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Obama's Evolving Stance On NASA
mknewman writes "The Houston Chronicle is reporting a change in Obama's stance on NASA, saying his position on space exploration continued to evolve Sunday as the Illinois Democrat endorsed a congressional plan to add $2 billion to NASA's budget and agreed to back at least one more space shuttle mission."
If you adjust for inflation, NASA's budget is about half of what it was during the space race years in the 60's. You can't go to Mars on that. You probably can't even go back to the moon on that. And a paltry $2 billion isn't going to make much of a difference.
Obama is no more serious about NASA's lofty aspirations that Bush or Clinton. It's just political pandering for Florida. And I am tired of hearing promises from politicians that they know damn well they can never deliver on.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Just to give you an idea on how much $2 billion might help NASA, there are some stats for NASA's budget. In 2007 they had a budget of $15.861 billion and for this year they are using $17.318 billion. If you adjust for inflation, NASA has averaged $16.290 billion dollars per year which means this $2 billion would be about a 11.5-12.2% increase in its annual budget.
By comparison, the DoD budget was $439.3 billion in 2007 but my gripe with U.S. fiscal spending is probably a bit off topic here.
My work here is dung.
Let's Put our Astronauts in Shuttles that don't use fuel and go green!
CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN!
Obama news on the frontpage - has somebody done a /. theme for Digg?
"Obama is no more serious about NASA's lofty aspirations that Bush or Clinton. It's just political pandering for Florida. And I am tired of hearing promises from politicians that they know damn well they can never deliver on."
Usually, I'd agree with that, however, I think you're ignoring the "new cold war" aspect here. China is developing an aggressive space program, and if they say they're going to the moon, they mean it.
Frankly, I think McCain is a little more inclined to beef up NASA precisely because of that aspect, and Obama will say damn near anything to win Florida. But it's also possible that he's reconsidered his positions on space because if he becomes President, he knows people aren't going to let him slide on the space race.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
It is interesting to me how when one politician changes his stance due to recognition of the will of the people, he is vilified as a panderer or "flip-flopper." Yet it is called evolutionary when the other does the same thing.
Could we not just as easily say that both are listening to the people who would put them in office? Or at least letting us think they are listening to us.
Is Obama's stance really evolving? I think it's clear that his policy on NASA is a result of intelligent design.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
cue the "obama flip-flopped on space exploration" crowd any time now. and probably from people who don't even support (read: care about) it to begin with. his position on space isn't going to be a deal-breaker for me this election, but I would really love to see some more support from him. unfortunately, there are bigger fish to fry this time around.
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun the frumious Bandersnatch.
Yes, because it's much better to tell people we're going to go to Mars, and then not give them sufficient money to do so, resulting in other programs getting cut. Even John Glenn referred to Bush's "Vision for Space Exploration" as an unfunded mandate.
And it's not like this is the only unfunded mandate shoved down NASA's throat -- how much is HSPD-12 costing all of the agencies?
Disclaimer : I've been a contractor at NASA, and one of my projects lost their funding for more than year because of the Mars program ... by the time we got funding again, we couldn't get the team back together, because they had been assigned to other projects.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
Evolving stance? Is that the PC version of flip flopping.
This is slashdot, so it's the Linux version of flip-flopping.
He changed his mind! It's clearly pandering of the worst sort!
I really wish we could get rid of this ridiculous focus on changing views. Emerson summed it up nicely, "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." In this case, it would have been foolish of Obama to be consistent -- he was wrong. He was persuaded otherwise. Is this somehow a bad thing, a moral failure? Yeah, it was advantageous of him to come to this conclusion, but it's almost always advantageous to change from a wrong conclusion to a correct one.
Reading the article, it really just comes across as Obama trying to push the shuttle layoffs to the right so they don't take place during his first term in office.
It's unfortunate, but I would really like to see him and McCain come up with a strong vision for space to spur international and private sector investments with a corresponding push in maths, sciences and engineering.
As trite as they may be, I could get excited about a candidate that pushed:
Note that I don't say "NASA". I think NASA has a very important role to play in the development of space technology but at some point they have to be out of the business of LEO (Low Earth Orbit) operations.
myke
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
Evolving stance? Is that the PC version of flip flopping.
This is slashdot, so it's the Linux version of flip-flopping.
I didn't realize that Linux was the opposite of PC. In fact, I thought Linux was software. Maybe this is the reason we don't see the year of Linux on the desktop.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
I love how not being able to change your mind or agree with someone else's proposal is now a thing of weakness in a politician.
The thing I like about Obama is that he pushes for compromise, builds consensus, and isn't just out to fuck over the other party.
But no, no, the fact that he is open to funding something that wasn't a priority for him originally, is this HUGE FUCKING PROBLEM because OMFG HE CHANGED HIS MIND~!@!@$#~!
Fucking zombies.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
"going to mars" is easier than sayins "leaving iraq"
Good people go to bed earlier.
No, I don't remember that. What part of "news for nerds" is hard to understand?
if we didn't flip-flop, we would still be living in caves
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
U convinced me. Lolcat iz the prez 4 me!
I think the return the US gets for its NASA spending is greatly under calculated. The last space race caused the US to focus on creating engineers and scientists through education. Look around you for the benefits.
Today I sometimes feel we are raising generations of people who will order a "Bud" because they can't read or pronounce Budweiser.
Think Deeply.
I'm not sure how much knowledge you have in this area, to speak authoritatively on it? But my big question would be; Why does NASA expect they *deserve* more federal funding, when it appears they've been making too many mistakes and mis-steps in recent years?
I mean, the obvious issue that comes to most people's minds was the shuttle explosion, apparently caused by poor engineering decisions, and subsequent cover-ups of them. But those who follow NASA a little more closely might remember such things as them accidentally letting a new satellite fall off a transport platform, onto the floor, causing expensive damage. (As I recall, the reason for this mishap was failure to properly secure it before moving it.) Going further back, we have issues like the Hubble telescope not working as designed, and several issues with arms on landers they've deployed, etc.
I realize space exploration, by nature, is a risky endeavor, and accidents will happen with complex technologies. But the problems that developed in the "space race" era felt much more like truly unavoidable situations that the "best and brightest" went to great lengths to resolve in the best manner possible. In recent years, the problems appear to be caused more by incompetence, putting priorities in the wrong order, or just rushing to meet deadlines?
Haha how is this troll? It's exactly what this is.
No, he changed his mind within the context of a campaign. PLEASE tell me how that should not be immediately suspect.
I know I shouldn't feed the trolls, but I see a lot of this around. I don't understand how people can be so dumb as to think that Democrats are the heavy spenders. The Republicans have, ever since Reagan, been trying to outdo each other by lowering tax but raising spending. See here for a discussion. It is the Republicans, not the Democrats, who are the big spenders. And if you believe that you can run a deficit for decades without harming anything, then you're a fool. And McCain has admitted that the economy isn't his cup of tea, as evidenced by his proposed cuts to the fuel tax. At least Obama knew enough economics to oppose that.
Given the current crisis, I'd vote for Obama on that alone. What economic knowledge he's demonstrated makes him far more qualified a candidate than McCain or Clinton, despite some of his other failings.
It's perfectly acceptable to waste billions of dollars paying uneducated dolts to sit around and do nothing but create more useless babies.
But it's not acceptable to pay smart eggy headed scientists a whole lot less, people who have to be really fracking smart to actually work and do sciencey stuff using their brains and finding out stuff about the universe and world we live in.
Plus the scientists don't usually have a mess off leech-like children, if a NASA engineer does mate it is usually one child or two, which is below replacement levels. Plus their children are usually made to go to school and actually do somethign with their lives because the smart eggy headed scientist types are usually better at raising children that their child crapping counterparts.
I say, End all welfare programs and shovel all that money to NASA, we may have to worry about not having enough people, but by golly we will damned well have our permanent base on the moon, so when all of the breeding stock left on earth blow themselves up over their little sky god we can at least re-colonize the earth, or at least still preserve the best of humanity.
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
He also said he was hoping "to ensure retention of" thousands of NASA workers in Texas and Florida whose jobs are threatened by a possible five-year gap before the beginning of the Constellation initiative to send astronauts to the moon and Mars.
So NASA can become a fucking welfare agency.
...objectively I can't figure out what the heck he actually plans to do. Every couple of weeks the ideas change. I mean, he seems like he has no clear vision about what he wants to actually do besides become President of the United States. This (NASA) being a good example. Factor this in with his relative inexperience in government and I start to feel like that at least with Clinton you would have known what you were getting. Either way, an unwashed chimp would be better than the cretin currently occupying the oval office. What happened to the John McCain of a few elections back? I used to like him too. Now he sounds like just another Republican.
Loading...
Thats what it's called when you really really like the candidate. Its the like fanboyism....
(For the record I had mod points and thought about modding you + but around here it wouldn't have helped)
500 dollar reward for tip(s) leading to the arrest of the person(s) who stole my sig.
PLEASE tell me how that should not be immediately suspect.
Because the world doesn't stop for a campaign. Situations change, attitudes change. Both of these guys are moderates... not exactly known for sticking to their guns for no good reason. That is why people like them.
Though I wish both had stuck to their guns with the "no negative campaigning" bit. These new attack ads are terrible. Neither side is even very accurate, though the Obama ad showing the oil surplus in Iraq and proclaiming it to be "McCain Economics" is a bigger stretch.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
...is Obama-speak for "the focus group results just came in the mail, honey."
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
As I recall last time I did some Googling, for what we have spent on Iraq so far we could have had something like 16 Apollo programs in today's dollars.
Steve
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
dumbass, you wouldn't know a socialist radical if one came up and kicked you in the nuts
I would counter your 'gas tax holiday' argument (about which you're entirely correct) with everything else Obama wants to do with respect to gas prices. Windfall tax on oil companies? That'll drive prices up. Preventing drilling for domestic oil reserves? That won't help either. Pull oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve? That won't last long. Force the oil companies to drill the leases they already own? Gee, you'd think they would already be doing that if it would make them money. But it wouldn't, in large part due to government interference.
Obama claims that he will eliminate our dependence on middle-east oil in 10 years. Anyone who believes that is deluding themselves. At least McCain is willing to admit it's a weakness, rather than pretend he knows better.
Help find a cure for cancer. Join the [H]orde
As head of the board of the Space Review Board, the head of the Treasury and the head of the department of combustion, he should have no difficulty raising this money, or a week later, not.
And McCain has admitted that the economy isn't his cup of tea, as evidenced by his proposed cuts to the fuel tax. At least Obama knew enough economics to oppose that.
Given the current crisis, I'd vote for Obama on that alone. What economic knowledge he's demonstrated makes him far more qualified a candidate than McCain or Clinton, despite some of his other failings.
Obama has demonstrated nothing. I agree with Obama's decision not to support a gas tax holiday, but Obama's flip-flop stance on releasing the Strategic Reserve to combat high gas prices proves that he's probably even stupider than the average politician. And that he proposed this strategy a mere month after announcing that he wouldn't, while criticizing McCain for his reversal after 8 years when the price of gas has increased by 6x, shows that he's the consummate politician-- and that's certainly no compliment.
The whole point of the Strategic Reserve is to be used for emergencies. Obama wants to withdraw light crude from the reserve and then refill it with heavy crude. This presupposes a drop in gas prices, which certainly is no guarantee. It also undermines one of the reasons why the reserve is important; say, a hurricane wiping out refineries. Replacing light crude with heavy crude which requires MORE refining runs counter to logic.
I'd have wished that Obama was smarter and opposed the gas tax holiday for sane reasons. Now, it just seems like he was trying to differentiate himself from Clinton and McCain.
