Slashdot Mirror
CNET's in-depth Coverage of IT security
museumpeace writes "Starting today
CNET news is running a
3 day series of reports and analysis
of government and industry responses to the challenge of making America safe. While it primarily focuses on the technology content of these tangled issues, the report also tries to sort out the impact politics-as-usual is having on this presumably critical national concern...there is plenty of muck to rake: "As if chickpeas, lentils and mohair have anything to do with national security. One congressman even stated that a peanut subsidy, with a $3.5 billion price tag, 'strengthens America's national security,'" the 335,000-member group said. "Members of Congress have been cloaking old-fashioned pork in the robes of 'security' for the 'homeland.'"Lots to read here and registered CNET readers can put in their two cents.
Throwing Money at Techology is the title of the leading report for today and that sums up much of what is going on."
Thanks, George!
John
I have no problems paying taxes if I know it isn't going into pork-projects and the pockets of Politicians. I doubt many would disagree...
DAMN YOU OCTODOG! DAMN YOU TO HELL!
"Throwing Money" at the problem is exactly what some users do on a personal level. There's a huge number of people who buy a firewall, antivirus program, etc. when free tools exist, and when a different browser would help solve the problem immensely. Then after spending $100 on a security suite, they wonder why the computer is acting up. "I spent money to prevent this, it can't possibly break!"
I think this shows how important it is for the community to keep non-govt supported efforts going. See for example the Internet Storm Center. Just compare the amount of useful information they put out compared with what you get for your tax dollars from places like US-CERT.
Isn't the amount of money thrown at computer security a little high compared to the cost of setting up a free firewall like iptables and verifying that it works with nmap a little high?
9/11: Never forget it was a false-flag operation
Of course. Peanuts can be highly effective weapons in the right hands. Especially if the terrorists have allergies. Or you could hurl the peanuts like small pebbles. Or you could .... um, look over there, a three headed monkey!
I hear there's rumors on the Slashdots
It seems to me they can never throw enough money at the IT security front to label it "Secure" there is always going to be a hole that can be found. Just like everything else that the goverment deals in they will continue to say they throw all this money on the issue only to have a considerable percentage moved to funding issues that the american public knows nothing about.
If some of the US government institutions insist on using Windows, then they should at least use open source security software, such as TrueCrypt (truecrypt.sourceforge.net).
Day 1: Throwing money at technology. - I have no problem with this. Most of us in some way work in the IT field and this means more money and jobs.
Day 2: Companies profiting from fear. - It's usually the stinkin' rich guys fearing for their luxury sports cars. This means they enlist security companies to safeguard themselves. More money for the little guys.
Day 3: Global assault on anonymity. - This one I have a problem with. I'm a little worried about private companies tracking our movements and stalking us for our money. We have a choice not to deal with that company and take our money elsewhere. But when the government does it, there is no escape. It's either let them do it or flee the country (not a very easy task for some).
A split government is better for all America. I support Kerry and the Democratic party in general, but I am *extremely* skeptical about having a one-party government.
I wish we could expect more from our elected officials but america is the house that greed built. It seems fitting that greed will be our eventual downfall.
Part of the problem is that the concept of security, paradoxically, works against the very thing that it is designed to protect. Government agencies compete for the same pool of money and resources; not everyone will win the biggest slice of the $86 billion package. There are inter-agency rivalries, "politics-as-usual", and even backstabbing, as each group struggles to even understand what "security" means, and what it means to them in particular.
So, two things stand out to me:
1) Inconsistency in the vision of national security as each agency/special interest group has its own idea of security, complicated by divergent political interests and even hostile political rivalries, and further hindered by the administration's own unclear directives of what constitutes national security (you can't lead from bottom-up; there must be a cohesive, unified vision from top-down).
2) The notion of security, in a strange, Orwellian way, goes against some of the most treasured principles of this country: Freedom of thought, and freedom of the expression of those thoughts. The demands of national security will sometimes rely on classified government contracts, covert operations, and the famous "wall of silence". Yet the human nature in this nation is such that we have TV programs like "Fleecing of America" by NBC that will "expose" the "vast abuses" by the government, at the expense of the average working taxpayers. We all want to know, but our very own livelihood demands sometimes that we NOT know. The wherefores and the how-to's of this controlling of information are very much at the heart of national security. (This is part of the reason why something like 9/11 is not likely to happen in a totalitarian state like North Korea, where the concept of privacy and freedom of the individual is absent.)
1st. Fund mechanism that self-sustains new bureaucratic structure.
2nd. Fund lucrative pension plan for members of new bureaucratic structure.
3rd. Fund lavish parties and bonuses for members of new bureaucratic structure.
