscious free time with which to make your mark on the world. That's cradle to grave if you live to be 100. Realisticly, it's probably less than 1/4 of that because alot of your time is taken up by the chores of life, leisure activity, leisure inactivity, laid up from disease or injury, and various types of assclowns stealing your time. Plus, how old are you now AND you do not know how much time you really have left - you could get zapped by a freak electrical failure while reading this!

It's all about the odds. Very slim chance you will get electricuglied in the next 5 minutes, but also very slim that you'll be alive & kicking in 2117. The still alive odds favor something in between and it's a downward ramp starting now. So, working 75 hours a week and never taking a vacation in order to retire at 50 may not be such a great plan. Not only could you die before or not long after retiring, but your nest egg could be rendered worthless by Wall Street crashing the economy again. And the increased stress of working too much will certainly take some toll, leaving you older than your years.

eMPLoYMeNT

It can save you a bunch of time.
IF you manage it properly!

You have to think of it this way: 'I only have a year left. How many of my remaining 5,000 hours should I trade for dollars and how much should I charge to maximize my quality of life?' Factor in what you will be doing in those sold hours and your odds of being happy with your life increase. If you happen to live more than a year, great! You can decide what you're going to do with this next year.

The notion that if someone else is willing to work for less you need to accept less leads to bankruptcy and, in the bigger picture, the eventual collapse of the community. There is always someone on Earth more desperate than you who will work for less, so an employer can theoretically get his product or service done for virtually nothing. In the biggest picture, this could lead to the collapse of civilization. If money always goes straight from the customer to the CEO, pretty soon nobody has any money so there are no customers. Game over.

Companies that don't pay their employees some amount above the bare minimum required to support themselves are essentially parasites. Their product or service is actually stolen from the workers.
The business plan that depends on the worker's cost of living being far below what it is where the product or service is sold does not change that at all - parasites suck.

Just because a place in Tennessee or Taiwan is desperately poor does not justify paying them less. 'It's better than nothing' never works out. They take the new jobs, then 5 or 10 years later the company goes out of business or moves to an area where the workers are even cheaper and the community finds itself just as poor as before, plus their land and health ruined.

What has gotten lost sometime in the distant past is that we are all co-operating to make life better than it would be if we were independently scratching out an existence in the wild. The man with the dollars isn't any better than the rest of us. He does not automaticly deserve a bigger chunk of the proceeds of our co-operation.

The laws and policies have been tilted in favor of the rich for too long, turning vast swaths of America and many of the countries we trade with into slums. Far too many of us would be happier living like Les Stroud (Survivorman) out in a forest instead of being employees.

Civilization can not exist only to benefit people with excess money.

PAY FoR WoRK IS GoING AWaY

We started replacing muscles with machines hundreds of years ago.
80 years ago we began replacing brains with machines.

The job is almost done.

Before this century is over, the only work for pay available will be for athletes, entertainers and artists.
And even that will only be if we still like to have real humans in those roles, not because machines can't do them 10x better than us. All manufacturing will be automated. Construction, repair, service, and other non-stationary jobs will be done by droids.

How will people get payed? Not everybody can be the owner of a manufacturing facility that's cranking out the stuff people want to buy. A new way to distribute wealth has to be adopted, otherwise civilization falls apart.
We can't wait till massive hordes of starving American citizens are storming the castle walls of the people who ended up with everything at the end of a giant game of Monopoly.

Transitioning to an economy that does not involve selling and buying each other's time needs to begin as soon as possible. We are in the beginning of that future NOW. Delaying the transition will only make it more painful.

Politicians who are still talking about bringing manufacturing jobs back to America are either pandering or very short sighted. The majority of today's good paying jobs are nonproductive or even counterproductive.
Creating more fake jobs is a waste of everybody's time. We don't need more lawyers or insurance clerks.

Nobody entering the workforce today will be retiring with a pension in 2070.

Some countries are beginning to experiment with Garranteed Basic Income plans as a way to cope with automation. We should be leading the way on this because American technology & capitalism are the forces pushing the world in that direction.

SoLUTIoNS FoR NoW

oFF SHoRe LABoR

A BIG part of past and current problems is cheap foriegn labor sucking jobs out of this country. Trade agreements have never worked out well for us because they failed to address this.

Intead of trying to even things out with tarrifs, which only raise prices for consumers, a law that requires companies to pay foriegn workers at least half of what the American workers get, regardless of what the cost of living in those countries is, will both reduce the temptation for companies to offshore AND raise the standard of living in the countries where they are already operating, creating new customers.

Since alot of these countries are burdened with cleptocracies that would just steal all the money, it will be neccesary to create an enforcement agency with the authority to protect against such activity. Companies could be required to employ security forces to protect workers from local criminal organizations that are common in 3rd world countries, usually in cahoots with the government.

exeCUTIVe PAY

Capping executive pay at a reasonable 50x whatever the lowest payed worker in the company gets would free up LOTS of money for paying the employees andor lowering the price of the products and services. Here's an idea for them: Use the money to hire enuff customer support people to handle calls in a timely manner!

15$ NATIoNAL MINIMUM WAGe

This would raise the standard of living in poor communities and help to even out the regional wage variations.
another part of this will be that it's an absolute minimum - no exceptions! No more unpaid interns! No more phoney salary schemes created to bypass overtime laws! No more migrant farm workers getting next to nothing!

Seriously - if a business can't pay a living wage to all it employees, it is really just a charity relying on the government and parents of the workers to make up the difference. They need to either rethink their business plan or give up and let their more competent competitors expand.

ReTRoACTIVE PAY

Women who worked for any part of the government will be payed whatever the difference is between what they got and what male employees got all the way back to the Equal Pay Act of 1963 in adjusted dollars. No red tape for you to deal with, accountants would just go over the records, calculate the discrepency and notify the Federal Reserve to cut a check to the victim or their decendants.

Tax

GOP: "Why should we punish people for being successful?"

JO 753: "Because it's more profitable than punishing people for being poor."

Get over the notion of taxes as 'punishment'. It's a worthless, ill-considered perspective.
Until we all have pure spirits and IQs over 200, we need some form of government to make
and enforce the rules that allow us to live and work together. It takes money to do that.

The bigger the population, the more money it takes. The stupider and meaner we are,
(maximum and average) the more money it takes. The more power available to individuals and groups, the more money it takes.

And its not like we can limit these considerations to America. The entire world is interconnected, so what's going on everywhere needs to be monitored and sometimes acted upon for the good of The Nation. It takes money to do that.

Then there are natural dizasters - the usual list of weather and geological events and the unusual ones that could be much worse. The massive effort and resourses to deal with
these takes money on a scale that only the Government can handle.

Therefore TAXES.

But there's certainly room to quibble over how much and who pays.

Congress uses it's authority to levy taxes to influence all sorts of activities in every aspect of society, all presumably to help the Nation. Unfortunately, it has often been to the overall disadvantage of us ordinary citizens. The 70,000 page U.S. tax code is mostly complex loopholes for rich individuals and large corporations. People with money want to keep it and have found that contributions to political campaigns are a good investment.

A GREAT investment, in fact.

The top 1% now hold more wealth than the bottom 90%. The 'poorest' person on the Forbes 400 list is worth 1 billion 700 million dollars! That's 21 times more than in 1982 and the gap between the top and bottom people on the list is getting wider faster.
The 4 richest people now have more money than the bottom 170 million citizens combined.

And as if the wealth gap wasn't spreading fast enuff already, last year the oligarchs told their pet Republicans to 'pass tax reform or don't bother calling for the next election'.
They got a reform in which 83% of the savings go to them. We get a few crumbs at first, then our breaks expire and we start paying more than before. Plus, that pesky national debt Republicans are always harping on increases by 2 trillion! They will surely use this as an excuse to start cutting back on all sorts of services.

The wealth gap proves that Uncle Sam is working for the rich, rather than us. Although the tax system isn't the only way they are favored, it's a big factor. And they know it can be used not just to level the playing field, but to tilt it against them and for the rest of us.

If you are thinking that it's wrong to make it rich vs poor, you are literally helping them win the game by pretending there is no game being played.

Taxes bore me to stone. Look at the original post date for this page - nearly a year after I first
put a button up for it! Finally got around to buckling down and cobbling it together with alot of help from internet forum friends who have specific and well thought out ideas based on real world knowledge and experience. Its impossible for it to be perfect on day 1, so I expect to get many suggestions for improvements. Don't be shy! Email, or better yet, post your ideas in one of the forums I'm in. You can help yourself and help the country!