I know this is hard to understand after 8 years of "the decider", but, this is *exactly* when you want him to open his mind and alter his positions. Right now, he is, in theory, pounding the campaign trail and, *gasp*, listening to people. Did it occur to you that, during such bouts of listening, he might've actually changed his mind on one or two things?
but this is a clear case of (2)
Funny, it looked like a clear case of 3 to me. Gotta love those partisan glasses... they colour everything, don't they?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PX_687HwX9c
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
I mean, it's not like the government is spending real money. Most of it's borrowed anyhow. Might as well just buy what we can since the U.S. will default at some point.
Can't repo spaceships, border walls, aircraft carriers. I say buy BIG physical ticket items. LET the chinese try and take em back :)
You may laugh now, it's a joke....
THose concerns are valid, but the reason the best and brightest went to great lengths is because they had the ability to.
Once you start adding bean counting administrators, political gamesmanship and toying with a diminishing budget, stuff can go sour quick.
It's no different than an IT environment where you're being told what to implement all the while not being given the tools/support to make it happen seamlessly.
Blacker than my baby girl's stare. Black like the veil that the muslimina wear. Black like the planet that they fear...
Regardless, it's been shown [washingtonpost.com] that Obama's tax cut plans would help the lower income brackets more than McCain's, and tax the rich more. This is obviously what a tax system is supposed to do.
A flat tax rate would tax the rich more than the poor (same percent of a higher income is more). Our system with a higher tax rate definitely taxes the rich more than the poor.
At what point does it stop being obvious that you need to take even more money from rich people and even less from poor people? When your tax rates get so high you're starting to cause your most productive workers to leave the country?
-- Support a free market in the field of government
He finds ways to justify all sorts of unconstitutional, unnecessary spending of the American tax payer's dollar (like his proposed $80B/year for international poverty), so why not NASA?
And how much has Bush spent on his initiatives for Africa, like AIDS reduction?
Fighting global poverty doesn't seem to be limited to Democratic Administrations and for that we can be thankful -- for all his other faults, GWB has actually done a few good things with his Africa policies.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
At least Obama knew enough economics to oppose that.
Given the current crisis, I'd vote for Obama on that alone. What economic knowledge he's demonstrated makes him far more qualified a candidate than McCain or Clinton, despite some of his other failings.
What you want, after all, is Greenspan as Mr. President.
Good arguments. Like I said, Obama's not perfect. However, as it stands, after all the Bush tax cuts, the oil companies are undertaxed. I agree that a windfall tax is probably the wrong thing (but maybe not as bad as it sounds; it's a complicated issue), but at least Obama wants to let the other tax cuts of the Bush administration expire.
Preventing offshore drilling is actually a good thing in my book. As analysts have said, it'll take years to benefit from it and it won't last long, either. Everyone agrees it's a short-term solution, only, and yet the oil won't even be available in the short term.
I should point out that oil companies not drilling where they have rights is a problem. If government regulations are stopping them, why can't someone like Obama (or McCain) simply change the rules?
Finally, I'd like to note that all the sources I see say that Obama has called for the US to eliminate its oil dependence in 10 years, but he hasn't promised it will be so. I read it like JFK's call to get to the moon before 1970. It's a goal for the nation, and maybe we'll make it, but it seems unlikely (like the moon landing did, not that I think we'll actually make it this time around).
This is obviously what a tax system is supposed to do.
There are quite a few economists who would care to differ with that statement. A progressive tax (and welfare) system such as the one we have provides a degree of disincentive against earning more money, because the more money you earn, the greater percentage of it you pay to the government. In some places, such as France, it's so bad that for many people, it's more profitable to live off welfare than to work.
While the main purpose of taxes is to fund government, it should also be structured so as to encourage people to become more productive and contribute more to the economy. Unbalancing the tax system beyond its current state will do precisely the opposite.
Help find a cure for cancer. Join the [H]orde
Yea, because pandering to the geek crowd who loves NASA wins a lot of elections for people...They know we're a fractured block who are more likely to vote based on privacy/copyright issues.
And don't feed me horseshit about Florida; you could win that state in a second by promising to increase medicare payments.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
OPEC supplies 53.8% of our oil imports (a little over 5.25 million barrels per day out of a little over 20 million barrels per day used).
The rest of our imports (the other 5 or so million barrels per day) come from countries like Mexico and Canada.
If people bothered to look up the numbers instead of just ASSUMING every damn thing, they would see that it isn't that difficult to fathom that in 10 years, if we cared to try, we could replace a QUARTER (not the 100% naysayers seem to want to believe) of our Oil with alternatives.
Such as T. Boone Pickens plan which ould eventually replace 38% of current oil consumption with Natural Gas.
That would be more than enough to NEVER have to buy another barrel of Oil from OPEC.
OPEC being the countries that, generally, may not have our best interests at heart.
Obama's plan is a hell of a lot better than McCain's that basically wants to drill off shore to MAKE YOU FEEL BETTER, but won't actually help things at all (at most, 200,000 barrels a day, versus replacing 5 MILLION BARRELS a day with Obama.)
People, it's simple math.
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2008/04/us-imports-of-o.html
"Don't be a martyr -- BE THE ONE WHO GOT AWAY!"
From the article:
LOL!!! Bush and "fiscally responsible". I just can't get over it. How does the guy use the term with a straight face?
Beer is proof that God loves us, and wants us to be happy.
Yes, quite a champion.
Obama just finished paying off his school loans a couple of years ago, WHILE MCCAIN OWNS HOUSES ALL OVER THE COUNTRY.
Champion of the moocher indeed.
"Don't be a martyr -- BE THE ONE WHO GOT AWAY!"
Because it's not something that most people care about? NASA is big news here, but 90% of the country couldn't give a shit, and the republicans will be quick to trumpet "Tax and Spend."
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Then take them off. What facts/new information has changed here?
Given the current crisis, I'd vote for Obama on that alone. What economic knowledge he's demonstrated makes him far more qualified a candidate than McCain or Clinton, despite some of his other failings.
The big show stopper for Obama in his space program is a unilateral termination of all space defense research. His proposal is to build stuff that dodges attacks, "talk" about disarmament with Chinese and the trusty Russians and Iranians ... which, even if Bush was a moron about seeing into Putin's soul, he at least had the sense to not trust it. Obama would. McCain won't. Given that the biggest crack on Bush is that he's been an ideologue when Realpolitik is needed, then, it seems we want someone who can engage in peace through strength, trust but verify, and that's going to be McCain, not Obama.
Even though I am a Republican, I might have supported Senator Clinton as a Dem largely because she is shrewd enough to see that, but only in the case if McCain drooled too much. But Obama is just too far to the left.
As far as lowering spending goes, the biggest problem the USA has, is, overwhelmingly entitlements. Just look at the growth of Medicare and social security. Those two items continue to grow by leaps and bounds every year. Obama's plan to lift the caps on social security is a start in the right direction but what really needs to happen is the feds have to start throwing people off of social security disability (which is the biggest racket -ever-) and also cap medicare payouts to something that is halfway sane.
Baby boomers did not have enough children to pay for their retirements and... you know, you can't have a single child expect to pay for full time nursing home care for two parents and that's what's happening, slowly but surely right now.
This is my sig.
Gee, you'd think they would already be doing that if it would make them money.
But would it make them money? If the price of oil stays high due to a perceived lack of supply, that makes them more money per barrel, which means more profit. It makes sense for them to exhaust oil reserves in the middle east first, because these are the most dangerous to own due to the political climate in the area. How many oil fields were burned in the last Golf War? The price of oil is likely to go up in the long term, due to it being a finite resource, and keeping a big supply within the area of the greatest demand makes good long-term economic sense. No one is likely to attack the USA to take their oil, while the same can not be said for smaller countries (increasingly so when Russia and China start to get low on oil). Keeping oil in the ground in the USA looks like a good long-term investment. Why drill it now, when yo can drill it for the same cost but sell it for twice as much in a few years?
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
What you want, after all, is Greenspan as Mr. President.
Now, now. :-)
I don't believe an economist would necessarily be a good president (though the Canadian Prime Minister is an economist and he seems to be doing alright). I think economic rules can be bent or broken from time to time in the name of some greater good. I just wish presidents were expected to have some basic understanding of economics before they were put in control of the world's largest economy. That is all.
Well, the whole "flip-flopping" tag worked against John Kerry. Why not try it again? If we can get enough sheep repeating it without really understanding the issues, it just might work!
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
You have no idea what facts/information he had before his decision, and what facts/information he has now. Unless you're inside Obama's head, your presumption that he's pandering is just that, a presumption, and a partisan one at that.
And don't feed me horseshit about Florida; you could win that state in a second by promising to increase medicare payments.
He's got you beat: he's going to eliminate income tax on seniors. He's quite the panderer, isn't he?
Oh, it wouldn't be such a big deal if it were only one or two things
So what *other* things has he changed his mind on that make you believe he's simply pandering?
The rest of your post is a non-sequitor. Take it somewhere else, it's off topic.
I'm a staunch Republican, but, I think trying to characterize his policy shifts as a sort of a flip flopper is rather inconsistent with what he's trying to do. Obama is just a left wing pol trying to guide his opinion about how government should be run in response to an evolving set of facts on the ground and I really don't have a problem with him changing his mind as long as he stays consistent with his core beliefs of being a hardcore liberal.
Where Kerry had a problem was that he made a political career out of being a total pacifist, lead anti-war protests across the USA and was instrumental in ending the USA's commitment to Viet Nam, but then he turned around and voted for the Invasion of Iraq in 2002 to get pick up a few votes and then ran not as a Dove but as a Wartime leader during the Democratic convention. That's a huge flip flop.
But what Obama is doing is nothing of the sort. He might, ideally, like, to get rid of NASA because he'd rather spend the money on something else... a lot of Dems feel that way. Walter Mondale famously tried to gut the Apollo moon landings because he wanted bread and butter for the poor. So, its not a big flip flop for Obama to shift on NASA back and forth because the whole left wing has been doing it for a long time.
This is my sig.
I mean, the obvious issue that comes to most people's minds was the shuttle explosion, apparently caused by poor engineering decisions, and subsequent cover-ups of them.
Not poor engineering decisions, poor management decisions. In both cases, engineers warned of the problems, and were cockblocked by management, mostly due to funding issues. NASA is our most important program, and one of our worst funded.
The sad thing is, if the bloated life-sucking tick that is DoD were cut down to size, we'd have plenty of money for both education and Constellation. As I say in my sig, Five percent of one year's DoD budget puts us on Mars. Even at padded government rates, we could put a team of four scientists and infrastructure for settlement on Mars for about 30 billion dollars. (Zubrin has suggested a private firm could do it for only seven billion.) Space geeks who haven't read The Case For Mars should make it a priority. All of the info is online at the link above; the paperback is almost always on the shelf at my local B&N; and it's only $11 at Amazon.
Zubrin has outlined a straightforward plan to settle an entire other planet at relatively low cost. What the hell is the hold-up? How is it this is not the most obvious project in the solar system?
Can we get a mars.slashdot.org subdomain?
Five percent of one year's DoD budget puts us on Mars.
How is Obama replacing 5 million barrels a day tomorrow? Tuneups and inflating tires? McCain has made it pretty clear he is for all alternative fuel source AND drilling. With the inelastic nature of oil, any increase in the supply will lower prices and drastically. T Boone Pickens by the way is not a green guy, he is just for reducing the burden of foreign oil. He is also for off shore drilling, shale production and ANWR drilling. There is no reason we can't do everything. If we started drilling tomorrow there will be some online in 2-3 years, the democratic talking point is 10 years+ but that would be for all 100%. I am all for getting off oil but the simple fact is that it cannot happen overnight, but in the interim, there is no reason to be sending so much money out of this country.
