The Ron Paul 08 thread! Step on in and learn about him :)

[rlbond86]

Originally Posted by samcol

I didn't say you were an idiot. However, your personal beliefs do not change the FACT that RP's beliefs aren't even his personal beliefs, they are the law under the constitution. Powers not expressly delegated to the United States by the constitution, or pohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

The States really were intended to be seperate countries bound only by a common monetary system, national defense, full faith and credit given to the other states, individual rights, and representation in the Union.

You're entitled to your view, but large centralized government is in stark contradiction to the Constitution.

Ever heard of the supremacy clause? Laws enacted in congress are the laws of the land.

Originally Posted by dksuddeth

except for having a single denomination for currency, what do the feds manage better than anyone else?

Tennessee Valley Authority. National Laboratories. Interstate Highway System. Flu Vaccine Distribution (which is often FREE to those who cannot pay). Embassies which protect Americans who travel. Federal Student Loans. National Science Foundation.

Your argument is ridiculous. But I shouldn't expect a logical conclusion from someone who denies the existence of climate change despite the overwhelming consensus of climate scientists.

[ASU2003]

Originally Posted by samcol

These are state issues according to the constitution and with RP being a strict constitutionalist he doesn't support these things federally. Now, this doesn't mean your own individual state can't enact these programs. This helps keep government balanced and small, as well it allows variety for certain parts of the country to have more right wing policies or left wing polices instead of everyone being forced to do the same thing federally.

It's not a federal issue. The federal government doesn't have the authority.

Part of me worries what would happen in 20,30, 40 years if states had to do these programs themselves. I would be afraid that a few states would become very successful and poor states would fail. The rich people would move to California, Nevada, Arizona taking all their money and tax base with them. We are all Americans and we should be able to work together.

On the other hand, Ron Paul was on PBS yesterday giving on of his best interviews yet.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CA7jHaowNME#
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWdz1pnAFUA#

I don't think he will be able to ax everything and create chaos, but we need to be put back on a sustainable path. 9 Trillion in debt, when we probably would be at 1-2 trillion if B. Clinton's policies were still in place is just one issue.

[dksuddeth]

Originally Posted by rlbond86

Tennessee Valley Authority.

ah yes, theTVA. A socialist political corporation to provide cheap electricity at the cost of free market enterprise that would create jobs and keep electrical power efficient. All at the cost of taxpayers nationwide, of which the residents who do not reside within the TVA region receive zero benefit. To also re-iterate the ungodly claim that the commerce clause and the war powers act constitute the power of the federal government to have regulatory powers over streams and rivers.

Originally Posted by rlbond86

National Laboratories.

A whole government owned set of labs, built for the development of technology that would provide a benefit to an evergrowing federal government in total contrast to the designs of the constitution which is supposed to limit a central governments growth and power. Said labs MAY provide benefits to the populace, provided the government can make extra revenue off of its developments by selling to the citizenry, whos taxes paid for the projects in the first place.

Originally Posted by rlbond86

Interstate Highway System.

Are you serious? Have you driven on these highways lately? when traffic STOPS DEAD on these interstates and there is no accident causing it, it's not run very well.

Originally Posted by rlbond86

Flu Vaccine Distribution (which is often FREE to those who cannot pay).

I have NEVER seen a distribution site offer FREE vaccines for influenza. NEVER.

Originally Posted by rlbond86

Embassies which protect Americans who travel.

which would explain why americans all over the world are kidnapped, raped, or killed all the time in these foreign countries. good job.

Originally Posted by rlbond86

Federal Student Loans.

whose values fluctuate according to the party in power, cause major debts to new graduates who usually do not pay them back, and have a very limited group of people who actually qualify for them. woohoo, love paying for that one.

Originally Posted by rlbond86

National Science Foundation.

Great, another beauracratic filled group who take billions of our dollars and dole millions out to 'special groups' for hundreds of 'studies' that provide the most obvious results like 'teenage boys hornier than most other men of older ages'.

Originally Posted by rlbond86

Your argument is ridiculous.

But a hell of a lot more logical than yours is.

Originally Posted by rlbond86

But I shouldn't expect a logical conclusion from someone who denies the existence of climate change despite the overwhelming consensus of climate scientists.

who denies the existance of climate change? the climate ALWAYS changes. It's called 'cyclical' for a friggin reason. That's because the earth moves, winds change, the sun does wierd things every now and then, and water levels rise and fall with the position of the moon but I see that doesn't change the wildly hysterical notions that the planet is going to die because a handful of chicken littles can't conceive of the notion of 'change'. Keep up the loony left sky is falling claims though, I get a kick out of them.

[rlbond86]

I don't know about you, but I wouldn't trust the states to keep the interstates in order. Places like Alabama would probably just let the roads rot. And I damn well wouldn't trust a company to do the flu shots, they would charge too much. The TVA makes cheaper electricity than any power company; in fact the TVA was created because no company would give that region power. Without national labs, our country will be doomed to fall behind China in technology. Without the Federal Government running Embassies, there is no safe haven for Americans around the world. Your retorts are sophomoric and display a true lack of understanding.

Oh yes, the "loony left" claims that climate change is bad. And by loony left, you of course mean the large majority of climatologists, meteorologists, and geologists who all have Ph.D's in this stuff and study it THEIR WHOLE LIVES. Yes, you know better than all of them! This is the problem with America today. Here's the new rule: IF YOU ARE NOT A CLIMATE SCIENTIST, JUST SHUT UP ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING. YOU DO NOT KNOW HOW IT WORKS.
"Recent research strongly reinforces our previous conclusions. It is unequivocal that the climate is changing, and it is very likely that this is predominantly caused by the increasing human interference with the atmosphere. These changes will transform the environmental conditions on Earth unless counter-measures are taken."
Signed by:
Academia Brasileira de Ciéncias, Brazil
Académie des Sciences, France
Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Italy
Russian Academy of Sciences, Russia
National Academy of Sciences, United States of America
Royal Society of Canada, Canada
Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher, Leopoldina, Germany
Science Council of Japan, Japan
Academy of Science of South Africa, South Africa
Chinese Academy of Sciences, China
Indian National Science Academy, India
Academia Mexicana de Ciencias, Mexico
Royal Society, United Kingdom
http://www.pik-potsdam.de/news-1/joi...2019-statement

You display the same fundamentalist attitude of the Bush Administration that you are correct no matter what, that things are black or white, and that you understand what is best, rather than people who study these things their whole lives. You show far too much faith in the "invisible hand," but the invisible hand leads to things like Enron, and your answer to everything is "let the states handle it." Here's a question to ponder: how do we pay off our national debt if we do not collect taxes? A large portion of the national debt is owed to China. If we stop collecting taxes, they are bound to come knocking demanding their money. What then?

[dksuddeth]

Originally Posted by rlbond86

I don't know about you, but I wouldn't trust the states to keep the interstates in order. Places like Alabama would probably just let the roads rot.

My guess is that if Alabama let things rot, that would be Alabamas fault and people could just MOVE, right? the way it should be.

Originally Posted by rlbond86

And I damn well wouldn't trust a company to do the flu shots, they would charge too much.

competition keeps prices DOWN.

Originally Posted by rlbond86

The TVA makes cheaper electricity than any power company; in fact the TVA was created because no company would give that region power.

and if we'd let it be, we'd have one more huge national forest instead of the bottoms that they are now.

Originally Posted by rlbond86

Without national labs, our country will be doomed to fall behind China in technology. Without the Federal Government running Embassies, there is no safe haven for Americans around the world. Your retorts are sophomoric and display a true lack of understanding.

yeah, im dumber than a box of rocks.

Originally Posted by rlbond86

Oh yes, the "loony left" claims that climate change is bad. And by loony left, you of course mean the large majority of climatologists, meteorologists, and geologists who all have Ph.D's in this stuff and study it THEIR WHOLE LIVES. Yes, you know better than all of them! This is the problem with America today. Here's the new rule: IF YOU ARE NOT A CLIMATE SCIENTIST, JUST SHUT UP ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING. YOU DO NOT KNOW HOW IT WORKS.

They are a bunch of special interest groups with an agenda, NOT a bunch of experts who know any better than I do.

Originally Posted by rlbond86

You display the same fundamentalist attitude of the Bush Administration that you are correct no matter what, that things are black or white, and that you understand what is best, rather than people who study these things their whole lives. You show far too much faith in the "invisible hand," but the invisible hand leads to things like Enron, and your answer to everything is "let the states handle it."

That's quite a leap in assumptions and conjectures. How did you manage that?

Originally Posted by rlbond86

Here's a question to ponder: how do we pay off our national debt if we do not collect taxes? A large portion of the national debt is owed to China. If we stop collecting taxes, they are bound to come knocking demanding their money. What then?

try reducing spending instead of raising taxes. Aren't we told, as individuals and families, that we shouldn't live beyond our own means and that if we overextend ourselves, we should stop spending so much? Why can't that work for the government as well? oh yeah, I forgot. You MUST have your liberal socialist freeloading programs to help everyone that isn't rich.

[dc_dux]

dk...do you think private industry would regulate their environmental practices better than the EPA?
I kinda like the results of the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Safe Drinking Water Act, Solid Waste Disposal Act.

or the securities industry regulate itself better than the SEC?
I'm not a big fan of insider trading.

or the food industry regulate itself better than the Dept of Ag?
I like the know my beef has been inspected for mad cow

I kinda like the US Patent Office and the knowledge that intellectual property is protected....And the Consumer Product Safety Commission and the knowledge that dangerous toys will be recalled.

None of these agencies are perfect, but do you really believe industry can be trusted to regulate itself?

They (climatologists) are a bunch of special interest groups with an agenda, NOT a bunch of experts who know any better than I do.

Which special interests groups are represented on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change?

The IPCC assessments are based on peer-reviewed scientific and technical literature. The IPCC reports are written by teams of authors from all over the world who are recognized experts in their field. They represent relevant disciplines as well as differing scientific perspectives. This global coverage of expertise, the interdisciplinary nature of the IPCC team, and the transparency of the process, constitute the Panel's strongest assets.

"The IPCC's doors are open to every expert who is qualified and willing to make a contribution as author or reviewer" says Renate Christ. "This voluntary network of thousands of scientists and experts is what makes the IPCC truly unique."

The number of experts involved in the IPCC process has expanded considerably since the Panel was created in 1988. The procedures governing the writing and approval process have also become increasingly rigorous and transparent. This has been the key to enabling the IPCC to connect the very different cultures and requirements of the scientific and political worlds.

[host]

Originally Posted by dksuddeth

My guess is that if Alabama let things rot, that would be Alabamas fault and people could just MOVE, right? the way it should be.

competition keeps prices DOWN.

and if we'd let it be, we'd have one more huge national forest instead of the bottoms that they are now.

yeah, im dumber than a box of rocks.

They are a bunch of special interest groups with an agenda, NOT a bunch of experts who know any better than I do.

That's quite a leap in assumptions and conjectures. How did you manage that?


try reducing spending instead of raising taxes. Aren't we told, as individuals and families, that we shouldn't live beyond our own means and that if we overextend ourselves, we should stop spending so much? Why can't that work for the government as well? oh yeah, I forgot. You MUST have your liberal socialist freeloading programs to help everyone that isn't rich.

...the stats I've <a href="http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpost.php?p=2324989&postcount=237">posted</a> in the Hillary Healthcare thread, comparing Denmark and France to the UK, USA, and Mexico, are an indictment of your politics, because they show what happens when the wealthiest make the rules.... 17 percent poverty in the UK, vs. 6 percent in France....40 percent in Mexico, close to 15 percent in the US. In Denmark...there are no protesting factions that the CIA Factbook could display....you offer a prescription for future civil unrest... GINI above 45 in the US and Mexico, vs. mid twenties in Denmark and in France.... your orthodoxy screws the common man, and opens the door for the richest to take it all....