JO'Z HeD TRND TO STON oN U 1040 FORM
THe InteRWeB Tax PlaN

SeCTIoN 1 - THE eMPLoYee Tax

No more income tax for employees

The IRS will no longer care how much individual workers are making. Instead, with the
Employee Tax system, it will keep track of how much a company is paying it's employees.
You will never hear from the IRS as long as all your income is from an employer.
Instead of the microscopic increments found on the tax tables, there will be only five rates:
0% up to 10,000$, 5% from 10,000$ to 50,000$, 10% from 50,000$ to 150,000$,
30% from 150,000$ to 1,000,000$, and 50% for 1,000,000$ and up.

Companies will save a mountain of paperwork by grouping employees into 1 block to make a
single report and payment to the IRS. This will also save the IRS a bunch of work.
- - - - - - -

example 1:

Instead of being told you are getting paid 30$ per hour but only getting 27 after taxes, you will be told that your pay is 27.30$. By the end of the year you earned 70,000$ so the company pays Uncle Sam 4,000$. That's 2,000$ for your earnings between 10,000$ & 50,000$ (5%) and 2,000$ for your earnings between 50,000$ & 70,000$ (10%).

You are effectively getting a 30¢ per hour raise compared to what it would have been in the income tax system at the same rate, but it's only about 2¢ more to the company. Instead of seeing a big chunk chomped out of your paycheck every week, you were never thinking 30$ per hour so don't feel like you're being robbed.

Actually, you are getting much more than 30¢ per hour compared to the current income tax system. Going by the tables linked to above, you would have payed 11,970$, making you sorry for working all that overtime.

example 2:

You work at Walmart full time stocking shelves, earning 15$ per hour. You have a 2nd job managing a bowling alley 3 nights a week for 500$. You also average 100$ per week selling Nooalf charts on Ebay. Your total income for the year 2022 was 61,400$.

Walmart payed 1,060$ to the IRS for the hours you worked. The owner of the bowling alley payed 750$ for the 50 weekends and Wednesdays you worked. Both of them payed the 5% Employee Tax based on what they payed you over 10,000$ for the year, not needing to know how much you earned elsewhere. The 5,200$ you made on Ebay is self employment income (see below) under 50,000$ so the IRS doesn't care about it.

The fact that 11,400$ of your income would have been in the 10% rate catagory if you'd earned all your pay from 1 employer makes no difference. The IRS does not collect income taxes from individual employees, it collects Employee Taxes in bulk lots from companies.
- - - - - - -

No more IRS boogyman casting a pall over the first 3 months of your year. No more confusing forms to procrastinate about. No more torturous vizits to H&R Block. Nothing to ail in before the deadline. April 15th will be just another day. Worries about income tax dvantages or penalties will no longer be skewing your decisions about major purchases. You won't be keeping records and saving receipts all year trying to get a little more money back.

SeCTIoN 2 - SeLF eMPLoYMeNT Tax

No tax for self employed citizens up to 50,000$

There will be only four rates: 0% up to 50,000$, 10% from 50,000$ to 150,000$, 30% from 150,000$ to 1,000,000$, 50% for 1,000,000$ and up.

It's a waste of time for everybody to keep track of all the measly crumbs earned and payed by people mowing lawns, doing garage sales, fixing junk cars, etc. Not worth the IRS's time to deal with millions of individual piles of paper to extract petty cash from people who are already on the edge of poverty.

Same deal for employed people who suppliment their income from such activities. Honest citizens shouldn't feel like criminals for selling their unwanted knick knacks on Ebay but don't have the time to play accountant on top of their real jobs.

The obvious restriction on this is that it can't be used by companies to avoid paying the Employee Tax by hiring people as independent contractors.

Unfortunately, self employed citizens earning over 50,000$ will still have to fill out tax forms.
There will be a gray area up to 60,000$ that they won't be penalized if the IRS finds that they were in the taxable range but didn't file. Beyond that, or habitual failure to report will be fined.

SeCTIoN 3 - GoVeRNMeNT PaYMeNTS

All money payed by the government is tax free.

As per section 1 above, government employees may see their stated rate of pay decrease, but their actual take home pay stays the same or increases slightly. The difference is that the government will not be sending itself a percentage for each employee.

Whatever the income tax rate is for companies doing business with the government will simply be subtracted from the original payment. For example, Chrysler sells the FBI 20 Challengers at 50,000$ each and their tax rate is 20%, so they will recieve a check for 800,000$

Lottery prizes will be the actual advertised amount. Same with pensions, social security, disability, etc. In the future, the idea of Uncle Sam handing someone money and then nagging them to give some of it back will be the basis for jokes about the current absurdity.

SeCTIoN 4 - BUSINeSS TaxeS

Manufacturers: 20%. Tangible service providers: 30%. Financial businesses: 50%

An important distinction between different types of businesses is how much it costs to generate income. It's one of the biggest flaws in the Libertarian ideas about free market capitalism and why we have so many problems stemming from insufficient money.

The biggest disparity, and thus the best example, is between financial businesses, such as banks, and businesses that create tangible products.

Consider the mind boggling number of details in the business of manufacturing cars. The enormous cost of special machines, thousands of vendors each with hundreds or thousands of employees, billions of dollars in research, developement & design work, compliance with workplace safety and environmental regulations, providing parts and service for decades for old models, billions lost for recalls, product liability insurance for the inevitable lawsuits, gigantic payouts when something really big goes wrong and people are injured and killed.

Banks just have to shuffle money around. Hell! The car companies have to do that too!
Kids do that for fun playing Monopoly!

Financial businesses include insurance companies, investment firms, banks, currency exchanges, pay day loan shops, hedge funds, financial planners, banks - every type of company that uses money to make money. They contribute nothing to the common wealth, so they are equivalent to friction in a machine - it's unavoidable, but you do your best to minimize it.

SeCTIoN 5 - SoCIaL SeCURITY

The current system takes 6.2% out of your pay and your employer pays another 6.2%. The problem
is that it's capped at 128,400$, so those benefitting the most from our society are contributing
a progressively lower percentage. The new rate will be 5%, begin at 50,000$ and have no cap.

A ball park estimate puts the revenue of this at 1.5 trillion dollars, about 570 billion more
than the current system. (as reported by the clowns Trump put in charge of it, so who knows?)

Everybody will get the same Social Security payment when they reach retirement age or are
otherwise qualified. How much you contributed makes no difference. Individuals can choose to
forego receiving payment, but can change their mind for any reason at any time. Continuing
to work after retirement will not reduce your payment and it will be illegal for companies
to pay less than the usual rate of pay to people receiving social security.
- - - - - - -

example 1:

You are payed 100,000$ a year as the executive secretary/receptionist at a small Cincinnati
radio station. 2,500$ will be deducted from your pay for the year and the station will pay
another 2,500$. Your weekly paycheck will be 1,875$, showing 48$ has been subtracted.

example 2:

You were payed a total of 1 billion dollars last year in salary, bonuses and stocks as a hedge
fund manager at Brindly & Strackmoore Investments LLC. Your accountant writes a check for
47,500,000$ to the US Treasury, BSI LLC includes the same amount for your services in it's total
5% payment for all its employees, it's executives, it's own profits, and shareholder dividends.

example 3:

You retired from your position as a shoe lace renibber at the shoe store last year. There are
60 million citizens who are retired, on disablity or otherwise qualified to recieve Social
Security payments. Your monthly check is 2,050$, the same as everybody else's. That is the
total previous year's collected revenue divided by the total recipients rounded down to
the nearest 50$ to create and maintain a reserve.
- - - - - - -

As technology continues to eliminate jobs, this system can be gradually expanded into some
form of Basic income simply by increasing the percentage and adding qualifying circumstances.
THe BIG TIMe & eFFICIeNCY aDVaNTaGe

This system eliminates inefficient revenue collection efforts and at least reduces the rate
at which the wealth gap is widening. Having the IRS and every adult in the country
spending their time almost literally sorting thru bread crumbs in the dirt while the REAL
money is flying way over their heads like swarms of gold plated jumbo jets is ludicrous.

Going by Sutton's Law ("because that's where the money is") will unburden the IRS
from about 90% of it's enforcement duties since 100 million working people won't be
motivated to cheat anymore. Going after Wall Street crooks and big corporations who find
ways to game the system no matter what the rules are is way more productive.
LeVeLING THe PLaYING FIeLD

This tax plan will be seen as a calamity to those benefitting from the current arrangement.
They will offer intricately detailed explanerations on why it can't possibly work, why it
will crash the world's economy and send civilization back to the dark ages.