I'm not not licking toads.
I think it's called "Learning". It happens during campaigns, too. Or do you want politicians to not change their stances if they learn something, because they learned during a campaign? That seems like you only care about the outward appearance of a campaign as opposed to what's actually being said. "Candidate 1 hasn't changed his stance, so clearly he's the best candidate. I don't agree with what he says, but heck - he's consistent!". That sounds a bit retarded to me.
You have no idea what facts/information he had before his decision, and what facts/information he has now. Unless you're inside Obama's head, your presumption that he's pandering is just that, a presumption, and a partisan one at that.
J. H. Christ. This is almost as bad as the whole "if you don't support Obama, you must be racist" deal. Almost.
The fact of the matter is, Obama has in recent weeks has completely 180'ed his position on several key issues. There has been no indication of why he changed his position on the issues. For someone who basically won the nomination based on his oratory skills, don't you think he should at the very least be able to articulate what changed in the course of a week weeks- to months?
And the fact that people who call him out on such things are either labelled partisan or bigoted is outrageous.
You don't have to. All you need to do is keep it up for 8 years. Then the others will win, increase taxes and you can blame the others for the higher taxes and get elected again for 8 years.
1 step forward, 2 steps back.
You can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time and that seems to be enough.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
are great examples of fuckups by contractors (read: private enterprise), not NASA.
Perkin-Elmer was contracted to make that mirror, and it was one of their employees who improperly assembled the inspection gage leading to the grinding error:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg12717301.000-the-testing-error-that-led-to-hubble-mirror-fiasco-.html
It was a Lockheed-Martin employee who took the bolts out of the satellite holddown cart, and some more private employees who then moved the thing without following the checklist, dropping the satellite onto the floor:
http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0410/04noaanreport/
Both incidents point to the need for greater NASA oversight of outside contractors. Of course, any such action would be portrayed by the "privatize everything" crowd as needless red-tape and protectionism by NASA bureaucrats.
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This is obviously what a tax system is supposed to do. There are quite a few economists who would care to differ with that statement. A progressive tax (and welfare) system such as the one we have provides a degree of disincentive against earning more money, because the more money you earn, the greater percentage of it you pay to the government. In some places, such as France, it's so bad that for many people, it's more profitable to live off welfare than to work. While the main purpose of taxes is to fund government, it should also be structured so as to encourage people to become more productive and contribute more to the economy. Unbalancing the tax system beyond its current state will do precisely the opposite.
Yes, I'm sure if Bill Gates had any idea how much money he'd end up making I'm sure he'd have just said "fuck it" and taken a job at McDonalds. Poor bastard.
I do not really like the idea of off shore drilling myself too. I do not think that we would be able to pull amounts of oil large enough to greatly impact gas prices. All it will do is deplete our national oil reserves. If we cannot decrease our dependence on oil, then in 50 years or so we will want to have as much oil reserves in North America as possible. If we don't tap the off shore reserves, it will provide more incentive to achieve better long term energy plans. If these plans do not pan out, well then at least we have some more reserves that we control during a time that resources will become very hotly disputed.
No kidding. A responsible should not need to be given the resources, if they don't have them, they shouldn't reproduce. But in today's socialist economy women are rewarded for having children when they do not have the capacity to support them.
With either candidate we're going to have a flood of illegal immigration. I guess we're going to GIVE them everything they need.
What ever happened to EARNED.
If he said "Has the woman EARNED the resource to keep a child? Has she EARNED health care?"
Everyone feels like they are entitled to something that something that is not theirs. How do they get it? They take it from ME.
Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle, and quick to anger.
I love Slashdot...If income tax is applied to us, it's unconstitutional, but if it's NOT applied to someone else, it's pandering.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
But would it make them money? If the price of oil stays high due to a perceived lack of supply, that makes them more money per barrel, which means more profit.
Actually, your own analysis is your counter argument. If the the price of a barrel of oil is so high (though, it's dropped quite a lot recently) and oil companies STILL aren't investing into drilling, logic must dictate that it's do to the fact that these locations are still far from profitable, even at current prices. To say an oil company won't drill for oil if it would grant them large profits is like saying a fat kid wouldn't eat the cake sitting in front of him if he could.
Perhaps there's some other theories out there as to the reasons such companies aren't drilling (or drilling more) on their currently leased locations, but I think the simplest solution here is the correct one. No Profits = No Drilling.
"The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth." ~1984 George Orwell
As long as the tax rate is less than 100% on the additional income, there is still incentive to earn more. Furthermore, if you subscribe to the school of thought that motivation to earn is relative rather than absolute, then this loss of incentive may be even smaller than is commonly thought.
The progressive tax system is necessary regardless of the effect it has on motivation, but because there are social costs that has to be paid. Costs which can not and are not internalized by market forces. It is only natural for us to require those that enjoy the fruits of our society more to contribute correspondingly more to it.
Even a flat income tax system that has a cut-off point (to not tax low earners) is progressive (a two-rate progressive tax).
Furthermore, welfare systems have problems with abuse, as with any other benefit system. Most systems now have time-limits on people qualified to work claiming benefits or social insurance. It doesn't mean that increasing the tax on the top 1% of the earners in the population will lead to more people on welfare. In fact, it argues the opposite in that we need to distribute the tax load more evenly and have other methods of motivating people to work and to improve productivity, including things such as modifying the way we distribute benefits.
:. Ultimate Control Dedicated/VM Servers
I mean, the obvious issue that comes to most people's minds was the shuttle explosion, apparently caused by poor engineering decisions, and subsequent cover-ups of them.
That was entirely caused by a budget cut between 2001 and 2002. There was a well funded program to permanently solve the problem that caused that accident, but NASA decided that since it had never had catastrophic consequences before, it would, along with the majority of other programs, have its solution canceled. The mistake, I suppose, was in choosing to cut that program, but without he massive funding cuts that occurred that year, I don't think NASA would have lost that shuttle.
"I zero-index my hamsters" - Willtor (147206)
You can't just wish away regulations that are impairing. It requires both legislative and executive power to do so, and the chances are that environmental lobbyists will oppose removing the regulations that make it pointless to drill on these lands.
What's kind of silly is that we look at the problem as a dependence on oil. This isn't the real issue. America has a dependence on hydrocarbons, once you get past that perception hurdle, you'll realize how easy it would be to significantly reduce our dependence on oil. There is one hydrocarbon that America has extremely huge reserves of, that's cheap, and isn't too problematic to get to.
Coal.
Did you know that South America has a gallon of gas priced under $1 USD? They're not losing money on it, and it's not subsidized. How are they doing it? Simple, they're turning coal into oil products. South Africa also buys most of their coal from the US. How long do you think it would take to get a couple coal gasification plants?
Think about it.
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
You laugh, but most people are not Bill Gates - and even he knows he was lucky and smart, not just smart.
What you should be considering is the effect of "taxing the rich" on new businesses. I create (on average) a new business every two years. I have created a lot of new jobs, given people opportunities that simply did not exist prior, etc, etc. When I start a business, it is typically not profitable for 2-3 years (for those doing the math, yes, I try to have at least 3 businesses going at any point in time - remember, starting a business is high risk). So I go 2-3 years with no pay, and then get all my pay in the last years when the company is finally profitable.
So, when my income is $0, I pay no taxes at a very low rate. When my income is $500K, I pay maximum taxes (about half my income). So, I actually earn just over $100K a year but pay taxes at the maximum rate.
And yes, if Obama gets elected I am not doing that any more - I will just retire. (Obama is raising taxes over 50% - that is insane, and I will not be their slave)
while (sig==sig) sig=!sig;
I acknowledge that it "can" happen during campaigns, but I've seen far too often such "evolving" happen ONLY during campaigns. McCain has never towed the party line this much until recently, and I can't see how Obama's changing stances (of course, he doesn't have such a long history, so it's difficult to really see where his core stances were, other than on some situations like Iran).
Any reaction toward a presidential race that doesn't include cynicism for either candidate, IMHO, is idiotic.
Obama has in recent weeks has completely 180'ed his position on several key issues.
Such as?
If I were going to be president six months from now, I'd make sure that we returned to the Moon, in force. I'd spend what it takes to put a permanent solar power base there, lasering back to a network of satellites and delivering cheap, clean power around the world. Once the base was staffed and ample power generated, I'd start mining the rare minerals that are going to run out on Earth within the next 20-100 years. I'd give contractors who are majority American owned, and use majority American subcontractors, the highest priority for taking part in the project, and aim at creating a space launch industry as dominated by commercial carriers as are airliners, while keeping a reliable government capacity operating, just like in air travel.
The US would start to look admirable around the entire world again. Except in the boardrooms and war rooms of our worst enemies, who are using our foreign oil dependence to enslave us and the world, who'd hate us as we put them out of business.
It took only 7 years for the US to go from subsonic jets to landing on the Moon, with a nation engaged in the Cold War, a hot war in Vietnam, a much lower economic productivity, a much smaller pool of engineers, much more primitive technology, and no proven example of going to the Moon to reassure us. Even before exploiting the Moon's resources industrially, we've already benefited hugely from the scientific, engineering, industrial and patriotic rewards of the visionary investment. We could return to the Moon, and lead the world out of so many problems we've helped create and are most threatened by.
--
make install -not war
As a Louisianian, I have less of a problem with negative campaigning than most people, but I agree that both sides are being pretty dumb with their attacks. We're living in an era where EVERYTHING can get fact-checked, and quickly. I have yet to see a candidate smart about it.
So says the "Anonymous Coward".
Yes. But that anonymous coward is right on the money. FDR is the one responsible for that ponzi scam they call "social security". As well as the general rise in power of the government that was supposed to serve the people. Now they just serve themselves and their constituents that keep them in office.
Obama has in recent weeks has completely 180'ed his position on several key issues.
Such as?
Well, for starters, other than NASA, the most egregious one would be the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. I'd also have to add the use of public funding for his election.
Here's a snippet of a letter I received from Delta Airlines last month regarding the high cost of oil. The letter was signed by 12 airlines. "Twenty years ago, 21 percent of oil contracts were purchased by speculators who trade oil on paper with no intention of ever taking delivery. Today, oil speculators purchase 66 percent of all oil futures contracts, and that reflects just the transactions that are known. Speculators buy up large amounts of oil and then sell it to each other again and again. A barrel of oil may trade 20-plus times before it is delivered and used; the price goes up with each trade and consumers pick up the final tab. Some market experts estimate that current prices reflect as much as $30 to $60 per barrel in unnecessary speculative costs." Here is a link to the full letter.
I don't. All I know is what the trickle-down affects were to the projects I worked on. Although I did go to a meeting (more auditorium style than personal) when Griffin explained to our center what his views were on the NASA advisory council, I had very little to do with any management other than my immediate ATRs.
I don't think you read my comment, or at least, didn't understand what I'm saying. My issue is that NASA was told to do more things, and wasn't given the funding to cover it. I'm not going to say that all NASA projects deserve funding, but they're tied in certain regards due to congressional earmarks and the executive branch's "Vision for Space Exploration" that force funding into specific projects that may not be well justified in the context of NASA's published strategic goals. (I don't know that there are ones that should specifically be cut, but it seems that if the projects were worthwhile on their own, they wouldn't need congressional earmarks)
As for the problems you cite -- not all of them were engineering. Some were administrative, and some were on NASA projects, but not by NASA personnel. In the case of the satellite bolts issue, one of the teams took the bolts from another group's satellite. I've heard rumors that the "failed to follow procedures" came from someone checking off tasks as they were started, and not completed, right as a shift change occurred, so the bolts weren't verified before the satellite was moved. But this didn't happen at NASA -- this happened at Lockheed Martin. Were the contractors held accountable for their actions? I have no idea -- it's well outside of my scope of work. But I do know that it got mentioned quite a bit, so hopefully, others have learned from it.
