The State of Our Economy
 

I have been seeing references to the Stiglitz and Bilmes economic report for the last few weeks. Couple their report with China's intention to reevaluate their investment in the dollar, and I believe our continued deficit spending will bring us to an economic meltdown.

I don't care for the hyperbolic expression in this article, but I believe there are valid concerns to be found.


Link

I have little understanding about national and global economics, so it is my sincere wish that anyone with an economics background here at TFP will join in this discussion. As a fiscal conservative, I am greatly alarmed at the national debt that is accumulating and being bought up by foreign governments. The Stiglitz and Bilmes estimate of overall costs associated with the Iraq war will only bring us further into debt.

while I don't have a HUGE economic education, common sense tells me that the neo-conservative branch of the political machine is driving this deficit spending for military activities abroad. It just happens to coincide with the deficit hawks approach to starving the beast and forcing the people to accept entitlement spending cuts.

Personally, I think cutting entitlement spending could work provided the gov does two things......put a HUGE halt to all illegal immigration labor practices by going after the employers and removing all unemployment benefits. This would solve major problems in the US economy.

The problem is the neocon approach has always been: cut taxes and a balanced budget. These two concepts are not always in opposition but in reality they often are.

Interestingly if they have to choose between the two they will always choose the tax cut in the short term on the belief that the cut will lead to a balanced budget due to starving the government of money and reducing its size.

Clearly this is impossible to maintain when the other policies of the neocons is to have an agressive foreign policy that includes invading other countries.

I've never seen the 'neo-conservative' philosophy of a balanced budget. Thats the standard conservative approach.

The neocons up here spout it all the time (Mike Harris for example).

are you defining neocons as all right wingers? There is a huge difference between neoconservatives and conservatives.

well, that would be off topic so probably best not take the thread that direction.

Not at all. I am speaking about neocons. I think the difficulty we are having here is that "traditional conservative" has a different meaning here than in the US.

The economy is doing well, unemployment is around 5%, but truthout can find a way to bitch about it and tie it into the Iraq war. Its really an amazing skill.

Thanks for the link Elphaba.

Oh and while I am at it...

http://www.nam.org/s_nam/doc1.asp?CID=67&DID=235797

I doubt that report made it to anyone at truthout.
:rolleyes:

Why is Mike Harris a "neocon"? If the usual definition of neocon are the group driving the bus in the US right now, Harris is about as far away from neocon as you can get.

That article doesn't mention how much of that growth
was a direct result of defence spending.
Gulf war 1 was a bonanza for the factory I worked in
the current war is responsible for their current growth as well.
My brother in law was recently hired to work on the line
that makes fuel lines exclusivly for defence dept. aerospace.
Sure that growth is great for the company and the worker,
But....back to square one...where is that money coming from?
more national debt.....better for today.....worse for tomorrow
That's OK!...spend all you want, We'll print more.

Growth is great...except when it is at the cost
of an anchor tied around the neck of the next generation.

Well you do the google and find out if you like.

As for the debt ANY government spending you can say increases the debt. You could use the same argument for why we shouldn't do welfare spending. I note that you don't, and god knows truthout won't, its just an excuse to lament the Iraq war yet again.

Finally it refutes the truthout article (go figure) which calls into question the whole article.

I really can't wait for the next pointless truthout article to be posted on the politics forum.

Edit: and now that I think of it- And considering last month's 3.4 percent rise in durable goods orders Wouldn't that rule out the 'war' spending?

I don't think we should increase welfare spending.
welfare is a financial trap
the last 2 times I got laid off from my manufacturing job
I refused to collect unemployment
If you go to school you lose your benifit
If you get a job you lose half of what you make from said benifit
and even though you pay for it through through taxes,
you still have to pay income tax on benifit.
long term welfare is even worse, enslaving generations.
the only social spending I agree with is emergency relief
and investment spending... ie:
infrastructure, education, housing..(FHA home ownership...not projects)

Blah...blah...I've heard the same about FOX news from the other side.
Disagree with the organization, and even the truth is false.
If we could take the partisan blinders off and look around
we would see that the truth is some where in the middle.

durable goods
Definition
Products that aren't consumed or quickly disposed of, and can be used for
Three years or more. also called hard goods.
This can be millitary or civilian.
Aparently the jump was due to Boeing sales (commercial not defence)
while all others were down.

Comparing truthout to fox news? The UCLA study cited in this forum had fox news as 'balanced' I wonder if the same can be said for truthout? (Ok thats a lie, I don't wonder :) ) Reguardless I've already shown where one part of the article is false, I don't have time to check every part, but as you found out with durable goods, a little research goes a long way to change ones assumptions.


Sort of ironic that defense orders are DOWN don't you think?

10.9 percent? Not bad growth for the year.

Not ironic....all orders were down except Boeing
Not to mention they are orders not backlog
defence orders fluctuate wildly
I worked in the aerospace dept for over a year,
we would get hit with a dozen major orders and have to work
overtime for weeks straight to get everything out the door.
Then several weeks being moved around to other areas
just to stay busy.
I was so happy to get back to heavy duty truck
where the customers planned ahead.

found the backlog numbers
http://www.census.gov/indicator/www/m3/
Unfilled orders, up seven consecutive months, increased $18.1 billion or 3.0 percent to $621.4 billion

"10.9 percent?"
is that 2004 numbers? or 2005? or did they just skip 2004?
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breakin...4830-2454r.htm
Percentages are the accountants evil tool

Found some "real numbers not percentages of percentages
defense aircraft and parts orders tumbled 44.3% Oct. to Nov.
$3.9 Billion November... $7.1B October... $2.9 B September
Up $4.2 B Sept to Oct.....Down $3.2 B Oct. to Nov.
Up $1 billion for the quarter.....nice percentage fudge

Defense new orders for capital goods in November
decreased $2.6 billion or 26.6 percent to $7.2 billion.
Same thing here
7.2 in Nov. 9.7 in Oct. 6.7 in Sept.
overall rise for the quarter half a billion
http://www.census.gov/indicator/www/m3/
Click the full tab under advance highlights

Um, Ustwo? Could you by chance come up with something other than an obviously biased trade association website? :)

Here is a new twist. China and India have just reached an agreement concerning oil competition. This agreement may shed some light on Bush's recent overtures to India.

Yes, Truthout Again

Illegal immigration, shipping jobs overseas, less spending on education and making college unaffordable, low to no import taxes while other countries tax the hell out of our goods and China not owning up to our patents are destroying us.

The Bush administration taps our phones, opens our mail but does shit against illegals. I truly wait for an illegal to commit a terrorist action and Bush to blame the Dems. because we argued about tapping phone lines and opening mail illegally. We may have terrorists crossing our border as illegal aliens and I guess the "war on terror" doesn't apply to them because big business needs the illegals to work for pennies and take jobs away from our people.

China continues to rape our patents so bad Gorman Rupp (a company that never laid people off, never showed losses and was a strong growth company) is showing losses again as their patents get ripped off by the Chinese and Bush turns blind eyes. Again, China even uses GR's own flyers by photoshopping the the trucks and changing GR's name and symbols only slightly. It is obvious, the Chinese don't even hide the fact and Bush and the Neocons DO NOTHING to save this company!!!!!!!! FUCK BUSH!!!!!!! (And yes, I grew up with members of the Rupp family (who were very Republican until the GOP turned their backs on them), and I see what Bush's policy has done to them.) It's not just Gorman Rupp though, where's Bush's protection for these companies?????

Oh, I guess the Neo cons don't care about US Patents and protecting US businesses if profit is to be made. But the profit is going to China, not to other US companies.....