A government by the people and sympathetic to the concerns of the overwhelming majority...(and eliminating progressive income tax and inheritance taxes, and campaigning for deregulation of the monopolistic and opportunistic and politically controlling activities of the welathiest is advocated or will result from Paul's policies)... is the opposite of what you, Ron Paul, and his supporters advocate. You will unwittingly create the impetus for....only if we're fortune enough to have it evolve peacefully....the rise of a reactionary figure very similar to HUGO CHAVEZ !

dksuddeth, I'm only going to contest a small portion of the opinions in your post. If you post supporting information for your opinions, I'll be happy to read it and respond.... I am struck by my perceived consequences if your politics. If your views were to prevail in the US, the rich would be richer, and large areas of the US, where it is unprofitable or unreasonable due to risk vs. return considerations...to distribute electric power to remote, difficult to access, or sparsely populated areas....millions would still be living without it.....

In Ron Paul's congressional district:

http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/...s/GG/hcg7.html
....The population of Gonzales County remained at between 28,000 and 29,000 inhabitants from 1900 into the 1930s, then began to decline during the Great Depression, falling to 26,075 by 1940. Though <h3>rural electrification began in the county in 1940</h3> and the first farm-to-market road was completed in 1945.....

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/ar...896996,00.html
Friday, Nov. 08, 1963

....During his week, Goldwater unnecessarily got himself into some steamy political water. Often in the past, he had advocated that the Tennessee Valley Authority be turned over to private enterprise. Now he answered a needling letter from Tennessee's Democratic Representative Richard Fulton, who asked the Senator if published reports that he still favored that proposition were true. To Fulton's astonishment, Goldwater wrote back, affirming that he was "quite serious in my opinion that TVA should be sold." Tennessee Republicans, who have high hopes of carrying their state for Goldwater next year, blanched in dismay. Wailed one: "TVA ranks right behind God, mother and country down here, and Barry knows that damned well; yet he still goes around shooting from the hip."...

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/ar...876152,00.html
Marching Through Dixie
Sep. 25, 1964

.....>In Knoxville, Tenn., where folks display bumper stickers reading KEEP TVA —I'D RATHER SELL ARIZONA, Barry said he would "stand by" his recent statement that TVA's steam-generating plants should be sold to private interests. Anyhow, he said, his views make little difference, since even if he were President, he undoubtedly would be overruled by Congress.

>In Atlanta, Barry issued a scathing denunciation of the Supreme Court's one-man-one-vote reapportionment ruling. Of all the cities in the South, Atlanta, which has long chafed under state malapportionment's giving rural districts top-heavy power in the state legislature, is the one place where the Supreme Court ruling is reasonably popular.

> In Charleston, W.Va., Barry blasted Lyndon Johnson's war on poverty as a "phony, vote-getting gimmick" and "a raid on your pocketbooks." West Virginia, of course, is practically a casebook study of the depressed area. .......

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/ar...939534,00.html
The Limits That Create Liberty & The Liberty That Creates Limits
Oct. 09, 1964

....No longer is the Court derided as a collection of nine old men too fragmented in their opinions to be relied upon to set national standards. The present split is between those who believe in "judicial restraint"—men who feel that real power should reside with elected officials and that the Court may eventually destroy itself by assuming too much—and so-called "judicial activists"—those who insist that the far-ranging provisions of a great Constitution have never yet been fully applied to American life and that the Constitution would die if not continuously restudied in the light of modern life.

The activists now hold the upper hand. In a flood of decisions that run counter to state laws and local customs, the Court has in the past ten years:

> Overturned state-enforced racial segregation in public schools and other public facilities.

> Banned the official use of prayers and Bible reading in public schools.

> Forced state criminal courts and police to match the strict standards imposed on federal courts and agents by the Bill of Rights.

> Ordered all state legislatures to give equal representation to cities and suburbs by apportioning their voting districts strictly on the basis of population.

Plea for Understanding. "The Court is making decisions boom, boom, boom. Many of them are too absolute to fit a country of 190 million diverse people," frets a Yale professor. "Of all three branches of Government," says Republican Presidential Candidate Barry Goldwater, "today's Supreme Court is the least faithful to the constitutional tradition of limited Government and to the principle of legitimacy in the exercise of power." ......



....No other Justice has less formal education; <h3>yet none is more widely read than the libertarian Alabamian</h3> who deprecates himself as "a rather backward country fellow."

Black has lived to see the "Warren Court," as it is known out of respect for its Chief Justice, more accurately called the "Black Court" after its chief philosopher. No other Justice in the past 25 years, says Stanford Law Professor Gerald Gunther, "has cared more, worked harder and done more to persuade his colleagues to accept his constitutional philosophy." In fact, no other Justice in the Court's entire history has lived to see more of his dissents turned into doctrine—doctrine that construes the Bill of Rights more generously than ever before as the open society's chief antidote to Government indifference or suppression.

Savory & Unsavory. If the Court has yet to officially accept some of Black's pet views of the Constitution, it has nonetheless swung his way ever since Chief Justice Warren came to Washington in 1953 and pulled together a divided Court that, within a year, unanimously outlawed school segregation. Eisenhower Appointee Warren soon added a solid third vote to the activist bloc of Black and William O. Douglas.......

......Though no Court bloc has ever been solid on every issue, today's 5-4 majority has produced a Court with an unprecedented solicitude for individuals, the unsavory as well as the savory. The Court's hallmark is a greater-than-ever willingness to act in the face of a commonly overlooked fact: the failure of Congress for generations to pass laws enforcing the 14th Amendment, which was ratified in 1868.

The key provision of that amendment reads: No States shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. Congressional failure to implement this left the Court as the only forum for vast social complaints—the Negro's demand for justice, the city dweller's cry for equal representation, the growth of Government power that stirs concern for individualism and the very quality of U.S. life.

Whether or not the Court should have acted on those complaints may now be less important than whether it has been too doctrinaire in how it acted. A look at the record:

∙ RACE: Since the 1954 school decision, the Court has struck one........

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/ar...9534-3,00.html
(3 of 11)
......Arming the Union. The reasoning by which the Court arrived at such state-taming decisions is rooted in the burgeoning nationalization of a country that was first united only by the Articles of Confederation, a compact so loaded in favor of the 13 independent-minded states that Congress could not tax, regulate commerce or conduct foreign relations. Only for the sake of national survival did the states by 1789

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/ar...9534-4,00.html
(4 of 11)
reluctantly ratify a Constitution that gave the Federalist central government a minimal power to function. As double insurance against federal tyranny, the states by 1791 approved the Constitution's first ten amendments, the Bill of Rights, the first eight articles of which were specific guarantees of individual liberty against the powers of the Federal Government.

To Federalists, the Bill of Rights seemed superfluous; the original Constitution was a model of caution that contained careful checks and balances on the powers of the President, Congress and the Supreme Court. As for the Court, Alexander Hamilton called it "the least dangerous branch." It would have "no influence over either the sword or the purse; no direction either of the strength or of the wealth of society; and can take no active resolution whatever."

Federalist Hamilton was partly wrong, or perhaps dissembling. If the Constitution stressed stability, it also permitted change. If the Government had limited power, it also needed more power to serve a nation that was growing in every direction. The swelling union required a unique umpire to allocate that power. The umpire was, and has been, the Court.

Eternal Expounding. In his audaciously activist regime (1801-35), Chief Justice John Marshall established the Supreme Court's right to review acts of Congress and State legislatures; he spelled out the supremacy of the Supreme Court over state courts in constitutional cases, as well as congressional authority over interstate commerce—a power so vast that it is now used, among other things, to regulate agriculture, limit prostitution, and forbid racial discrimination in public accommodations.

The states fought Marshall every inch of the way. When the Supreme Court ruled itself able to review state criminal cases, Virginia's chief justice accused Marshall of "that love of power which history informs us infects all who possess it." Marshall persisted. "It is a Constitution we are expounding," he said in 1819, holding that it must ever adapt to national change in order to "endure for ages." ......

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/ar...755843,00.html
8-to-1 for TVA
Feb. 24, 1936

......Even the deepest-dyed Liberal hardly gave a hoot that day about Brown et al. v. State of Mississippi—three Negroes convicted of murder, whose statements, claimed to have been made when they were brutally whipped by deputy sheriffs, were admitted in evidence as confessions. The Chief Justice of the U. S. was not disinterested. With vibrant voice he called attention to the "due-process" clause of the Constitution, declared, "The rack and the torture chamber may not be substituted for the witness stand," set aside the sentences. Having contributed to the dramatic tension by putting human rights first, Chief Justice Hughes took up property rights next. The case: minority preferred stock-holders of Alabama Power Co. who asked that the Supreme Court void the sale by that company of a transmission line to TVA on the ground that TVA was unconstitutional. The long-awaited hour had come. The crowd craned their necks to catch every word. The Chief Justice spoke with unusual deliberation, pausing now & then to peer at his audience. The first question, he explained, was whether the property of the minority stockholders was endangered, whether they had a right to sue. He declined to let any technicality stand in the way of their right to sue, declaring: "We should not seek to find means of avoiding ruling on a constitutional question." The second question, he declared, was whether Wilson Dam at Muscle Shoals (whence the debated power line leads) was legally constructed. Both because it was built under Wartime laws to provide power for making explosives and because it was designed to improve navigation, the Federal Government had been entitled to construct it. Therefore the dam was not illegal. Third question was whether the Government had the right to sell power created at a legal dam. Said the Chief Justice: "The Government has no less right to the energy thus availed by letting the water course over its turbines than it has to use the appropriate processes to reduce to possession other property within its control, as, for example, oil which it may recover from a pool beneath its land and which is reduced to possession by boring oil wells and otherwise might escape its grasp. Fourth and final question was whether the Government had the right to buy transmission lines to take power from its legal dams to market. Said Chief Justice Hughes: "The question here is simply as to the disposal of that energy, and the Government rightly conceded at the bar in substance that it was without constitutional authority to acquire or dispose of such energy except as it comes into being in the operation of works constructed in the exercise of some power delegated to the United States. . . . The Government is not using the water power at Wilson Dam to establish any industry or business. "It is not using the energy generated at the dam to manufacture commodities of any sort for the public.

"The Government is disposing of the energy itself, which simply is the mechanical energy, incidental to falling water at the dam, converted into the electric energy which is susceptible of transmission."

Therefore, since all else is legal, the Government may acquire transmission lines to take its by-product to any "reasonable market." ...

[/quote]

[rlbond86]

Originally Posted by dksuddeth

competition keeps prices DOWN.

Except when companies get together and fix the prices. Once again, you display too much faith in the "invisible hand."

Adam Smith, the father of modern economics, is often cited as arguing for the “invisible hand” and free markets: firms, in the pursuit of profits, are led, as if by an invisible hand, to do what is best for the world. But unlike his followers, Adam Smith was aware of some of the limitations of free markets, and research since then has further clarified why free markets, by themselves, often do not lead to what is best. As I put it in my new book, Making Globalization Work, the reason that the invisible hand often seems invisible is that it is often not there.

Whenever there are “externalities”—where the actions of an individual have impacts on others for which they do not pay or for which they are not compensated—markets will not work well. Some of the important instances have been long understood—environmental externalities. Markets, by themselves, will produce too much pollution. Markets, by themselves, will also produce too little basic research. (Remember, the government was responsible for financing most of the important scientific breakthroughs, including the internet and the first telegraph line, and most of the advances in bio-tech.)