And would the problems have occurred if there were adequate funding for oversight? I have no idea, but doing things on the cheap and/or rushed can lead to mistakes. If a job's worth doing, it's worth spending money on. (Okay, some things are worth doing at price $X, but not at $X+Y ... it's that whole benefit-cost analysis thing). Now, some projects are intentionally risky -- they spend less money on something that's not yet proven, because the potential payoff is quite high, but they can't dedicate the full funding. And there's a whole 'TRL' (tech readiness level) system and different classes of missions as a result. But if a delay from a contractor results in the delay of a satellite launch (because it costs money to store the satellite in a clean room before launch, etc.), then money is taken from the project's later years ... ie, the satellite's up, but there's less money to actually 'do science' with the data from it.
So in effect, I'm agreeing to a certain degree with your final analysis, but I'd argue that many of the problems aren't all NASA's fault, but the situations that they're put into by the other areas of government and the contractors they go through. I'd personally like to see more focus on the 'advance knowledge of (X)' aspects of the strategic goals, but Griffin is right -- the scientists and contractors all want more money spent on their area, so they might not be the best advisors, even if they do work for other scientific agencies.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
(1) NASA is primarily based out of Florida, California and Texas. (2) Those states have lots of electoral votes. (3) NASA's manned spacecraft stuff is concentrated in Florida and Texas. (4) Obama is trailing in Florida. So suddenly he's in favor of increased man space flights? Color me unsurprised.
Oh, how cute I was labeled a "Troll" because I pointed out that the poster didn't have the courage of his convictions.
Getting to Social Security, you tell me ONE THING wrong with making sure people have something when they retire.
I'm so sick of these 20 YEAR OLDS bitching because they are asked to contribute a fingernail slice of their income to help those who came before them.
That is as selfish an snobbish as those (not that I'm accusing you of this, BTW) who scream they'd go to Canada before being Drafted.
NO ONE has any sense of DUTY or RESPONSIBILITY now days.
"Don't be a martyr -- BE THE ONE WHO GOT AWAY!"
Yup, I agree on the public funding issue. That, and FISA, were two ugly, ugly position changes that, while one can rationalize, are impossible to deny. BUT, those didn't happen in "recent weeks", so they hardly apply.
But given the difficulty of the current economic climate, what makes you believe his change of position on the SPR is a flip-flop, and not simply a re-evaluation? I mean, right about now, the *last* person you want in office is someone so completely dogmatic that they're unwilling to evaluate all options, including tapping into the SPR, or some limited amount of offshore drilling (which Obama has also recently said he'd be willing to consider).
The issue is not about Russia and Georgia engaging in a territorial dispute. The issue is about Russia seeking to re-establish it's sphere of influence through a projection of military power.
If the response to Russia's invasion of Georgia was muted / measured it is likely Russia would see that as a green light to implement (by force) a regime change in Georgia.
The only correct response was the W / McCain response (that also ultimately became the Obama position) which is to take a very hard line with Russia.
If, by recently, you mean the last, oh, two or three years, when, after years of being a "maverick", he started heavily supporting Bush, a trend that has continued to his day.
Contrast this with Obama, and I think you can see the difference. Or, at least, I hope you can.
'course, the real irony, is that McCain selling out to the RNC now makes any position change by Obama, no matter how reasonable or well thought out, suspect...
But given the difficulty of the current economic climate, what makes you believe his change of position on the SPR is a flip-flop, and not simply a re-evaluation? I mean, right about now, the *last* person you want in office is someone so completely dogmatic that they're unwilling to evaluate all options, including tapping into the SPR, or some limited amount of offshore drilling (which Obama has also recently said he'd be willing to consider).
Well, the fact that a month before changing his position, he affirmed that he opposed releasing from the SPR... at a time when gas prices were HIGHER than they were when he announced his new position.
And the fact that it's such a stupid idea to begin with. He wants to release 10% of the reserve, and then have it filled with less valuable oil that requires more refining-- completely contradictory to the intent of the reserve... the last time it was used, IIRC, was post-Katrina due to the fact that refineries in the Gulf were offline. Now you're going to require more refining in an emergency reserve?? Stupid, stupid, stupid. If this was his re-evaluation, then it just shows that he's not that smart.
I pose this as a rhetorical question, not as an attack, but as a seed for further discussion:
Considering the amount of overhead in the current welfare system, would the money spent on welfare do more good if it were left in the taxpayers' hands?
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"Obama just finished paying off his school loans a couple of years ago, "
I've heard that before, and I also heard Michelle Obama talk about how she is afraid of losing touch with her roots (I believe she actually said "common people", but I could be wrong)it wasn't so long ago that she was worrying about paying bills, etc.
Then I heard a story on NPR about her career, and how a few years ago her salary jumped from just over $100k to over $300k, and "almost 200% increase".
And I ask myself, "Trouble paying school loans, and paying bills, on over $100k (for 1 salary alone)? $300k? I call bullshit"
Obama plays the populist, but he is not, nor has he ever been, one of the people he is playing to.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
Hillary was campaigning since she was elected senator. McCain since 2000. Obama since he saw he had a shot and got some backers, which has been for a few years and since he got in the Senate. "Reasonable, well-thought" position changes are still position changes - see his recent change on possible drilling. He, and most dems, were kowtowing to the environmental whackos for a LONG time, and now there's such an outcry for more drilling (as gas prices most affect Obama's targeted audience than McCain's) that he HAS to come up with a more nuanced reason than "everyone wants it." It's starting to hit the pocketbooks of people he really wants votes from, and Obama needs to throw a bone there. He wouldn't change his position on it if he weren't running for President, I would bet.
Which is the REAL question we need to ask - would they change their stance on --insert issue-- if they weren't running for President?
Such as T. Boone Pickens plan which ould eventually replace 38% of current oil consumption with Natural Gas.
Except the ban on offshore drilling includes natural gas.
"The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth." ~1984 George Orwell
I would love to see the exact same story with his "evolving" position on giving telecoms immunity for spying on us. He voted for allowing it and he should change his position to oppose it and actively purse having this stopped.
Obama's too smart to be a NASA booster. Yes, NASA's popular. But it is a relic from a distant age. NASA serves today more as a totem of what middle-class people want the society to be rather than what it actually is.
With each story about the coming new age of space exploration that appears on Slashdot, I get this underlying feeling that there is a sharp disconnect from reality at work. The reality is that we are on the edge of a massive involuntary decrease in energy use. And space exploration will be one of the first government programs to be cut as a result.
It's not that space exploration by itself consumes a large amount of energy; it's the vast complex economy that space programs depend on that will be starved for energy. Energy as in oil. Oil that becomes quite expensive as the easy-to-reach light crude is depleted.
As oil becomes increasingly difficult to get out of the ground, everything becomes massively expensive. When food prices triple, gasoline becomes rationed, stock prices tank, and house prices fall by half, people will have to make serious choices on what to buy with the funds that they have left. Space exploration becomes the lowest priority.
Space exploration only appears to be an essential component for the progress of mankind when there is plenty of food, peace, and an economy growing 5-6% a year. When these conditions change, so does the general appeal of space travel. As this appeal goes away; the funding for space disappears. NASA and its programs are more a symbol of a more-prosperous age than a program that delivers real useful solutions to everyday problems. NASA can put a man on the moon, but it can't put gas in his car.
Given this reality, NASA should concentrate only on projects that can be completed with useful results within a short time frame. Certainly no more than five to ten years total. That means no more fantasies about moon bases and Mars manned missions. If NASA commits itself to these long-term hugely-expensive but largely symbolic projects, they will most likely find the funding gone in the middle. With no lasting results to show for all the expense.
Since we are the young technological elite, Slashdot readers should be the vanguard in preparing the general population (and the NASA directors themselves) for this inevitable great change. However we talk and act like over-sugared children. We are at risk of being preceived as completely irrelevant, and incapable of providing technical leadership during the coming transformations.
Slashdot readers to a man believe that technology is going to somehow find a way to transcend the limits imposed from running out of cheap oil. This is not correct. Cheap energy makes technology possible, but technology doesn't make cheap energy possible. When the easy-to-drill oil is gone, technological progress slows to practically nothing. The basic know-how is still available, but there is no investment capital available for the massive projects needed to develop it.
Pure science remains in libaries and labs, but engineering disappears. This is the 21st century reality that is going to be very difficult for current techies to accept. But it is the coming new reality. When the consequences of global warming, oil depletion, and overpopulation become fully manifest in the next ten to twenty years, NASA will disappear faster than the Hummer in the era of $5/gallon gasoline.
Realistically ,Obama is just spouting half baked intentions to gain votes.Once in office,which isn't likely he will continue tough foreign policy stances that his party has historically done.Remember Carters "give up the hostages or die" speech to Iran? How about Bill Clintons surprise bombing obliteration of Bagdad?
Kennedys amazing handling of Cuba?
Neither does anyone else.Promises go out,money stays for vote buying programs while the important issues are left to fend for themselves rather than spend money on anything that won't further the interests of the Demo/Socialicratic party.They can always make up some slobbering humanitarian excuse to improve their image and make problem solving look detrimental to the people they rule..er govern.
Get over this Obama thing,it's dead as disco.
Not that Republicans are much better,but at least they defend our interests.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
at a time when gas prices were HIGHER than they were when he announced his new position.
So what? That means nothing. Just because gas prices were lower, doesn't mean the problem magically went away. Gas is still extremely expensive, and the problem still requires attention. And in that intervening month, he was convinced that tapping into the SPR was an option to be considered. I still don't see how that's anything but a simple change of position in the face of new facts.
And the fact that it's such a stupid idea to begin with.
Well, that's your opinion. Good for you. That doesn't make Obama's position a flip flop. It just makes it potentially stupid (I don't know enough about the issue, so I can't really judge... and there's no reason to believe you do, either).
Ok, google helps here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/24/AR2008022402094.html
McCain has also switched positions on several issues, but in general, those have been over the course of years, rather than months. Yes, they're both politicians, and their views have changed.
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Which is the REAL question we need to ask - would they change their stance on --insert issue-- if they weren't running for President?
Because they realized they were wrong? Or that they need to compromise their ideals in the face of a difficult economic situation? I know, it's an alien concept, but it does happen from time to time.
>Is that 16 Apollo launches or 16 times Apollo 8 through 17?
As other posters have already cited and said, the current Iraq war could have funded 16 ENTIRE APOLLO PROGRAMS, not launches, in today's dollars.
That means we could have gone to the moon nearly 100 times for the cost.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
How long do you think it would take to get a couple coal gasification plants?
Think about it.
About as long as it would take to make sure Sen. Robert "Sheets" Byrd can get the first plant named after him, and all of them entirely located in West Virginia. . .
Whoever owns the moon owns the world. All you need do is toss rocks.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
at a time when gas prices were HIGHER than they were when he announced his new position.
So what? That means nothing. Just because gas prices were lower, doesn't mean the problem magically went away. Gas is still extremely expensive, and the problem still requires attention. And in that intervening month, he was convinced that tapping into the SPR was an option to be considered. I still don't see how that's anything but a simple change of position in the face of new facts.
And the fact that it's such a stupid idea to begin with.
