"If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all." – Noam Chomsky
"Other families, even as we speak, are seeing their teenage sons off to wartime boot camp or deployment in a war zone."
We both paused and then said, "Thank G-d" simultaneously.
There is a good reason why I oppose our involvement in Iraq AND Afghanistan. I am unwilling to commit my sons to the risks of combat for these causes; it then follows that I am unwilling to commit your sons. Somebody really ought to give the folks in Washington a heads up. I have yet to see a funeral detail for the son of a U.S. Senator, Congressman, or Military Brass killed in action either of these countries (feel free to correct me). Coincidence? I think not.
I LOVE my country as it is/was Constituted. Its my government that concerns me. Fighting any War For Oil is a fools errand. BTW... I am a 6th generation registered Republican...
(One of the reasons I distrust political Special Interest Groups, even the "good" ones, is that they morph over time into something unrecognizable... Allow me to share some personal family history: My mother's family has lived in New York City for several hundred years with just about every group coming off the immigration boats in New York harbor winding up in my Gene pool. My Maternal Great-Grandmother's family were German Jews that emigrated from Alsace-Lorraine, and she was deeply involved in the suffrage movement, the pre-cursor to the feminist movement of today. She was the first woman to earn the rank of Detective, and worked for Teddy Roosevelt when he was the chief of New York's police. Her portrait hangs in the NYPD museum, her name: Adele Dittwieller. Her husband's family were abolitionists working on the "underground railroad" in 19th century Brooklyn. They must have been pretty serious about racial equality because his mother or grandmother was an escaped slave (He was Dutch/English/Native American/African). They were all REPUBLICANS; it was Republicans that began today's "Liberal" movement and founded papers like "The Nation" (The Nation was founded by Abolitionists, NOT Leftists). From my perspective it appears that people like my mother and grandmother splintered away from these roots over the issue of abortion (my mother was at one time the chairperson of New York's Right to Life party). Not all Republicans are the nose picking morons chronicled in the media, just as not every Democrat is mathematically and economically challenged, either. It just seems that way. It was only 40 odd years ago that the Deep South Segregationists were all DEMOCRATS. No Religious group or political special interest group remains static. They do not necessarily remain true to their founding principals. Somehow I think my ancestors would be appalled at what the Suffrage and Abolitionist movements have morphed into.
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"At some point, the people's ability to pay runs out." N.J. Governor Chris Chrisite
Further, the state budget's are showing/giving the lie to how GDP is calculated. If retail sales are up, why are sales taxes down? Because the folks doing the counting work for the government (and they are here to help...snicker, snicker...).
Even as the U.S. appears to be on the mend -- gross domestic product has climbed three straight quarters -- finances in Arizona, Illinois, New Jersey, New York and other states show few signs of improvement. Forty-six states face budget shortfalls that add up to $112 billion for the fiscal year ending next June, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a Washington research institution. State spending is 12 percent of U.S. GDP.
Hysterical, right? You can add state debt right onto the U.S. Federal budget deficit.
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The economy hit a wall about 2 months ago. You can argue over what that wall is made of or why it happened or how long it might last. That it DID happen is not up for debate so much. Making money in this environment should take a back seat to capital preservation.
15 comments:
The Stimulus has shot its last load of cannon balls.
Next come the expiration of the Bush Tax Cuts.
The economic bounce is DONE.
Quick and easy ...
1) I was for the Iraq war for the first two years, and I said nothing about its execution. It wasn't until it got turned into some kind of chance to make money (read "Fiasco"), that I decided the Iraq thing was losing its justification. I can justify to myself someone's kid dying (including Jeffers') to fight the world's slime like Saddam who torture and mistreat people for their words and deeds. Once that altruistic cause was lost ...
2) Govt. spending. It's all pretty simple, people ... if you want the spending, and you do want the spending (80% of Federal spending is in Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Defense and Interest -- 90% of state spending is in education, human services, health care (Medicaid) and pensions), you're gonna have to pay for it. You tax, and then you can spend. A lot of people are avoiding paying their fair share, mostly the rich.
3) Because we went the way of borrowing instead of taxing, we now have a multi-year deflationary depression/malaise ahead of us, perhaps for thirty years (if the cycles are to be believed). We saved absolutely nothing for the 80 million baby boomer retirements ahead, and that spending/debt will squash the OECD economies for years to come. We did all this to ourselves.
I won't mind sending my son if el presidente was right in front of him on the battlefield.
The last time a gringo politician led an army to fight while in office was Washington. The objective was to collect taxes from small farmers. E pluralibus bellum is a better motto for the US$.
Now I know whose family to blame for the state of the West. Women voters? Women love a guy in uniform, they want to feel protected, therefore the welfare state. When you got smart and married someone from Japan, a place not known for feminism, and racial egalitarianism.
Anon - When you got smart and married someone from Japan, a place not known for feminism, and racial egalitarianism.
Uhmmm Japan has some serious feminism and male identity issues. Wasn't all that long ago some male figure committed suicide in front of a group of military men in an attempt to get them to embrace their lost man-hood. They wouldn't so he ran his sword through himself.