But recent research has shown that these externalities are pervasive, whenever there is imperfect information or imperfect risk markets—that is always.

Government plays an important role in banking and securities regulation, and a host of other areas: some regulation is required to make markets work. Government is needed, almost all would agree, at a minimum to enforce contracts and property rights.

The real debate today is about finding the right balance between the market and government (and the third “sector”—non-governmental non-profit organizations.) Both are needed. They can each complement each other. This balance will differ from time to time and place to place.


-- Joseph E. Stiglitz, Nobel Prize winning Economist, 2001

[damianjames]

If anyone in particular is in the know here - what does RP think regarding bailouts of large companies by the government? Is he a "save the lobbyist", or a "let the chips fall where they may and let companies pay for their mistakes" kind of guy?

Thanks!

[sprocket]

In truth, a lot of Ron Paul's ideas may not be workable in practice. But he doesn't have a chance in hell of enacting a fraction of his ideas (at least in their current form) even if he is, by some miracle, elected president.

The biggest thing that appeals to me, is that he may help shift the governments focus. Right now all the other candidates are arguing over the best way to expand governments power and entitlement programs. Paul would turn the debate in Washington in the direction I feel we most need... towards fixing and trimming the federal government.

[markd4life]

Unfortunately, he doesn't stand a chance. He is getting added exposure which is refreshing, but in the end he will be 'out' by spring. If the democrats didn't have a woman, and a black man running for the office at the same time, he might be able to swing alot more 2 party votes.

[host]

Originally Posted by sprocket

In truth, a lot of Ron Paul's ideas may not be workable in practice. But he doesn't have a chance in hell of enacting a fraction of his ideas (at least in their current form) even if he is, by some miracle, elected president.

The biggest thing that appeals to me, is that he may help shift the governments focus. Right now all the other candidates are arguing over the best way to expand governments power and entitlement programs. <h3>Paul would turn the debate in Washington in the direction I feel we most need... towards fixing and trimming the federal government.</h3>

<h3>Can you not see...that for the past 60 years....the wealthiest (...and Ron Paul can't or won't change this by reducing government....) have used the republicans they've sponsored and financed....to make government work just fine.....to benefit them and their wealth transfer goals? The wealth consolidation trends displayed below, confirm my statements!</h3>


THis is an appeal to you to consider the fact that Ron Paul will serve to accelerate the consolidation of the small portion of wealth in the US that the richest do not already own....into their hands, and you work against your best interests if you support his candidacy. "Big government" is not the problem....the problem is government controlled by the few, with a decidedly non-populist agenda. Why is government in some European countries able to operate in the best interests of the majority, but not in the US? <h3>Someday, when your grandchildren ask why the wealth in the US is so unequally divided, you can say that you helped make the disparity even more drastic...that your politics helped to accelerate the demise of what remained of a once thriving middle class. The beginning of the end of the growth of the US middle class began with this, in 1946....Ron Paul offers no solutions to any of what follows:</h3>

http://hnn.us/articles/1036.html

10-14-02
How Did the Taft-Hartley Act Come About?
By Steven Wagner

Mr. Wagner, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor of History, Department of Social Science, Missouri Southern State College.

The Taft-Hartley Act was a major revision of the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 (the Wagner Act) and represented the first major revision of a New Deal act passed by a post-war Congress. So, in order to understand the Taft-Hartley Act, one must begin with the Wagner Act. The Wagner Act was the most important labor law in American history. It gave a major impetus to labor organizations and earned the nickname "labor's bill of rights." It covered all firms and employees in activities affecting interstate commerce except government employees, agricultural workers, and those subject to the Railway Labor Act. It gave workers the right to organize and join labor unions, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and to strike. It also set up the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), an independent federal agency with three members appointed by the president, to administer the act and gave it the power to certify that a union represented a particular group of employees.

The Wagner Act also forbade employers from engaging in five types of labor practices: interfering with or restraining employees exercising their right to organize and bargain collectively; attempting to dominate or influence a labor union; refusing to bargain collectively and in "good faith" with unions representing their employees; and, finally, encouraging or discouraging union membership through any special conditions of employment or through discrimination against union or non-union members in hiring. This last provision, in effect, permitted closed and union shops (a closed shop is when an employer agrees to hire only union members and a union shop is when an employer agrees to require anyone hired to join the union). There were no provisions in the Wagner Act that prohibited union practices that Congress might deem unfair. Another omission, according to the act's opponents, was a provision that would allow the government to delay or block a strike that threatened national interests.

In the mid-term elections of 1946, <h3>the Republican Party won control of the upcoming Eightieth Congress, gaining majorities in both houses for the first time since 1931. The "Class of 1946," as the first-term Republicans were called, was dominated by members of the conservative "old guard":</h3> John Bricker of Ohio, William Jenner of Indiana, William Knowland of California, George Malone of Nevada, Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin, Arthur Watkins of Utah, John Williams of Delaware, Richard Nixon of California, Karl Mundt of South Dakota, and Charles Kersten of Wisconsin. These freshmen congressmen were eager to overturn as much New Deal legislation as possible and one of their first priorities was to amend the Wagner Act.

On June 23, 1947, the Republican-controlled Congress passed, over President Truman's veto, the Labor-Management Relations Act of 1947 (The Taft-Hartley Act, co-sponsored by Republican Senators Robert Taft of Ohio and Fred Hartley of New Jersey). The Taft-Hartley Act retained the features of the earlier Wagner Act but added to it in ways widely interpreted as anti-labor. Labor leaders dubbed it a "slave labor" bill and twenty-eight Democratic members of Congress declared it a "new guarantee of industrial slavery.....

(Page 148) http://www.roiw.org/1974/143.pdf

"In Table 4 the assets of the super rich are shown as a percent of the personally
held wealth of all individuals in mid-year 1969. The super rich accounted for 4 percent
of the population age 20 and over, but they owned 33 percent of the net worth
of all persons. The share of particular assets held by the super rich varies a great
deal, however. For instance, they held virtually all of the personally held value of
corporate and foreign bonds and of notes and mortgages. The fact that the estimates
exceed 100 percent of some national balance sheet totals is conceptually
impossible but statistically plausible. First, there is a sampling error associated
with the estimation method. Secondly, assets in the national balance sheets are
subject to measurement error. Under these circumstances, it would not be unusual
to find estimates which exceed 100 percent for small balance sheet assets which are
narrowly held.
The super rich owned 23 percent of the value of all real estate and 52 percent
of the value of all personally held corporate stock, according to conservative
estimates."

(Page 172) http://www.roiw.org/1974/143.pdf
TABLE 16
<h3>FINAL ADJUSTMENT: SHARE OF THE SUPER RICH IN NATIONAL WEALTH. 1969</h3>
--
..........................................................Share Held
..............................................................by
Asset............. The Super Rich..... All Persons....... Super Rich
.......................billions $ ........ billions $ ........ %
Real estate.............. 324.7 .......... 1,187.0 .......... 27.4
Corporate stock ......... 494.8 ............ 781.3 .......... 63.3
State and local bonds..... 20.7 ............. 26.4 .......... 78.4
Corporate and foreign bonds 13.2 ............. 9.4 ......... 140.4
Savings bonds ............. 15.8 ............ 51.1 .......... 30.9
Other federal bonds ....... 23.1 ............ 31.1 .......... 74.3
Notes and mortgages ....... 49.2 ............ 35.3 ......... 139.4
Cash ..................... 155.3 ........... 476.2 .......... 32.6
Business assets ........... 67.8 ........... 171.6 .......... 39.5
Other assets .............. 86.4 ........... 745.5 .......... 11.6

Total assets............. 1,251.0 ........ 3,514.8 .......... 35.6
Debts ..................... 107.5 .......... 424.6 .......... 25.2
Net worth ............... 1,144.0 ........ 3,090.2 .......... 37.0

Notes: Starting with "After Adjustment" figures from Table 15, the following final
adjustments were made here:
1. One-half of lifetime transfers have been excluded. The remaining lifetime
transfers have been distributed proportionately by asset type.
2. All assets have been adjusted upward by

(Page 173) http://www.roiw.org/1974/143.pdf

3. The new asset estimates were then compared to national balance sheet
estimates for all persons to determine the share of the nation's personal
wealth in the hands of the super rich.
On the basis of all the adjustments it is concluded that the super rich constituted
4 percent of the adult population in 1969. They owned over a quarter of
the nation's real estate, three-fifths of all privately held corporate stock, four-fifths
of the state and local bonds, two-fifths of the business assets (excluding business
real estate), a third of the cash, and virtually all of the notes, mortgages and foreign
and corporate bonds. Only in the case of miscellaneous assets-which include
consumer durables-and the cash surrender value of annuities and life insurance
contracts, was their share (12 percent) even close to the proportion of the adult
population they represented. <h3>They owned 36 percent of private gross assets and
37 percent of the net worth of all persons.</h3>
After subtracting their debts, the super rich were worth over a trillion dollars,
enough to have purchased the entire national output of the United States plus the
combined output of Switzerland, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden in 1969....

http://www.dollarsandsense.org/archi...704miller.html
Ronald Reagan's Legacy
His destructive economic policies do not deserve the press's praise.

John Miller

....Two days after his death, the Wall Street Journal ran a lengthy editorial tribute to Ronald Reagan, in the editors' estimation the most important president since FDR. In their paean to the fortieth president, Reagan gets credit for everything from winning the Cold War to renewing a sense of optimism at home. Oh, and he gets extra kudos for doing it all with that famously sunny disposition.

On economic policy, <h3>as the Journal tells the story, by tying the hands of meddlesome government bureaucrats and cutting taxes, Reaganomics ignited an episode of miraculous economic growth that restored prosperity to the U.S. economy</h3>. But like much of what Reagan had to say while he was president, what the Journal offers is just so much happy talk that masks a mean-spirited, economically unsound, and socially destructive policy agenda. ...

...Today, the average real earnings of nonsupervisory workers remain far below those of 30 years ago, despite healthy wage gains in the second half of the 1990s expansion, when unemployment rates dropped toward 4%.

Nor did Reagan era growth do much to alleviate poverty. The poverty rate in 1989 at the end of Reagan's two terms was still 12.8%. That was just one percentage point lower than at beginning of his administration. In contrast, the 1990s boom knocked three percentage points off the nation's poverty rate, while the 1960s boom nearly cut it in half.

Reagan administration economic policies did not result in a 1960s-style prosperity, when workers' real wages went up in tandem with the value of stock holdings—just the opposite. Since 1980, the gains from U.S. economic growth have gone overwhelmingly to the well-to-do, and economic inequality has steadily worsened. By 2000, the ratio of the family income of the top 5% to that of the bottom 20% stood at 19.1, a dramatic rise over the 1979 ratio of 11.4. Reagan's economic policies ushered in the return of levels of inequality unseen since the eve of the Great Depression. ....

...But what about the particulars of Reaganonomics (or supply-side economics), which in practice meant large tax cuts targeted at the rich, a military buildup, and slashing social spending? That too is a disturbing story.

The tax cuts came in 1981, Reagan's first year in office. The administration's plan slashed corporate and individual income tax rates, with the biggest cut in the top rate. The Reagan team promised that their tax cuts would jolt the economy back to life because, as the Wall Street Journal's editors put it, "high taxes interfere with natural human creativity and drive." And the true believers went so far as to suggest that the economy would grow fast enough that tax revenues would actually rise, making the tax cuts painless.

The results never came close to measuring up to the supply-side rhetoric. For starters, the tax cuts busted the federal budget. The federal deficit ballooned from 2.7% of GDP in 1980 to 6% of GDP in 1983, the largest peacetime deficit in history, and was still 5% of GDP in 1986. Tax revenues did pick up, especially after the 1983 payroll tax increase kicked in, reducing the deficit somewhat.....