I don't know what they are teaching in business schools about the principals of capitalism, but I do know what the results are. It cannot be denied that something is not working properly when a major percentage of the world's population is utterly destitute, the majority in 1st world nations spend most of their adult life in debt, and a tiny fraction at the top have more money than they could reasonably spend for themselves in a million years, yet are still taking in more at an obscene rate. Clearly there is something fundamentally wrong with the theories.

http://www.7532020.com/eNViRMeNT.htm
http://www.7532020.com/RESRC.htm
http://www.7532020.com/NaSU.htm

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Monday, April 1, 2019 8:30 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by JO753:
Mine iz http://www.7532020.com/

----------------------------
DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early

http://www.7532020.com .

How's the new job, bud?

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Tuesday, April 2, 2019 4:22 PM

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

My #1 priority is avoiding nuclear war with Russia. At this point either country can single-handedly destroy the entire planet at least a few times over. That's a good reason to not get into nuclear conflict, because nobody wins.
It's #1 because if we can't avoid nuclear war in the immediate future, then nothing else matters.

There are 4 kinds of pro-nuclear-war agendas I've noticed.
· One is to provoke Russia with every non-nuclear scenario that can be implemented, including setting up large NATO forces directly on the Russian border, sending nuclear-capable bombers to Europe, pre-deploying nuclear weapons in Europe, threatening or attacking Russia's allies (Syria, Venezuela, Iran), and instituting sanctions for extremely specious reasons - with the (apparent) assumption Russia won't retaliate either with nuclear weapons, or escalate into nuclear war. Most democrats and most republicans are behind this because they've both bought into the deep state regime.
· The second is by dropping out of nuclear treaties.
· The third is through the democratic-supported policy of US 'limited' nuclear first-strikes or 'limited' use of nuclear weapons in proxy wars. That might escalate directly into nuclear war. The other scenario that those brilliant minds haven't seemed to consider is that the US could be subjected to a 'limited' nuclear counterattack that we will have to endure in order to avoid all-out nuclear war.
· The fourth is by trying to have 'the best, fantastic, you would not imagine how unbelievable' nuclear arsenal; which as a side effect has already started another cold war, including the militarization of space.

When it comes to Venezuela, Russia (an ally) has already sent troops. In addition China (also an ally) has also just sent troops. Hopefully the US will think twice before militarily engaging two powerful countries.

As agents of the deep state, the msm has already started jonesing for confrontation, in the person of Fareed Zakaria, in a double-barreled CNN/ WaPo propaganda push. They're both summarized here with appropriate links to originals: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-04-02/cnn-wapo-demand-trump-furthe
r-escalate-tensions-russia

Given how gullible Americans are (WMDs, anyone?) and how steadfastly people refuse to learn the fact that the government lies all the time, I'll be interested to hear the candidates' takes on this.

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Tuesday, April 2, 2019 10:17 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Ok, I have time to discuss ....

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:

military
severely reduce military overseas
abandon our policy by which we allow ourselves the 'first strike' nuclear option
maintain reduced nuclear capability that's still sufficient to assure destruction of nuclear opponent

All of these are technically do-able, and well within the purview of a President. But the way this is phrased gives rise to a few questions:

How severely do we reduce our overseas military? 50% 80%?
Which areas of the globe continue to enjoy" our bases, installations, and troops?
What does this do to NATO and our agreements with Japan and Saudi Arabia and to Israel? Do we give them time to prepare for our troop withdrawal?
What happens to the troops that we bring home? Technically, if they're still enlisted don't we till have to pay them?
Nuclear capability ... in order to be credible, it's my understanding that the warheads need to be tested from time to time as the nuclear "fuel" degrades; also the explosive which rams the nuclear material together also degrades.
A "defensive" nuclear posture would probably require submarine-based nuclear weapons because land-based nuclear weapons are subject to a first-strike attack. I think that's do-able and would be credible, but maybe someone with more info on nuclear strategy can help out.

Quote:
environment
commit to significant greenhouse gas reductions; stump the country for it to create popular pressure in Congress so Congress will pass the Paris Accord
This is beyond a President, who can sign a treaty but which much be approved by Congress. The President DOES have regulatory authority, but that's an ephemeral thing: Just look how the EPA gets whipsawed every time a new President takes office. The only way to make progress on this is to convince the population ... and that means the ENTIRE population, not just the "Hillary archipelogo" ... that climate change is upon us.

Quote:
economy
stump for a 'fair deal' economy where everyone has the opportunity to earn a living wage
Some say that EVERYONE currently has an "opportunity" to earn a living wage, altho not everyone all at the same time. Rephrase to mean ... "A job at a living wage for everyone who wants to work".

That would require an enormous change in our economic basis. It would basically mean creating a command economy ... affecting how banks lend money or direct investment by the government, protecting fledgling industries from foreign competition by tariffs, severely and effectively restricting illegal and legal immigration etc ... It would be like the wartime effort of WWII, but without a war

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876 .

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Wednesday, April 3, 2019 4:25 PM

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:

military
severely reduce military overseas
abandon our policy by which we allow ourselves the 'first strike' nuclear option
maintain reduced nuclear capability that's still sufficient to assure destruction of nuclear opponent

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Ok, I have time to discuss .... All of these are technically do-able, and well within the purview of a President. But the way this is phrased gives rise to a few questions:

How severely do we reduce our overseas military? 50% 80%?
Which areas of the globe continue to "enjoy" our bases, installations, and troops?
What does this do to NATO and our agreements with Japan and Saudi Arabia and to Israel? Do we give them time to prepare for our troop withdrawal?
What happens to the troops that we bring home? Technically, if they're still enlisted don't we till have to pay them?

It would have to be on a case-by-case basis.

For example, the US has troops actively fighting in various African countries. I would have to be convinced that they're needed for US NATIONAL DEFENSE (Isn't that what our military is for? US NATIONAL DEFENSE?), or that other troops all around the globe are there for US NATIONAL DEFENSE.
In other cases US troops are there by agreement. I would look into renegotiating those deployments.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_military_deployments
https://qz.com/374138/these-are-all-the-countries-where-the-us-has-a-m
ilitary-presence/
https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-worldwide-network-of-us-military-bas
es-2/5564
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/06/us-military-bases-arou
nd-the-world-119321

I think part of the reason for the approximately 800 military installations and 125,000 - 250,000 troops and personnel around the globe is in support of US military policy to rapidly deploy anywhere on the planet with complete deployment in 48 hours. Rather than deploy from the US, the US divides the globe into military 'theaters' under various commands.
https://www.businessinsider.com/us-military-operations-worldwide-2016-
1/

To meet the new global dominance goals, the Army started reorganizing in 2006.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reorganization_plan_of_United_States_Arm
y

Quote:
This effort formally began in 2006 when General Peter Schoomaker (the Army Chief of Staff at the time), was given the support to move the Army from its Cold War divisional orientation to a full-spectrum capability with fully manned, equipped and trained brigades. ... By 2028, in Multi-Domain Operations (MDO)— as part of the Joint force, Army Strategy is to counter a near-peer adversary which is capable of competition in all domains.

I would need to be convinced that these policies are needed for US NATIONAL DEFENSE.

In addition to saving money by gradually reducing the size of the US military to whatever is needed for US NATIONAL DEFENSE and treaties, the US would save money on the installations themselves.

I would also take a look at US military weapons budgets. These projects are the well-earned butt of many jokes as being far over-budget and creating defective or at least inferior products.

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Nuclear capability ... in order to be credible, it's my understanding that the warheads need to be tested from time to time as the nuclear "fuel" degrades; also the explosive which rams the nuclear material together also degrades.
A "defensive" nuclear posture would probably require submarine-based nuclear weapons because land-based nuclear weapons are subject to a first-strike attack. I think that's do-able and would be credible, but maybe someone with more info on nuclear strategy can help out.

I'm not saying that the US should disarm its nuclear weapons or let them deteriorate past the point they can be used. I believe we need to keep an honest threat of retaliation.

I agree that the most credible threat is from submarine-based nuclear missiles.

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Wednesday, April 3, 2019 10:29 PM

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

Quote:
environment
commit to significant greenhouse gas reductions; stump the country for it to create popular pressure in Congress so Congress will pass the Paris Accord

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
This is beyond a President, who can sign a treaty but which much be approved by Congress. The President DOES have regulatory authority, but that's an ephemeral thing: Just look how the EPA gets whipsawed every time a new President takes office. The only way to make progress on this is to convince the population ... and that means the ENTIRE population, not just the "Hillary archipelago" ... that climate change is upon us.