Well, that's your opinion. Good for you. That doesn't make Obama's position a flip flop. It just makes it potentially stupid (I don't know enough about the issue, so I can't really judge... and there's no reason to believe you do, either).
Geez louise. You've already decided on the issue, so I suppose this is a waste of my time.
Please cite ONE NEW FACT that would support his COMPLETE flip-flop in the period of one month.
I've explained my reasons why tapping into the reserve is stupid. You have done nothing to counter my reasoning. You just assume that St. Obama must have a good reason, but have no evidence to back that claim. You just assume that he must have a good reason, even though Sen. Obama has yet to articulate it.
You, my friend, are the textbook description of someone who's been taken in by a cult of personality.
How is Obama replacing 5 million barrels a day tomorrow? Tuneups and inflating tires? McCain has made it pretty clear he is for all alternative fuel source AND drilling. With the inelastic nature of oil, any increase in the supply will lower prices and drastically. T Boone Pickens by the way is not a green guy, he is just for reducing the burden of foreign oil. He is also for off shore drilling, shale production and ANWR drilling. There is no reason we can't do everything. If we started drilling tomorrow there will be some online in 2-3 years, the democratic talking point is 10 years+ but that would be for all 100%. I am all for getting off oil but the simple fact is that it cannot happen overnight, but in the interim, there is no reason to be sending so much money out of this country.
Again, you make fun of simple things like Tuneups and properly inflating tires BEFORE ACTUALLY READING A DAMN THING ABOUT IT.
While it wouldn't maybe help the INDIVIDUAL very much, the ENTIRE COUNTRY would benefit a decent amount.
In fact, if the ENTIRE COUNTRY did these LITTLE things, we could WITHOUT A DOUBT save the same amount of Oil McCain's 'Day Dream' of offshore drilling MIGHT produce 10 YEARS from now.
I'm afraid the same holds true for ANWR. I'm not super concerned about the envirnment up there because I don't think the handful of wells that would be drilled would hurt anything, BUT it wouldn't help us either.
It would certainly help the Oil Companies who could pull the oil out of the ground for PENNIES and sell it for top dollar.
For those who don't know, Oil is priced based on GLOBAL markets, not production cost. SO drilling in the Continental United States is a sweet proposition for Oil Companies because they can pull it out of the ground for nothing but the production costs, BUT CHARGE LIKE THEY BOUGHT IT OVERSEAS.
As long as a SINGLE barrel of oil comes from outside the United States, ALL OIL PRODUCED IN THE UNITED STATES WILL COST PRETTY MUCH THE SAME regardless of the production costs.
Speculators have driven the price up some, but not nearly as much as people blame on them. Besides, speculation has its purpose. Speculation is why you can lock in a price for heating oil NOW, and KNOW FOR CERTAINTY what you will be paying this winter.
This goes the same for McCain's ludicrous 'Gas Tax Holiday'. If you remove the Federal Gas tax (which is less than 25Â for gasoline), then gasoline distributors will simply raise their prices by the EXACT amount removed. There is nothing in the law to prevent this, accept a few, older, arcane price fixing rules that would be IMPOSSIBLE to prove.
All John McCain would have done (if the Democratic Congress hadn't stopped him) is robbed the Highway Department of revenue needed to maintain the countries road system.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26222711/
"Don't be a martyr -- BE THE ONE WHO GOT AWAY!"
If you're going to spend on the poor at all, spend predominately on Americans. Helping out other countries is fine, but the American president's primary and overriding obligation is to the well-being and betterment of America.
The well-being and betterment of America is served by helping to lift other countries out of poverty. I don't know if you've been following the news the last few years or not but a large portion of the World (including some of our most important European allies) no longer trusts us.
Projects like the Bush initiatives in Africa serve at least two purposes. First and foremost they lift others out of poverty and despair. Second they improve our standing aboard. Seeing as how Russia is on the march again and China is becoming an economic superpower I think we'd be well served by making all the friends we can -- and right now Africa loves us.
Are you really going to tell me that isn't worth a few billion bucks? We get goodwill and future trading partners/potential allies out of the deal. Sounds like a bargain to me.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
I'm not even referring to the situation in Georgia.
I'm just speaking in terms of Russian nationalism and establishing its place in global affairs.
After a significant period of hardship following the fall of the soviet union the country is now flush with oil money and outsourcing labor for the west. With a strengthening economic situation the country is looking to regain is place on the world stage and expand its sphere of influence.
While it won't come to open conflict, I could definitely see the new emboldened Russia telling the US to "pay up or no Soyuz for you." With no shuttle for 5 years they would have us over the proverbial barrel until we can get a replacement flying.
The deeper issue in the current Russian situation is what stances they will take with their ever increasing global stature.
Now, it may be true that Georgia was provoking Russia. But at a moment's notice, Russia launched a well-coordinated, overwhelming assault involving their army, navy, and air force, with fronts opened in South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The military assault was coordinated with computer attacks and a media propaganda campaign (see, for instance, the "2,000 dead" figure the Russian media kept repeating without ever providing any source or photographs to back up their claims). You simply cannot do what Russia did overnight. It takes weeks or months of planning. Georgia provided the trigger for the war, true, but Russia was clearly waiting for an excuse.
Russia/Georgia, Please solve this quickly.
Here's the underlying issue. Russia (or at least Putin) feels like border states, such as the Ukraine and Georgia, should be subservient to Russia, and not pursue political or military ties to the West. So as far as Russia is concerned, this is very much about the West (EU and NATO). And by invading and occupying a country that is on the flank of Europe, and with close political ties to the U.S., Russia is trying to threaten and intimidate the West. Now the West is in a delicate position- they can't really let this stand, but it's not clear how they can punish Russia either. Regardless, relationships between Russia and the U.S./EU have fundamentally shifted. It's not that a new conflict has started, it's that Europe and the United States are finally waking up and realizing that they're already in the middle of a conflict.
Getting to Social Security, you tell me ONE THING wrong with making sure people have something when they retire. I'm so sick of these 20 YEAR OLDS bitching because they are asked to contribute a fingernail slice of their income to help those who came before them.
Ok. I'm 30 something. Here's my ONE THING. I will probably never see a dollar of it myself. The system is intended to work for me when I need it. That's the "security" part of it. But now, the way it's headed, I'm really only seeing the "social" part of it. If they continue to fuck it up and leave it business as usual, I'll have paid a lifetime into a system that won't pay me a dime back. That's the problem. Social Security isn't supposed to be about duty and responsibility, it was supposed to be about insurance for the future.
You'd be pretty sour if you knew you paid car insurance all your life without an accident, and when you finally did have an accident, there'd be nothing for you.
You'll have that sometimes...
Such as T. Boone Pickens plan which ould eventually replace 38% of current oil consumption with Natural Gas.
Except the ban on offshore drilling includes natural gas.
If you had read his plan you would see he wants to REPLACE Natural Gas fired power plants with WIND TURBINES placed in the center parts of the United States (where we have more wind than Saudi Arabia has oil).
That would FREE UP more than enough Natural Gas to meet his goals.
"Don't be a martyr -- BE THE ONE WHO GOT AWAY!"
Please cite ONE NEW FACT that would support his COMPLETE flip-flop in the period of one month.
Again, I have *no idea* what facts Obama was privy to prior to changing his decision. I have *no idea* what facts or arguments he was given to change his mind. All I know is that he did. Maybe the news that the US has been in recession since Q4 '07 caused him to compromise in order to address inflationary concerns. Maybe someone gave a good explanation of the benefits of tapping into the SPR. Hell, I'm sure I could come up with all kinds of other guesses. But I have no particular reason to assume it's just pandering, particularly given that no one has demonstrated, to my satisfaction, that he has a history of such behaviour.
I've explained my reasons why tapping into the reserve is stupid.
And I don't care.
You have done nothing to counter my reasoning.
Because it's completely an utterly beside the point. You're trying to change the dialog, from the issue of flip flopping, to whether the new position is a good one or not. Those issues are tangential, and I'm not going to fall for your attempts to conflate them.
Getting to Social Security, you tell me ONE THING wrong with making sure people have something when they retire.
I'll worry about myself - I can invest my money better than the government can - but why should I help you retire?
I'm so sick of these 20 YEAR OLDS bitching because they are asked to contribute a fingernail slice of their income to help those who came before them.
Well, I was 20 well over 10 years ago and let me tell you - once you add ss with medicare, you're at 15.3%. You consider that to be a fingernail slice? You think it should be 20%? 25%? I for one would gladly give up every penny i've put in just to be able to get out.
That is as selfish an snobbish as those (not that I'm accusing you of this, BTW) who scream they'd go to Canada before being Drafted.
If we ever have to draft that just means it isn't worth fighting for - look at WWII - many people gladly joined because it was a cause worth fighting for.
NO ONE has any sense of DUTY or RESPONSIBILITY now days.
Damn right - if they were responsible we wouldn't need Social Security!
Regardless, it's been shown that Obama's tax cut plans would help the lower income brackets more than McCain's, and tax the rich more. This is obviously what a tax system is supposed to do.
Silly me, I thought the tax system was supposed to pay for the costs of running the government. You're saying that the tax system is supposed to punish the people who use their hard work, skills, and ingenuity to make more money? Since when did Robin Hood write the tax code?
I'm all in favor of a few deductions for necessities (food, clothing, housing, etc.) but past that everyone should be taxed the same. Ultimately the best tax system would be some form of a use tax where you pay for your share of the services that you use, with some extra to cover a modicum of common services that can't be pinned on any one group of citizens. That will never fly so I'd settle for a flat percentage of income after necessities are deducted.
Now I agree that part of society is that we do what we can to help those who are in need and some of our taxes should go towards that but we've gone way off the deep end. I work for an agency that provides services to the inner city and the vast majority of the people who use those services could easily do some meaningful work and improve their lot but they don't because they are given everything they need to live. In their minds they'd rather do almost no work and barely scrape by on social services than do an honest days work and get themselves out of poverty. They can do this because no one is properly held accountable for the money that is handed out.
What we need to do is to wean people off of handouts. Get them training if they need it, provide some limited assistance until they can get on their own two feet and then cut them off. Instead what we have is an institution where the masses demand free services and, because we live in a "democracy" (actually representative republic but not many understand the distinction) the politicians will give those masses whatever it takes to make the masses vote for them. This works great until it pushes the people who actually do work and earn more money to do something drastic, such as leaving the country. Then we all stand around and wonder why our economy is tanking - we drove away the people who had the money and who were providing jobs and spending that money in the United States.
Yes, it seems unfair that some people have more than others. The thing is that you can't legislate the distribution of wealth unless you want to follow the precepts of Karl Marx. Even then look at some of the nations that have embraced that philosophy:
The fact is that our current policies are backfiring on us. We have massive debt because of many things but one huge source is social services. We are falling down on education because we are encouraging generations of families that don't need to achieve in order to survive. Our health as a nation is poor because the bare necessities that our government has the money to pay for is barely enough to keep people off rock bottom. The answer is not to tax the high-earners more, it is to stop shifting the blame to them and instead to get off our lazy butts and make our own way in life.
Sapere aude!
The problem with a politician changing his mind, especially a relatively inexperienced politician, is that few people will be able to understand what he truly believes in. What if you previously supported Obama because of his stance on NASA and now that it's changed, what do you do. Should people that agree with his new stance be at all concerned about his previous stance? Maybe he'll come into some more "new" information that will have him change his stance again. How can people rally around someone that they trust to have their viewpoint when that person's viewpoint continues to change? "Change we can believe in" is certainly holding true for Obama...who knew that he was actually referring to his mind?