.....Worse yet, most low-income taxpayers missed out on the Reagan tax cuts. The bottom 40% of households paid out more of their income in federal taxes in 1988 than they had in 1980. Increases in the payroll taxes that finance Social Security and Medicare, which made up a far higher portion of their federal tax bill than income taxes, swamped what little benefit these taxpayers received from lower income tax rates. For the richest 1%, on the other hand, the Reagan tax cuts were pure elixir. This group saw their effective federal tax rate drop from 34.6% to 29.7%, according to a recent study conducted by the Congressional Budget Office. As these numbers suggest, Reagan left a far less progressive federal tax code than he found.

While the Reagan military buildup kept overall government spending from shrinking, Reagan's budgets slashed social spending. Domestic discretionary spending, which includes just about all nondefense spending outside of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, was the special target of Reagan's budget cutting. Relative to the size of the economy, one-third of domestic discretionary spending disappeared: it fell from 4.7% of GDP in 1980 to 3.1% in 1988. Hardest hit were programs for low-income Americans, which in real terms suffered a withering 54% cut in federal spending from 1981 to 1988. After correcting for inflation, subsidized housing lost 80.7% of its support, training and employment services 68.3%, and housing assistance for the elderly 47.1%. These programs have never returned to their pre-Reagan spending levels. In fact, under the Clinton administration spending on domestic discretionary programs continued to decline relative to the size of the economy.

Reagan's economic legacy endures. Government continues to turn its back on social spending for the poor in favor of ineffectual tax giveaways for the rich, at same time that it finds unlimited monies for military adventures. Lopsided economic growth showers benefits on stock investors while doing precious little for workers or—not an entirely separate group—the poor. And today's Depression-level inequality is not mitigated as much as it once was by the tax code ......

<h3>...and 35 years later.... the top 5 percent own 58.9 percent of everything, vs. the top 4 percent owing 37 percent of US wealth in 1969....</h3>

http://www.faculty.fairfield.edu/fac...ome&wealth.htm
The Distribution of Wealth in America


There is very little data about the distribution of wealth in America. There is one source, <a href="http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/oss/oss2/scfindex.html">the Survey of Consumer Finances</a>, sponsored by the Federal Reserve Board, that does provide data from 1983.

<img src="http://www.faculty.fairfield.edu/faculty/hodgson/Courses/so11/stratification/WealthIncome07.gif">

<img src="http://www.faculty.fairfield.edu/faculty/hodgson/Courses/so11/stratification/Wealth83_04.gif">

http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/bp195
September 3, 2007 | EPI Briefing Paper #195

Economy's Gains Fail to Reach Most Workers' Paychecks

by Jared Bernstein and Lawrence Mishel

Research assistance from James Lin

....Conclusion

Most workers have relatively little to show in terms of real wage and income gains over this recovery. The real wage of the typical male worker, for example, is up only 1% since 2000 and not at all since 2003. Even a broader measure like real average compensation has risen less than 1% per year and has barely budged since 2003. As of 2006, the median income of working-age families (those headed by someone less than 65) was down -4.2% in real terms over the cycle, a loss of -$2,375 (2006 dollars). Poverty, at 12.3%, remains 1.0 percentage point above its 2000 trough. ....

....When examined closely, the wage findings tell an important story about whso has and who lacks the bargaining power to benefit from today's economy. Economic elites talk up the economy, with bullish references to GDP, productivity, and job growth. But just whose economy are they talking about?

Clearly, policy makers need to focus much more attention on real wage trends, inequality, and the productivity/wage gap. A central goal of economic policy must be to reconnect the living standards of the workers embodied in the tables and charts to the growth in the overall economy (see www.sharedprosperity.org). That will not occur simply because we wish it to, nor will it arise automatically from faster overall growth. It will be the result of deliberate policies to build institutions and mechanisms that enable working persons to claim their fair share of the growth they themselves are helping to create......

~Bush has stacked the National Labor Relations BOard with anti union/anti worker POS appointees such as...KIrsanow. Instead of protecting workers rights, the agenda is to eliminate them:

http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/lab...rbs-decis.html

......The majority stated that it wasn't questioning the legality of voluntary recognition; however, <h3>this case is one of a growing line of decisions in which the Board has repeatedly undermined and questioned the validity of such recognition.</h3> The Board bases its decision on the need "to provide greater protection for employees’ statutory right of free choice and to give proper effect to the court- and Board-recognized statutory preference for resolving questions concerning representation through a Board secret-ballot election."

Members Liebman and Walsh vehemently disagree with the majority's reasoning, as stated in the opening of their dissent:

Sadly, today’s decision will surely enhance already serious disenchantment with the Act’s ability to protect the right of employees to engage in collective bargaining. As the majority recognizes, the Board’s task in these cases is to balance the Act’s twin interests in promoting stable bargaining relationships and employee free choice. But the appropriate balance was struck 40 years ago, in Keller Plastics, and nothing in the majority's decision justifies its radical departure from that well-settled, judicially approved precedent. The voluntary recognition bar, as consistently applied for the past four decades, promotes both interests: it honors the free choice already exercised by a majority of unit employees, while promoting stable bargaining relationships. By contrast, the majority's decision subverts both interests: it subjects the will of the majority to that of a 30 percent minority, and destabilizes nascent bargaining relationships. In addition, the majority's view fails to give sufficient weight to the role of voluntary recognition in national labor policy and to the effect of existing unfair labor practice sanctions to remedy the problems the majority claims to see.

Among the dissent's many objections to the majority's reasoning is that the window period is "a “Catch 22” for the union. [T]he knowledge that an election petition may be filed gives the employer little incentive to devote time and attention to bargaining during the first 45 days following recognition. Yet, if unit employees perceive that nothing is being accomplished in that initial bargaining, it stands to reason that they may be more likely to sign an election petition and even, ultimately, to vote against the union—even if they previously had supported it." As the dissent notes, this pressure on the union to produce results against a recalcitrant employer, while having to fear a quick decert petition is what the recognition bar is supposed to avoid.

<h3>I support the idea of maximizing employee free choice and the advantages of a free and fair election. However, I find the Board's use of these ideas to be disingenuous. The current majority has done nothing to rectify the obvious imbalance that exists in Board-run elections; to the contrary, they seem intent on minimizing employee choice whenever it is to the employers' advantage.</h3>........

Bush bypassed senate confirmation with three NLRB appointments, as he stacks the deck against workers rights on a mediation board existing to protect them:
(The NLRB was manned by statuatory five members when Bush took office....)

http://traditionallaborlaw.blogspot....intention.html

Thursday, September 01, 2005
President Bush Announces His Intention to Recess Appoint Peter C. Schaumber to the NLRB

On August 31, President Bush announced his intention to recess appoint Peter C. Schaumber, of the District of Columbia, to be a Member of the National Labor Relations Board, for the remainder of a five-year term expiring on August 27, 2010.

Schaumber's first term expired this past Saturday, August 27. With that expiration, the Board was reduced to just two Members. As reported in the Daily Labor Report, the Board had announced that it would take the unprecedented action of issuing decisions with only two Members. By recess appointing Schaumber, the President avoids potential litigation over whether the Board has statutory authority to issue two-Member decisions.

http://archives.seattletimes.nwsourc...query=kirsanow
April 02, 2006
Distinctive politics set labor-board member apart

By Alison Grant

Newhouse News Service


....But it's distinctive politics rather than distinctive looks that have thrust Kirsanow into national view. The black Republican attorney and member of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission opposes affirmative-action programs as "loserhood" for blacks.

He backs school choice and private retirement accounts on the grounds that black men are cheated by Social Security because their life expectancy is shorter than that of whites. He says Ronald Reagan deserves a spot on Mount Rushmore for his transcendent achievements.

If the fragility of the South Dakota monument prevents adding another president, he says, the carving could go on Yosemite National Park's Half Dome. Such views helped ignite a battle royal when President Bush appointed Kirsanow to the Civil Rights Commission in 2002.

He was seated only after a federal appeals court ruled his appointment was valid. Now Bush has selected Kirsanow, 52, for another polarizing government body.

In January, Bush recess-appointed him to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), which oversees union elections and works to prevent and remedy unfair labor practices. Labor lawyers had tried mightily to derail his nomination.....


http://www.jimhightower.com/node/6214
LABOR LAW LAWBREAKER
Monday, September 17, 2007

The Bush regime is so hostile to the rights of labor that Bush’s own National Labor Relations Board is refusing to obey our nation’s labor laws.

The NLRB –the agency responsible for protecting employee rights – is flagrantly violating the bargaining rights of its own employees. Here’s the story: In 2005, NLRB employees petitioned an administrative law authority for the right to organize themselves into a union bargaining unit within the labor agency. NLRB officials opposed this, but the authority ruled in favor of the employees.

Having jumped through all the legal hoops and been certified, the union set out to bargain with NLRB management – but the labor agency’s top officials refused! The union went back to the authority, which investigated the situation and has now ruled that the NLRB is in violation of federal law. That should have been that, but Bush’s hand-picked head of the labor rights agency, Ronald Meisburg, said to hell with labor rights. He is contemptuously refusing to bargain with the employees.

Meisburg is pulling a stall tactic that corporate violators routinely use, hoping to outlast the unionizing effort. By defying the ruling, he is forcing the issue into federal courts – a process that he smugly estimates will delay any bargaining past the expiration of his term in 2010.

Will it surprise you to learn that the guy Bush chose to protect the rights of workers from corporate abuse has spent most of his career in service to corporate employers that seek to undermine workers rights? Corporate bias is one thing, but this is lawlessness! By blatantly violating the rights of NLRB employees, Meisburg is signaling to all employers that contempt of labor laws is OK – go ahead and stiff workers with impunity.

When the law enforcer becomes the law breaker, he’s not fit for the job. To demand Meisburg’s ouster, call the senate labor committee: 202-224-5375

“We Demand the Resignation of General Counsel Meisburg,” National Labor Relations Board Union Flyer

“Law Enforcer is a Law Breaker: FLRA Issues Complaint Against Labor Board,” National Labor Relations Board Union press release, August 19, 2007

“Federal Union Demands Resignation of Labor Board Boss Ronald Meisburg,” National Labor Relations Board Union press release, August 15, 2007

“Complaint and Notice of Hearing,” Case No. WA-CA-07-0501 United States of America Before the Federal Labor Relations Authority San Francisco Region, August 15, 2007

“NLRB General Counsel Ronald E. Meisburg,” www.lawmemo.com

“Bush Nominates Anti-Union Lawyer to NLRB,” www.truthout.org, November 18, 2005

“Help Labor Stop Bush NLRB Assault on Workers’ Rights,”
www.truthout.org, June 26, 2006

The choice you are facing is a simple one.....you can either vote for candidates committed to taxing back from the rich...what they have paid lobbyist and bribes to take from the rest of us for the past sixty years....remove their stranglehold on the government and force government to work for the rest of us...as it has in France, Denmark, Sweden, and to some extent....in Canada.....or you can back Ron Paul or republicans committed to "smaller government"....a euphemism for looking the other way while the wealthiest complete their union/middle class busting agenda...it's that simple. Why do the wealthiest ten pecent.....even in Canada.....own only thirty percent of total national assets....but more than 70 percent in the US?