As for social spending I have never benefited from it. Not even student loans OK yes some unemployment from time to time over the years. Looks like the rest of that spending will be gone before I ever retire anyway.
There is a direct link between women's suffrage, feminism and social spending. Whether you think feminism is good or bad all you have to do is go research which social spending measures organizations like NOW have backed and see the costs such a powerful voter block have accumulated.
Just one example was the backing of the community re-investment act by feminist groups and the subtle impact it had on housing loans especially the addition of details like child support counting as income yet child care not counting as out going costs. Funny that about 9 years after this (the average time for CS) the loans started going bad.
Taken as a whole really it's just wealth redistribution and it has reached it's peak. Oil has allowed the governments to squeeze more out of the actual wealth producers than ever before in history and it has reached it's summit.
Interesting that it reaches that summit almost in unison with peak oil.
Anon:
Actually, the suffrage "feminists" were not cut from the same cloth as the current crop. Most of the suffrage folks were NOT pro-choice. They were in favor of ending Patriarchy, not in favor of the marriage-divorce industrial complex.
The "original" civil rights movement was the abolitionist movement - FREEDOM. Not the Leftist/socialist cluster f*ck encouraging our inner cities to harm themselves.
My point was that at inception these groups set out to do something noble. Once they accomplished what they set out to do, well, the political apparatus was already there... and said apparatus was used for some very unsavory stuff.
I wanted to share with you MY perspective and why I distrust special interest groups so intensely.
The original "feminists" were as Libertarian as you GOT. Some how the NOW folks became socialist - I suspect they took a page from the Tort bar and gained tremendous political and economic clout in divorce court.
But markets abhor a vacuum - and that power has been neutralized by the advent of the pre-nuptual agreement or pre-maritol agreement... and the argument that women are not paid or educated as well as men has gone moot, too.
So I am not sure where the NOW folks are going to turn, except further and further to the Left.
As with all things, the Law of Unintended consequences will have more to say than most of us could possibly imagine.
Stephan:
Funny you should mention the expiration of the Bush tax cuts... or perhaps not... if I remember correctly you have an MBA or Masters in Eco from Stamford, was it?
In any event, as you very rightly point out, though it will be absolutely, positively lost on the Left, the expiration of these tax cuts means a further decline in money supply and demand for goods and services. I should think this alone should take between 1% and 2% off of GDP in the first year following their expiration.
Both of my mother’s grandpas fought at the battle of the bridge in Michigan. Essentially this tussle was for the union to gain strength against ford I think. My grandpa passed a few yrs ago so doesn’t know what yr. Both of my great grandpas had turned against the unions and became stanch republicans when they realized that the goal was much more sinister than they ever thought. Both of them were labor organizers, they were in the leadership. I feel dumb for not remembering everything. Wish I would have had a pen and a pad of paper to write it down before gramps passed. My Grandpa who was very successful himself always told me that the progressives/commies were entrenched all over our cultural landscape. He told me about everything we see now 15 yrs ago. He always said the parasites always kill the host.
My point being is the disease has so infested every facet of life I do not see the host surviving. The special interest groups have carved the pie and the populace gets ditty squawk. The United States will fail eventually because of the Greed of the power class. They want capitalism only so long as it helps them to their goals. These same elitist survived in some communist and most socialist, fascist states as a hybrid of crony capitalism. I would hardly call what we have as a free market.
Jeffers we have not really talked a lot about the Federal Reserve and hence I think we miss the 800 pound gorilla looking at the pygmy marmoset. The reason I say this is that the fed is the one sustaining the un-sustainable and eventually it will fail, it is just inevitable. What happens when this can we have been kicking gets caught in a bear trap?
Europe is brilliant, if he stops by Salzburg tell him to feel free to drop me a mail.
Bur:
You SAY you were for the Iraq war. I doubt it.
Being for any "war" is to be criminally insane. What is it you are "for"? Dropping bombs out on population centers filled with kids playing soccer and moms nursing babies?
War does NOT mean two equally matched sides meeting on the field of battle to set things straight. War is murder in the night, killing by bomb and sabatauge, and murder by ambush.
There is nothing about "war" that any thinking person can be "for".
It was my American happyface and too many nights sleeping soundly in a U.S. house without a lot of fear of anything that does make me a believer in the early righteousness of a cause like the Iraqi "war." I'm not going to mince words and call it a "police action" or whatever people sometimes call these things. If you have a dictator out of control, terrorizing and stealing from the population, yes, if a war is necessary to remove him, I'm all for it. I live a "Hallmark" life. ;) Good always triumphs over evil. After it was no longer about Saddam, I changed my view. Some wars are worth fighting for sometimes, and with other peoples' children, sadly.
(And Chavez is the next dictator I wouldn't mind supporting a "war" against. And that one would be easy. ;))
Here Bur, this ones for you:
http://edition.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/international/2010/06/28/cotd.oliver.stone.cnn.html
The Iraq war was never about Saddam.
You regurgitate the most amazing amount of Propoganda.
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