Try using goggle again, the information is quite public and from many sources, something that would help you in your quest for knowlage.

I did an extensive search via goggle in my quest for "knowlage" but I was unable to find a source for predicting/forecasting our 2006 economy. I would appreciate your assistance in finding an unbiased source.

so we have yet another effect of contemporary politics---no agreement over what criteria one would use to evaluate the economy. it is hard not to link this to the right's media efforts to blur out the possibilities of informed judgement about matters like the economy, the environment, etc., as a form of defense of corporate interests.

it seems to me that no-one who gets analyses of the american economy published in popular form has taken the processes of globalizing capitalism into account at all. to what extent is the idea of a coherent geographical unit called "the american economy" even coherent? for example, most larger-scale production processes that are trmed "american" involves fabrication/assembly points not located in the states....stock, currency speculation, financial instruments--all have been trading internationally for year, and for the past decade or so more or less in real time. seems to me that the notion of a national economy is mostly obsolete, and that it is invoked primarily for ideological reasons--a kind of nostalgia on the one hand, and in order to maintain the illusion that the various factions that jockey for power within the horrifying political uniformity of the american scene are presenting coherent arguments about a definite object---mostly, though, it seems yet another example of the lag that seperates the mutation of capitalism from its ideological correlates.

i do not know what the significance would be in this context of the types of buying up of debt noted with some consternation in the op. what i do know is that the right press, in all its forms, would be the absolute last place i would look for anything interesting on the matter simply because the whole of right ideology is predicated on denying that the nation-state as a whole is even a problem, much less in trouble, much less increasingly obsolete.

think about the information presented in this thread as a problem rather than as a pretext for dueling sources. try it, ustwo: maybe you'll get a chance to take a timeout from your usual modus operandi and think a little bit.

Isn't there a strong possibility that the November durable goods surge was aided by the Katrina storm surge? In wich case, a large portion of those durable goods were paid for with state and federal money to re-instate areas to their previous, or less than previous standards. Not a real, lasting positive effect.

And you think that a one trillion war that skyrocketed the national debt has no impact on the economy whatsoever?

It is misleading to talk about national debt in total dollars, it is much more meaningfull look at it as a percentage of GNP. When you look at it that way our national debt is in-line with our historical averages.

Also it is misleading to talk about debt without talking about networth. Our national wealth is higher than it has ever been.

If a young man has a $45,000 debt in student loans earning $15,000/yr, with $0 assets, that debt may be in reality a bigger burden than - a man with $500,000 debt, with a $250,000/yr income, and $1,000,000 in assets.

Regarding your other poin in most cases government spending is not going to be harmful to the economy, theoretically - assuming government spending is effecient, because $1 spent is $1 dollar spent.

I can spend my dollar or the government takes my dollar through taxation and spends it. Either way, in theory, that dollar gets spent.

The government can spend a "one trillion" on a war, or we the American people, can spend "one trillion" on pizza and beer. It would be more fun to spend a trillion on pizza and beer, but in either case we would end up with either a trillion dollar war economy or a trillion dollar pizza and beer economy. Goes back to the Econ 101 lesson - trade off between guns and butter.

There have been doomsday people left and right for the past hundreds of years. I heard a guy like this on Bloomberg radio and it sounded like he was about to die. Most of that article can be summed up with this saying: "Statistics don't lie, but liars use statistics."

The author can't seem to come to fruition that America is becoming a service based country. No longer do the people want to work in factories with dim lighting where they have to stand on their feet all day and do manual labor. Is that a bad thing. I'm sure 60 years ago there were people complaining about the massive decline of farmers in america. We literally went from 60% of the population being farmers to 2%. (Those aren't accurrate numbers -- but based on my memory).

Regardless, our economy is doing fine but at the same time you can always improve it. Less government spending and lower taxes would be one of the solutions.

There are a few contridictions and misleading points:

"Neocons promised minimal US casualties. Iraq already has cost 2,200 dead Americans and 16,000 seriously wounded-and Bush's war is not over yet.
The cost of lifetime care and disability payments for the thousands of US troops who have suffered brain and spinal damage was not part of the unrealistic rosy picture that Bush painted. Dr. Stiglitz's $2 trillion estimate is OK as far as it goes. But it doesn't go far enough. My own estimate is a multiple of Stiglitz's."

If we take a population of young men and woman the size and make up of our military in Iraq over the same period, how many would have died even if they had not been sent? The question should be what was the real incremental cost? How many would have died as a result of taking no military action? Or how many non-military people would have died by taking no military action? People, like me, who support our military action honestly believe that if we had taken no action potentially hundreds of thousands if not millions would have died. The cost of delayed action agaist Hilter cost millions of lives.

"In 2005 for the first time on record consumer, business, and government spending exceeded the total income of the country. Net national savings actually fell."

Does not take into consideration the underground economy, or wealth generated through investment and realestate.

'America can consume more than it produces only if foreigners supply the difference. China recently announced that it intends to diversify its foreign exchange holdings away from the US dollar. If this is not merely a threat in order to extort even more concessions from Bush, Americans' ability to consume will be brought up short by a fall in the dollar's value as China ceases to be a sponge that is absorbing an excessive outpouring of dollars. Oil producing countries might follow China's lead."

The value of currency fluctuates around an equalibrium point. When the dollar gets cheap we sell more goods overseas. When the dollar is expensive and other currencies cheap we buy more overseas goods.

"A decline in living standards is an enormous cost and will make existing debt burdens unbearable. Stiglitz did not include this cost in his estimate."

National debt as a percentage of GNP is in our economy's normal range.

"Even more serious is the war's diversion of attention from the disappearance of middle class jobs for university graduates. The ladders of upward mobility are being rapidly dismantled by offshore production for US markets, job outsourcing and importation of foreign professionals on work visas. In almost every US corporation, US employees are being dismissed and replaced by foreigners who work for lower pay. Even American public school teachers and hospital nurses are being replaced by foreigners imported on work visas."

We have shifted from an agricultural economy to an industrial economy, to a service economy, and are now in a shift to the information age. At one point people who made horse shoes lost their jobs. They had to adapt. Today, Americans are showing an unwillingness to change, that is the real problem. We still have some people stuck in the industrial age and longing for the good old days of smoke stack industries and life long employment.

"The American Dream has become a nightmare for college graduates who cannot find meaningful work."

What is meaningful? Do you know a college grad not able to find work?

I am getting bored, but I sure you can see some of the problems with his position.

Just a side note.......... I always find it amazing how these "loyal" supporters of the war and Bush are so eager for tax cuts.

How exactly are we going to pay for this war?

I also love how the Bushies demand you make sacrifices such as your civil liberties and rights..... but take away their tax cuts and then see where THEIR sacrificing is?

They want the war, they don't care about illegal wiretaps, opening of mail, etc...... that's just us poor people who need to worry....... but you threaten their tax cuts and tell them that we need the money to fund the war so our kids won't have to pay for our greed and they get pissy and start crying about how it's THEIR money.

So we'll just keep plunging deeper into debt and when all of a sudden their tax rates and their children's tax rates are 75-90% because the government has to pay the loans off for this war and the middle class evaporated because there were no decent paying jobs...... let's see how badly they cry then..... or perhaps they'll take their balls and move out of the country, because they won't want to have to pay for their mistakes and greed.

In short..... a severe tax increase (I believe once FED. State and local are taken it'll be 75-90%) will happen to pay for this war and to pay for the middle class that evaporated because the CEO's wanted to make millions and millions and pay their workers pennies.