4th. Do whatever it was that new bureaucratic structure was actually tasked to do with whatever funds are left over (which is zero).
...during the gay marriage debate:
Isn't that important? Isn't that the ultimate homeland security -- standing up, defending marriage, defending the right for children to have moms and dads, to be raised in a nurturing and loving environment? Isn't that what this debate is all about?
Link
Throwing Monkeys at Technology????? Will this outsourcing nightmare never end???????
"Wow. Now THAT'S a lot of angry Indians." - Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer
Is it possible without violating our civil rights ala patriot act.
GETPKG - Package Management for Slackware
It's even mentioned in his wikipedia article. It's quite an interesting read, and contains lots of other informative details as well ;-)
Why was this modded to a 4? This is an obviously politically motivated and isn't insightful at all.
If you lean left, you'll read this and say "right on!" If you lean right, you counter that the government will always waste the money it is given which is exactly why you shouldn't increase taxes.
BTW, since the poster seem to be convenced that Bush is the only one who would increase the deficit, how do you think that Kerry is going to pay for all of his "I have a plan"'s. Also, when Kerry increases taxes on the upper middleclass (small business owners) what do you think that will do to jobs given that 80%+ of new jobs come from these small business owners who are being taxed. When the small business owners are taxed more they will hire less. When the hire less, there are less jobs. When there are less jobs, less people have money to put back into the economy.
...chickpeas, lentils and mohair...
...peanut subsidy...
...pork in the robes...
Anybody else get hungry after reading this...?
Real programmers can write assembly code in any language. -- Larry Wall
I'm 24 years old. I don't want to go through the next 50 years of my life living in an international air of worry and uncertainty. I don't want to live in a permanent state of fear, generated by a megalomaniacal American government taking advantage of the majority low IQ populous' capacity for being brainwashed.
I don't want to live like Israel, fighting militant Muslims round every corner. The problem of Muslim extremists exists and needs to be dealt with, not encouraged by invading innocent countries and waging war on people who have done nothing to deserve it. I want my children to grow up in a world free from military oppression and I want a government that understands that the wars of the future are guerrilla ones which can never be won, even if they are waged for noble purposes (which theirs never are).
The world is fu*cked up enough as it is. The food chain has been poisoned so badly the average human is full of chemicals normally found in plastics and toxic waste. I'm sick of global warning and environmental damage to the planet and the fact the all this time the greenies were right. I'm sick of America being the biggest wilful contributor to the pollution of the planet.
I'm sick of an American school system that produces children who are brought up to believe that America IS the world and anything that goes on outside is irrelevant. Children so stupid they think America invented the Internet, computer, motor car, light bulb, telephone etc ad infinitum....
The Internet or it's successor is the future of entertainment and I'm sick of stupid low IQ, ignorant Americans infecting every corner of it with their insular, jingoistic mindsets, their whiny voices and manifestations of their low self esteem driven by the fact that despite it being their turn as the world's super power, no one actually takes them seriously or gives them the respect that the British or the Ancient Greeks got because a superpower best known for producing mass produced crap is never going to get the respect that one who gave the world Shakespeare, culture, philosophy or mathematics will get.
I'm sick of hypocrisy and two facedness. I'm sick of Gangsta Rap and hamburgers, Political Correctness and TV programmes that begin with 'When' and end in 'go bad and attack people'. I'm sick of reality TV and I'm sick of news programmes that are more censored than accurate. I'm sick of tokens, token minorities, token universities, token degrees, token attempts at the truth, tokens. I'm sick of fat people, ugly people, stupid people, gay people, coloured people, female people, whiny people all complaining they don't have the opportunities in life they would like and it must be someone else's fault. I'm sick of women that act like men and femininity being a crime, unless you're a man in which case you're a new man which nobody ever wanted because there was nothing wrong with the old one. I'm sick of people falling over and suing the ground and people watching nipples and suing the TV and I'm sick of coffee cups with 'don't pour over yourself, you may get burnt' on the side to try and counter this.
I'm sick of stupid Americans who don't know the difference between patriotism and jingoism and who think flag waving should be an Olympic event. I'm sick of Americans who cry that people hate them or are jealous of them or who are anti them because someone dares to point out that the America they've been programmed to believe in from birth bears no relation to the one that exists in real life.
Who modded this down and why? It is a legimate view on foreign policy and it reeks of one-sidedness to think that only certian viewpoints are allowed on Slashdot. I don't agree with that view on the terrorism issue but I am even more appaled that people can't even come to the discussion without being unfairly modded down.