McCain's response was similar to a rapid dog. W's has been measured. W's response has more in common with Obama's than McCain. Even the majority of the pubs claims that W's response was like Obamas. Slow and measured.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I should point out that oil companies not drilling where they have rights is a problem. If government regulations are stopping them, why can't someone like Obama (or McCain) simply change the rules?
The problem is that the places where they have rights to drill have no oil. Do you really think that the "evil" oil companies would leave all that profitable oil in the ground when they had the green light to go and get it?
You'll have that sometimes...
> That explains why Spaceship One exploded on launch.
Actually, it explains why Falcon I failed to launch, and Armadillo's lunar lander exploded on the runway. No, wait, it doesn't explain it. Even SpaceShipOne had a roll problem (it didn't blow up because, IMHO, Rutan is a rare daVinci-level design genius, but that's another tale). These things happen not because it's NASA or the Soviets or Private Industry, but because rocket science is hard.
Rockets blow up. A 1/100 change of failure over 100 launch = failure is likely. You can out-design some risk, but not all-- and so you have to do a cost/benefit against risk. With conventional (unmanned) satellite loses, they have it down to actuarial figures: they insure for $X, the policy costs $Y, so a risk reducation that costs more than $Y is unnecessary.
For manned stuff, the US is very risk-adverse and litigious, so I don't think private industry has much of a market advantage for risk management there. I do hope there will be legal and insurance reform to improve that situation. Put simply, people should be allowed to give informed consent to do dangerous stuff.
I'm all for commercial space ventures in addition to NASA. But arguing private industry will either a) cut corners and blow up more or b) be safer and more reliable than NASA ignores NASA's track record, reality, and how rocket science works.
A.
Here's another 'one thing'. Social security is a government run way of forcing people to build a nest egg for their future. Instead of just letting people handle that on their own through their own investments and savings- we let the government handle it so that 'no one gets left behind'. I have no problem with that... but, I want the option to opt out. Since I have a good knowledge of finance and investing, and I'm smart enough to live on LESS than my paycheque and invest the rest, I should be allowed to opt out and take care of my own retirement investing. Because we all know how well the government is managing the system and our money.
In fact, if the ENTIRE COUNTRY did these LITTLE things, we could WITHOUT A DOUBT save the same amount of Oil McCain's 'Day Dream' of offshore drilling MIGHT produce 10 YEARS from now.
Please provide STATISTICS to prove your POSITION.
You'll have that sometimes...
Umm... only two (2) of those issues are recent. The rest date back to '04, so if you're willing to give McCain a pass, you must be willing to do the same for Obama.
As for those two, I agree, his position changes on campaign finance are almost certainly driven by political concerns. His choice to take private funding was, I think, purely a matter of political expediency. His change of position on unions, however, reeks of pandering to me.
So now we have, what, four recent issues: FISA, private campaign financing, his comments on unions, and NASA. Others have included his positions on offshore drilling and the strategic petroleum reserve, but I consider those to be excellent examples of his willingness to compromise for the good of the country, and so don't qualify as pandering or flip flopping.
So... four issues. Four issues, and he's suddenly a pandering politician just like everyone else? Really?
Social security can prevent you from dieing because you didn't afford the doctor or the meds to treat you.
So before you call social security a scam, you should think about that for a while.
Coal gasification (or just building more clean-coal power plants -- and no, fellow environmentalists, "clean coal" is not an oxymoron, learn what it means first, especially when it comes to carbon capture technology) has to be coupled with a constellation of other efforts to get our energy prices down, including investment in renewables.
I see a future where, if we're smart, the United States can be the world leader in energy technology, provided we innovate in renewables and make full use of our coal and natural gas resources. I just hope we'll be smart enough to do it.
+++ATH0
You realize you have this backwards right? The more you make, the smaller the percentage of your income goes to taxes. Who opposes the flat tax idea the most? Something tells me it is not the lower or middle class people.
look at it this way (numbers are for example only): if a 15% tax on gross income was proposed, who would pay more in taxes? the rich or the poor? Even though the percentage is the same, the rich say that it is unfair since they are paying more.
I do think that it is funny. The rich are opposed to a flat tax rate on income. Yet they favor a flat percentage increase in pay. The company gave everyone a 4% raise. Someone making $40,000 a year now makes $41,600 a year. While someone making $100,000 a year now makes $104,000 a year. So which raise would you rather have gotten a $4000 raise or a $1600 one?
Percentage raises favor the bigger paychecks. Why not have the same thing for taxes? Wait percentage taxes would not favor the rich. They will not stand for that.
You are right on! If I had mod points I'd mod you up.
Social Security is a good thing. I've been paying into it for 30+ years now and when I retire in 15 I'll have a pretty good monthly check in addition to what I've saved and built up by then. It's intention is to pad retirement benefits for working class citizens. Those that genuinely oppose it are born into wealthy families and are the ones that bitch the loudest as they also have to contribute to the fund as well.
The flip side of the coin here is that there are also features built into our capitalistic system that benefit the wealthy and are unfair to the working class.
Of course there are also those AC's out there that bitch about things they know nothing of and/or just like bitching for the sake of bitching. Their problem is most likely "Little dog syndrome", "Little dick syndrome" or some other similar defect.
"Suppose you were an idiot...and suppose you were a member of Congress...but I repeat myself." Mark Twain
Social Security has become a ghost of it's original intent, as an insurance program. It has now become an entitlement system.
NO ONE has a right to stop working if they can't afford it. Social Security is unneeded EXCEPT as an entitlement/insurance program. I.e. if someone gets becomes unable to work, they can withdraw from it. If they don't, then they have to figure out how to save up enough money to do it themselves.
Get rid of Social Security and call it what it is ... welfare. Combine the two systems and get rid of all the extra overhead.
Anyone above specified income (including withdrawl capabilities of 401k/Ira plans) should not be allowed to withdraw from it. Anyone that is capable of working should not be allowed to withdraw from it, except to provide a minimum wage. So ... if you want to be a greeter at Wal-mart ... go ahead and take out from Social Security to make up the difference.
Medicare is a different program and I'm not talking about healthcare.
I rarely read replies, it's my opinion and if you thought about your opinion a little more, I'm OK with that.
"Obama just finished paying off his school loans a couple of years ago, "
I've heard that before, and I also heard Michelle Obama talk about how she is afraid of losing touch with her roots (I believe she actually said "common people", but I could be wrong)it wasn't so long ago that she was worrying about paying bills, etc.
Then I heard a story on NPR about her career, and how a few years ago her salary jumped from just over $100k to over $300k, and "almost 200% increase".
And I ask myself, "Trouble paying school loans, and paying bills, on over $100k (for 1 salary alone)? $300k? I call bullshit"
Obama plays the populist, but he is not, nor has he ever been, one of the people he is playing to.
I (nor he) EVER said he had TROUBLE paying school loans, he simply stated he NEEDED loans to get through school and HE PAID THEM OFF himself.
He didn't default and make it harder for someone else, nor did he make you and I pay for them.
Obama is a hell of a lot closer to the average person than John McCain. It isn't the John McCain is a bad person (I don't doubt for a minute his bravery and responsibility), it's just he doesn't understand what the average person is worried about.
And without that understanding, how can you truly hope to represent the average person?
"Don't be a martyr -- BE THE ONE WHO GOT AWAY!"
Social Security will always be there, just like the Defense Department will always be there.
This country will never run out of money BE THIS IS WHERE EVERYONE KEEPS THEIR MONEY.
"Don't be a martyr -- BE THE ONE WHO GOT AWAY!"
The two worst presidents of all time were LBJ and FDR
FDR? Are you serious? FDR was probably the last great US president. He's the one who turned the US into the number 1 superpower that the neocons love so much.
Argh! You're right. FDR was secretly a neocon avant-la-lettre! (Now look what you've done. You've made me speak French!)
Frankly, with the boomers all moving to old-people welfare in the next decade, we need an influx of warm bodies to help pay for them. Immigration, extra babies, whatever.
Societies may be made up of individuals, but the individual has little place in society. It's about what's best for the most, not what's best for you in particular. Yea, you may have to support some poor people. Yea, some women have children they can't afford.
Of course the government is strictly opposed to having a sensible family planning program with free contraception; I'm sure you are too because of course you'd have to pay for that, which you'd equate with stealing. Which is pretty classy btw; blame the kid for being born.
It's a hell of a lot easier to deal with the actual problem before it occurs. Put together a sensible immigration policy to draw skilled workers, set up a wide-reaching guest worker program with taxes and benefits to draw unskilled workers. Teach the kids how not to get pregnant, give them contraception. Teach 'em enough to become productive members of society, give 'em job training. Of course, all those social programs are stealing too, right?
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Ok, but then why the disparity? Going back through my lifetime, Republicans have tended to spend money way more freely then Democrats.
If this was true that they're both the same, wouldn't I see similar spending binges during times when Democrats were in office?
Ok, citations given. Where are the informative up-mods?
Well, much like your post, the problem is that the citations have been couched in trollish, partisan rhetoric.
Getting to Social Security, you tell me ONE THING wrong with making sure people have something when they retire.
I'll worry about myself - I can invest my money better than the government can - but why should I help you retire?
I'm so sick of these 20 YEAR OLDS bitching because they are asked to contribute a fingernail slice of their income to help those who came before them.
Well, I was 20 well over 10 years ago and let me tell you - once you add ss with medicare, you're at 15.3%. You consider that to be a fingernail slice? You think it should be 20%? 25%? I for one would gladly give up every penny i've put in just to be able to get out.
That is as selfish an snobbish as those (not that I'm accusing you of this, BTW) who scream they'd go to Canada before being Drafted.
If we ever have to draft that just means it isn't worth fighting for - look at WWII - many people gladly joined because it was a cause worth fighting for.
NO ONE has any sense of DUTY or RESPONSIBILITY now days.
Damn right - if they were responsible we wouldn't need Social Security!
We also had conscription during WWII, in case you have forgotten.
EVERY major War the United States has ever fought has had conscription because we intended to WIN.
As for responsibility, what about the person who works THEIR ENTIRE LIFE at a menial job JUST SO they won't need Welfare. They work their asses off to make ends meet and take care of their families. In all this, however, they only manage to break even.
Is it TOO MUCH for someone such as yourself, who seems to have done alright for themselves, to give JUST A LITTLE (nothing you wouldn't have pissed away anyway on junk)?
You can throw out all the percentages you want, the actual DOLLAR AMOUNT is nothing you wouldn't have spent anyway, on something FAR LESS worthy.
"Don't be a martyr -- BE THE ONE WHO GOT AWAY!"
Coal.
If we burn the coal, we are fscked.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Here's another 'one thing'. Social security is a government run way of forcing people to build a nest egg for their future. Instead of just letting people handle that on their own through their own investments and savings- we let the government handle it so that 'no one gets left behind'. I have no problem with that... but, I want the option to opt out. Since I have a good knowledge of finance and investing, and I'm smart enough to live on LESS than my paycheque and invest the rest, I should be allowed to opt out and take care of my own retirement investing. Because we all know how well the government is managing the system and our money.
This is a classic case of "It just takes a few to ruin it for the rest"
You probably are capable of taking care of yourself. However, there are a lot of stupid people who would opt-out simply to have more piss-off money now, and would need STILL need help later when they can't work.
It is a simple fact of life that we are only as strong as out weakest link, and social security makes sure the weak links of our society are taken care of.
"Don't be a martyr -- BE THE ONE WHO GOT AWAY!"
Getting to Social Security, you tell me ONE THING wrong with making sure people have something when they retire.
So let's say, for the sake of argument, that forced saving is a good thing for everyone.
Social security is not saving anything, it's a forced money redistribution scheme. The "investment" is in US Treasury bonds, which means that the government spent it.