IF you cannot understand that then you are either stupid or so freaking greedy that you are blind.

It is about freedom. Freedom from terrorist. Freedom from big government. The primary role of our government is national defense. We want a strong military and economic and personal freedom.

A better question is what is the cost of taking no military action against terrorist?

"Bushies", assuming you mean rich people, are paying more in taxes today, than at anyother time in history. There is a difference between tax rates and what people actually pay in taxes.


If I work hard, make good decisions, make a lot of money, its NOT MINE? Are you a socialist?

I don't want war. I just want our enemies to leave us alone. But if they do want a fight, I aint gonna sit around holding hands singing 'give peace a chance'!

Big brother is probably reading this right now, we had better be careful, because Bush and Rumsfeld love to sit around a fire reading info they get from illegal wiretaps.

I am a risk taker. I going to do a google search on making bombs, I will let you know how long it takes for the FBI to come calling. Perhaps we can start a pool.

I wonder why that did not happen after WWII? Any thoughts? Wait we actually had an economic boom after WWII. Oh, and some would argue that government spending during WWII helped grow the economy out of depression.

I wonder why that did not happen after the Vietnam War? Korean War? WWI? Civil War?

CEO's don't want to pay workers anything. However, they HAVE to pay their workers a fair competetive wage, or they loose those employees to the competition. CEO's are "workers" too. Unless they own the company they run, they are accountable to the "man" just like everyone else. He who owns the gold makes the rules. It is truly a mean, mean world.

From your stupid but freindly neighborhood, greedy "Bushie" :icare:

Or don't agree with pan's assesment. I understand the mods are trying to back off a bit on the politics forum in terms of moderation, but come on :rolleyes:

so it appears that here there is no analytic dimension, no questions about the categories that would underpin such analyses of a nation-state economic formation in a globalizing capitalist context--which variables continue to be meanignful, which do not, etc....instead, there is only a recycling of ideological memes, particularly from the economic conservatives above...

i tried to raise these questions above, but typically they got no response..i actually am interested in how folk are trying to square these factors (globalizing capitalism vs. nation-state modes of assessing economic activity and the relation between the two)---and i do not think the links obvious.

the reason i see the non-responses typical is that there is, to my knowledge, no american political organization that is seriously addressing these matters--mass politics still tried to function within a national framework as if it was coherent---folk seem to only demand what they know to be available--they choose from amongst existing modes of thinking/staging questions and rarely are inclined to try to work their way outside of them--demand follows supply for the most part, particularly in politics.

but consider the following factoids:
1. stock has traded internationally since 1970. that means that corporate ownership has long since been transnational.
2. capital flows are transnational.
3. vertically integration production systems routinely operate without particular regard for nation-state boundaries.
4. the collapse of the southeast asian "paper tigers" across the 1990s showed pretty clearly that there is no coherent integration of transnationally organized production and the local economies they enter/transform/exploit.

so to sum up these 4 factoids (many more could be added):
the ownership of publically traded corporations: not nationally based
the circulation of capital: not nationally based
the organization of production: not nationally based
the relation of globalizing capitalist production to the national economies they impact upon: arbitrary.

yet it still makes sense to talk about economic activity as if the nation-state was a basic organizing unit? how?

the political consequences of these transformations in the organization of economic activity are not yet obvious--they are being worked out--and it is impossible (for me at least) not to see in the various types of responses anything more than ideological conflict aimed at managing without addressing these consequences. so for the right, you have a wholesale flight from thinking in social terms. from the critique of taxation through the attacks on state regulation to the focus on petit bourgeois entrepreneur-types--everything about conservative economic ideology is little more than an attempt on the part of the political class to cut their collective losses by dismantling the interaction of the state (the political) with social spaces that are going to be or already are being fundamentally undermined by the changes happening in economic organization. these include education (reproduction of the labor pool) to social control (the exercize of the state's monopoly on "legitimate violence") to an ideological campaign directed against any and all forms of active public protest (the "war on terror" operating here as one of a series of wedge issues the effect of which is an expansion of the notion of dangerous political action) to the core assumptions of conservative ideology itself (that there is a nation, that the category makes sense, that the operative units within a nation are isolated individuals, that the distribution of wealth is a moral rather than a political matter, that poverty (the effects of an uneven distribution of wealth) can be understood by blaming the poor----since the clinton period, the democrats have offered nothing in the way of viable alternatives--their position accepts the basic premises of conservative economic ideology and offers a sequence of tactical quibbles instead of an alternative vision. someone once wrote that faced with the choice between republicans and republicans, the republicans win--such is the clinton legacy. typically, the right has responded to this by moving even further to the right so as to be able to differentiate itself...the results are incoherence. this incoherence is simply being repeated through this thread.

maybe this incoherence explains the attractiveness of fundamentalist protestant discourse as a political model--you find the categories that organize your politics have become obsolete? then talk alot about god and act as though all those categories are linked, in the final analysis, to god. that way nothing meaingful changes, everything continues as before, and no-one has to think too much about the world into which we are all drifting, whether we like it or not, whether we face it or not.

we could ask basic questions, but we dont.
why is that?

Is not educating the population defense? If not then why did our forefathers develop public education?

How can you have economic freedom for people if you keep sending jobs overseas, paying people less, while merging companies into conglomerates where the executives make more than all their workers combined?

Or you allow industries to go bankrupt because you refuse to work our an economically feasible healthcare system?

There's economic freedom for the top 1-5% but for the rest of America they are in trouble and with education cuts we are falling behind in the world market for employment.


Iraq again and again has been proven to have had nothing to do with 9/11 nor have WMDs. So tell me again why we are there? Or why our military has been ill equipped, while Halliburton continuously overcharged for items some of which they never delivered?


Really? You're right about tax rates, right now the shrinking middle class and lower class pay more of their wages in hidden taxes, in sales taxes and in local taxes, while the rich get tax cuts on the federal levels, the states and locals have to increase sales taxes, property taxes, excise taxes on alcohol and cigarettes. All of which the rich can absorb and not worry about while the poor and middle class get hit harder and harder every time the sales taxes go up.




I never said the money wasn't yours but there is community responsibility to maintain the schools and infrastructure and try to make them better than they were when you had use of them.

Unless, you want to say the past 175 years of doing so was wrong and the last 20 years or so have been what this nation was truly founded on. Destroy the educational system, ravage the infrastructure and destroy true free enterprise so the very rich can continue to get richer while everyone else, including the nation itself falls deeper and deeper into debt.



And who is attacking us right now? Iraq? Afghanistan? Who's invading our shores and laying landmines and shooting at us and making it unsafe to leave our houses?



I've said it in many posts, even IF Bush is correct in doing this, the government at the very least takes years to give rights back. On average if we give them unwarranted wiretaps and mail searches (which is very different than going on a public access and finding how to build a bomb), they will push that envelope farther.

Not to mention, if Bush is so concerned about these "terrorists" he spies on with wiretaps and mail openings then why does he allow so many illegal aliens to cross over every day? Why is that?

I have stated over and over and I don't think the people who plan terroristic events are going to be so dumb as not to realize this themselves...... If I wanted to plan something I would set up communication along the illegal alien lines and not need a phone, internet or anything, more than transportation. 1000's cross every day unchecked, illegal and all they have to do is carry the plans on them and transport to the meeting place. In fact they could feasibly bring bombs, anthrax and whatever across with them.

Yet, Bush does nothing........ wonder why that is?



Actually after the Civil War we went into a depression. It was FDR, the New Deal and WW2 that helped the economy, plus manufacturing took over and there was the huge boom of all this technology, GI loans for housing, GI loans and grants for schooling that boomed.