One particularly large area where money is being aggressively thrown at is Technology, which is being seen as the solution to all the security problems (diplomacy, better foreign policy would work better IMHO), which is where the article gets the name from. It's not just about IT (or "cyber") security.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
For all the billions (did I see $85 billion in the article?) for the Department of Homeland Security, there is a measly $10 million devoted to all research. Of that, $5 million goes to "cybersecurity" research. It was no wonder that the cybersecurity chief resigned.
To put the research numbers in perspective, the National Institute of Health regularly sees INCREASES in annual budget in tens of millions of dollars.
At least our peanut crop with its $3.5 million dollar homeland security subsidy (mentioned in the article) indicates that our government has its priorities straight. I can see Osama quivering in his boots!
I used to work at Law Journal Extra, which was a gopher system run on Pipeline software, later bought by Law.com. There I read that the Internet was based on open protocols and was basically insecure and highly susceptible to malicious activity, which would become a big problem as it became commercialized. Then I became an editor at Foreign Affairs magazine and tried to get them to run an article about cyberterrorism. They didn't have much interest in that although they did run several articles about terrorism and the threat of WMD in the hands of terrorists. Since then there have of course been billions of dollars in damage due to viruses, and the security situation has gotten so bad that a teenager in the Philippines could put together a virus using tools that could bring down major web sites that handle tons of commercial activity, but they've still only run one piece addressing this to my knowledge. Notably the administration has been wrongly focused on the threat of WMD and not basic infrastructure security. This is because of a general lack of understanding about computers among journalists and policymakers IMO.
Without an adequate reserve of nuts, the only President to ever lose a wrestling match with a pretzel would have no hope of being re-elected.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Actually, two... there's two things I've always felt about taxes and taxation....
First, I agree that we need a government to form a cohesive society, and that government necessarily needs funds to operate. But the question is how big does the government NEED to be and how much should it spend on certain programs.
Idea 1: Keep income taxes, but allow people to decide where their income tax dollars go. For example, if I was a strong supporter of the "War on Terror", I could allocate more towards military... I think you'd see the pork go away as fast as lightening.
Idea 2: no income taxes, just "use" taxes... collected taxes can ONLY be used for what they were collected for... For example, gasoline tax can ONLY be used for road maintenance. People who use larger and more gas guzzling vehicles will pay more for the maintenance of the road. People who use the road very little pay very little (directly). Taxes collected on gasoline CAN NOT be used for anything not related to transportation infrastructure. Again, you'd see a LOT of pork projects die... how are you going to subsidize peanut farmers with that system?
Stupid sexy Flanders.
BTW, since the poster seem to be convenced that Bush is the only one who would increase the deficit, how do you think that Kerry is going to pay for all of his "I have a plan"'s.
Now this is insightful, because it highlights the main problem in government today. There is no party that is fiscally conservative anymore. It used to be that the democrats would reccommend more spending for soical programs, the the republicans would argue against it. There was a nice balance of power, there the most important social programs would happen, but the fluff got cut. The Neo-Cons and republicans of today spend like drunken sailors. The democrats are no better, but the shift of the republican party to the left along with the war on terror has led to record deficits. Both parties have teamed up to spend us into third world status. Don't believe me? Try googling the No-Lobbyist-Left-Behind Act if you are interested.
No. Not at all. Considering that 99% of people don't know what in the hell iptables is, couldn't figure out how to use it, never mind even run Linux, people are paying for ease of use. Somehow, I can't picture my parents using something like iptables...
I don't respond to AC's.
taxes were originally introduced as a way to fund governments-starting with "royal" type governments,well.. as a way to fund government. Government doesn't work or produce, but they need tangibles to exist, tangibles and power over it's citizenry, a way to have a carrot and a stick. "Taxes"-enforced removable of portable wealth from individuals to a collective known as government- gave them both, so they were adopted by governmnets far and wide since way back in the olden days.
That was then, this is now.
The reason why they were necessary to be collected back thenwas because "money" was tangible based back then, whether it was precious metal portable-wealth barter coins or actual "stuff" like food and firewood and cattle and so on. "Taxes" were collected using all those products.
Nowadays, we have a *completely* artifical monetary system where the "money" is created out of thin air. Literally created poof out of thin air as computer entries for most of it, and a much smaller percentage as printed up pieces of paper, where a hundred dollar "note" costs as much as a one dollar "note", and even the bulk of portable barter wealth "coinage" in common use is base metals based, ie, cheap relatively speaking to produce.
In a closer look, "taxes" are not needed on the general population at all. The only limit should be a rational limit of how much is introduced into circulation by the government so as to not over inflate beyond what has been reasonably produced and is "backed" as it were by the sum totality of goods and services produced in the last economic reporting cycle of choice.
"Taxes" are now used as a full bore command and control measure over the populations to keep the elite in power.