Is it because you've allowed the weakthy to divide you...to appeal to your ego and individualism.....because....someday.....you'll be wealthy and you won't want to be heavily taxed.... Someday....the wealthiest will own 90 percent of total US wealth, there will be no unionized employees....and your grandchildren will be serfs...because you bought the BS of conservatives and libertarian-constitutionalists. The weakthy chucjke softly to themselves as the listen to you yearn for a Neil Boortz described, libertarian "utopia". It's bullshit. Government and tazation are there for a populist wave to take control of and reverse this decline. The French and the Swedes don't permit their rich to own their government.....why do you want to give it away? FEMA functioned during the '90's...only the management was changed....Ron Paul offers nothing to the overwhelming majority in the US.....the 90 percent who own less than thirty percent of all US wealth......

[ubertuber]

Host, can you comment on Ron Paul's specific policies? To characterize him simply as Reaganesque is kind of blunt and well...inaccurate. In particular I'm curious to know your thoughts on his position viz the Fed, gold standard, etc.

[samcol]

Host, I like how you equate Ron Paul to the Republican party. When you know he's a libertarian and his entire party has practically disowned him. Tom Delay even gerrymanderded his district to try and let a Democrat win against him.

Ever notice how as our government has gotten bigger the wealth consolidation has gotten worse not better? Not the other way around....

And once again I'm not voting for your failed party like you said to do in 04,06, and now 08. They are just as bad as the other Republicans thank you very much.

Your articles have nothing to do with Ron Paul and are a failed attmept at smearing him.

[rlbond86]

Originally Posted by samcol

Host, I like how you equate Ron Paul to the Republican party. When you know he's a libertarian and his entire party has practically disowned him. Tom Delay even gerrymanderded his district to try and let a Democrat win against him.

Ever notice how as our government has gotten bigger the wealth consolidation has gotten worse not better? Not the other way around....

And once again I'm not voting for your failed party like you said to do in 04,06, and now 08. They are just as bad as the other Republicans thank you very much.

Your articles have nothing to do with Ron Paul and are a failed attmept at smearing him.

Here's the thing though. Ron Paul believes in deregulation of pretty much everything. Maybe he has faith that big businesses will be good and not abuse this deregulation but I do not believe it for one second. He wants to basically eliminate the federal government. Guess what? Now we've got the EU only with 50 states. Some states will just stop repairing their roads with no federal funds. Some states' education systems will go to shambles (worse than they are now). Flu shots? Some states might not offer them because there are not federal subsidies. Most research done for the US is funded by the government -- biomedical, electronic, chemical -- universities would be unable to conduct research, and that is BAD -- really bad. Imagine if we hadn't invented the Nuke during WWII because research was unfunded -- if we hadn't split the atom, or hadn't researched DNA.

You can't eliminate the federal government, and this is exactly what RP wants to do. It's insane and will surely destroy everything this country is. That is why I do not support Ron Paul, and frankly if anyone looks over his positions and still supports him, I think they're missing a few screws. He's just a stupid internet fad.

[sprocket]

Originally Posted by samcol

Host, I like how you equate Ron Paul to the Republican party. When you know he's a libertarian and his entire party has practically disowned him. Tom Delay even gerrymanderded his district to try and let a Democrat win against him.

Ever notice how as our government has gotten bigger the wealth consolidation has gotten worse not better? Not the other way around....

And once again I'm not voting for your failed party like you said to do in 04,06, and now 08. They are just as bad as the other Republicans thank you very much.

Your articles have nothing to do with Ron Paul and are a failed attmept at smearing him.

I agree.

Paul is the only candidate even mentioning the devaluation of the dollar.

Hes the only one that is even acknowledging the out of control spending, and borrowing from the fed, which drives inflation. The inflation tax hits the poor hardest of all. His policies are much more sound that your modern republican who wants to slash taxes for political gain, while spending even more and borrowing a whole lot more, all the while refusing to raise minimum wage... meanwhile the dollar continues to deflate.

[Willravel]

Kuchinch has discussed the dollar several times, and he's polling around the same as Paul. But hey, he doesn't have fanatical supporters or an internet presence. Of course, as far as we know the internet means jack.

[samcol]

Originally Posted by willravel

Kuchinch has discussed the dollar several times, and he's polling around the same as Paul. But hey, he doesn't have fanatical supporters or an internet presence. Of course, as far as we know the internet means jack.

$5 million cash on hand. Why can't other candidates get this kind of rabid support if their message is so great? Maybe it's the message itself Will.

Ron Paul didn't go looking to the internet for supporters, the internet found him. No other candidates are achieving this kind of spontaneous support.

[Ustwo]

Interestingly about 3 weeks ago Ron Paul signs showed up in at least my part of the state.

They are the only political signs out or about at this time and they are on about every street corner, including hand made ones over a couple of viaducts.

[Willravel]

His supporters understand viral marketing better. His tiny baseline in the beginning was simply better at running a campaign. He's been able to take advantage of the first real eCampaign.It's got less to do with his message, which is actually quite mad, and more to do with advertising buzz stances, like those on the Fed and net neutrality. As DC and now host have pointed out, and I even chimed in a bit, his policies are too libertarian to make the country better. He's a fanatical libertarian.

As for support, Hillary will win the 2008 election against Googliani. It's not what most people want (I'd be a bit happier with Obama, and much happier with Kucinich, obviously), but it's the reality.

[Ustwo]

Originally Posted by willravel

(I'd be a bit happier with Obama, and much happier with Kucinich, obviously), .

Kucinich couldn't even handle being a major. Do you WANT to bankrupt the US?

[Willravel]

Originally Posted by Ustwo

Kucinich couldn't even handle being a major. Do you WANT to bankrupt the US?

We're already bankrupt. We've been that way for a while. That doesn't stop the conservatives from spending billions, of course.

[samcol]

Originally Posted by rlbond86

Here's the thing though. Ron Paul believes in deregulation of pretty much everything. Maybe he has faith that big businesses will be good and not abuse this deregulation but I do not believe it for one second. He wants to basically eliminate the federal government. Guess what? Now we've got the EU only with 50 states. Some states will just stop repairing their roads with no federal funds. Some states' education systems will go to shambles (worse than they are now). Flu shots? Some states might not offer them because there are not federal subsidies. Most research done for the US is funded by the government -- biomedical, electronic, chemical -- universities would be unable to conduct research, and that is BAD -- really bad. Imagine if we hadn't invented the Nuke during WWII because research was unfunded -- if we hadn't split the atom, or hadn't researched DNA.

You can't eliminate the federal government, and this is exactly what RP wants to do. It's insane and will surely destroy everything this country is. That is why I do not support Ron Paul, and frankly if anyone looks over his positions and still supports him, I think they're missing a few screws. He's just a stupid internet fad.

NEWS FLASH: RON PAUL IS NOT FOR ELIMINATING THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
The federal government has certain powers, all Ron Paul says is maybe they should only do what they have the power to do. I guess that's extreme radicalism nowadays. Maybe I'm with Al Qaida or should be given meds I dunno...

The Federal Government has the authority to create postal roads. Since you apparently have never read it, or maybe think we should just abolish it, here's a section from the constitution that says what the Congress CAN do.

Section 8 - Powers of Congress

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

To borrow money on the credit of the United States;

To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;

To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;

To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;

To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;

To establish Post Offices and Post Roads;

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court;

To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offenses against the Law of Nations;

To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;

To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

To provide and maintain a Navy;

To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;

To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings; And

To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.

I think you're missing a few screws for your continued supporter of candidates who cannot follow these simple instructions. If they can't/won't follow these simple instructions, what makes you think they will follow any other rule of law or procedures?

[filtherton]

It's been my experience, and it isn't in reference to anyone here in particular, that there are many ron paul supporters who have very little awareness about what the man is actually about. Generally it's a matter of, "Oh snap, he wants to abolish the income tax? Sign me up," or, "Wait. A republican who believes in fiscal responsibility? Ha! What a novelty- he has my vote."

They're usually a little dumbstruck when it comes up that he wants to abolish the fcc. They generally think its a good idea initially, because, you know, the fcc won't let you say "fuck" on network television. Then when you tell them that the fcc is also largely responsible for the fact that you can get only one station on your radio per frequency or the fact that your toaster doesn't intefere with your cell phone reception you kind of get a sideways look, and then the conversation ends. And that about sums up the lot of them for me.

[Willravel]

Originally Posted by filtherton

It's been my experience, and it isn't in reference to anyone here in particular, that there are many ron paul supporters who have very little awareness about what the man is actually about. Generally it's a matter of, "Oh snap, he wants to abolish the income tax? Sign me up," or, "Wait. A republican who believes in fiscal responsibility? Ha! What a novelty- he has my vote."

They're usually a little dumbstruck when it comes up that he wants to abolish the fcc. They generally think its a good idea initially, because, you know, the fcc won't let you say "fuck" on network television. Then when you tell them that the fcc is also largely responsible for the fact that you can get only one station on your radio per frequency or the fact that your toaster doesn't intefere with your cell phone reception you kind of get a sideways look, and then the conversation ends. And that about sums up the lot of them for me.

Quoted for truth. This is an excellent summation.

[sprocket]

Originally Posted by willravel

His supporters understand viral marketing better. His tiny baseline in the beginning was simply better at running a campaign. He's been able to take advantage of the first real eCampaign.It's got less to do with his message, which is actually quite mad, and more to do with advertising buzz stances, like those on the Fed and net neutrality. As DC and now host have pointed out, and I even chimed in a bit, his policies are too libertarian to make the country better. He's a fanatical libertarian.

As for support, Hillary will win the 2008 election against Googliani. It's not what most people want (I'd be a bit happier with Obama, and much happier with Kucinich, obviously), but it's the reality.

Actually, his stance on Net Neutrality probably hurts more than helps when it comes to the internet/tech savvy crowd. His stance is, or course, opposed to federal regulation on the issue, which is the complete opposite stance from the majority of the internet crowd from which he has so much support. He's lost more than a few followers on this issue, I would bet. I'm of the opinion, that status quo has worked so far, and the amount of outrage over the suggestion of a tiered internet from ATT has pushed the idea out of the realm of possibility (for now).

It's been my experience, and it isn't in reference to anyone here in particular, that there are many ron paul supporters who have very little awareness about what the man is actually about. Generally it's a matter of, "Oh snap, he wants to abolish the income tax? Sign me up," or, "Wait. A republican who believes in fiscal responsibility? Ha! What a novelty- he has my vote."

I dont think thats the case at all...

They're usually a little dumbstruck when it comes up that he wants to abolish the fcc. They generally think its a good idea initially, because, you know, the fcc won't let you say "fuck" on network television. Then when you tell them that the fcc is also largely responsible for the fact that you can get only one station on your radio per frequency or the fact that your toaster doesn't intefere with your cell phone reception you kind of get a sideways look, and then the conversation ends. And that about sums up the lot of them for me.

The FCC is a perfect example of a bureaucracy that has fallen prey to regulatory capture... monopolistic telcos and the FCC are great buddies working together for their own benefit, to the detriment of the free market and the country as a whole. As a professional in the IT industry, I am onboard for FCC abolition.


Here's a nice article on the issue: http://www.news.com/2010-1028-5226979.html

The original justification for existence of the FCC was to rein in an unruly marketplace. That thinking dates back to the 1920s, when Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover, an engineer by training, was worried about the unregulated new industry of broadcasting. Hundreds of radio stations had been launched, and the only requirement was that they register with the Commerce Department.

Conflicts began to arise. The Navy complained of the "turbulent condition of radio communication." But courts were already undertaking the slow but careful common-law method of crafting a set of rules for the new medium. An Illinois state court decided in 1926, for instance, that Chicago broadcaster WGN had the right to a disputed slice of spectrum, because "priority of time creates a superiority in right."