Vietnam and Korea were products of the above described economic boom after WW2. But Vietnam did not produce much, in fact we paid for it in the late 70's and early 80's with high interest rates and inflation to pay for the deficit our government had because of that war.

WW1, was the true beginning of manufacturing and the stock market. The problem was as it is now and has been for the last 20 years, people were extended more credit than they were worth. In 1929 and 1930 it caught up to us, and it will bite us on our ass again. The difference is, right now banks continue to extend more and more credit and the money isn't there, the bubble will burst.


Really? These esecs who drive their companies into the ground usually have less than 1% ownership in the company. In fact if the company wants them out, in quite a few cases they have huge buyout clauses. Who was it that was paid something like $100 million to step down because he ran the company into the ground?

There is no accountability or "fair" wages. The companies make demands get what they want or leave the area, if not the country. Meanwhile the CEO's make more for doing so.

Never in the history of this country have we seen this big of a gap between rich and poor continue to increase.

But for some reason that is ok with you?

What happens when the debts come due? Who's going to pay? Especially if the middle class is gone and the poor can't pay?



Continue with the greed, unless you are in the top 1% when it comes time to pay the debt you will being paying and if not you your children.

Because the true problem we face won't hit until the Boomers start dieing off and retiring. We set this great standard of living that has mortgaged our futures and the government knows this. The money isn't there and when the Boomers retire and die and banks go to collect their debts, the banks will take whatever the children/heirs have, and then the true crash will hit.

So if you're in your 40's and 50's you may make it out semi decently until you retire. But your kids and grandkids will be paying for your greed and their kids and grandkids will be paying for it.

Is debt whether personal, national or trade what you truly want to leave your progeny? I sure as Hell don't.

Is unsurmountable debt what our forefathers left us? No, they left a nation where we could dream and continue to move forward..... unfortunately today's greed has destroyed that for the future generations.

But history has yet to be written....... it may prove me wrong, but I wouldn't count on it. I think if anything I am too optimistic that we still have a chance.

I think what we'll see eventually are company/nation states, where from the day you reach an age to be able to work to the day you die you will work, for one company and you will be given enough freedom and money to keep you from questioning anything. But if you do speak out or try to want, to move up, you will be dealt with.

In other words, I see a feudal society, with a totalitarian world government. More or less what the Chinese have right now.

If things continue what we have right now will end and the start of a new Dark Ages will begin.

From what little I have read and heard on the financial news shows, the belief is that reducing taxes increases government revenue and visa versa.

If you cut taxes and spend responsibly, then yes, i can see that. But if you cut but continue to spend wildly on the war..... I would believe it to be far more destructive.

If we are at war, would it not make sense to wait till it is over before you gave tax cuts? All these tax cuts are doing is bribing support.

Obviously the tax cuts aren't working if we continue to deficit spend in record amounts.

And you still have to make sure that our infrastructure and education stays at standards so that high tech industries will hire our future workers and not continue to go overseas where they are educating their kids better and to be more competitive in the market than we are.

You cannot continue to cut taxes and destroy education and the roads. (27.5% of our bridges on interstates are technically overaged and need repaired or replaced..... yet we have no money to do it.)




Here's a speech given by Atlanta's Mayor Franklin in 2003 at the US Conference of Mayors and things have only gotten worse:

LINK:http://www.usmayors.org/uscm/us_mayo...3/franklin.asp


OR THIS from the American Society Of Civil Engineers (of which my GOP Conservative father is a respected member, and this is a relatively conservative group).

LINK:http://www.asce.org/reportcard/index...on=full&page=6


Here's the link to the report card for 2005 I can't CCP the card onto here but it shows we are going down even further......

http://www.asce.org/reportcard/2005/index.cfm

Here's the reports for 2005....... Is this what we truly want to leave as our legacy to our children a nation falling apart and heavily in debted while the top 5% keep getting richer???????

I can almost say that I am 99% sure those arguing against me will not present any ways to pay for these needed improvements.... but they will attack me, they will IGNORE and they will continue to maintain that there is nothing wrong with the infrastructure.... because in doing so they will effectively admit that the tax cuts and Bush's spending is destroying us.

I beg those truly interested in our country's future and those that want to leave a better country for their children to read this, to use the link, to research this yourself and see what Bush is doing to this infrastructure and what we are in fact leaving our children and their progeny.........


Again using this link: http://www.asce.org/reportcard/2005/index.cfm

Pan, thank you for finding that source.

No problem. I'll find it interesting to see how the Bushies respond to who will pay for these problems we are leaving for our children because they want tax cuts. Like I said my gut feeling is they won't even argue they'll attack me, the ASCE, and everyone else who isn't as greedy or blind as they are.

The scariest part is these things will only continue to worsen and cost more, unless we spend now and fix them...... but we have a war and Iran and Afgghanistan to rebuild...... and of course TAX CUTS.

And yes, I said greedy because what else would you call people who want everything now but are willing to leave their children and their progeny shit?

I visit this website as a diversion to an already busy day. Not responding to every point is not a concession.
I am sure you realize it is easier if we took things one point at a time rather than adding more points before reaching any kind of resolution on any point in paticular.
No matter what these discussion give great insight into how the other half thinks.

I agree. We need a literate population. However the government should not subsidize colleges and universities. People who get college degrees are the primary benefactors not the nation as a whole, therfore the people who get thos degrees should pay the cost, not the guy who did not have an opportunity to go. You should agree with that, since you care about the poor. Why should rich people get to go to government subsidized colleges, then get jobs as; i.e. plastic surgens, and then get richer?

The free market determines wages. Shaq makes $100 mil, because people want to see him play, Tom Cruise makes $20 mil/film, because people go to see his movies. Warren Buffet is one of the richest men in the country because he has skills as an investor no one in the world can match. The guy mopping the floor at McDonald's make $7/hr. because 90% of the world's population can mop a floor. The CEO of McDonald's makes millions because the shareholders beleive he is worth the money, if they didn't they would fire him. Personally, I think capitalism is wonderful. No matter who you are in a free market you get paid for what your skills are worth. I don't hate Shaq because I can't play basketball, nor do I hate CEO's because I can't run a fortune 500 company. Why do you?

Iraq invaded another country.
The UN impossed sanctions.
Iraq ignored those sanctions.
Iraq paid $ to suicide bomber families.
Iraq shot at US plains, regullarly.
Iraq let the world believe they had weapons of mass destruction and would use them.
We needed a good location to wage the war against terror. Iraq was a better spot than Iowa and most other places.

The first three reasons were good enough for me.

I get the feeling that if Sadaam personally had a weapon pointed at you and said he was going to annihilate you, and the George Bush, personally blew Sadaam's head off before Sadaam pulled the trigger, you would say Bush had no reason to take preemptive action. Am I right? Come on you know I am.

Imagine a world were local governments took care of the needs of local citizens on a local level. What a concept. A world were local government officials were directly accountable to the folks next door, you and me. We might actually get some stuff done. :thumbsup:

O.k. I'll bite.

What would you do to tax rates if you could make the final decision?

Income rannge / Tax rate

$0 - $20,000 / ??
$20,001 - $40,000 / ??
$40,001 - $60,000 / ??
60,001 - $80,000 / ??
$80,001 - $100,000 / ??
$100,000- $200,000 / ??
>$200,000 / ??

I agree, especially if they are done with respect.

I admit I become very emotionally charged over the fiscal suicide I believe our country is facing because I truly want better to leave a better world for my children and with Bush I don't see it happening. As pointed out by the ASCE links and grade reports I posted above.