There is NO reason for taxes when the government prints up the money. None. Zero economic reason. there is a power wielding reason., but no economic reason. All the various tax schemes and codes at the federal "income" level, whether currently implemented or "proposed" by well meaning tax change advocates fail to address this glaringly obvious and undeniable data, and are a sham and a fraud and a mass fakeout, well meaning as they are.
For international trade there needs to be a rational multiple-tangibles based "money-trade-product" that can be used for trade, but at the interior domestic level inside a huge nation like the US, taxes are MORE archaic than buggywhips, just they have 99.999999% of the population completely faked out that they are "necessary", and that includes most of the high level political and economic "thinkers" out there who are widely published.
Until you change back from an artifical fiat currency system, taxes should just be totally abolished at the federal level. That is the only true tax "reform" needed.
Of course, "government" will need some new and improved carrot and stick combination to hold over their citizenry's heads, but that is another subject entirely.
I keep meaning to write a detailed paper on this "tax" mass societal fakeout run by the central bankers in almost all nations,especially in the US as we are a pretty important component of global trade, maybe I will soon, because this is really bugging me. It is the "emperor has no clothes" on viagra, steroids, jolt cola and crack.
I wish one of the larger third parties would adopt this as a campaign platform plank, it *would* get noticed perhaps.
As someone who is almost always considered a right-wing republican, I have to agree that the current situation of increasing the debt substantially is likely the most dangerous finanical problem this country has experienced since the depression.
Political pundits from both sides have always poo-poo'd the debt. Any respected economist from either political side will well you that such debt is very dangerous and can lead to a rapid decline in our economy.
Yes, lower taxes will help the economy - IF taxes are really lowered. Increasing the debt load is NOT decreasing taxes - just hiding them for a short amount of time.
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
though it may not be totally be connected with the topic:
are you throwing money way more than what is being protected?
Live your life each day as if it was your last.
Anybody read "animal Farm " lately? I know that the book was originally written regarding socialism/communism, but there are a several parallels that could be drawn to life in the US today. Replace terror(ist) with Mr Jones, in almost anything said by Bush ( or Kerry) and it sounds like something Squealer would say
Anybody read "animal Farm " lately? I know that the book was originally written regarding socialism/communism, but there are a several parallels that could be drawn to life in the US today. Replace terror(ist) with Mr Jones, in almost anything said by Bush ( or Kerry) and it sounds like something Squealer would say
I certainly am willing to pay extra taxes to have my penis protected. Oh, "peanuts" ... Never mind.
I don't read any of the tripe on the bestseller list, but I certainly believe that a large quantity of Americans support the terrorists.
I do believe, however, that most of them are doing so unwittingly. Low intensity warfare is like that. "No one is shooting at me today, so time to get back to partisan bickering and lining my own pockets!!"
Human nature. I still find it reprehensible but whatever, that isn't going to change it.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
Under Clinton's leadership, the budget deficit deficit of 290.4 billion dollars, to a 236.4 billion dollar surplus, in eight years. That is fiscal conservatism.
Anybody read "animal Farm " lately? I know that the book was originally written regarding socialism/communism, but there are a several parallels that could be drawn to life in the US today. Replace terror(ist) with Mr Jones, in almost anything said by Bush ( or Kerry) and it sounds like something Squealer would say.
Parent should be modded funny!
Under Clinton's leadership, the budget deficit deficit of 290.4 billion dollars, to a 236.4 billion dollar surplus, in eight years. That is fiscal conservatism.
Actually that was the tech boom. If you don't count the tech boom of the 90's the US economy has been in a funk for at least 14 years. One of the big problems is we don't make anything in America anymore, and we have unbalanced trade agreements with almost every country.
I can find postitives and negatives in the Clinton presidency. However, if you think his fiscal conservatism was the only reason for the surplus and not the stock market boom, you are mistaken.
These measures are window dressing. They inconvenience travellers just enough to make the general population think "thank God somebody is Doing Something!" (In other words, they're trying to do enough to get reelected.)
Anyway, whether or not these measures are effective is subjective. (Since you can't prove a negative, there's no telling just how effective they really have been.) How much they cost, however, is a matter of public record. And Congress has been spending money on security like a drunken sailor in a whorehouse, with no regards as to where those funds come from. So now I get back to politics. Deficit spending is as irresponsible as we can get -- and I blame the politicians who are currently spending our future. The whole "gotta have tax cuts" is the politics here: if you're going to spend a boatload of money, you better have that boatload of money to spend. So either raise my taxes to fill that boat, or don't spend it in the first place. Since the current Congress and Administration has done neither, I blame them for the irresponsible action.