And I fault Obama for not 'going there' in his second term, because Obama had a natural audience he could have brought along.

The thing about climate change is that there are people who've made up their minds to reject the data, because they dislike the conclusions. As you know, bringing MORE data to the table doesn't fix the problem. More data just leads to more mental discomfort. To relieve the discomfort people can either embrace the data and change their minds, or reject the data and double-down on their beliefs. The problem is it's far easier to reject the data. And people do what's easy ... they grip their beliefs even harder. But there are ways to address this irrational mental quirk, which I'm not going to go into here.

But to get back to what a President can do ... the President has the power of the bully-pulpit. Think of Kennedy and going to the moon; or more analogously FDR's Social Security Act, which was popular with people but stalled in Congress for ~2years. The President can stump and persuade for an idea, which in turn creates political pressure.

I also think it can be focused on immediate and I think popular ideas: energy independence from foreign countries, material independence from foreign countries, manufactured goods independence from foreign countries, and a clean environment.

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Friday, April 5, 2019 7:28 PM

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

So I've proposed reducing the US military from being a globe-spanning behemoth capable of fighting wars on 2 fronts within 48 hours anywhere on the globe - to being one better suited to US national defense and supporting formal allies. And I propose that we reexamine our military weapons projects, scrapping what's excess and/or non-functional (like the F35 or the naval vessels that can't run in the Mediterranean because the ocean water is too warm to be used for cooling), and focusing on meeting defense needs.
I've proposed changing our nuclear stance from giving ourselves offensive 'first use of nuclear weapons' rights (first strike), to defensive posture only; reducing our nuclear arsenal to one capable of destroying the entire planet only twice; permanently banning so-called 'limited' nuclear weapons; and banning the 'nuclearization' of space.
But I've also proposed reconfiguring our missile systems so that retaliatory strikes will be devastatingly complete and guaranteed. A nuclear attack on the US will result in the complete annihilation of the attacker.

I've also proposed swift re-tooling of the US's energy systems, and other vital environmental projects, by using the power of the President's 'bully pulpit'.

My final proposal is the FAIR DEAL, where everyone has a real chance to work at a job that pays a living wage.

And here's where the military and environmental policies help create the FAIR DEAL economy.

The reason for a lot of strife in this country is because there simply isn't enough for everyone at our level in the economy (some would say 'class'). And when you have so many people for so few jobs, there's no logical reason to prefer one person above another - many of them can do the job - so you adopt illogical preferences. One is white. One is female. One is young.
And each group struggles to secure a preferred place in the system, since it's about earning a living.
With so many capable people trying to find scant work, wages, hours, and benefits get squeezed down or out.

I think with the money saved on the military, the US government can hire people for environmental jobs at a living wage - with training. And an increased competition for workers will drive wages, hours, and benefits up in private industry.

This is only an outline of my proposals for both the environment and for a FAIR DEAL economy. I'll post more details later.

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Saturday, April 6, 2019 2:18 PM

CAPTAINCRUNCH

... stay crunchy...

Meh - party platforms are easy to write and even easier to ignore. They're probably written by some first year interns.

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Saturday, April 6, 2019 2:54 PM

1. Balance the Budget.
2. Pay down the Debt.

For a very long time, any year's Federal Revenues exceeded the Spending of 2 years prior.
Obama obliterated that model.

So, the simple version is freeze spending until the Revenues are higher.
The better version would be no spending increases above the levels of the 2006 Federal Budget for any Department or Agency, until the Budget is Balanced. Everything since then is bloat, inflation, devaluation, runaway spending.

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Saturday, April 6, 2019 4:19 PM

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

Quote:
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:
1. Balance the Budget.
2. Pay down the Debt.

For a very long time, any year's Federal Revenues exceeded the Spending of 2 years prior.
Obama obliterated that model.

So, the simple version is freeze spending until the Revenues are higher.
The better version would be no spending increases above the levels of the 2006 Federal Budget for any Department or Agency, until the Budget is Balanced. Everything since then is bloat, inflation, devaluation, runaway spending.

I agree with you. But rather than an across-the-board freeze I'd look for areas that can be trimmed of fat. And our globe-spanning behemoth military looks to be in serious excess of national defense.

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Saturday, April 6, 2019 4:24 PM

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

Quote:
Originally posted by captaincrunch:
Meh - party platforms are easy to write and even easier to ignore. They're probably written by some first year interns.

So you have no thoughts about what is going wrong that you'd like to change or eliminate; or about what is going right that you'd like to expand or at least preserve?

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Saturday, April 6, 2019 8:08 PM

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

Threat to whom, I wonder. And what does Venezuela have to do with NATO?

Pompeo: NATO Must Confront "Emerging Threats" From Russia And China In Venezuela
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-04-05/pompeo-urges-nato-confront-e
merging-threats-russia-and-china-venezuela
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-nato/pompeo-calls-on-nato-to-ad
apt-to-new-threats-from-russia-china-idUSKCN1RG1JZ

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Sunday, April 7, 2019 4:10 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
Quote:
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:
1. Balance the Budget.
2. Pay down the Debt.

For a very long time, any year's Federal Revenues exceeded the Spending of 2 years prior.
Obama obliterated that model.

So, the simple version is freeze spending until the Revenues are higher.
The better version would be no spending increases above the levels of the 2006 Federal Budget for any Department or Agency, until the Budget is Balanced. Everything since then is bloat, inflation, devaluation, runaway spending.
I agree with you. But rather than an across-the-board freeze I'd look for areas that can be trimmed of fat.

That is the exact logic behind the problem.
There are no Partisans who do not have a pet project, pet Department or Agency, favored sector of Government or constituents.

As some Libertarian candidates have simply said, if you could reduce the spending in all the portions of the budget you dislike, would you be willing to allow the reduction in spending of your favorite program?

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Sunday, April 7, 2019 10:41 AM

CAPTAINCRUNCH

... stay crunchy...

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
Quote:
Originally posted by captaincrunch:
Meh - party platforms are easy to write and even easier to ignore. They're probably written by some first year interns.
So you have no thoughts about what is going wrong that you'd like to change or eliminate; or about what is going right that you'd like to expand or at least preserve?

Preserve??? Why? Like for points later? That's just guessing and has little connection to what actually happens. If you guess right but for the wrong reasons, do you still get points? Sounds boring as hell - pass.

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Sunday, April 7, 2019 2:52 PM

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

Quote:
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:
1. Balance the Budget.
2. Pay down the Debt.

For a very long time, any year's Federal Revenues exceeded the Spending of 2 years prior.
Obama obliterated that model.

So, the simple version is freeze spending until the Revenues are higher.
The better version would be no spending increases above the levels of the 2006 Federal Budget for any Department or Agency, until the Budget is Balanced. Everything since then is bloat, inflation, devaluation, runaway spending.

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
I agree with you. But rather than an across-the-board freeze I'd look for areas that can be trimmed of fat.

Quote:
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:
That is the exact logic behind the problem.
There are no Partisans who do not have a pet project, pet Department or Agency, favored sector of Government or constituents.

As some Libertarian candidates have simply said, if you could reduce the spending in all the portions of the budget you dislike, would you be willing to allow the reduction in spending of your favorite program?

I hope you don't mind the reformatting - I find it easier to read as linear from past to present, rather than nested.

Anyway - isn't that what platforms are about? To outline what you think is going right or going wrong, to state your reasons why you think they're right or wrong, and to propose your actions to address what's right or wrong?

When we evaluate candidates, we have a set of measures we use. When we go to vote, we go with our ideas and our preferences. I'm hoping that by trying to come up with a platform people will express their ideal scenarios.

After all, who could represent your thoughts better than you?!

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Sunday, April 7, 2019 3:02 PM

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

Quote:
Originally posted by captaincrunch:
Meh - party platforms are easy to write and even easier to ignore. They're probably written by some first year interns.

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
So you have no thoughts about what is going wrong that you'd like to change or eliminate; or about what is going right that you'd like to expand or at least preserve?

Quote:
Originally posted by captaincrunch:

Preserve??? Why? Like for points later? That's just guessing and has little connection to what actually happens. If you guess right but for the wrong reasons, do you still get points? Sounds boring as hell - pass.

That's OK if you find this boring but ...
*Preserve*
Uh ... did you focus on one word out of context and ignore the idea that this is about policies that eliminate/ reduce or preserve/ expand, not 'preserving' gotcha-point-scoring?
When we evaluate candidates, we have a set of measures we use. When we go to vote, we go with our ideas and our preferences. I'm hoping that by trying to come up with a platform people will express their ideal scenarios.