So if you do not subsidize these colleges, and you cut loans and scholarships...... then only the rich can go. I'd rather have subsidized colleges and loans so that ALL can go.

But it is a moot point when the public schools K-12 are in horrible shape financially and the kids are not able to be taught what they need to get into college..... so again the rich kids who go to private schools become the only beneficiaries of college.



Capitalism with civic responsibility and leaving or at least trying to leave the world in better shape for your children is one thing, what is going on today is an unchecked greed that is not beneficial nor healthy for the future.

I hate the CEO's that would rather cut 1000's of jobs, ruin a city's economy and move jobs overseas so that they can keep their multi-million dollar salaries. Salaries that if they cut a percentage of could save those jobs, and cities economies. It's bullshit to say they are saving money for their investors. The money those investors are saving is lost because of the cost to the infrastructure, the loss of tax revenue to that city, the loss of jobs, the loss of school funding, the total disregard of the future generations.




I personally, do not see the logic. I think it was solely for oil and has been proven over and over again. We did nothing to N. Korea did we? In fact one of Bush's biggest supporters Rev. Moon has donated them millions, bought them old Soviet Nuke subs and is a great supporter of their leadership.

And what about the fact that almost all of the terrorists were saudis, yet we haven't done anything to them have we?

Or what about the illegals that come over? As I have stated over and over they scare me far more than Iraq, Iran, N. Korea ever will. Yet, Bush does nothing to defned us against the illegals, in fact he works to give them free healthcare (the $1billion pledged) he works to get them driver's liscenses and so on. Yet, does nothing to prevent them from entering.



Perhaps, but, in reality, the Federal government is the only entity that has the money or can get the money to straighten out the infrastructure.

Look at the above grades and needed repairs, we need to fix our future.

When you are sending factories and good paying jobs overseas, the states and cities are losing tax bases left and right. There is no way they can survive when you destroy their tax bases and then cut any funding to them.

If our government started fixing our infrastructure the construction jobs would be there, local economies would be helped, good paying jobs would become available, tax revenue from those jobs would go up, area economies would improve, factories may actually start coming back, and the economy would boom.

You cannot grow an economy if all you do is consume and produce shit for shit wages...... which is what we are doing.

Put the money into the infrastructure that is falling apart and let the economy boom that way...... It is truly the only chance we may have.

A flat tax rate of 15% on all incomes between $100,000 and $5,000,000 with only 2 deductions, mortgages and 100% tuition for college students would be untaxed.

Under $100,000, same 2 deductions with a 10% tax.

Anything over $5,000,000 would be 25% with absolutely NO deductions.

The rates would be on ALL income from bonuses, to stock options, to income properties, to capital gains..... everything.

But I am not an economist, I think if our government truly wanted to leave a better country and not buy votes with tax cuts and truly looked at what they need..... they could find a solution that may hurt us, may mean sacrifice short term..... but long term will save this country and make it better.

I'm sorry but leaving a better country, a better possible future and a better life for my kids and knowing that my grandkids will have that oppurtunity also, means more to me than watching us destroy ourselves with greed and debts that will take generations to pay off.

What is your solution to the above infrastructure problems?

How do you suggest we pay for them?

I would have a national sales tax on non-food, non-medical goods (not services) and a national property tax on real estate. No income tax. I would set the rates to meet government spending.

My premise:

Not to tax income from labor, savings, investments.
Tax consumption.
Lower government spending.
Increased focus on local and state governments providing local services along with local and state taxes to pay for those services.
No social engeneering through federal tax policy.
No death taxes.
No preferences or government discrimination through tax policy; i.e. straight marrage vs. gay marrage, or having a mortgage vs. not having a mortgage.
Tax the underground economy. Crooks consume, but they don't file 1040's on their illegal income.
Fairly tax tourists, legal and illegal guest workers.

I would hav a provision for those unable to take care of themselves in the form of a tax rebate or transfer payments if they qualified.

I can live with your proposal of generally flat taxes. The more complicated the tax code is the easier it is for the rich to game the system. You keep it simple which is good.

I don't support your deductions. Why a deduction for college, and not trade school? Why deduct trade school and not an apprentice program? Etc, Etc. Not everyone wants to go to college, and those who do, generally make more money in life anyway.

If I can deduct interest on a morgage, why not get a $500,000 mortgage, when I only need a $250,000 mortgage. Our current mortgage deduction causes inflation in the housing market. It makes it harder for people to "join the club" of home ownership. Why doesn't the single mom with two kids, renting a one bedroom apartment get a break?

One of the reason higher education is so expensive is because of government subsidies and programs. Today if you don't qualify for one of those programs you get screwed. Or, if you live in California and want to go to school in Wisconsin, you get screwed. The theory is that the tax payers in Wisconson don't want to subsidize kids from California. Isn't that a great system? I would say not.

Every wonder why there has been no inovation in higher learning in the last 200 years? The schools have no real competition because of the subsidies. The system needs change. government subsidies hinder change, and does not encourage it.

Washington can not fix grade schools. It takes local people. No child left Behind is a failed attempt of a "one federal program" fits all solution. Why send money to Washington and then have Washington send it back? Send it back with conditions that are unreasonable?!? Perhaps a better way would be for local schools to be accountable and paid for at the local and state level. If you lower federal taxes more money would be available locally. It is better when people can see how their money is spent. Currently our federal government is like a black hole.


Almost al wealthy people at some point give back. Gates is doing it, Carnige did it. Others who were considered the wealthies in the world did it. I assume most people are good and that they want to leave a positive legacy.

If you have a deadly infection in your leg, would you cut it off to save your life? If so, I am sure your leg would consider you an evil "CEO".

When a CEO cuts jobs, it is usually because it is the last resort. CEO's are people too. Why would they go through the pain of firing people if they did not thing it was best for the company in the long run.

Look at GM. The company is close to going out of business. How would you fix it? How would you compete against Toyota? You would cut costs, and improve productivity, you would fire people who hindered the company's ability to compete. GM was not responsive and now the entire company is at risk, the lives of millions of people at risk, because they did not get the job done. Only the strong survive in business.

Let say it is oil, and the fact that we need a stable world oil market. Most people against the war, have not stopped using oil based products. Why not?

One war at a time. If we send a message in Iraq, perhaps we won't have to fight in other places. If we let others get away with "stuff", that sends the wrong message. Iran is watching, if we run, they will be emboldened as will many other nations. Being top dog, is not an easy position to be in. You can bet others want to be where we are.

I don't need defense from people who want to work, and take care of their families. I respect "illegals", and I would do exactly what they do to improve the opportunities for my children. Wouldn't you?

Actually, GM has exported thousands and thousands of American jobs to Mexican plants, where the average wage is about 2 dollars an hour, compared with about ~20/hour per plant worker in detroit.

In between 1994 and 1998 when GM went from making all of their Suburbans in the US to about 84,000 in the US and 82,500 in Mexico, the average price of a Suburban increased from 24,500-27,00 to 29,000-34,000 dollars. Considering half of those Suburbans came at a labor cost 1/10th what the workers in Detroit got, shouldn't GM have saved a shit load of money? If Detroit labor costs are 1W (100% Wage = 20$/hour), then 82,500 x .10W = 8,250 . This means that GM can make 82,500 cars for the same LABOR PRICE (this is not overall price in parts of course) that would only build them 8,250 Suburbans in Detroit. So why did the costs go up SO much? Because it went into the pockets of the top 5% of management of the company.