But Hoover and Congress didn't give the courts a chance. The Radio Act of 1927, followed by the Communications Act of 1934, gave the FCC unlimited power to assign frequencies, approve broadcasters' power levels and revoke licenses on a whim. The FCC already enjoyed the power to regulate telephone lines and eventually would accumulate the authority to regulate cable as well.

Abolishing the FCC does not mean airwave anarchy.
If the FCC had been in charge of overseeing the Internet, we'd likely be waiting for the Mosaic Web browser to receive preliminary approval from the Wireline Competition Bureau.
What it means is returning to bottom-up law rather than the top-down process that has characterized telecommunications for the last 80 years.

[filtherton]

Originally Posted by sprocket

I dont think thats the case at all...

So you doubt my ability to relay my experiences?

The FCC is a perfect example of a bureaucracy that has fallen prey to regulatory capture... monopolistic telcos and the FCC are great buddies working together for their own benefit, to the detriment of the free market and the country as a whole.

So are the USDA and the US Forest Service and the FDA. That doesn't mean that they should be abolished, it means that they need to be purged. I realize that the fcc isn't perfect, and i'd prefer to see it retooled, but even for all its flaws, it does do a useful thing or two.

[host]

Originally Posted by filtherton

So you doubt my ability to relay my experiences?



So are the USDA and the US Forest Service and the FDA. That doesn't mean that they should be abolished, it means that they need to be purged. I realize that the fcc isn't perfect, and i'd prefer to see it retooled, but even for all its flaws, it does do a useful thing or two.

In the 1930's...the reaction to extreme wealth concentration made sense...elect leadership that would use government as the wealthy elite had....to work for it's interests...but this time....to make government work in the interests of the people. Now we have a movement championed by the followers of Ron Paul....to make a minimalist government that ends progressive taxation and aggressive collection....allowing the wealthiest to keep what they've already taken when they controlled the government....the large portion of all existing assets....<h3>Way to go...Ron Paul supporters....way to go.....</h3>

ONE mo' TIME....THE WEALTHIEST ARE RAPING YOU OF YOUR FAIR SHARE OF THE PIE....ALL THE WAY BACK TO 1946....you have been manipulated into believing that "government doesn't work"...it works fine for Mr. Bush's wealthy patrons....their agenda of "change" is what gave them huge tax cuts and increased your US Treasury debt from $5.65 trillion in 2001 to $9 trillion, now.

<h3>Whether Ron Paul is a republican, a consitutionalist, or a libertarian is irrelevant.</h3> He is not committed to progressive taxation with high top tax rates on the highest incomes, and he is not a strong advocate for union organizing or enforcement of labor laws and OSHA, or for innovative new measures to use government to reverse the concentration of wealth in so few hands.

Ron Paul will receive few votes because he does not address the inequality of wealth distribution in the US. John Edwards does address and offer tepid solutions to the problem. The problem is at a critical stage, yet no one wants to talk about it. Will we wait until it's effects trigger the rise of a US "Hugo Chavez"....or will we advocate for a populist, pro-union, pro consumer pro middle class, political agenda?

We have the superior numbers..(why do you think the DOJ concentrated on suppressing the vote ?)..we can vote in a leadership that will act in our interests....your reaction to the following, is to vote for Ron Paul....a candidate who wants smaller government...wants to abolish tha IRS and the progressive income tax that featured a top tax rate, when Reagan took office in 1981....of 70 percent on only the highest incomes. That tax rate was "reformed", and it led to the following disparity. Ron Paul and you want even more of it....

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogsp...y-incomes.html

Falling Family Incomes

...Not only has mean real income fallen, it has fallen disproportionately on those aged 44 and under. <H3>Median income has also fallen for those aged 44 and under even though it has risen slightly across all age groups.....

....Net worth in the period 1995-1998 and 1991-2001 dramatically outpaced the rise from 2001-2004. Those in the 35-44 age group have less real net worth than the same age group did in 1998.</H3> That is negative real net worth over a 6 year period for a group of wage earners that should be nearing their peak earning years.....

The Rich Get Richer

A <A HREF="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/02/24/business/main1342205.shtml">CBS news article</A> on falling family incomes notes the discrepancy between the haves and the have nots.

The gap between the very wealthy and other income groups widened during the period.

The top 10 percent of households saw their net worth rise by 6.1 percent to an average of $3.11 million while the bottom 25 percent suffered a decline from a net worth in which their assets equaled their liabilities in 2001 to owing $1,400 more than their total assets in 2004.

"This is the continuing story of the rich getting richer," said David Wyss, chief economist at Standard & Poor's in New York. "Clearly, the gains in wealth are going to the top end.".....


The Gini Index

Stephen Roach hit the nail on the head on March 3rd with <A HREF="http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/HD26Dj01.html">Globalization's New Underclass</A>.

Billed as the great equalizer between the rich and the poor, globalization has been anything but. An increasingly integrated global economy is facing the strains of widening income disparities -- within countries and across countries. This has given rise to a new and rapidly expanding underclass that is redefining the political landscape. The growing risks of protectionism are an outgrowth of this ominous trend.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Globalization has long been portrayed as the rising tide that lifts all boats. The surprise is in the tide -- a rapid surge of IT-enabled connectivity that has pushed the global labor arbitrage quickly up the value chain. Only the elite at the upper end of the occupational hierarchy have been spared the pressures of an increasingly brutal wage compression. The rich are, indeed, getting richer but the rest of the workforce is not. This spells mounting disparities in the income distribution -- for developed and developing countries, alike.

With per capita income of $38,000 and $1,700, respectively, the US and China are at opposite ends of the global income spectrum. Yet both countries have extreme disparities in the internal mix of their respective income distributions. This can be seen in their so-called Gini coefficients -- a statistical measure of the dispersion of income shares within a country. A Gini Index reading of “0” represents perfect equality, with each segment of the income distribution accounting for a proportionate share of total income. Conversely, a reading of “100” represents perfect inequality, with the bulk of a nation’s overall personal income being concentrated at the upper end of the distribution spectrum. In other words, the higher the Gini Index, the more unequal the income distribution. <H3>The latest Gini Index readings for the US (41) and China (45) are among the highest of all the major economies in the world -- pointing to a much greater incidence of inequality than in economies with more homogeneous distributions of income, such as Japan (25), Europe (32), and even India (33).

America’s Gini coefficient has been on the rise for over 35 years -- moving up from about 35 in 1970 to over 40 today. What is new is how America’s income distribution has become more unequal in a period of rapidly rising productivity growth -- a development that has been accompanied by an extraordinary bout of real wage stagnation over the past four years.</H3> Economics teaches us that in truly competitive labor markets such as America’s, workers are paid in accordance with their marginal productivity contribution. Yet that has not been the case for quite some time in the US. Over the past 16 quarters, productivity in the nonfarm US business sector has recorded a cumulative increase of 13.3% (or 3.3% per annum) -- more than double the 5.9% rise in real compensation per hour (stagnant wages plus rising fringe benefits) over the same period.

First in manufacturing, now in services, the global labor arbitrage has been unrelenting in pushing US pay rates down to international norms. But the real wage compression in the US has not been uniform across the income spectrum. In large part, that has occurred because increasingly broad segments of the American labor market are now exposed to a uniquely powerful competitive force -- the IT-enabled arbitrage. Courtesy of the hyper-speed of sharply accelerating Internet penetration, the global labor arbitrage has pushed into areas that historically have been unaccustomed to wage competition.

Unlike Treasury Secretary "Blue Skies No Snow" I see no reason for this to change. Corporate profits (and bonuses for the haves) soared with every outsourcing of jobs to India and China. Average Joe went deeper in debt while the CEOs and insiders made out like bandits on stock options. Average Joe lost his job at GM and Ford (or is about to) and will be happy to have a job at Walmart instead.

This recovery produced lots of firsts

* Negative Savings Rates
* Negative Real Wages
* Poor expansion of private sector jobs
* Rising Debt
* No Trickle Down Flows

All of the above can be attributed to an economy whose only real engine of growth was a strong housing sector fueled by low interest rates, ever lowering credit standards, cash out refis to support consumption, and rampant speculation.....


CEO Pay vs. the Average Employee

Those rising wage averages that we have seen have never been as skewed as that are today. Consider the following snip from a <A HREF="http://www.sec.gov/news/speech/spch021306rcc.htm">Speech by SEC Commissioner Roel C. Campos</A> on February 13, 2006.

In 1982, the ratio between chief executives and the average employee was 42:1. In 2004, the ratio of the average CEO pay to that of the average non-management worker in the US was 431:1. There is certainly no evidence that today's executives in the U.S. are 10 times better than twenty years ago. The US ratio far exceeds any international comparison, which remain closer to the historical average. Although internationally there has been a trend towards increased "US-style" pay, according to a 2001 report by management consultants Towers Perrin the same ratio in other heavily developed nations was 25:1 in the case of the UK, 16:1 in France, 11:1 in Germany and as low as 10:1 in Japan (as compared to 531:1 in the US in that same year).

Of course, one must recognize that some of the disparity has been due to governmental constraints such as the restriction on granting of stock options. In Japan and Korea, for example, it was not until 1997 that such restrictions were lifted. <h3>Even so, the 10:1 ratio in Japan versus the 531:1 ratio in the US in 2001 is stunning. ...</h3>

...the last time that the wealthiest were on the verge of owning too great a portion of total US wealth....this happened:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationa..._Relations_Act
....The Wagner-Connery Act — signed into law on July 5, 1935 — established a federal agency, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), with the power to investigate and decide on charges of unfair labor practices and to conduct elections in which workers would have the opportunity to decide whether they wanted to be represented by a union. The NLRB was given more extensive powers than the much weaker organization of the same name established under the National Industrial Recovery Act, which the United States Supreme Court had declared unconstitutional......

<h3>I SHOWED YOU IN MY LAST POST, THAT BUSH STACKED THE NLRB WITH ANTI LABOR FLUNKIES, USING SENATE RECESS APPOINTMENTS. BUSH'S PATRONS KNOW GOVERNMENT IS EFFECTIVE...SO THEY SABOTAGED THE MAKEUP OF THE NLRB....</h3>

Government can function...it can provide good programs....the coming wave of mortgage foreclosures justifies the need for programs like this. Study how and why it is so successful.....duplicate it....Ron Paul and his supporters are not interested:

http://www.nyc.gov/html/hpd/html/apa...ell-lama.shtml
What is Mitchell-Lama?
Created in 1955, the Mitchell-Lama program provides affordable rental and cooperative housing to moderate- and middle-income families.

There are 107 City-sponsored, moderate- and middle-income rental and limited-equity cooperative developments in New York City, which contain approximately 47,000 units. <h3>HPD supervises waiting lists</h3>, management issues, and has other oversight responsibilities for 81 Mitchell-Lama developments; an additional 26 developments have shared supervision by HPD and the Federal Department of Housing and Urban Development.

If he had not been assassinated in 1935, the man with this platform was planning to run for president in 1936. Your great grandfather's era, understandably fostered the rise of sentiments like this:

http://www.ssa.gov/history/hueyappend.html
Redistribution of Wealth

Congress provided that as a matter of national policy necessary for the preservation of the nation and its defense against foreign foes that the United States declare it against public policy for any family to have less than the comforts of home and of life, free of debt, and equal to at least the value of one-third the average American family wealth; that in order to guarantee such comforts and necessities of life to all the people, it was necessary that some reasonable limit be placed on the wealth which one person might own; and, accordingly, Congress declared that it was against the public policy of the United States for any one person to possess wealth in excess of one hundred times the average family fortune.

To bring about the redistribution of wealth, not only to give the comforts of home to the people, but to provide some of the revenue needed for expansion and improvement in

the United States, Congress imposed a capital levy tax to be levied every year on every fortune in the nation as follows:

(a) On all wealth owned by a person from 1 up to One Million Dollars, no capital tax levy, it being the policy of the law that for one to own up to a million dollars does no injury to the balance of the people having comforts of life.