If you loan the US government money, and the US government spends it, it's still reasonable to say that you have saved it. But if you loan yourself money, and then spend it, then you have certainly not saved it. And that's exactly what Social Security is all about.
If people had individual accounts (again, we're still assuming forced contributions), and those individual accounts could only be invested in US Treasury bonds, then at least it would be clear how much of a problem the system has. But we have no idea, because there's no accounting for the money.
Oh, and "fingernail slice"?? It's about 15% of your income. If you believe the ~7% number, you need to read an economics book.
Social scientists are inspired by theories; scientists are humbled by facts.
Unfortunately, the best chance we had to do away with these pyramid schemes was under Ronnie, an otherwise great president who failed miserably in that regard.
Yeah, if we would have let Bush privatize social security, we would be so much better off. At least he got farther than Reagan did on that score. We need to frame the debate in terms of how many days you have to work to support your parents and grandparents, in their retirement, just to get a feel for it. Then we could go on and do some proposals like, people with more kids should get more social security than people without or with less. Basically, just get the facts out there that social security is a multigenerational system and there isn't a next generation big enough.
This is my sig.
In fact, if the ENTIRE COUNTRY did these LITTLE things, we could WITHOUT A DOUBT save the same amount of Oil McCain's 'Day Dream' of offshore drilling MIGHT produce 10 YEARS from now.
Please provide STATISTICS to prove your POSITION.
http://fueleconomy.gov/feg/maintain.shtml
Again, it's simple math.
"Don't be a martyr -- BE THE ONE WHO GOT AWAY!"
Just because you are older does not mean you know how to spend OUR hard earned cash better than we, nor do you gain the right to steal it from us by force of executive will via legislation.
Fingernail slice my ass, it's every bit the largest chunk taken out of my check every week and I should decide where that money goes, not you.
It's not the government's job to make sure you have a crappy and piss poor retirement.
This is exactly why I think we should hold off on drilling our own reserves. In about a decade, start preparing for drilling, taking the time to build the rigs and such, not rushing into it, and then only really dig deep into our currently untapped oil if/when MidEast oil is no longer a luxury we have. It's a larger total net gain, as opposed to the "Waah! My SUV is too expensive to drive now!" that seems to be the reasoning most of our citizenry has right now. For the record, I carpool with a friend, splitting gas down the middle, driving a total of 100 miles daily (50 each way), plus some sidetrips, and a weekly 20 miles each way to a D&D game and back, in a sedan-type car. We refill the gas twice weekly. It's about $40 for a tank. It could be cheaper, but it's not going to kill us anytime soon.
If we're lucky, the rising gas prices will lead to more efficient cars becoming a major part of the market. I actually miss my old '92 Geo Metro convertible, and that thing gave up everything for mileage, but it managed 40 mpg redlining it (which admittedly didn't take much, and was how you drove at 70 on the interstate -- shook like crazy at that speed, any faster and it would start to make altogether unwholesome noises).
This country will never run out of money BE THIS IS WHERE EVERYONE KEEPS THEIR MONEY.
You sir, are living in the past.
You'll have that sometimes...
Getting to Social Security, you tell me ONE THING wrong with making sure people have something when they retire.
So let's say, for the sake of argument, that forced saving is a good thing for everyone.
Social security is not saving anything, it's a forced money redistribution scheme. The "investment" is in US Treasury bonds, which means that the government spent it.
If you loan the US government money, and the US government spends it, it's still reasonable to say that you have saved it. But if you loan yourself money, and then spend it, then you have certainly not saved it. And that's exactly what Social Security is all about.
If people had individual accounts (again, we're still assuming forced contributions), and those individual accounts could only be invested in US Treasury bonds, then at least it would be clear how much of a problem the system has. But we have no idea, because there's no accounting for the money.
Oh, and "fingernail slice"?? It's about 15% of your income. If you believe the ~7% number, you need to read an economics book.
15% IS a fingernail slice, compared to the rest of the s__t in most people's budget (Cable, Junk Food, etc.)
"Don't be a martyr -- BE THE ONE WHO GOT AWAY!"
You can throw out all the percentages you want, the actual DOLLAR AMOUNT is nothing you wouldn't have spent anyway, on something FAR LESS worthy.
I don't know sir. I think that I put over $6000 into social security last year. That's a nice piece of change that I'd have rather spent on my own personal retirement efforts.
You'll have that sometimes...
so what? Seriously? What difference does it make if you, as an old person, live or die IF the paultry sum provided by social security is the difference between life and death?
You're not contributing actively to society anymore, at least based on your income/expense ratios. You don't have family to take you in, apparently so who loses there if your corps winds up in the gutter?
I say artificially prolonging life through the use of too-expensive care methods is a waste of money.
And I find that sort of talk bullshit anway, there's ALWAYS a way to engineer a way out of such a system, no matter how poor a group of people become. There could be large dormatories where the old poor could gather. There could be work farms where the old poor could grow their own food and shelter themselves in clean air (away from the pollution they caused in their youths). There could be church organizations, large social clubs and that's not mentioning the family's responsibility towards you.
Getting to that, your family holds responsibility by virtue of being related. If you live your whole life with no family and just at the end find yourself in a situation where it's a few bucks a month from Uncle Sucker on the 1st or death?
Choose death.
I'm 26 years old.
I know it is odd for someone my age to actually pay attention to what is going on, but it does happen.
I pay LESS than 15% in taxes AND THAT IS WITH NO deductions (I use the EZ form).
I do this BY LIVING AT HOME and NOT rushing out and entangling myself in debts just because I could.
You might try it sometime and see how much farther ahead you get.
"Don't be a martyr -- BE THE ONE WHO GOT AWAY!"
FDR? Are you serious? FDR was probably the last great US president. He's the one who turned the US into the number 1 superpower that the neocons love so much.
[Yoda voice]War does not make one great![/Yoda voice]
I laughed at the weak who considered themselves good because they lacked claws.
Just as speculation has played a part in driving oil up to record levels, look at its affect in driving it down. The mere proposition of increased drilling would decrease oil futures before any crude is refined and supplied to the pipeline.
Yes, it is called a market. Russia increasing supply would also decrease the price for us here. The point is that by us increasing our domestic production it will drive down the price.
But I still fail to even grasp what Obama's plan is? All I've heard is that he wants alternative energy, but no nuclear, no drilling and to inflate my tires. The problem is that we cannot get wind power or solar online for many years as well. We need renewable and non-polluting sources like geothermal and solar but we still need oil and natural gas, those are not going away anytime soon.
I'm not not licking toads.
Social security can prevent you from dieing because you didn't afford the doctor or the meds to treat you.
No, sadly, it can't.
You'll have that sometimes...
You honestly believe Social Security will one day, just cease to exist?
Give me a break.
"Don't be a martyr -- BE THE ONE WHO GOT AWAY!"
As a rounded figure (I'm not asking for your personal details) out of how much was that $6000 taken from?
"Don't be a martyr -- BE THE ONE WHO GOT AWAY!"
That is exactly the difference between "liberal" thinking and "conservative" thinking.
A pure liberal thinker does what they think is best all the time, even if it is a bit risky. A pure conservative thinker prioritizes stability over effectiveness. This has been true since the dawn of time.
By branding a politician a "flip flopper", the republicans are attempting to appeal to the conservative side of the swing voters. On the other side, democrats attempt to label conservative politicians as old and stale, with no real ideas for the future.
liberal view:
new=progress
old=stubborn
conservative view:
new=scary
old=wise
I am more on the liberal side of things, so I need to know that a politician can adapt to whatever new situations come up. I get worried when politicians start making absolute promises. Even though the ideas sound good now, by the time they are executed, it might not be the best idea.
So to avoid a state forced abortion, each pregnant couple needs show that they have cash on hand to support the child?
Wow. This kind of policy would definitely change the very social fabric of any country.
I don't think I'm ready to have you as president.
We already have a health care system that requires each person to have cash-in-hand for good health care. It is this very system that makes me want a single payer system that treats people, not pocket books.
engineers are all basically high-functioning autistics who have no idea how normal people do stuff
Actually it can. Unnecessary deaths in the U.S because of the private insurance company didn't want to pay for a treatment that would extend your live for more then 10 years is better then other other option.
Die because the insurance company that you have didn't want to see a drop in profit. It was cheaper to let you die then to pay for a treatment that could save your live.
"President Bush opposes the $2 billion in funding, saying it would be fiscally irresponsible."
A multi-trillion Dollar boondoggle in both Iraq and Afghanistan is somehow a prudent decision that history shall vindicate him for undertaking, yet two billion for NASA is fiscally irresponsible?
The gas tax holiday was a complete bonehead move. I agree with you. It would do nothing, IIRC fed tax on gasoline is 18 cents, gas fluctuates [around here] seemingly that much from day to day besides it would increase demand and therefore prices.
Just as speculation has played a part in driving oil up to record levels, look at its affect in driving it down. The mere proposition of increased drilling would decrease oil futures before any crude is refined and supplied to the pipeline.
Yes, it is called a market. Russia increasing supply would also decrease the price for us here. The point is that by us increasing our domestic production it will drive down the price.
But I still fail to even grasp what Obama's plan is? All I've heard is that he wants alternative energy, but no nuclear, no drilling and to inflate my tires. The problem is that we cannot get wind power or solar online for many years as well. We need renewable and non-polluting sources like geothermal and solar but we still need oil and natural gas, those are not going away anytime soon.
We're both talking about adding more energy to the system. That much we also both agree on. Also, for the record, I also support Nuclear Energy and I've heard Obama say NOTHING against Nuclear Energy, his home state of Illinois has the most Nuclear Power Plants of any in the country as a matter of fact.
However, McCain wants to add more Oil, which, no matter how much is added, will one day run out.
Obama wants to add more Wind and Solar, WHICH WILL NEVER run out.
We're talking about spending relatively the same amount over the same period of time (several Billion over a Decade or so), doesn't it make more sense to spend it on something that will never run out?
"Don't be a martyr -- BE THE ONE WHO GOT AWAY!"
The dividends of our current technology are built up on the research of the past. Which was often knowledge seeking for it knowledge's sake.
Everything we know and use in our daily lives have more to do with Newton, DeCartes, Bernouli, Franklin, Maxwell, Einstein etc. than Ford, Gates, Jobs, etc.
Just because research doesn't appear to have practical applications today, doesn't mean that future technology won't hinge on it.
cat sig >
To say an oil company won't drill for oil if it would grant them large profits is like saying a fat kid wouldn't eat the cake sitting in front of him if he could.
I'm not sure about your counter-analysis. Wouldn't a better analogy for the GP's argument be a fat kid who won't eat the large slice of cake sitting in front of him (even though he can) because he knows if he waits a while he'll get a slice twice as big?
It's change in Ubama U can believe in.
Here's what I'd say, but such a nuanced approach would almost certainly fail before evangelicals: Life begins at conception, but the government's interest in a citizen begins at viable birth. So while I might believe that a 2-month fetus is "alive", there is no practical way for the law to treat it independently of the mother...at most you could force a C-section and then it would die anyway.
The government, being a constitutional republic of free people, does not have the legal authority to force mothers to carry the baby until it is viable. If it did, it would ALSO have the power to force mothers to get pregnant in the first place, or to take children from their parents for no reason whatsoever. Abortion is legal not because anyone likes it, but because it is on one side of a bright line that we don't want government to cross.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
When I said "trouble with school loans", I wasn't referring to you, but to the impression that Barack and Michelle Obama are trying to give. So he paid off his loans - bfd. So did I, but I didn't have a $300k salary to play with.