Don't even get me started on the reason GM is doing badly--the fact that they got their ASSES handed to them by the fucking Japanese. Dude how many civics and camrys and accords do you see on the road? Lexus, Acura, and BMW have the top 5 selling luxury sedans in the US. No US company is in there anywhere.

Why?? Business is hard, you're right. It's hard to sell shitty cars when there are much better ones on the market. The only thing GM and Ford have going for them are the pick up and SUV markets. The daily commuter, or person earning 25-40g / year is going to buy a foreign car because they are higher quality. Nicer interiors, more options, better warranties, and they DONT BREAK AS MUCH.

You can buy a honda at 100k miles and rest assured that with oil changes, it will go past 200. My 95 Nissan Maxima GLE has 180k + on it and besides regular maintenance, has a perfectly good engine which is not going to die any time soon.

How do you explain that? GM on the verge of bankruptcy, raising prices of their cars even though their costs are dropping? The fact of the matter is that the gap between the rich and the poor is growing because of exploitative labor practices. Can't fuck over your workers? Go some place that can. Oh, and by the way we don't want to pay import / export taxes or be penalized in any way for this (HELLO!!!: NAFTA ANYBODY??)...so yeah..dub ya, you make that happen, we'll see you at the driving range tomorrow.

It's like those who know don't care, and those who don't know don't want to.

If you could pay person x $2/hr. for the same quality and quantity that person y charges $20/hr for, why would you pay $20/hr.?

I don't remember exactly, but I read that each GM vehicle has about $1,700 in costs to cover retirees and other costs that others don't have.

When was the last time GM turned a profit? If they are saving money and raising prices, somthing ain't working right. the stockholders certainly have not been happy over the last quarter of a century.

GM execs make more than those at Ford, Toyota, BMW, Porsche, Nissan, Daimler-Chrysler??

Poor management and short-sighted unions.

Because they're part of the American economy? Because they will buy cars, and groceries, and clothing, and support all other American industries? Corporations look for their executive fat cats to have astronomical paychecks, and if fucking over low level factory workers by outsourcing their jobs to Mexico is a way to do that, hell yeah. All they see is an increase in profit.

What, you think Americans are going to want to support the auto industry, which already has a lower quality reputation compared with Germany and Japan, after they've been cutting thousands of jobs and scaling back hundreds of thousands of pensions? Those CEO's do NOT need to make 25 million dollars a fucking year, on TOP of having the company pay for ALL their daily expenses (cell phone, plane services, etc). It's just not balanced--since when has 5 million not been enough?

No, it's comparable I'm sure--which makes it even worse. These greedy assholes don't need more money than God, but they think they do. Taking 30% salary cuts would save the company hundreds of millions of dollars a year which could be given back to their work force.

Imagine a work force where the average salary is 10$ hour / higher than anywhere else. Imagine the amount of people who would WANT work for you? You would be in a position to have a top of the line premium product because you could demand people ahdere to highest quality labor standards. Instead it's all a race to the bottom, and the less money you pay, the more unqualified people are going to fight for that job.

Agreed. So why do CEO's salaries still exponentially increase despite the company losing money? Because in the end it is greedy people steering the ship. They seek profit, and go about means to secure that end. In fact, if they were to worry about doing good business, making a good product, and taking care of their employees, they would find that profit would come naturally because their employees would want to work harder, would want to better the company, and this would show in the final product, which, in turn, people would want to buy more, leading to more profit.

A corrupt, bloated union and poor management don't help either, which are also very real problems, but the way GM has gone about addressing hasn't been to fix their management practices, and to make it their business to find qualified people, it's been to cut costs so they can continue operating as they are, in a broken manner, as long as possible.

They're throwing buckets of water overboard when they should be focusing on patching the hole.

Then I imagine that they shouldn't have promised those benefits to the employee when they hired them, right? But as it stands now, with the 'all business' instead of 'pro business' outlook, we, the taxpayer, are getting stuck paying those pension benefits instead of the company that promised them.

There is a pension gurantee fund. If GM pension fund goes under that fund should pick-up the tab. Consumers will ultimately pay the cost because the remaining companies paying into the fund will have to pay more and they will pass it on to the consumer if they can.

Many companies are moving away from the defined benefit plans. I think IBM just made an announcement of that nature.

I agree that in GM's situation everything is pointing to poor management. But ironically for those who think management is wrong for cutting costs, they needed to do more of that.

Our standard of living in this country is based on productivity. If we want to maintain our standard of living productivity has to improve, we have to continually produce more at lower costs. If we don't other countries will catch and pass us.

Rather than unions hindering productivity gains they should work with management as a team to make sure the USA is the best place in the world to employ labor.

Blame labor, blame the unions BUT continuously stick up for the greedy fucks that make millions and millions, get tax cuts, while the rest of us poor schlobs have to work for shit wages, pay higher sales taxes, higher hidden taxes and higher property taxes.

Keep blaming labor and keep believing those CEO's are worth every penny.

Meanwhile, in reality because of the greed from those bastards you stick up for. We watch tax bases erode, we watch scandals, we watch our infrastructure degrade to a "D" grade (still haven't had a response to that from any of the right), and we watch as we go further and further into debt because those fucks refuse to sacrifice but demand everyone else does.

How many company CEO's last year demanded wage decreases or benefit decreases while taking raises?

How many Congressmen refused to set a minimum wage that people could live on, while barely passing a SS raise and telling the citizens we need to sacrifice, while their asses voted to give themselves raises? (Not just Fed. but in how many states did this happen also?)

My point is the CEO's need to take responsibility also and sacrifice. Otherwise, the people will tire of it and they will fight back.

Depressions effect everyone.....

And look where that's gotten us. Perhaps we should focus on education, public infrastructure, and things which are going to give back to our society as a whole. If we took the money dumped into the Iraq war and used it to rebuild improverished neighborhoods, build new schools, etc, in a Roosevelt style public works extravaganza, we would have a huge economic boom. Thousands of jobs created, better education for all Americans, and it might show minorities that they don't have to gang bang and run drugs to buy a BMW.

We still have the best technology of any other country in the world, arguably. I don't see why we have to focus on productivity--honestly, this country needs a more socialist approach. We have to aknowledge man's greed, and the fact that he will work hardest for his own gain rather than his neighbors, but we should also control key industries by the state and give the basics required to live to all citizens. But no, we focus on productivity, which leads to our public infratrustructures deteriorating.

How do you PROPOSE they actually do that? The US will never be the best place to employ labor because the costs of living here are so high. There is no way you can expect any American to live on $2 hour. Third world countries are fucking over their people by selling out to international corporations in exchange for sweet heart deals amongst the bureaucratic elite. The people of these nations get trampled and trodden over by these corporate machines.

If a GM Suburban plant moves to Mexico, and their workers strike, what can GM do?

a) They can hire more workers. There are plenty of desperate people with hungry families to feed who will jump at the chance to get a paying job of any kind to support their loved ones. Forget the fact that they're treated like slaves, they can't afford the convenience of having pride or dignity.

b) GM can just leave. The costs of building another plant in Panama or Chile might be cheaper, so they can always say to the Mexican workers, and to the government, "Fuck off, we'll go get in bed with your neighbor and economic rival then. We'll give them our business"

And this whole process is proliferated by American economic initiatives like NAFTA and CAFTA. It's nice being able to demand small countries open up their domestic markets to foreign competition, relinquish subsidies, and privatize their public services (water systems, electricity, oil and gas), so that power house American corporations can come in and jack the prices up on everything, and take out their domestic farming via US Agribusiness subsidies (up to 40% of their profits, in some cases), leaving them completely dependant on US corporations for labor demand, as well as dependant on us to export them everything they need--because after we crash their domestic economies, we jack all the prices up so that they can barely enough at the jobs we employ them at to make enough money to buy the products we sell them to keep their families alive.