(b) On all wealth which one owns above One Million Dollars and up to Two Million Dollars, a capital levy tax of 1% on the second million only.

(c) On all wealth which one owns above Two Million Dollars and up to Three Million Dollars, a capital levy tax of 2% on the third million.

(d) On all wealth which one owns above Three Million Dollars and up to Four Million Dollars, a tax of 4% on the fourth million.

(e) On all wealth which one owns above Four Million Dollars and up to Five Million Dollars, a tax of 8% on the fifth million.

(f) On all wealth which one owns above Five Million Dollars and up to Six Million Dollars, a tax of 16% on the sixth million.

(g) On all wealth which one owns above Six Million Dollars and up to Seven Million Dollars, a tax of 32% on the Seventh Million.(h) On all wealth which one owns above Seven Million Dollars and up to Eight Million Dollars, a tax of 64% on the eighth million.

(i) On all wealth which one owns above Eight Million Dollars, a tax of 99%.

Calculated by simple arithmetic the foregoing table meant that all fortunes would generally fall to a maximum limit of around Five Million Dollars to the person the first or second year, but gradually thereafter, the capital tax, being levied year after year, would reduce the largest fortune to from one to two millions of dollars.

Inasmuch as large quantities of properties could not be converted into cash to make an immediate payment, the person taxed was permitted to turn over property or cash in payment of the tax and was also allowed to pay the tax in installments.

The money and wealth thus raised for the government, under the surveys and plans arranged, was used first to supply the comforts of home and life to the masses up to a value equal to one-third of the average family wealth. The Congress provided that, in order to make such distribution of the properties turned into the United States in payment of the capital levy tax, that the Government should have the right to sell property, to transfer and exchange it for other property, to issue currency to be retired from sale and disposition of the government's properties, along the lines as followed in the Federal Land Bank financing.

<h3>The political platform of 1935 outlined above, was a rational reaction to the consolidation of wealth by the few, to the hardship of the many. It is extreme by today's standards....but it was understandable, given the conditions at the time..</h3>

<h2>Your support of candidate Paul...isn't...</h2>

<h3>Your reaction to the information displayed in this post's first quote box</h3>....backing a candidate such as Ron Paul....a man committed to making government irrelevant in the face of the only "real" political struggle...the one between the controlling elite vs. the rest of us...<h3>is an irrational one.</h3> You only have to study the equitable wealth distribution achievments of strong populist politcal power in France, Denmark, and Sweden, to confirm what I'm telling you.

Your candidate Paul, will do nothing to slow the trend of wealth concentration, and the result will be revolutionary and not without huge, avoidable misery.

[sprocket]

Host, I still don't really get the connections here... Any of the other candidates are going to improve the situation how exactly? If you subscribe to the philosophy of using income tax to equalize incomes, than I could see your point. I dont. From what I know of most of the other candidates, they will do nothing but increase income disparity, with continued spending and borrowing, driving up the inflation tax. (national health care? are you kidding me... nice idea.. no money).

Ron Paul doesn't want to abolish all regulation for the benefit of the super-rich. Its to give the states back their power to regulate. This will obviously create some competition between the states, but states will be free to experiment with new policy (drug policy would be a good example). As other states see what works and what doesn't, they refine and improve on what others have done. We all benefit.

In this scenario, each individual, including the poor, have a much bigger impact over the policies, regulations, and taxes in their locality.

Its not unleashing the reigns on big business so they have free for all on the unsuspecting public. Its giving the small fish a much smaller pond.

[rlbond86]

Originally Posted by sprocket

As other states see what works and what doesn't, they refine and improve on what others have done. We all benefit.

Do you really believe that? Honestly, in your heart, do you honestly believe this? Because, that is just rhetoric. It's not true. And you know it's not true. Some states would fuck up the education system, some would fuck up highway maintenance, California might let Hollywood stars get away with anything.

There is, in fact, NO REASON for states to compete. Why would they? Nobody is going to move to another state, where they have to find a new job, a new house, etc. What if you specialize in semiconductor fabrication? Well, you have to live in California. Aerospace engineering? Well, you'd better be in Illinois or Texas. People are, for the most part, stuck where their jobs are. States are not better-natured than the government. Now we just will have 51 really inefficient governments instead of 1 really inefficient government and 50 slightly less inefficient governments.

Saying "let the states do it" isn't a solution. It's a cop-out.

[Ustwo]

A true libertarian government would be the best thing to happen to this country, but that won't happen until after a revolution or two.

There comes a point where the money runs out and the takers out take the producers.

Fifteen years ago I thought 2050ish would be the time for this revolution, and I still think we are on track.

[filtherton]

Originally Posted by Ustwo

A true libertarian government would be the best thing to happen to this country, but that won't happen until after a revolution or two.

When has a revolution ever resulted in a stable, long term libertarian government?

[host]

Originally Posted by sprocket

Host, I still don't really get the connections here... Any of the other candidates are going to improve the situation how exactly? If you subscribe to the philosophy of using income tax to equalize incomes, than I could see your point. I dont. From what I know of most of the other candidates, they will do nothing but increase income disparity, with continued spending and borrowing, driving up the inflation tax. (national health care? are you kidding me... nice idea.. no money).

Ron Paul doesn't want to abolish all regulation for the benefit of the super-rich. Its to give the states back their power to regulate. This will obviously create some competition between the states, but states will be free to experiment with new policy (drug policy would be a good example). As other states see what works and what doesn't, they refine and improve on what others have done. We all benefit.

In this scenario, each individual, including the poor, have a much bigger impact over the policies, regulations, and taxes in their locality.

Its not unleashing the reigns on big business so they have free for all on the unsuspecting public. Its giving the small fish a much smaller pond.

...and Ustwo....the dark comedy....the farce...of a huge number of "have nots"....the vast bulk of us....engaging in violent revolution against the idea of a populist government....risking our lives to "achieve"...via revolution.... an indifferent, "every man for himself", libertarian ideal....is too ridiculous to contemplate....where do you obtain such delusional ideas?

...and sprocket, there is no peaceful, practical way to reverse wealth concentration.... <h3>(wealth buys political influence, negating the potenital of the populist voting superiority, if the people let themselves be fooled),</h3> ....other than by a progressive income tax. We achieved a strong middle class through two changes.....high progressive taxation....the momentum...choked off in 1946....

http://hnn.us/articles/1036.html
10-14-02
How Did the Taft-Hartley Act Come About?

...of strong, government protected unionism....union organzing. 1946 brought the "states rights" "Right to Work" "reform"....of Taft-Hartly.

If I'm wrong, why has Bush, winger "think tanks", and maggots like the John Olin foundation, spent so much money and political effort to bring down the labor supporting, NLRB?

Your politics, and Ron Pauls.....sprocket, have "it"...exactly backwards. You want to divide federal power of oversight and regulation....and distribute it "among the states".....that is a "divide and conquer" strategy that has not gone away since the populist progress in reaction to the Great Depression of the 1930's.....there is only one way to attempt to restore the US middle class, and John Edwards....however feebly...is the only candidate to even address it.....

We've lived through "States Rights" politics....it's a much harder political atmosphere to reform, than the current one. "Reform", as in populist...people prioritized change...the opposite of what Ron Paul's presidency would bring.
"States Rights"....aside from permitting segregation to be the local law until 1969, in Georgia schools, brought us the Union busting, "Right to Work"....which pitted the northern, closed shop states, against sunbelt states. North Carolina's state mandated "Right to Work", provided anincentive for manufacturers to leave northern states, and set up shop in a southern state with much lower wages and a workforce that was not union represented, and would do what it was told. Those manufacturers moved on to still lower wage Mexico, and from there....to Asia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-to-work_law
Right-to-work laws are statutes enforced in twenty-two U.S. States, allowed under provisions of the Taft-Hartley Act, which prohibit trade unions from making membership or payment of dues or "fees" a condition of employment, either before or after hire.

The Taft-Hartley Act

Prior to the passage of the Taft-Hartley Act by Congress over President Harry S. Truman's veto in 1947, unions and employers covered by the National Labor Relations Act could lawfully agree to a "closed shop," in which employees at unionized workplaces are required to be members of the union as a condition of employment. Under the law in effect before the Taft-Hartley amendments, an employee who ceased being a member of the union for whatever reason, from failure to pay dues to expulsion from the union as an internal disciplinary punishment, could also be fired even if the employee did not violate any of the employer's rules.

The Taft-Hartley Act outlaws the "closed shop." The Act, however, permits employers and unions to operate under a "union shop" rule, which requires all new employees to join the union after a minimum period after their hire. Under "union shop" rules, employers are obliged to fire any employees who have avoided paying membership dues necessary to maintain membership in the union; however, the union cannot demand that the employer discharge an employee who has been expelled from membership for any other reason.

A similar arrangement to the “union shop” is the “agency shop,” under which employees must pay the equivalent of union dues, but need not formally join such union.

Section 14(b) of the Taft-Hartley Act goes further and authorizes individual states (but not local governments, such as cities or counties) to outlaw the union shop and agency shop for employees working in their jurisdictions. Under the "open shop" rule, an employee cannot be compelled to join or pay the equivalent of dues to a union, nor can the employee be fired if he or she joins the union. In other words, the employee has the right to work, regardless of whether he or she is member or financial contributor to such union.

The Federal Government operates under "open shop" rules nationwide, although many of its employees are represented by unions. Conversely, professional sports leagues (regardless of where a team is located) operate under "union shop" rules.

<h3>North Carolina, a "Right to Work" state, described today:</h3>

http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...64&postcount=8
More WNC families depend on food stamps
by Leslie Boyd, STAFF WRITER
published December 24, 2005 6:00 am

....The number of working families receiving food stamps in Buncombe County has risen by nearly 40 percent since 2002. [Buncombe County contains the relatively prosperous and higher growth, Asheville, NC metro area...]

Even with the numbers so high — 362,579 of the 1.1 million families in North Carolina used assistance as of September, state Department of Health and Human Services records show — officials estimate only about 65 percent of people who are eligible actually are receiving food stamps.......

........Rhodes cited a 2005 study by the N.C. Budget & Tax Center of the N.C. Justice Center, “Failing Jobs, Falling Wages: The 2005 North Carolina Living Income Standard.”

The center calculated what families pay in seven categories: food, housing, health care, child care, transportation, taxes and miscellaneous items. It does not include money for extras such as entertainment, cell phone or cable television service, debt payments or meals out of the home. On average, its calculations show, North Carolinians need to earn 231 percent of the federal poverty level to meet expenses.

For a family of four, the federal poverty level is $19,350. To be eligible for food stamps, a family can earn no more than 130 percent of that. The Budget & Tax Center report calculates that on average, a family of two parents and two children in North Carolina needs to earn just under $45,000, what it calls a Living Income Standard. Nearly half of the 1.1 million families in the state live below that standard.........

http://traditionallaborlaw.blogspot....es-recess.html
President Bush Makes Recess Appointments to the NLRB

The recess appointments follow quickly on the heels of an <a href="http://www.nrtw.org/b/nr_466.php">article</a> in the Wall Street Journal authored by the president of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, Mark Mix. In the December 31 article, Mix urged the White House "to get off the dime and install an NLRB majority" to address the Dana/Metaldyne cases, among others, free from the constraint of institutional adherence to precedent.