John
I don't need no stinkin govt security.
Got me a BIG family which has lots of GUNS, ammo, and LINUX.
We're not above cannibalism so if things get tough, wimps be warned, ya'll better fatten up or get out of town.
and you also missed part of what I wrote as well. Respectfully, re-read it.
Government, through it's half governmental chartered private central bank, already "prints up" all the money, all of it. That is a declarative statement. It is based on absolutely nothing other than a determination of how much to create.
If you can prove otherwise, please do so.
I also mentioned that there needs to be a detailed effort to insure that the amount put into circulation is reflected on the totality of the previous economic cycle's tangible and intangible based "production", so as to avoid hyper inflation.
What we have now is a redundancy, a recursive economic system, where government does in fact print it up, create it out of thin air, then it "gets into" circulation through various means, one of the larger methods is through "lending" starting with the central bank system, down to the ersatz "private" banks, then it returns in various scam ways back to the origins, where it gets re loaned out. It is future debt based, not produced wealth based. Really, where do you think money in the form of federal reserve notes comes from? There is some huge vault someplace with money that was produced over the eons and for some reason we the people get to borrow it? Nope, it doesn't work that way. The Fed just creates it. "Government" gets it out, then takes it back, and in the middle attaches one million laws to it, when there's no need, it can just issue and spend what it needs to, within a constraint to not over inflate. It's exactly what we do now already, the change I propose is merely eliminating the humongous middleman skim that is going on, along with the governmental command and control aspects of tax code enforcement.
...where the money is not just printed up out of thin air now.
Show me details of where "money" comes from. the actual digits, both electronic and paper and coin. I want to see detailed proof it's based on something other than just printed up paper or digitized up, created from nothing. We'll leave clad coins out because obviously they are metallic, and we'll both agree that paper and ink is paper and ink, what I am asking is proof that this money existed before the Fed decides to create it. Please provide references and an audit trail going way back that is viewable by the public. Proof, not rhetoric or indignation, actual bonafide proof that this money is something, that it's not as I assert just created out of thin air.
What I wrote, if you read it more carefully, would still address and provide your list of governmental services, it eliminates the redundancy and skimming aspect to the current system,it addressed the issue of inflation and what limits need to be put on the money supply in circulation, and is a lot closer to what we currently have as a system than what you might apparently think.
this is why I made a kool aid reference, people just haven't acknowledged where "money" comes from here. You have to start with the same set of data, my data suggests money that we have now is artificially created and is based on nothing more than force of government and inertia. If you or anyone can prove that these FRNs are based on anything else, or actually existed as money before they were created in a computer, I sure would like to see it.
Funny that you say that...
I overheard a conversation today in which several people stated that open source security is a stupid idea. You have to close the source of the entire security, otherwise, people will take advantage of it.
I thought that was interesting. Especially because we have phone systems that are just like regular phones. Until you put a key in them and turn it. When you do that, the phone becomes secure and you can talk about things at various classification levels.
The short of that is that it's realized by some of the people around me that you can have a system that is unclassified, until the exact moment you put in your classified key. Yet they talk about closed source everything, and keeping the keys classified. That's the opposite approach to security than you stated. I just thought that was interesting.
And for the record, I'd rather use an open source algorithm, the validity and strength of which has been thoroughly tested by millions, with a key system separated (with hand carried keys, or special key generators), over using a closed source system that was likely tested at a company with a hundred employees working on it using keys from the same sources. I'd rather know about vulnerabilities in the system and have a proven track record with that system, than use one that is first fielded in your stuff. That way I can better evaluate how much I trust using that system.
I also know that there is a directive to use open source software wherever possible (to keep costs down), so I don't know how widespread the "closed-source mentality" is.
http://shit.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/10/18/1 215210
...back in the 1860s, and it's even less likely to work in the age of jet warplanes.
A thousand gun nuts with AR-15s or whatever still are no match for a small squad of AH-64s or whatever.
Sure, you could go guerrilla and turn America into an Iraq-style hellhole, but there's no way you could actually WIN.
And most importantly, the media would just call you terrorist kooks and you'd get no support from the flabby masses.
this could be the year of linux on the [whatever windows runs on, in security-is-important environments]
The same guys that own ZDNet? The same guys that shows Security as the least important aspect of IT on it's web sit? Or is there another?
So this is about outsourcing to India?
...how the system works currently. Umm, that isn't what I asked, I am fully aware of how the system works currently. this is why I propose an alternative, it's the entire point of my post. I asked you to prove, and I bolded it for emphasis, there was money before the fed created it out of thin air. From your post:
"They have to get the money from the Federal Reserve Bank."
You have stated this. I agree. Where did THAT money come from is the question now.