After all, who could represent your thoughts better than you?!

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Sunday, April 7, 2019 5:00 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
Quote:
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:
1. Balance the Budget.
2. Pay down the Debt.

For a very long time, any year's Federal Revenues exceeded the Spending of 2 years prior.
Obama obliterated that model.

So, the simple version is freeze spending until the Revenues are higher.
The better version would be no spending increases above the levels of the 2006 Federal Budget for any Department or Agency, until the Budget is Balanced. Everything since then is bloat, inflation, devaluation, runaway spending.

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
I agree with you. But rather than an across-the-board freeze I'd look for areas that can be trimmed of fat.
Quote:
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:
That is the exact logic behind the problem.
There are no Partisans who do not have a pet project, pet Department or Agency, favored sector of Government or constituents.

As some Libertarian candidates have simply said, if you could reduce the spending in all the portions of the budget you dislike, would you be willing to allow the reduction in spending of your favorite program?
I hope you don't mind the reformatting - I find it easier to read as linear from past to present, rather than nested.

Anyway - isn't that what platforms are about? To outline what you think is going right or going wrong, to state your reasons why you think they're right or wrong, and to propose your actions to address what's right or wrong?

When we evaluate candidates, we have a set of measures we use. When we go to vote, we go with our ideas and our preferences. I'm hoping that by trying to come up with a platform people will express their ideal scenarios.

After all, who could represent your thoughts better than you?!

As for formatting: I can understand that, thanks for explaining your why. Some people seem to reformat but skip the attribution, or have disconnected exchange without dates or how far back in history the quote was from, or out of context. I usually ignore those posts and treat it as invisible.

In 1986 the Gramm-Rudman Act was in effect. It was an attempt to Balance the Budget, or reign in Spending. The Federal Budget has never been balanced since then. Everybody says they are going to change the Budget, most to favor their constituents, but nobody agrees enough to place Balance above Spending. Everybody outside Libertarians want to Spend more that the Revenues.

My 2 methods are both ways to address the problems, and both are certain to work if adhered to. All of the children in Congress insist upon not Balancing the Budget, so these methods are a Cudgel to use in lieu of them reasonably performing their duty.

If you want to spend more money on whatever pet project you have, I will object every step of the way until after a Fiscal Year is elapsed with a Budget Balanced.

If you want any increase in funding, of any amount, any percent or fraction or increment, I will oppose you at every step. Even if you happen upon my favorite Department, I will only argue for increases to match others, but still with the overriding preference that no increase is greatly advantageous.
The only exception is Payment of Interest on the Debt, which increases without control by Congress.

If my #1 and #2 are not the top 2 priorities, then all other lip service amounts to failure of these 2. I do not agree to allow ANY other Platform Plank to out-rank my Top 2.
The methods can be altered, but these top 2 must remain the top priority above all else.
I don't know why this is not a basic foundation of Budgeting and Appropriation.

Any other Top 2 priorities which are not mine are complete failures, and are unacceptable in my book.
And yes, there are some politicians who have mouthed the same sentiments - it is not my idea alone. Despite that, these 2 priorities have been subverted at every step since Nixon. And I do not agree to acquiesce to furthering this nonsense.

If you want to re-prioritize one Budget Section over or under another, all of that can be done within the template of the 2006 Budget. The lesser favored Budget Item can be reduced, and any Budget Item which is currently funded at levels lower than FY2006 can be increased to that prior funding level - I can agree to that, as it is within my stated method.

Maybe the term Freeze wasn't clear. Reductions and real cuts are allowed, but increases are not allowed.

One proposal was an increase of no more than 1% per year. This would also work, if adhered to, but it would be more gradual, consume more time. I have not seen it attempted yet, so I have no faith that it will happen. Obama bloated the Budget by $1 Trillion over 9 years. About 33%, or about 3.7% per year average.

If this is confusing, then think of it as keeping the Oceans under the Sky. As long as you adhere to this priority rule, you may go boating or walk the land as you please, perform all of your pastimes and leisures. But when you decide to place the Oceans above the Sky, then I will object and upheaval of your Petty existence will occur.

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Sunday, April 7, 2019 6:18 PM

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

Quote:
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:
-- In 1986 the Gramm-Rudman Act was in effect.
-- If you want to re-prioritize one Budget Section over or under another, all of that can be done within the template of the 2006 Budget.

points of clarification requested
-- Didn't Clinton have budget surpluses three or four years?
-- Why 2006?

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Sunday, April 7, 2019 6:28 PM

The Debt increased every year since the early 70s. Some people choose to believe that means there was a Surplus. If you believe that, that is your business.

Quote:
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:
1. Balance the Budget.
2. Pay down the Debt.

For a very long time, any year's Federal Revenues exceeded the Spending of 2 years prior.
Obama obliterated that model.

So, the simple version is freeze spending until the Revenues are higher.
The better version would be no spending increases above the levels of the 2006 Federal Budget for any Department or Agency, until the Budget is Balanced. Everything since then is bloat, inflation, devaluation, runaway spending.

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Sunday, April 7, 2019 8:18 PM

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

Quote:
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:
The Debt increased every year since the early 70s. Some people choose to believe that means there was a Surplus. If you believe that, that is your business.

I did look into that a bit. The surpluses were as calculated by the CBO according to some websites. The deficits were as calculated by the US Treasury according to others. But nobody provided active links that I looked at, and going to the respective websites there was either literally no information for the years I looked at, or no report. I'm not trying to be either Mulder or Scully, just looking for information.

Also, why 2006? What's special about that year?

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Sunday, April 7, 2019 8:28 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
Quote:
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:
The Debt increased every year since the early 70s. Some people choose to believe that means there was a Surplus. If you believe that, that is your business.
I did look into that a bit. The surpluses were as calculated by the CBO according to some websites. The deficits were as calculated by the US Treasury according to others. But nobody provided active links that I looked at, and going to the respective websites there was either literally no information for the years I looked at, or no report. I'm not trying to be either Mulder or Scully, just looking for information.

The CBO is the highly Partisan Liberal Congressional Budget Office, which, like many highly Partisan Liberal entities, hides behind the moniker "non-partisan" to propagate that myth.
Treasury is a Department of the Executive Branch. It includes Law Enforcement, similar to what the FBI used to be.

Look at the actual Debt totals. They are always more than the year before, except for finagled retroactive figures.

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Sunday, April 7, 2019 10:18 PM

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

At some point I hope to go here and just look at year-by-year January totals. I'm posting this here for reference: https://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/mspd/mspd.htm

And I have to remember to see of bond sales are included as debt, since afaik dubya kept war-spending out of the budget with 'emergency spending' bills paid for by bonds.

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Monday, April 8, 2019 7:57 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

BONDS? Is THAT how Dubya kept war spending out of the budget? Clearly, we need a better accounting process, or a better appropriations process. In any case people who have looked into the budget claim to have found a cumulative total of $22 TRILLION dollars in unaccounted transfers of money, mostly in the Pentagon (which has never sucessfully pssed an audit) and HUD (of all departments). Some say that this money was acutally siphoned off into the Exchange Stabilization Fund which is used by our governmen tobuy its own Treasuries so that there aren't any "failed" bond auctions.

So, like I said, maybe we should start with a better accounting and approproations system.

Assuming that's in place ...

JSF, it seems an article of faith with you that we must reduced the deficit and pay down the debt, and that this be done, not by increasing taxes but by reducing expenditures.

So, OOC, is there ANY level of debt that you find acceptable, or ANY justification that you find allowable?

Are there ANY programs that justify an increase in taxes, or must government spending always be reduced?

Why, or why not? I intend to pursue this train of thought thru a series of "why" questions until I feel that I understand your position, I hope you stick with this line of questioning, thanks.

PS: As an aside, I believe that as various banks, bond ratings agencies, and nations come to the realization that the USA will not pay off its debt, eventually there will be a crisis of confidence in the USD. So I'm prepared to say that the current debt and its growth are unsustainable. The thing that may keep the dollar afloat is that other currencies w/in the western orbit, specifically the EUR and the JPY, may depreciate faster leaving the USD a currency of RELATIVE safety.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876 .

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Monday, April 8, 2019 11:16 AM

THG

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:

military
severely reduce military overseas
abandon our policy by which we allow ourselves the 'first strike' nuclear option
maintain reduced nuclear capability that's still sufficient to assure destruction of nuclear opponent

environment
commit to significant greenhouse gas reductions; stump the country for it to create popular pressure in Congress so Congress will pass the Paris Accord

economy
stump for a 'fair deal' economy where everyone has the opportunity to earn a living wage

I wish you luck comrade kiki. I hope Putin doesn't kill you with poison or something for running against him.