The "National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation" is not an organzation that defends workers...it is funded for employers' enrichment, at the expense of workers, by the maggots listed here:

http://www.mediatransparency.org/rec...rants.php?1128

We need this "reform", today:

Republican Eisenhower was president when the top rate was <a href="http://www.truthandpolitics.org/top-rates.php">91 percent</a> (on annual income above $400,000), when new college graduates often worked for less than $4000 per year....and the <a href="http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/histinc/f04.html">Gini coefficient was 35.1</a>....it's 44 now.

The U.S. has experienced political shifts, beginning with the the "great depression" in the 1932 elections, that transferred the presidency to a democrat.......and democrats dominated in the executive and legislative branches, with the exception of the 8 year Eisenhower presidency, for the next 36 years. Compared to later republican presidents, Eisenhower could be described as a "centrist".

Today on a webpage at the Milton S. Eisenhower Foundation site, (Milton was the late younger brother of republican president Dwight Eisenhower,) the following is displayed:

http://www.eisenhowerfoundation.org/..._economic.html

.......With an eye to Thomas Jefferson's warning against the antidemocratic "aristocracy of our moneyed corporations," the United States needs to return corporate taxes to the levels in force during the Eisenhower administration. We also need to increase the top marginal tax rate for the super-rich to about 50 percent. This would still be far below the top marginal income tax rate of 91 percent during the Eisenhower administration.

Repealing the tax cuts given to the super-rich would return more than $85 bilomglion per year from the richest 5 percent of the population. Returning to corporate tax rates in force during the Eisenhower administration could increase tax revenues by roughly $110 billion more per year. Returning to a 50 percent top marginal inomgcome tax rate far below the top rate in the Eisenhower administration could capture as much as $90 billion more per year from the richest 2 percent of the population.

At the same time, we should provide tax cuts to the 150 million hard-working workers who are struggling because they can't afford to buy all they need. Millionomgaires don't need additional spending money. Workers, middle-class Americans, and the poor do. Their spending will stimulate the economy more effectively, help busiomgnesses, and be more fair to the Americans who need fairness the most. There is amomgple economic evidence that putting money in the pockets of average Americans stimulates the economy much more than further lining the pockets of the rich........

[Ustwo]

Originally Posted by filtherton

When has a revolution ever resulted in a stable, long term libertarian government?

We are in uncharted territory here, even historically. I don't' think any current democracies can call themselves 'long term' yet. I think its going to be one possible natural evolution after the failure of the socialist democracies, the US included in that. The other possibilities, not so favorable.

[Charlatan]

Ustwo, are you suggesting that the natural evolution (for lack of a better word) of our current democracies is a libertarian form of government?

[Ustwo]

Originally Posted by Charlatan

Ustwo, are you suggesting that the natural evolution (for lack of a better word) of our current democracies is a libertarian form of government?

I think its one possible outcome, and the best outcome for the individual citizen when what I see as an inevitable collapse happens.

I think you need a 'normal' democracy to lead to a libertarian democracy, more as a bad example, but its not a natural evolution.

While real evolution is not directed, human governments are, they are 'intelligently designed' so to speak. The variable though is the individuals involved. A strong leader, or strongman at the right/wrong place and time can make all the difference, much like a mutation.

So the wildcards are out there, and this is one possibility. Lets just say as an old man I'll be cheering for it, over the totalitarianism on the other side.

[Willravel]

We may be getting a teensy bit off subject. Still, if revolution comes I'm game. Libertarianism is interesting on paper. I'd be curious to see how it played out in reality.

[host]

Originally Posted by Ustwo

We are in uncharted territory here, even historically. I don't' think any current democracies can call themselves 'long term' yet. I think its going to be one possible natural evolution after the failure of the socialist democracies, the US included in that. The other possibilities, not so favorable.

What are you talking about? The US is so far from being a "socialist democracry".....

"Republican Eisenhower was president when the top rate was <a href="http://www.truthandpolitics.org/top-rates.php">91 percent</a> (on annual income above $400,000), when new college graduates often worked for less than $4000 per year....and the <a href="http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/histinc/f04.html">Gini coefficient was 35.1</a>....it's 44 now."

.....the elite have spent their capital building a US "system" that raised the tax on 100 percent of most workers wages, in a Reagan era, 1983 SSI "reform":

<h3>View How Much The SSI Surplus Grew During Bush's Terms...and it's GONE....SPENT TO DISGUISE THE SIZE OF BUSH'S ACTUAL DEFICITS:</h3>
http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/STATS/table4a1.html

http://www.slate.com/id/2093707/
The Unlocked BoxHow Bush is plundering Social Security to close the deficit.
By Daniel Gross
Posted Friday, Jan. 9, 2004, at 1:51 PM ET

......In fact, if we adopt the president's policies—which include a host of new tax cuts and massive new spending programs—the deficit won't fall 50 percent in the next five years. It will grow substantially. <h3>And if President Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress weren't already quietly using every penny of the massive and growing Social Security surplus to cover operating expenses—and planning to continue this habit—the deficits would be even larger.</h3>

Back in 1983, as part of a deal to save Social Security from impending demographic doom, Congress enacted <h3>legislation</h3> to essentially increase payroll taxes and reduce benefits. As a result, the government began to collect more Social Security payroll taxes than it paid out to beneficiaries each year. The theory was that the government would use these surpluses to pay down the national debt. That way, when baby boomers retire—and comparatively more people are collecting benefits while comparatively fewer people are working—the government would be in a better position to borrow the necessary funds to provide the promised benefits.

So much for theory. The reality? For the first 15 years, every penny of the surplus was spent, first by Republican presidents and then by a Democratic president. According to figures provided by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, the surpluses were relatively insignificant for much of this period. Between 1983 and 2001 a total of $667 billion in excess Social Security payroll taxes was spent—about $35 billion per year. <h3>It was only in fiscal 1999 and 2000, when the government ran so-called on-budget surpluses, that excess Social Security funds were actually used to retire debt.
</h3>

http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/TR/TR07/VI_c...y.html#wp91489

.........All contributions are collected by the Internal Revenue Service and deposited in the General Fund of the Treasury. The contributions are immediately and automatically appropriated to the trust funds on an estimated basis. The exact amount of contributions received is not known initially because the OASDI and HI contributions and individual income taxes are not separately identified in collection reports received by the Internal Revenue Service. Periodic adjustments are subsequently made to the extent that the estimates are found to differ from the amounts of contributions actually payable as determined from reported earnings. Adjustments are also made to account for any refunds to employees (with more than one employer) who paid contributions on wages in excess of the contribution and benefit base...

.......Another source of income to the trust funds is interest received on investments held by the trust funds. That portion of each trust fund which is not required to meet the current cost of benefits and administration is invested, on a daily basis, primarily in interest-bearing obligations of the U.S. Government (including special public-debt obligations described below). Investments may also be made in obligations guaranteed as to both principal and interest by the United States, including certain Federally sponsored agency obligations that are designated in the laws authorizing their issuance as lawful investments for fiduciary and trust funds under the control and authority of the United States or any officer of the United States. These obligations may be acquired on original issue at the issue price or by purchase of outstanding obligations at their market price........

....Ustwo....what kind of "socialist" PARADISE....has a Gini co-effienct of 44, and runs a "Ponzi" scheme which taxes 100 percent of the mahjority of workers pay (under $105K annual eanrings...)...at a rate much higher than what the social insurance near term requirments are......all deposited into the general fund....with the surplus intended to "pay down" the national treasury debt....in exchange for low interest yielding treasury bills....(under 6 percent), in an era when the Harvard endowment enjoys a 22 percent annual return....

The current president took office with no borrowing of surplus SSI collections necessary.....he promptly granted his wealthy patrons a huge tax relief, and for six years,,,,,all of the SSI surplus collected has been borrowed....with bonds issued to the SSI trust fund as compensation for the surplus spent, and for the $100 million annual interest owed to the trust fund on the $1850 billion outstanding debt.....

No socialist democracy here, to fail, UStwo.....instead, we live in a system coming closer every day in similarity to the one in pre-Hugo Chavez Venezuela.....and the solution is always a populist revolution.....

You don't recognize the excess....it's an effing crisis now......but you want to protect a broken system where the day is coming....especially with the emerging destruction of housing valuations.....where the elite ten percent will own 90 percent of total US wealth.....Would that figure be enough to effing convince you that something is "amiss"......THE DENIAL AND REFLEXIVE BRAIN DEAD POV's posted here are effing astounding...... The US is becoming an economic twin to a South or Central American debt slave country...ala Mexico, Brazil, or Venezuela....and nobody even views it as an effing problem....because we're tooooooooooo "socialist".

When you're working for tips and the wealthiest own all of everything, mayber you'll wake the eff up and wonder why you didn't use your sheer numbers of voting power to tax the wealth and the stranglehold against labor organizing, away from these elite maggots.......DON'T the Trend and the Numbers....44 Gini vs. 35 in the 1970's....vs. 24 in Japan and in Denmark.....and the rising US poverty rate....even cause you to have a Clue?????

We're headed for an economic status quo that looks like Manhattan. Huge numbers of low wage servants.....serving a super wealthy establishment. They suck up a low cost living of cheap cab rides, restaurant meals, domestic help, and a plethora of other inexpensive services.....fed by a wave of immigrant labor that makes no demands and is paid whatever employers feel like paying. The labor has no bargaining power, and cannot afford to live in proximity to their low paying jobs...... UStwo's "socialist" democracy !!!!!!!!!!

[Willravel]

UsTwo is like DK. When they say socialist, what they mean is authoritarian. They don't understand the difference.

Host, who are you voting for? I'm honestly curious.

[host]

Originally Posted by willravel

UsTwo is like DK. When they say socialist, what they mean is authoritarian. They don't understand the difference.

Host, who are you voting for? I'm honestly curious.

...Edwards offers only a glimmer of hope....I'm starting to feel about democrats, as you do.....about the democrats....

earlier.....I read this...

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004506.php

....Bradbury, however, shouldn't have been in his job, at least not this year. A 1998 law called the Vacancies Reform Act bars non-Senate-confirmed appointees for holding their jobs for longer than 210 days. Durbin, Kennedy and Feingold wrote to Bush this week to note Bradbury's "apparent violation" of the statute, and asked Bush to offer up a new nominee as OLC chief. You can read that letter here.

Whether that happens is the next big legal test for the Bush administration in the war on terrorism. Bradbury received crucial support yesterday from Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA), the top Republican on the judiciary committee. Mukasey showed no inclination to urge Bush to throw Bradbury overboard. Even if he ultimately recommends that a new OLC chief should be appointed, it's ultimately Bush's call. Given how precious the OLC's blessing is to the White House on crucial counterterrorism programs, it's clear that what happens with Bradbury will reveal a lot about Bush's intentions as he heads into his final year in office.

...so I posted this feedbacK:

Why does TPM Muckraker report, essemtially the same story, over and over....why not instead, tell us whether the last "letter" received any response?

"Senators: Justice Department's Chief Counsel Breaking the Law
By Paul Kiel - July 19, 2007, 4:24PM

Nothing surprises me any more.

Four Democratic senators wrote Alberto Gonzales today to inquire whether Stephen Bradbury, the apparent acting head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, was illegally carrying out his duties.

Bradbury was nominated for the top spot at OLC last year, but the Senate Judiciary Committee returned his nomination to the president, refusing to hear it until Bradbury's role in approving the National Security Agency's surveillance program became clear. The President shut down an internal Justice Department investigation of the matter last year by taking the unprecedented and unexplained step of denying security clearances to investigators from the Office of Professional Responsibility. "

So sick of reading "Ground Hog Day"....BS....neutered effing democrats....or cluelessness like Senate Banking Chair, Dodd's.....

...I'm starting to wonder if there is no one to vote for...because the wealthy elite own everyone who announces their candidacy......am I being paranoid?