So see, you agree with me, we the people, our government, "gets our money from the federal reserve. I maintain this money is poof created and we could elilinate the fed and do it strictly with our treasury. I say the FEd as a middle man skimmer and gross loan shark is unethical, immoral, illegal, uneconomic, and general bad news, and that the tax system that goes along with it is completely nuts, horribly broken, makes no sense, is used to place restrictions on people more than anything else, and is not needed if you use ersatz fiat money, which we DO in this nation, I am not disputing that either.
My question I will keep repeating is, "where do THEY get it?"
I maintain it's poof created out of thin air, and that leads to skimming, redundancy and a governmental forced tax structure that is more command and control than for day to day function of government. I say we can do the same government without the fed. I say we can do it without income taxes, because all the money is poof created out of thin air.
Here's a hint, I've been ready with some direct pastes directly from the federal reserve itself on how money is created. With that in mind, I ask you again, directly, with no ambiguity, prove that the "money" existed before the federal reserve poof created it out of thin air.
Here's your quote again for a reminder:
"They have to get the money from the Federal Reserve Bank." Are you going to assert that a private bank miraculously has so much money in it's vaults that it can FUND the entire government, WITHOUT resorting to creating it out of thin air? This is binary, yes they do, no they don't. I maintain that "no they don't" that they create it out of nothing, profit from it immensely, trade what they create out of thin air for future promises of yours and mines labor in the form of bonds and various other government paper, and/or they use the fractional reserve banking system to loan debt into existence. I maintain it's loan sharking on a massive scale.
Now, your postion is that all this money pre exists,they got it, they don't need to create it from nothing, that it's in some big vault and has been there for a long time, and they "loan it to us". Proof, let's see it. I want to see some audit documentation, that goes back to day one of the creation of the "federal reserve bank", to prove they had the money to loan us. Round figures to the nearest million are OK for casual discussion purposes, but let's see the audit documentation.
This is the same thing said by almost every Democrat in the last 30-odd years. Yeah, let's just weaken our defenses. This is quite frankly my number one pet peeve with the Democratic party, and why my vote rarely goes in their direction (except in the case of our pathetic Republican governor, which I'll gladly vote against for other reasons.)
that others need to pay more or can afford more. That is a very selfish attitude you have.
Yes I said selfish. Real greed is telling others that they have more money than they need and hence should give some of it up.
The budget problem isn't because of the tax cut, government revenues are actually up, the real problem is that they won't stop increasing the spending!
It used to be that Republicans were fiscally conservative, but along came "Compassionate Conservatism" and all sense of budgets went out the door.
The key to fixing the spending is to rein in the ability to attach all sorts of crap to bills. A line item veto would be a great feature. To combat it the Congress would actually have to fess up to the American people just how many stupid things they waste money on.
Of course they would turn to "Omnibus spending bills" which hide lots of pork.
Worse things are to come, this tripe about a right to health care is nothing more than a play on words. Is there a right to make someone else your slave? If not how then do you propose to pay for this right to Health care if not from someone elses pocket? Someone who can "AFFORD" to pay more.
Your line of thought is EXACTLY what leads to more burdensome government. You are preaching exactly what they want to hear!
You do know that your taxes are actually nearly 7.5% higher than you see as your employer already kicks in an equal amount under FICA (might be wrong on the acronym)
Worse, if the Feds take over Healthcare you can kiss your income good bye. Why? Because current employer provided health care is one of the biggest tax free items included in many pay checks. See, health care is one of those benefits that you do not have to pay tax on! Take that money out of your true income and your tax burden grows.
Finally I would prefer the fairtax.org solution. A National Sales tax to replace the laws we have now or even a flat tax would be beneficial to the poor and the economy as a whole. The flat tax would actually mean people with large incomes would pay their fair share instead of dodging most obligations (like Kerry's 12.8 effective tax rate him and his wife paid on their income). Yet the best solution is the NST. Refunding monthly what the government deems the family needs and having no deductions, not tax forms, and no hidden burden.
Tax reform can lead to budget reform however politicians want neither because the more confusing it is the more power they have.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Hmm, maybe it's just as well that I was laid off. ;)
...that you posted has anything whatsoever to do with my original or subsequent posts. I maintain the sytem is as outlined, I am NOT disputing that.. I have a proposal, I keep getting back basic replies that are 7th grade civics lessons that I already got before most people here were born. What is the problem here? You honestly think I am not aware of how the sytem works??? I DARE you to actually quote me where I dispute any of the current reality in how our economic system and monetary system work NOW.
here you go, hope this works:
I FULLY ADMIT THAT THAT IS HOW IT WORKS NOW. NOW. YES YES YES. YOU ARE CORRECT.
IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH WHAT I WROTE, I OFFER A PROPOSED CHANGE. GET IT NOW?
Can we MOVE ON A LITTLE?
EGADS! I am sorry for yelling, but this is tarting to be a waste of time for me. I have yet to see anyone actually address what I wrote.
I will keep trying until I get tired of this. I honestly don'tknow how many different ways I can werite the same thing, but here goes.
I am proposing a significant CHANGE. That's it, it's really that simple. I am not arguing with anyone on how things are now, I am wondering out loud if a significant change would be cool, that's it. I outlined how to do it. Everything involved is non-hard. it involves eliminating unnecessary overhead and expense, for the same exact deal we have now, just cheaper and better and a lot more freedom for you and me and thee and thou. It's a simple concept, it isn't even that radical, just a more efficient way of doing what we are already doing, and it consists of eliminating the middleman and eliminating a few really glaring busywork paperwork obstacles that have been codigied into law, stuff that is no longer necessary because of the nature of the way of how we create money and get it into circulation. That's it in a nutshell. I tried, I really cannot make it any simpler than that, and I profusely apologize if anyone has taken personal affront, but GEEZ LOWEEZ this is like pulling teeth here.
It is how it is now, I propose something different, and I gave a quick overview of the why and how. Quick, but it's there. Can you SEE the difference now? Do these words have meanings?
again
I am PROPOSING an alternative, in a very short and general outline, by eliminating both the federal reserve and the income tax, BECAUSE OF THE FACT THAT I DON'T DISPUTE that the MONEY is artificially created. The AMOUNT in circulation should obviously be kept in some sort of balance with actual production and the level the US is at business wise (we already do this to a certain extent, I propose it could be better) and with legitimate government needs. I have thoughts on that as well but it is another tangential topic and this simple one is already apparently too hard to discuss.
again
My point is we can do this economy/government/pay for stuff without filtering it through the federal reserve, and without the redundancy of taxes and extensively convulted and harmful tax law at the federal level as regards "income".
Now if you or anyone can actually address what I am actually saying and proposing rather than completely ignoring it and introducing data that no one, least of all me, has disputed in any manner, it would be a *good thing*,I welcome it, rather than pasting or writing in economics I learned back in the 1950s about how our economic system works. PLEASE get beyond rehashing what "inflation" is and very trivial known to everyone here points. Address the actual words I used in my post, not what you think I said.
I'll make it even simpler, again, one of these will make the point eventually:
We get our money from created digits, that are either loaned/ borrowed into circulation via governmental paper sales or through loans through banks. Most of it is digitized, some of it is printed with printing presses. All of it is artificially created.
We have to start with that, or the discussion will
The cause of this wave of terrorism really doens't have a lot to do with US government policy and less to do with Israel/Palestine.
It is because there is a great deal of anger and frustration brought on by the use of the money we have spent on oil in the Middle East not on public education and infrastructure and the other things required to build a First World society, but on building up the bank accounts of the kings and sheiks and princes whose countries have the oil and perhaps more important, on the security apparatuses and military organizations necessary to keep angry internal customers from putting them permanently out of business.
Their main tactic for keeping their citizens off their backs has historically been using religion as a tool to persuade their people that their troubles are not a result of their own government's inaction, but caused by EVIL WESTERN INFIDELS!!!
That's most of us.
In the course of this, they've worked with their religious institutions and religious leaders to create a generation of anti-Western fanatics ripe for exploitation by terrorists and are funding the spread of this ideology everywhere in the Muslim world.
The long-term solution to this is to reallocate much of the "War on Terror" funding to programs to replace oil from the Middle East with carbon-neutral biomass and solar energy solutions like the Solar Power Satellite program scrapped by the Bush Administration. Simply deleting the "snake oil" items like biometric ID from the anti-terror budget should by itself fund a good part of this. A rational analyis of the budget should find many places where we can cut funding without cutting security, and a few places where we should spend more money.
There is also an excellent chance that energy alternatives will also wind up much, much cheaper than $53 a barrel oil, whose price is escalating with no relief in sight, unless we make some. Stronger money, stronger nation, and this also will make it possible to spend more money on the military in the long run should we find that we have to.
Cutting off the funding the oil nations require to keep their governments in business against the will of their citizens and to export terror into the Western world means future terrorist efforts will have to be locally funded.
While this doesn't mean that terrorism will be eliminated, it will reduce its incidence and severity to something law enforcement can deal with as European governments have successfully dealt with terrorists for generations. The older Europeans around here will remember terrorist organizations like Baader-Meinhof and the Red Army, and that law enforcement working with intel agencies nailed them. The people responsible for the al-Queda bombing in Spain are already behind bars. Did the Europeans turn their societies into police states to make themselves safe from terror? Other than the Brit experiment with Orwellian surveillance they are engaged in, no.