T

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Monday, April 8, 2019 2:08 PM

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
Quote:
Originally posted by rue:

military
severely reduce military overseas
abandon our policy by which we allow ourselves the 'first strike' nuclear option
maintain reduced nuclear capability that's still sufficient to assure destruction of nuclear opponent

environment
commit to significant greenhouse gas reductions; stump the country for it to create popular pressure in Congress so Congress will pass the Paris Accord

economy
stump for a 'fair deal' economy where everyone has the opportunity to earn a living wage

I wish you luck comrade kiki. I hope Putin doesn't kill you with poison or something for running against him.

T

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Monday, April 8, 2019 5:38 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
JSF, it seems an article of faith with you that we must reduced the deficit and pay down the debt, and that this be done, not by increasing taxes but by reducing expenditures.

So, OOC, is there ANY level of debt that you find acceptable, or ANY justification that you find allowable?

Are there ANY programs that justify an increase in taxes, or must government spending always be reduced?

Why, or why not? I intend to pursue this train of thought thru a series of "why" questions until I feel that I understand your position, I hope you stick with this line of questioning, thanks.

PS: So I'm prepared to say that the current debt and its growth are unsustainable.

No matter how much we raise Taxes, Congress Spends more.

At this point where Debt exceeds GDP, we need to get or have a plan to reduce the Debt to half of GDP, like it was about 12 years ago. WE should get lower than that, in times of prosperity, but on the road to 1/2 we should learn some things which we have never learned before. Those new lessons can be used to application towards far lower Debt. USA accomplished about 150 years without sustained Debt, we should return to that. Paying less interest and being no longer owned by Foreigners should reap great benefits.

WWIII is the only excuse for spending more than we intake in Revenues. Once we have a Balanced Budget for at least a year, more folk will be on board for selective additions to spending. That is the point where eveybody's pet project or Budget Item will get negotiated.

Spending our way to prosperity has never worked, and we should stop trying it.

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Monday, April 8, 2019 5:48 PM

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

Hi JSF. Thanks for answering Signy's questions. Those were mine as well.

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Monday, April 8, 2019 6:02 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
JSF, it seems an article of faith with you that we must reduced the deficit and pay down the debt, and that this be done, not by increasing taxes but by reducing expenditures.
So, OOC, is there ANY level of debt that you find acceptable, or ANY justification that you find allowable?
Are there ANY programs that justify an increase in taxes, or must government spending always be reduced?
Why, or why not? I intend to pursue this train of thought thru a series of "why" questions until I feel that I understand your position, I hope you stick with this line of questioning, thanks.
PS: So I'm prepared to say that the current debt and its growth are unsustainable. - SIGNY

No matter how much we raise Taxes, Congress Spends more.
At this point where Debt exceeds GDP, we need to get or have a plan to reduce the Debt to half of GDP, like it was about 12 years ago. WE should get lower than that, in times of prosperity, but on the road to 1/2 we should learn some things which we have never learned before. Those new lessons can be used to application towards far lower Debt. USA accomplished about 150 years without sustained Debt, we should return to that. Paying less interest and being no longer owned by Foreigners should reap great benefits.
WWIII is the only excuse for spending more than we intake in Revenues. Once we have a Balanced Budget for at least a year, more folk will be on board for selective additions to spending. That is the point where eveybody's pet project or Budget Item will get negotiated.
Spending our way to prosperity has never worked, and we should stop trying it.

I was prepared to read that all government spending is bad, that people should not become dependent on government, that taxation is coercive ... the libertarian angle. Some of which I agree with, BTW.

But it sounds to me like you're primarily concerned about TOO MUCH debt, not debt at any level, government spending generically, taxation, or the existence of government itself. In other words, practical considerations, not ideological.

Ok, needs more thought on my part and right now too busy for follow-up but thanks for the reply!

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876 .

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Monday, April 8, 2019 11:09 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
JSF, it seems an article of faith with you that we must reduced the deficit and pay down the debt, and that this be done, not by increasing taxes but by reducing expenditures.
So, OOC, is there ANY level of debt that you find acceptable, or ANY justification that you find allowable?
Are there ANY programs that justify an increase in taxes, or must government spending always be reduced?
Why, or why not? I intend to pursue this train of thought thru a series of "why" questions until I feel that I understand your position, I hope you stick with this line of questioning, thanks.
PS: So I'm prepared to say that the current debt and its growth are unsustainable. - SIGNY

No matter how much we raise Taxes, Congress Spends more.
At this point where Debt exceeds GDP, we need to get or have a plan to reduce the Debt to half of GDP, like it was about 12 years ago. WE should get lower than that, in times of prosperity, but on the road to 1/2 we should learn some things which we have never learned before. Those new lessons can be used to application towards far lower Debt. USA accomplished about 150 years without sustained Debt, we should return to that. Paying less interest and being no longer owned by Foreigners should reap great benefits.
WWIII is the only excuse for spending more than we intake in Revenues. Once we have a Balanced Budget for at least a year, more folk will be on board for selective additions to spending. That is the point where eveybody's pet project or Budget Item will get negotiated.
Spending our way to prosperity has never worked, and we should stop trying it.

I was prepared to read that all government spending is bad, that people should not become dependent on government, that taxation is coercive ... the libertarian angle. Some of which I agree with, BTW.

But it sounds to me like you're primarily concerned about TOO MUCH debt, not debt at any level, government spending generically, taxation, or the existence of government itself. In other words, practical considerations, not ideological.

Ok, needs more thought on my part and right now too busy for follow-up but thanks for the reply!

Mostly correct.
IDeally, I'd prefer years of Surplus and occasional Debt to mostly alternate.
But we are a long way from being Debt-free. That goal is a long mountain of climbing from now. Cutting the Debt in half is just a start. By the time that milestone is achieved, further methods will be learned. But the ship must be turned around now.
I am willing to engage with the Libertarian track in this common pursuit. The Libertarian view has been a major pulling draw for The Tea Party. I have voted for Libertarian Presidential candidates ever since Perot.

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Tuesday, April 9, 2019 2:21 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
Quote:
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:
The Debt increased every year since the early 70s. Some people choose to believe that means there was a Surplus. If you believe that, that is your business.
I did look into that a bit. The surpluses were as calculated by the CBO according to some websites. The deficits were as calculated by the US Treasury according to others. But nobody provided active links that I looked at, and going to the respective websites there was either literally no information for the years I looked at, or no report. I'm not trying to be either Mulder or Scully, just looking for information.

Also, why 2006? What's special about that year?

FY2006.
From October 2005 to September 2006.
In November 2006 the Rock-The-Vote Election swept Democrats into Congress. They started mangling the FY2008 Budget, which took effect October 2007. By the end of October 2007 the Economy and Markets ceased their upward trajectory, hit their peaks, and began the tailspin of the Rock-The-Vote Recession, with Markets bottoming out in March 2009.
FY2006 was the last sustainable Budget spending profile, unmolested so that it did not instigate Economic Tailspin.
Starting with the Democrat Spendaholic FY2008 Budget, devaluation, skyrocketing spending and Debt bloated all reasonable Budget Items beyond recognition. Everything from that point is chasing our own tail in terms of Budget control.

The more years that pass by with ballooning spending makes this target appear more drastic. But using bloated figures as excuse or basis to bloat more is just insane.

Let's assume you are interested in this method, but find it too drastic. You might consider that, since Obama increased the Budget by 33%, the target of all facets of the 2006 Budget could be increased by 10% or 16% across the board, and that would be the amount to freeze at. This could appear more palatable to reluctant spendaholics, but pretending that a higher level is acceptable is just setting these failures in concrete.

Hope that helps you understand my position.

