You're saying we should pay people to sit on their asses.

Nothing I could say could be nearly that retarded...

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Obama's New "57 State Patriotic Pin":




Sayeth John Drake - 10/13/08: "OK, you're right, I admit to LYING"

I thought lower prices were part of free trade, else, why free trade?

How else do we get lower prices, if some prices are not lower?

I think the question is where do we want a safety net in a first world economy.

I am saying that some people are already being paid to sit on their asses. You don't think it is retarded when done by the private sector, so why should it be retarded when done by the public sector, if it can result in raising standards of living?

I agree. That is the question.

I'm not arguing however, for mandated wages and benefits...contrary to what Steve may assert.

Go ahead...go back and take a look.

Because Steve is so vociferous, people tend to lose site of what the topic was. It's interesting. Like re-reading a letter you forgot to send.

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...the government...is caving in...with their specious arguments couched in the...language of civil rights law, and that the churches ... likewise crumbling to...rhetoric which is nothing but heretical sophistry -- ~F Phelps
Platitudes like the one you offer are no different - and no less incorrect - than the jackass part-time Christian who says, "I'm going to heaven because I'm nice to people." It so misses the point.~Impugn

Are you implying that we should abolish any form of safety net, in a first world economy? In my opinion, that would be the equivalent of returning to kerosene lamps and outhouses.

I think those in office in the 25-years of trade dominance following ww2 were the political beneficiaries of the greatest run of economic prosperity in US history.

In a country where easily obtained natural resources are exhausted and consumption far exceeds production including food all that points to is a sharp division of wealth. Incurring debt to a point where the currency loses value with no new equity available will further concentrate that wealth into the small upper economic tier until civil order is eventually threatened.

You said it, third world economics; where a visit to the barber is important to the consumer-driven economy. Once the military machine operated on debt that threatens the world to accept US debt and USD has drained the last possible penny out of the economy, USD will be on a par with the Peso. If I was a young man just starting out or a businessman in my '30s, Mandarin and/or Cantonese would be a scholastic goal.

Why do the Republicans always seem to miss out on the benefits of running massive surpluses, and not the Democrats? Are you implying that domestic policy has nothing to do with GDP?

More of a question of what level of safety net we can afford with our rapidly escalating military expenses based on debt in a declining economy and still maintain at least a sense of civil order is how the politicians will view it.

And I'm saying, if it's happening, it needs to stop...

If you can't grasp the differences between "public" and "private" sectors, you're beyond hope.

Also, prove to me that it'll guarantee the standard of living. I don't buy it...

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Obama's New "57 State Patriotic Pin":




Sayeth John Drake - 10/13/08: "OK, you're right, I admit to LYING"

A complicated answer is in order, but simplistically the current crop of self-defined Republicans like war toys and government growth that benefit special interests but not the country in a post-industrial service economy. GDP growth has been manufactured with injections of government capital based on debt with no trade and negligible domestic benefits for how long now?

Not at all. As I stated, I do not have any clue about a solution. I am completely stumped. All I know is what I see happening, what I experience, what the data reflects.

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...the government...is caving in...with their specious arguments couched in the...language of civil rights law, and that the churches ... likewise crumbling to...rhetoric which is nothing but heretical sophistry -- ~F Phelps
Platitudes like the one you offer are no different - and no less incorrect - than the jackass part-time Christian who says, "I'm going to heaven because I'm nice to people." It so misses the point.~Impugn

"A complicated answer is in order, so I'll give you my simplistic view of the situation".

Yeah... that makes sense...

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Obama's New "57 State Patriotic Pin":




Sayeth John Drake - 10/13/08: "OK, you're right, I admit to LYING"

I am under the impression that there is no provision for promoting or providing for the common Offense (without a formal declaration), if it comes to priorities.

You never answered the question of individual versus corporate (i.e. the legal fiction of an individual) welfare. If one can be done, so can the other via legal precedent.

It can guarantee a standard of living, in the same manner current minimum wage laws can guarantee a standard wage; and the living that wage can provide.

Ruvinsky, Jessica "Planet Science" Discover October 2007: 42-43
(which arrived rather fortuitously in time for this post)

Land of opportunity: one-third of the graduates of U.S. science and engineering Ph. D. programs are foreign born. These skilled workers have tended to stay here, starting high-tech businesses that generated $52 billion in sales and provided 450,000 jobs in 2006 alone. But a soaring backlog in immigration paperwork and greening pastures abroad have set the stage for reverse brain drain.
...
One-fifth of all U.S. patents are granted to Japanese inventors. Five of the top 10 patenting corporations are Japanese; 3 are American.
...
The number of U.S. patents for Indian technologies increased more than tenfold between 1993 and 2003.

Emphasis my own.

__________________
...the government...is caving in...with their specious arguments couched in the...language of civil rights law, and that the churches ... likewise crumbling to...rhetoric which is nothing but heretical sophistry -- ~F Phelps
Platitudes like the one you offer are no different - and no less incorrect - than the jackass part-time Christian who says, "I'm going to heaven because I'm nice to people." It so misses the point.~Impugn