Ace, so far, you have said NOTHING to back up the kind of economics you're talking about. Please explain to me how any the things I have just described to you are going to lead towards a prosperous American society in the next 20 years? How are peoples' lives going to be bettered?

I'm not a raging leftist, or a socialist, or any of that. I am a true neutral, and looking at things from my perspective, I see a lot of rampant abuses of power in this world, primarily stemming from the US.

Can you refute any of this with anything substantial? Can you reply with anything concrete that may change my mind? Can you explain how I'm completely wrong and the scenario I just described is not the situation third world workers are in?

Our system is inherently broken in unhealthy. You remember when capitalism failed? The Great Depression? When monopolies ruled the world and American workers were in the EXACT same situation I described in those third world countries? Capitalism needs competition and democracy to check itself against the abominable beast of human greed, and so far as I see it, those safe guards have failed.

As a result we have global monopolies who go around pillaging and looting the rest of the world, using efficiency and productivity as excuses to create an economy with rapidly increasing polarization of wealth and influence.

I really hope you can respond to this with something empirical, or else just stop wasting our time and admit you're rich, happy, and could really care less about what's happening to people outside the bubble of your own life.

I actually blamed weak management.

Management gave too much to the unions. Management took what they thought was the easy road.

I acknowledge there is greed in management. Do you acknowledge greed in the unions?

There are failings on both sides, but ultimately management has to be acountable.

People often complain about management, but then do not offer alternatives. It is easy to say I will pay $20/hr. to an American when a non-American can do the exact same job for $2/hr. In reality the people who say that never would. Talk is talk.

Look at it this way. If you spend 18 hours per day searching for food and 6 hours resting, all you do is eat and sleep. If you spend 9 hours per day searching for food, 6 resting, then you have 9 hours for other things. The quality of your life improved. That is what I mean by productivity gains.

Imoverished neighborhoods in this country are actually that bad compared to historical or international standards. Yes, we can do better, but individuals have to take some responsibility for their lot in life. Every child has access to education, food, and shelter. Anyone born in this country can go from poverty to becoming wealthy.

That's working really well for Cuba, would you agree? I won't.

Having the best technology today, means nothing tomorrow. We either move forward or we go backward. I get the feeling that some on this board think that once you reach a certain point, you can stop, rest, smell the roses. Thats o.k. for those who are satisfied with a deteriorating life-style. I just hope for the sake of our nation, these folks stay in the minority.

My father worked for Caterpillar, in a union as a machine operator, before retiring. There was a period when the company moved production of an important part overseas, in about 6 months they brought production of that part back to his department. Why? Because is department was better at making the part. The quality was better and they were more productive. Thats how it works. If you are better than your competition, you win.

Our lives will get better through education. Why should Americans die in coal mines. Why should Americans work 12 hour days making shoes? Why shouldn't Americans become scientist, computer programmers, inventors, engineers, managers of capital and resources. Give third world nations an opportunity to grow their economies with hard labor. Our focus should be a 'brain' labor.

Look at farming. Today, one man can do the work of hundreds of men. That's gains in productivity. The people who worked on farms started doing other work. Now people working in factories don't have to, they need to do other work. The kind of work that requires knowledge, creativity, initiative...,isn't that our goal?

Do you have an open mind? If you do I'll keep trying.

The Great Depression was the result of government's attempts at restricting free trade.

Big government and government interference in free markets hurts our system. Why has education gotten worse over the years with more and more government involvment?

Pillaging and looting of the world occured mostly during the monarchies of western europe. In capitalist systems, with free markets, people and nations get paid.

I started life lower middle class. Parents got divorced when I was 10. There were times when my dad got laid-off of his union job and we used food stamps. We rented and moved almost every year. I worked hard in school, worked part-time jobs, saved money, paid for college, worked hard in the corporate world, saved, bought a home, continued my education, got promotions and raises, saved, and bought my business with my life savings. Now I am working harder than ever before. If you think I am greedy because I worked hard and made sacrifices, so be it.

I have often posted unions were a problem, but in the 80's that changed and management has since become the greedy partner.

Ultimately, it is not management nor unions that are responsible but both. Both in that if management has gotten so strong and greedy the union needs to protect the worker and strike...... or if the union has become to strong management needs to demand restructuring of the union.

The issue is right now the unions are far too scared to strike for fear their jobs will be gone. Thus management has more control than ever.

Go ahead take every factory overseas and pay all the workers $2. You know what, FUCK THE BLACKMAIL, DO IT!!!!!!! You can't because we are the largest market and in doing that you will effectively destroy yourself and everyone else. It's why Honda, Nissan, Toyota and so on built factories here and are paying in wages and benefits almost better if not better than Ford, GM, and so on. (I know this for fact because I have relatives working at both GM in Ontario, Ohio and at Honda, Marysville.) The Japanese car companies are thriving not necessarily because of better product but because of the way management and the workers work together.

Another issue is healthcare. If healthcare wasn't so out of control and we actually fixed the fucking system instead of letting it continue to spiral, more companies like GM would be financially solvent.

It's not management's fault that healthcare is spiraling, it is not that they gave away too much. It is not the unions fault healthcare is spiraling and they only took as much as management would give them. It is the fucking greed of the healthcare industry and it has been destroying us and will continue to do so.

But there are ways to stop healthcare without government interference. You take GM, Ford, and the largest companies and they tell the healthcare industry "we will only pay this for this amount of coverage.... you charge more screw you we'll find someone else."

The problem there is that the industry says "no screw you noone will match you" and management of those companies are looking for ways to cut all they can (except at upper management levels) and so management instead of being firm with Healthcare, says, "OK.... it's all the retirees and workers who won't budge and it's their fault. We'll match pay your premiums."

Overall, if either of the sides (Healthcare, management, the workers, government (Local, State and FED.), truly wants to allow the US to become strong and financially and infrastructurally healthy, all sides need to work towards that goal and make sacrifices.

Sad thing is, everyone is so scared and so greedy and so protective of their own little niche they refuse to work together and instead blame each other for the misery of all.

And the GOP (Federally) has taken the side that they refuse to do anything.... which is basically the same as saying "I have treatable cancer, but I am scared to have treatment ...it'll cure itself."

The DEMS (Federally) have no true selling points because they lack any insight and true leadership on the issue.

Healthcare doesn't care because they are getting what they demand and they don't truly care what it costs.

Management doesn't care because they make their millions and have their golden parachutes.

The workers have lost care because they are just trying to survive.

And State and Local governments do what they can but they can't truly do much because they lack the funds.

It's time for change and time to do better or we will truly be done. Every side is being a fucking spoiled brat over the matter (some worse than others as some are just trying to protect what they do have).

One group can't change it, 2 groups may be able to start the ball rolling and we'll survive for a little longer, but it takes each of those groups to go to the table and figure out a way to not just survive but to become truly healthy again.

It is becoming more and more clear to me what a friend at college has been saying.

The government doesn't know or care or want to fix the problem, if either party made avenues to fix it, they would lose voters because we're all too greedy, too scared and or feel too secure to want to truly sacrifice. So whenever something bad arises about the economy or a large industry, something comes out about the war and the powers in the government start arguing over those issues and the economy gets shoved aside and forgotten.

GM announces it's close to bankruptcy = Bush's wiretaps/mail openings.

The only industry that gets it and deservedly so is Big Oil and that is only because the people are so vocal about it ad it effects everyone's wallet.