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Tuesday, April 9, 2019 11:55 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:

The Debt increased every year since the early 70s. Some people choose to believe that means there was a Surplus. If you believe that, that is your business. JSF

I did look into that a bit. The surpluses were as calculated by the CBO according to some websites. The deficits were as calculated by the US Treasury according to others. But nobody provided active links that I looked at, and going to the respective websites there was either literally no information for the years I looked at, or no report. I'm not trying to be either Mulder or Scully, just looking for information. Also, why 2006? What's special about that year? -RUE

FY2006.
From October 2005 to September 2006.
In November 2006 the Rock-The-Vote Election swept Democrats into Congress. They started mangling the FY2008 Budget, which took effect October 2007. By the end of October 2007 the Economy and Markets ceased their upward trajectory, hit their peaks, and began the tailspin of the Rock-The-Vote Recession, with Markets bottoming out in March 2009.
FY2006 was the last sustainable Budget spending profile, unmolested so that it did not instigate Economic Tailspin.- JSF

LINKS PLEASE?
As I recall, GWB did no such thing as a 'sustainable budget". He started two very expensive "boots on the ground" wars in the mideast. He signed a Medicare expansion into prescription drugs (Part D) which was a giant scandal at the time, since he hid the real actuarial calculations from Congress in order to get the bill passed, calculations which showed a deficit of over $400 billion dollars. I can't find links to the original scandal, but this one discusses the event. Look for "Bush" in the page, it will take you to the discussion.
http://stump.marypat.org/article/1041/actuarial-standards-of-practice-
on-pensions-asop-4-a-call-for-comments
Irrespective of what happened to revenues (which initally DECREASED with the tax cuts before increasing) under Bush, the deficit rose from $421 billion to over $1.6 TRILLION.

I noticed that while you blame Obama for deficits incurred under his watch (because he's a Democrat) you give GWB a "pass" for deficits incurred under HIS watch. In reality, the sitations were the same, if reversed ... Bush was President from 2000 to 2008 with a Democratic Congress beginning 2006, Obama was President from 2008 - 2016 with a Republican Congress beginning 2014. For both Presidents, Congress itself was split for some years before the opposing party taking full control in the last two years of each President's two-term time in office.

Quote:
Starting with the Democrat Spendaholic FY2008 Budget, devaluation, skyrocketing spending and Debt bloated all reasonable Budget Items beyond recognition. Everything from that point is chasing our own tail in terms of Budget control.

As I posted, the deficit increases began well BEFORE 2008 ... under GWB's watch. Because even tho revenues increased (thanks to the "big fat ugly bubble" in real estate) GWB's spending increased even faster.

Plus, I find your placing blame for the 2008 crash on the Federal deficit to be unrealistic.

It's well-known that the crash began when complex mortgage-backed "financial instruments" (collaterized debt obligations, credit default swaps, derivatives, "monoline" insurances) fell apart because the "subprime" mortgages on which they were based started falling apart. That's when banks and other real estate lending companies looked into the closet and discovered that their "assets" were based on cobwebs. https://www.thebalance.com/mortgage-crisis-overview-315684 WHY was the subprime market falling apart? Because it all depended on rapidly rising home prices. There are a number of reasons why home prices weren't rising as rapidly as before, but it could have been "loan saturation" ... banks and other lenders had pushed as many loans as they possibly could onto the market and there was no one left to lend to, causing a slowdown in turnover .... or it could have been Fed interest rate policy ... higher rates made those adjustable rate mortgages suddenly unaffordable and placed new mortgages out of reach for more people, leading to a softening of home prices.

Anyway, if you want to convince me that the deficits of 2006? 2007? 2008? "caused" the crisis, you'll have to come up with causal links, not just coincidence.

Quote:
The more years that pass by with ballooning spending makes this target appear more drastic. But using bloated figures as excuse or basis to bloat more is just insane.

I agree.

Quote:
Let's assume you are interested in this method, but find it too drastic. You might consider that, since Obama increased the Budget by 33%, the target of all facets of the 2006 Budget could be increased by 10% or 16% across the board, and that would be the amount to freeze at. This could appear more palatable to reluctant spendaholics, but pretending that a higher level is acceptable is just setting these failures in concrete.

Hope that helps you understand my position.

I agree that the deficit needs to be brought down. I understand your POV that across-the-board spending cuts might be the only way to get members of Congress to agree to spending cuts at all, since in that case everyone's ox is getting gored equally. I would HOPE that public pressure would cause Congress to be more rational about targetting their cuts, ie cutting with a scalpel and not an ax ... but seeing how Congress operates I wouldn't hold out much hope. Maybe a mandate to cut overall spending by, say 5%, in the first year of the deficit reduction program and let Congress duke it out and see how they perform, with an automatic 5% across-the-board default looming if they can't figure it out, might work.
But I don't think "out of control government spending" caused the 2007-2008 crash, I don't think that crazy deficit spending is ONLY the fault of Democrats, and rises in revenue aren't due to tax cuts but due to Fed low-interest-rate policies coincident with deficit spending which caused "big fat ugly bubbles" in real estate or stocks (or both). I think the Fed has a greater role in that than you think.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876 .

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Tuesday, April 9, 2019 12:30 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Wal-Mart Is Rolling Out The Robots After Raising Minimum Wage

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-04-09/wal-mart-rolling-out-robots-
after-raising-minimum-wage
I think that the minimum wage is too low. HOWEVER, you can't just advocate raising the minimum wage without also anticipating and accounting for the effects that would have.

Like I said, it would take an entirely different approach to the economy. If you want to raise wages, you have to (a) create jobs, and not just government-funded make-work jobs, but real jobs and (b) reduce the number of people competing for those jobs, ie. stop illegal immigration.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876 .

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Tuesday, April 9, 2019 3:22 PM

Where I work, the recent remodel saw all of the cashier lanes but 4 replaced with scan-and-go.

There's also talk that preparations in the future are being made with the end goal being online-only shopping, and customers will only need to purchase their stuff online in advance and pick it up an hour later. The idea being that you can run the entire store with only 60 employees rather than over 220.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Tuesday, April 9, 2019 5:39 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

They tried a scan-and-go at my local Ralphs, and it was such a boondoggle I was told (by a cashier) that it got the manager fired. It's not that they can't be made to work, but these were just so fucking quirky ... there wasn't enough room in the bagging area for even a half-cart of groceries, and if you tried to remove items to make more room it would stop and nag you until you put them back, and if you tried placing bags in the bagging area before you started so you could pile up more groceries it would halt and tell you to remove the unscanned items. And then, on top of that, it couldn't scan anything with alcohol in it, if you had a coupon you needed assistance (why you couldn't just scan that in too is beyond me) and then ... as I found out ... they needed a cashier just to monitor the self-checkout line to make sure that people weren't just putting stuff into their cart without it being scanned.

So if this is the same system as installed at our local Ralphs... yeah, good luck with that.

But I agree, our local bank got rid of most of their tellers with auto-tellers inside (can do everything I want it to except deposit coins), Home Depot has self-checkout, there are quite a number of fast-food chains and coffee shops experimenting with automated burger-flippers and milk-frothers ...

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876 .

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Tuesday, April 9, 2019 8:17 PM

I doubt talks of raising the minimum wage has much to do with any of this, really.

It has been the dream of the people running the show to automate everything that can possibly be automated. I don't think there is any real "ramping up" going on right now, and that's just a convenient political argument against raising the minimum wage.

Like it or not, this is the future. 12 years ago my salary was sent to India to pay 5 or 6 people with masters degrees to do much more work, and they lived like kings off of that pay. I'd be really surprised if more than 30% of what I used to do back then even requires any human input at all anymore.

These days, I can't even feel relatively safe that a manual labor job that can't be outsourced to another country is going to be around in another 5 or 10 years because of automation, or at least changing the entire way people shop online. Hell... even the trucks that haul all of our shit all over the country are going to be driving themselves in my lifetime.

I don't mean to sound like a Socialist, but I do think that given these advancements it is time to start legitimate discussions on a Universal Basic Income.

The only Democratic candidate I've heard talk about it is Andrew Yang. While he fully supports the UBI, he is against raising the minimum wage... Automation being one of the reasons. Another one being that a larger minimum wage equates to more taxes paid.

https://www.yang2020.com/policies/the-freedom-dividend/

EDIT: Incidentally, the amount of theft that occurs with scan and go is outrageous, but it was put in the budget beforehand. Low maintenance registers with a one time installation cost save a bundle over human employees and they don't get paid any benefits or call in sick.

You've got to remember that these corporations that are struggling don't really put any emphasis on customer service anymore. The quirks that present themselves, such as needing human input for the use of coupons or alcohol purchases aren't anything that they really care about. The only thing that matters in the end is the bottom line.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Tuesday, April 9, 2019 11:30 PM

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

What's wrong with US foreign policy:

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Wednesday, April 10, 2019 12:39 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

JO, I;m not ignoring your platform, I like a lot about it, but it's long and will take a lot of time to comment. Thanks for putting up the link, and RUE, thankss for copying it here.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876 .

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Thursday, April 11, 2019 1:21 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
At some point I hope to go here and just look at year-by-year January totals. I'm posting this here for reference: https://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/mspd/mspd.htm

And I have to remember to see of bond sales are included as debt, since afaik dubya kept war-spending out of the budget with 'emergency spending' bills paid for by bonds.