This kind of bill does not need to be passed in the heat of an election. We are more secure with NO law rather than this one. Buying snake oil doesn't buy security, it's more likely to be a political payoff to the snake oul vendors using our money.
For more information on the technology side of energy replacement, click here for a summary with links to the DOE, University of New Hampshire, and NASA sites relevant to a program of this sort.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Try googling the No-Lobbyist-Left-Behind Act if you are interested.
Jesus Christ, I thought that you were joking, but you weren't. Here is the link.
and finish it in the body. It's very annoying.
my idea on the dollar would be as follows.
We already collect a ton of statistics on every aspect of business. We tie the M-whatever number supply of new dollars that are allowed to be created and added to the pool every year based on the top 100 traded commodities (and or services, whatever, to be exactly determined) of the past year, the true evolving business of the nation. This or that can fall off the list or be added to it. That solves the buggywhip problem, and how to fund government, because that's the first place the new dollars are introduced. It solves the hyper-inflation problem worries as no amount over that can be printed up or digitized, which would force fiscal responsibility back to government, a pay as you go plan. It would reflect actual produced wealth (money being historical portable barterable produced wealth), as opposed to what we have now which is future and ever compounding indebtedness, run through the loan sharks at the fed and below.
Government could still borrow money, but it would have to be *real* money if it absolutely had to (you would think not though, at that stage of the game), not IOUs for money and call it money like we do now.
The cash could get into circulation exactly how it does now, but again, eliminate the private for profit middle man skimming that goes on.
Remember, we already have a lot of dollars in circulation at this point, none of that is gone. for the new stuff every year, government employees get their checks,and it's spread out excactly like it is now so it's not all dumped at once on the market, they go out into the world and spend that money. Contractors and other providers of day to day to day goods and services to government, again, get their checks and it gets dispersed in their orgs, etc, back out into the economy just as it is now, again, gradually through the new year. Loans could be made directly through various governmental run not for profit services,just like we do now for what society has determined is a good idea, from normal student loans and small business loans to one to a person only home mortgages and so forth, and they are kept structured to always have the lowest possible interest rates, as higher interests are obviously stifling, and too low is counter productive and leads to stagnation and a lessening of worth with the real tangibles and it wouldn't relect the agreed upon new float of additional cash yearly. Private banks would be restricted to only loaning that which they *really* have, fractional reserve would be eliminated. No other industry can do it, private money lenders shouldn't be allowed to do it. It's a sanctioned form of..well, it's counterfeiting, using digits, it's just wrong. That would help to regulate what now passes for "prime", because that number on the governmental side it would be automatically set by what the years M-number would be determined to be. Private business is just that, let the market deal with it.
Tax code eliminated almost entirely because no laws would be necessary at the federal"income" level, private or corporate, because they get the money first to spend on the nations business. You keep your loot, invest or spend as you see fit.*
You can still have excise taxes,example, say at the border (I suggest reciprocal quid pro quo with any trading nation, let them set the rate, it's in their interest then to keep it low), useage taxes for direct infrastucture,(like our road tax with fuel for highway maintenance) and so on.
*I admit the first year transition period would be difficult with such a change. I propose a guaranteed, one-off, one time cash payout to individuals of their last years total taxes at the federal level (a returnto make the transition a little sweeter for everyone, and an indiucement for that last year to come clean on reporting to get a final true representation of what is really going on) and debt reduction/elimination,a one time, then it's over with payout to bond holders then no more bonds sold. It's a form of borrowing t
Clinton does seem to get alot of credit for the budget, when not only was it the tech boom (biggest factor), but also a Republican led Congress shoved a balanced-budget plan down his throat that they'd been attempting to get for years.
..had no idea. Never read that particlar Heinlein. My idea for the transition was the first year we pay off the IOUs and also cut a one time check for all tax payers back to them, based on exactly what they allegedly "owed" and paid in previously for just one year. A one-off large last bit of new money,basically to prime things and get them going, then back to work.
I think I still like my idea better of getting the new money into circulation, because it's produced wealth based with boring old statistics and tables, not future "maybe we'll make it, maybe we won't" based like it is now.. the idea of just sliding everyone a check every month gives me the buckwheats. Earn it or deserve it because society understands you are truly needy, get a check. For nothing? I don't think so.
its
it's
then
than
they're
their
there
and my new all in one word fits all situations "thare"
My philosophy is do it once and do it well
spelling akkk mea culpa, I really try but the words look different all the time, sucketh