But healthcare..... nope

Saving the auto industry ..... nope

the infrastructure..... nope

and so on.

I am starting to see his point as very legitimate. That perhaps the war isn't for oil or terrorism but designed to keep focus off the true problems we really have. It's an expensive excursion but if used the right way will get the other sides to try to work together without having to use the government as it's savior. OR it could totally backfire and truly destroy us (our economy and government) much, much faster.

There is merit but I don't know if I agree with all of it.

We agree on a few points, but in some areas I don't think you understand why management makes the decisions they do.

Nissan, Toyota, BMW, etc, build factors here because it makes them money. When they make the decision they look at labor costs, certainly. but the also look at proximity to their market (or shipping costs), proximity to suppliers, currency exchange rates, tax rates, cost of land, cost of construction, pool of available and trainable labor, political stability in an area, etc, etc, etc.

It may be surprising but in some cases it makes sense to move jobs here, and in other cases move jobs overseas. It ain't personal, its business. People in management get paid to make money, thats the job. Why do you get upset when they do their job. Teachers get paid to teach. Singers get paid to sing. Your religious leader gets paid to give religious guidence. Etc, Etc.

We have the best health care system in the world. People live longer today than in anyother time in history. Can it be better? Yes. Is it broke? No.
How would I improve it? I'll get back to you on that.

I agree.

Prescription Drug Plan for seniors. Is that nothing? Or, do we just not give the GOP credit for it. Plan is not perfect, but do you acknowledge the attempt?

No Child Left Behind. Is that nothing? Again, not perfect but do you acknowledge the attempt?

When Bradley from New York ran for president I supported him. I think he was too middle of the road for the democratic base. We need to fix or primary system. We get extremists from both parties.

True of some, not all. Most managers are hard working, caring people, just like you.

Most people are doing better than just surviving.

Money is not always the answer to a problem.

Not true, having been in management and an owner of a business, I know what needs to be done. But there is a difference between saying " Ok, don't touch my millions upon millions but let's cut jobs, destroy a city's economy and we'll be ok."

It's wrong and in the lonbg run the greed will destroy the company. They are becoming far too top heavy with too many greedy CEO's.

Gee, wouldn't that apply to GM, Ford and other companies? Guess not. Again, management is too greedy, where unions once were too destructive management has become as destructive if not moreso now.

I truly disagree with this. Yes, people are paid for their professions but look at the companies and look at the DEBT they have and how much the CEO's make while blaming labor costs and laying off, firing or just shipping jobs overseas.

If you have a CEO making with perks $10,000,000 and you have 10,000 employees, does it make sense to cut their on average $15 and hour and destroy the tax base to save money when the CEO himself could take a pay cut until the company shows true profit and has kept the infrastructure and city that needs them in good shape?

Guess not, by what you say it's "Fuck the worker, the CEO deserves everything he gets because he makes us more more".... when the same amount of money could be made by cutting his wages and making him actually work to better the company, not band aid it, rape another country's labor and destroy a community and 1000's of lives.


I didn't say we didn't have the best. But it is increasingly becoming unaffordable and we'll see if people truly live longer when the boomers start to age.

There's many factors besides healthcare that are allowing us to live longer.



The prescription drug plan was to say they tried something. The President, Congress and the Pharmaceuticals were actually put under pressure to do something or watch as more meds were "illegally brought over from Canada, Mexico, the internet and so on. Will it be successful? Time will tell.

If it is good, if it becomes like the "No Child Left Behind" where the GOP promises one thing then cuts funding and starts talking how it was a bad idea without even giving it a chance to take effect..... then no, they didn't do anything but make matters worse.

The attempt was never given a chance, from the second it was written the GOP decried it and cut funding almost immediately. And has been cutting it ever since, including College grants, loans and financial aid to those who need it most.

So no, it wasn't a true attempt.



Bradley was a good man, he lacked charisma and unfortunately was never given a true chance, much like Kemp on the GOP side. Moderates this day and age do not get the nod or the attention for fear it may incur change and the parties would lose their power.


Most Middle and lower front line management is. And most upper level executives in smaller companies are. However, the true upper management of the bigger companies have lost touch with America, they don't see any problems because they make their money and to them closing down a factory and shipping it overseas just saves their salaries and looks good to the board.... As you keep pointing out..... However they don't give a shit what that closing has done to the community or the people affected.

Look at Canton... They made Hoover, there was a great connection there. Maytag came in closed them down now, these people who bought Hoovers are going to go and buy Dirt Devils or Eurekas and will not buy anything by Maytag.

Nor did those closings save Maytag, and as Maytag is losing money and having to sell everything off, the CEO and upper management's salaries and perks go untouched.

So there is one case out of many where your argument that CEO's make money and deserve the pay, falls apart.


How do you figure when they are heavily indebt and in most cases a paycheck away from missing house and car payments. They fear to make noise to organize and unionize and speak out, for fear what little they do have will be taken away as the company says," FUCK YOU, we'll rape Taiwan and Indonesia and Mexico of their labor and still make more."

Eventually, you get nothing here but shit jobs for shit wages with everyone heavily indebt. But if we ever stopped the flow of credit (we don't even have to collect just stop the credit) the economy would plunge to levels this country has never seen.

Ever wonder why opr how college kids get $1000's in credit cards? Or why someone making $12,000 can have a $5,000 limit? Not because they have good credit, it's because we need everyone to spend spend spend to feed this monster. The second we don't spend we die.

Don't you wonder why the refusal of interest rates is so big? It's because if they started going up, people would be in very bad shape and wouldn't be able to feed the monster.

They are living on credit and when the credit comes due, they won't even be surviving.


True, wanting to actually correct the problems and build a better society needs to be done with not just money but with a true desire on all sides to work together.

Money, right now is desperately needed and is the solution short term. As pointed out above, in the ASCE report, you work on the infrastructure (which requires money to be spent), and you make new jobs, increase tax bases, increase wages and decrease the debts people have, and the country becomes better in many ways.

Unfortunately, it's not that way right now. And we don't have much time to change it.

Looks like we could go on forever (and it is very tempting to rebut your latest points, but I going to spend some time being a blind, greedy, heartless... whatever you said in one of your posts).

I think I understand our fundamental differences. I generally think America is a great country and that people, rich and poor, are generally good and will do what is right if given a fair opportunity. We have problems, we will never achieve perfection but we try. It may not be fair for me to speak for you, but you seem to think government needs to force people to do what is right, and that gennerally the things that are wrong with this country are going to lead to its end.

Seems like you view the cup as half empty and I see it as half full.

I have just one rebuttal.

No, I don't think government has to force people to do what is right. As I stated ALL sides (Management, Healthcare, Labor, and government on all levels) have to be willing to make sacrifices and do what is best for the country to save our society.

Right now I don't see that, what I see is everyone worried more about saving themselves than society. It is human nature, but somewhere down the road it will be too late. That point is coming fast. I do believe that government's job is to protect it's people, part of that protection requires protecting the society it has built. Thus, government needs to start the talks and progress as mediator to save society.

If we can save our industries, rebuild the infrastructure and lower healthcare prices then society will take care of itself and government can back away. But right now, we need a strong government that is willing to get involved and begin the processes. That means investing in the infrastructure, which again, companies are not doing by themselves. It takes money to do that and when the companies are working to save their own asses, and workers are just trying to stay afloat, government has to be the impetus to get things started.

Since local and states don't have the money, it is the Federal government that has to start the ball rolling. Until we address the infrastructure and put the money into rebuilding the country, we will continue or decline into greed, into poverty, into eventual total decay.