I poked around a little. It gets harder and harder to chase down the facts.
Currently the search results for "gross Federal Debt" produce nothing at Google except redirections to National Debt. Also, Wikipedia now redirects the same quote to National Debt as well. Shocking that these 2 Libtard sources have such Libtard slant.
Yahoo does produce much better results, but still not much accurately. To be clear, I use Canada Yahoo. CA.yahoo.com

Try this:
Fred.stlouisfed.org/series/fygfd
It's interactive plotted graph.
Shows 1998 was 5468.2, 99 was 5605.5, 00 was 5628, 01 was 5769.

Libtard Maths might show that those are reductions in the Gross Federal Debt, presumably caused by Budget Surplus. I don't have the Libtard Maths App.

Using rational cyphering, each of these years has an increase in Debt, meaning each and every year was a Deficit year. But some Libtards still claim increases in Debt are caused by Surpluses, or maybe are just gullible twits.

Hope that helps getting through the lies.

Or maybe the Fred is lying too.

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Thursday, April 11, 2019 10:42 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
I doubt talks of raising the minimum wage has much to do with any of this, really.

It has been the dream of the people running the show to automate everything that can possibly be automated. I don't think there is any real "ramping up" going on right now, and that's just a convenient political argument against raising the minimum wage.

Like it or not, this is the future. 12 years ago my salary was sent to India to pay 5 or 6 people with masters degrees to do much more work, and they lived like kings off of that pay. I'd be really surprised if more than 30% of what I used to do back then even requires any human input at all anymore.

These days, I can't even feel relatively safe that a manual labor job that can't be outsourced to another country is going to be around in another 5 or 10 years because of automation, or at least changing the entire way people shop online. Hell... even the trucks that haul all of our shit all over the country are going to be driving themselves in my lifetime.

I don't mean to sound like a Socialist, but I do think that given these advancements it is time to start legitimate discussions on a Universal Basic Income.

The only Democratic candidate I've heard talk about it is Andrew Yang. While he fully supports the UBI, he is against raising the minimum wage... Automation being one of the reasons. Another one being that a larger minimum wage equates to more taxes paid.

https://www.yang2020.com/policies/the-freedom-dividend/

EDIT: Incidentally, the amount of theft that occurs with scan and go is outrageous, but it was put in the budget beforehand. Low maintenance registers with a one time installation cost save a bundle over human employees and they don't get paid any benefits or call in sick.

You've got to remember that these corporations that are struggling don't really put any emphasis on customer service anymore. The quirks that present themselves, such as needing human input for the use of coupons or alcohol purchases aren't anything that they really care about. The only thing that matters in the end is the bottom line.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

Starting with the "bottom line" comment: Apparently the installation of such dysfuncational self-scan machines caused SUCH a loss in sales that the manager was fired. I know that in THIS case it doesn't mean that automation can't work and won't increase, but this is one instance where it didn't.

ABOUT UNIVERSAL BASIC INCOME (UBI): In a rational world, if goods aren't produced by people then access to goods shouldn't be tied to "work". That in fact was the end state that Marx predicted. HOWEVER, there is one giant barrier to UBI, and that is the fact that the USA buys a lot of its manufactured goods from abroad (where they are NOT produced by automation). That means that these other nations have to accept the dollar as credible payment, which means that when they bring these dollars back to the USA they have to be able to purchase something of equivalent value. With no manufacturing here, what are they going to purchase? More Treasuries? And what do those Treasuries get them? More paper money?

Who is going to issue this UBI? The government? Will it just add to the debt? Will the government then have to pay the Fed interest on this debt? And who pays for this interest? The taxpayers? Unless the tax structure is changed to take more money from the corporations and (especially) banks and other financialists, this will simply bleed the middle class, again.

The concept of UBI is just the government stepping in, one more time, to paper over the essential contradiction of capitalism, which is - as FREM explained - like one person at a poker table taking 10% of the money each round. Eventually, the table runs out of money. People have advocated for a long time (Keynes, FDR, GWB, Obama, AOC etc) that the government step in and inject more money into the system ... that's what happened in the last collapse. But that doesn't really solve the problem.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876 .

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Thursday, April 11, 2019 5:42 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
I doubt talks of raising the minimum wage has much to do with any of this, really.

It has been the dream of the people running the show to automate everything that can possibly be automated. I don't think there is any real "ramping up" going on right now, and that's just a convenient political argument against raising the minimum wage.

Like it or not, this is the future. 12 years ago my salary was sent to India to pay 5 or 6 people with masters degrees to do much more work, and they lived like kings off of that pay. I'd be really surprised if more than 30% of what I used to do back then even requires any human input at all anymore.

These days, I can't even feel relatively safe that a manual labor job that can't be outsourced to another country is going to be around in another 5 or 10 years because of automation, or at least changing the entire way people shop online. Hell... even the trucks that haul all of our shit all over the country are going to be driving themselves in my lifetime.

I don't mean to sound like a Socialist, but I do think that given these advancements it is time to start legitimate discussions on a Universal Basic Income.

The only Democratic candidate I've heard talk about it is Andrew Yang. While he fully supports the UBI, he is against raising the minimum wage... Automation being one of the reasons. Another one being that a larger minimum wage equates to more taxes paid.

https://www.yang2020.com/policies/the-freedom-dividend/

EDIT: Incidentally, the amount of theft that occurs with scan and go is outrageous, but it was put in the budget beforehand. Low maintenance registers with a one time installation cost save a bundle over human employees and they don't get paid any benefits or call in sick.

You've got to remember that these corporations that are struggling don't really put any emphasis on customer service anymore. The quirks that present themselves, such as needing human input for the use of coupons or alcohol purchases aren't anything that they really care about. The only thing that matters in the end is the bottom line.

Do Right, Be Right. :)
Starting with the "bottom line" comment: Apparently the installation of such dysfuncational self-scan machines caused SUCH a loss in sales that the manager was fired. I know that in THIS case it doesn't mean that automation can't work and won't increase, but this is one instance where it didn't.

ABOUT UNIVERSAL BASIC INCOME (UBI): In a rational world, if goods aren't produced by people then access to goods shouldn't be tied to "work". That in fact was the end state that Marx predicted. HOWEVER, there is one giant barrier to UBI, and that is the fact that the USA buys a lot of its manufactured goods from abroad (where they are NOT produced by automation). That means that these other nations have to accept the dollar as credible payment, which means that when they bring these dollars back to the USA they have to be able to purchase something of equivalent value. With no manufacturing here, what are they going to purchase? More Treasuries? And what do those Treasuries get them? More paper money?

Who is going to issue this UBI? The government? Will it just add to the debt? Will the government then have to pay the Fed interest on this debt? And who pays for this interest? The taxpayers? Unless the tax structure is changed to take more money from the corporations and (especially) banks and other financialists, this will simply bleed the middle class, again.

The concept of UBI is just the government stepping in, one more time, to paper over the essential contradiction of capitalism, which is - as FREM explained - like one person at a poker table taking 10% of the money each round. Eventually, the table runs out of money. People have advocated for a long time (Keynes, FDR, GWB, Obama, AOC etc) that the government step in and inject more money into the system ... that's what happened in the last collapse. But that doesn't really solve the problem.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876 .

It should be noted that UBI would replace all other forms of welfare, at least by anybody I've heard seriously debate the topic.

No more food stamps. No more EIC.

Just a straight up $1,000 payment per month to every adult in the US, no matter what their financial situation.

It would be a tax free $12,000 per year to do with as you please. Most people couldn't live off of this and would still be required to work. However, the UBI has the benefit over other forms of welfare in that it doesn't dis-incentivize people from working.

As a personal example, I've talked about how when you're working at the lower rungs you face a lot of them. I make $4 more per hour now than I did working for K-Mart, with about the same amount of hours. On paper, this sounds great. But in the mean time, I lost $2,400 tax free in food stamps. So not only do I have to pay state, local and federal taxes on an extra $4,200 per year in income, but I lose $2,400 in tax free money for food.

I really didn't get much of a raise. Maybe $1 per hour?

And while low earners would be putting most of that toward necessities like rent and keeping the lights on, those that already find themselves with disposable income would be pumping $12,000 into the economy by buying shit they don't need. It's the reverse of trickle-down economics which is a huge failure.

Like the weed discussion, it's not all good, but it's not all bad. There needs to be more discussion of the pitfalls and virtues of the UBI.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Friday, April 12, 2019 5:35 PM