You say "Obama is a hell of a lot closer to the average person than John McCain", but the average family:
- does not make over $300k/year
- isn't headed by 2 lawyers
- doesn't have a background of travelling the world as a youth
I would argue that McCain is closer to "the average person" than Obama, simply because there's a shipload more veterans around than constitutional lawyers. But it's really more a matter of perception - Obama comes off as elitist, and McCain does not, regardless of the "objective" merits of the charge.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
Is that one more shuttle mission to launch the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer? Please? Pretty Please?
It would be nice to have experiments for astronauts to work on. (Sex in space experiments can only fill in a portion of the total experiment time allocated.)
engineers are all basically high-functioning autistics who have no idea how normal people do stuff
A) I don't remember that incident at all.
Fortunately, history is not dependent on your memory.
HERE
George H.W. Bush
April 13, 1993: Sixteen men, in the alleged employment of Saddam Hussein's Iraq, smuggled a car bomb into Kuwait with the intent of killing Bush as he spoke at Kuwait University. The plot was foiled when Kuwaiti officials found the bomb and arrested the suspected assassins.[13] Bush had left office in January 1993. On June 26, 1993, the U.S. launched a missile attack targeting Baghdad intelligence headquarters in retaliation for the attempted attack against Bush.[14] The Iraqi Intelligence Service, particularly Directorate 14, was accused of being behind the plot.[15]
Clinton's response was late at night to reduce casualties. All he did was kill some janitorial staff who had nothing to do with the plot.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Next time you get sick, don't go to a doctor. Because by your logic, it is waste of time and money.
You are going to make many worms happy in the future.
No, I think we should do away with any system that sends a welfare check to single mothers based on the number of children they have accumulated. Welfare is being treated as income, not as assistance. There's no incentive to get off, and it's a disincentive to marraige.
http://www.google.com/search?q=welfare+dependency
I hope you're not suggesting the obamaplan to replace our healthcare system with one that allows everyone who can jump a fence to go to the hospital for free...
Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle, and quick to anger.
To say an oil company won't drill for oil if it would grant them large profits is like saying a fat kid wouldn't eat the cake sitting in front of him if he could.
I'm not sure about your counter-analysis. Wouldn't a better analogy for the GP's argument be a fat kid who won't eat the large slice of cake sitting in front of him (even though he can) because he knows if he waits a while he'll get a slice twice as big?
Good analogy. But why wouldn't they eat the first piece, while waiting for the bigger piece? Assuming, they don't know IF the bigger piece would happen or not, and if it did, eating the first piece would not prevent them from getting a bigger piece. Who's to say they can't have their cake and er... eat it too. =P
"The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth." ~1984 George Orwell
I'm personally not against Social Security, but calling it a fingernail's slice is perhaps disingenuous. The total rate paid into Social Security and Medicare is 15.3%. Half of it is hidden from you--the employee pays half and the employer pays half--but that's really just a shell game. If you ever self-employ, you'll realize the full sting.
The cap on the payroll tax is at $102,000 this year, so a person earning that wage or more will pay $15606 into Social Security. If this person is not self-employed, then only $7803 of that will appear on their W-2. But, really, $15606 was paid in. That's money that could have been put towards paying employees directly or funding a pension plan.
Interestingly, that's about the same as the 401(k) cap.
I happen to hit both caps every year, and I expect to get much more from my 401(k) than from Social Security. That's fine though, since they're meant for different purposes. My 401(k) is for me. Social Security is a safety net for everyone. My quality of life is better when society functions better and has a reasonable baseline standard of living, and that's the Social in Social Security.
Yep, I'm a bleeding heart liberal. Whatcha gonna make of it?
Program Intellivision!
So I go 2-3 years with no pay, and then get all my pay in the last years when the company is finally profitable. So, when my income is $0, I pay no taxes at a very low rate. When my income is $500K, I pay maximum taxes (about half my income). So, I actually earn just over $100K a year but pay taxes at the maximum rate.
Funny, my numbers are similar. I have created a legal entity that sits in between me and the companies I own and it just rolls forward the losses for the first years to the money making years so it evens out. I'm not in the US by the way so that may not work for you.
This sig is just as redundant as the rest of this posting
As long as a SINGLE barrel of oil comes from outside the United States, ALL OIL PRODUCED IN THE UNITED STATES WILL COST PRETTY MUCH THE SAME regardless of the production costs.
If the US was able to sell a barrel of oil less than what OPEC was selling theirs, it would not help pull costs down?
I applaud your efforts, but doing as you say will return us to the Victorian times when the poor were left in workhouses, hopeless and destitute. Now at least, they're only left just hopeless. Dickens would be turning in his grave.
Solutions to problems usually cause their own problems down the line. However, we must take history into account and not revive the original problem by rolling back what was the original solution.
:. Ultimate Control Dedicated/VM Servers
The average American isn't worth $40 million either.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_mccain
"Don't be a martyr -- BE THE ONE WHO GOT AWAY!"
BTW, your signature brought up fond memories of WKRP :).
"Don't be a martyr -- BE THE ONE WHO GOT AWAY!"
Why the hell do your "companies" go out of business exactly one year after they become profitable?
I have another plan for you: make 1 company. After it becomes profitable (2-3 years), KEEP it and keep making 500K a year and paying 50%. You would then make about 490K per year and pay 50%.
Conversely, maybe this about the US expanding its sphere of influence into Russian territory. How thrilled would we be if Russia was supporting breakaway states and regime change in backyard, in addition to training troops? For instance, imagine if Russia was arming and training border groups in Texas that wanted to secede from the USA?
Yeah, we'd respond gently.
They are doing a lot more than just that. Brazil changed to a sugar-based ethanol strategy for fueling their cars. They also have lots of oil which helps the other local markets.
You'll also note that Venezuela for instance exports oil at market prices and so has a lot of extra money available to lower the cost of locally refined fuel.
If environmental regulations are preventing oil companies from drilling land then why are the oil companies holding on to the property? Regulations exist for a reason and it's probably quite unwise to lift them. Of course that depends, some regulations are over the top.
Coal has a number of other issues as well, mining it is quite toxic so there's no free lunch there. That said, we would be wise to diversify our resources so it wouldn't be a bad idea add it to the mix given the infrastructure we already have in place.
Obama never said anything against nuclear power.
Why are we (US) so up in arms over Russia messing with Georgia? Is there something about Georgia that is of strategic importance to us? I mean, I know we don't like in general, countries going to war, but, I don't understand what the 'serious implications' of this move by Russia are....wasn't Georgia under Russian rule under the Soviet Union? If they want some pieces back...what is the big deal really?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Or imagine they did that in Cuba... oh wait.
It's not what your Sig can do for you, but what you can do for your for your Sig.
Nope. That's just the way a market works.
We'll all in it together for the good (being able to buy cheap oil from Saudia Arabia, which costs less than $5 to pull from the ground), and the bad (being able to pull oil from Saudia Arabia for less than $5 but charge like you're pulling it from the states, which averages $10 - 20$ per barrel).
"Don't be a martyr -- BE THE ONE WHO GOT AWAY!"
Look, stupid, my businesses do not go under - I sell them.
Moron.
while (sig==sig) sig=!sig;
As a rounded figure (I'm not asking for your personal details) out of how much was that $6000 taken from?
Um. I believe you are asking for my personal details sir. Plus, it doesn't matter. $6000 is $6000. You're the one that said
You can throw out all the percentages you want, the actual DOLLAR AMOUNT is nothing you wouldn't have spent anyway, on something FAR LESS worthy.
My point is, it's a nice piece of change.
You'll have that sometimes...
Of course this country will never run out of money. If the government needs more money, they'll just print it.
Life is pain. Anyone who says differently is selling something.
Evolve - what a nice word for being wrong in the first place and insisting now that you're right?
Change - see above.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
You honestly believe Social Security will one day, just cease to exist?
Yeah, I think it's a possibility. But more to the point you said
This country will never run out of money BE THIS IS WHERE EVERYONE KEEPS THEIR MONEY
And if you believe that statement, then you're living in the past.
You'll have that sometimes...
WITHOUT A DOUBT save the same amount of Oil McCain's 'Day Dream' of offshore drilling MIGHT produce 10 YEARS from now.
You'll have that sometimes...
Obama never said anything against nuclear power.
Obama criticizes McCain's nuclear power plan Obama has said that expanding our nuclear power plants 'doesn't make sense for America.'
I'm not not licking toads.
As a commodity becomes increasingly scare, you'd expect to see increasingly complicated systems used to effectively distribute the last of it. The increase in speculation is an effect, not a cause, of our current oil crisis.
If this was true that they're both the same, wouldn't I see similar spending binges during times when Democrats were in office?
Well, my point though is can you remember a time when one party controlled the house, senate, and office of the president for more than 4 years?
You'll have that sometimes...
Why the hell do your "companies" go out of business exactly one year after they become profitable?
Thats how ponzi schemes work dude. Didn't you notice the guy is a dittohead?
The world you experience is only a close approximation of reality.
See, finally someone who sees the truth... :)
"Don't be a martyr -- BE THE ONE WHO GOT AWAY!"
In that case why can't the market just bypass the speculators, by the consumers buying from the producers directly? Or maybe the speculators are actually doing something useful, like letting the producers contract for stable, predictable prices years in advance, without requiring the consumers to purchase equally far in advance based on questionable demand forecasts.
The first 30,000$ of anyone's income is not taxed at all. Engineer a flat or slightly progressive (an odd thing to call it) curve beyond that.
Anyone on assistance takes a monthly test. If you have alcohol, tobacco or other drugs in your system, you do not get money that month. Try again next time.
Couple the above with eliminating the silly war on drugs.
Let's see you say that when you are in your 50s and 60s.
You come talk to me then.
"Don't be a martyr -- BE THE ONE WHO GOT AWAY!"
I love the responses I got to illustrate the point that most people who are for social programs are against spending money on space exploration.
You create more intelligent people with science minded programs (read, more employable) than you can with a general handout program.
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
You say "continues to evolve," I say "flip-flop."
As a rounded figure (I'm not asking for your personal details) out of how much was that $6000 taken from?
Um. I believe you are asking for my personal details sir. Plus, it doesn't matter. $6000 is $6000. You're the one that said
You can throw out all the percentages you want, the actual DOLLAR AMOUNT is nothing you wouldn't have spent anyway, on something FAR LESS worthy.
My point is, it's a nice piece of change.
Not if you made $500,000 it isn't.
It does not hurt successful, fortunate people such as yourself ONE BIT to help those less fortunate than yourself.
By less fortunate, I mean those who NEED Social Security and can't count on living off the savings they COULDN'T AFFORD to save on their own.
"Don't be a martyr -- BE THE ONE WHO GOT AWAY!"
Given that you are posting on Slashdot, you're probably rather technically oriented and rather secure financially. Consider those less fortunate than yourself: people who grew up without an education, or without ever having seen a computer. Consider the people who work at Tim Hortons sixteen hours a day, go home, watch some hockey and sleep.
Sure, you might argue that they're not contributing to society. But would you not be in the same position if not for some accident of fate? Do these people deserve to live any less than you do? Don't they deserve to experience life just as much as you do? It's not as if they can't afford medical care through any fault of their own. (And even if they have made mistakes: well, who here hasn't a made a mistake that might have ruined his life?)
What you're advocating is Social Darwinism. That's a consistent, but empty strategy that ignores all human feeling and empathy. Sure, it makes sense, but it ignores what makes us human in the first place.
By comparing the mileage savings listed to the total amount of petroleum consumed.
"Don't be a martyr -- BE THE ONE WHO GOT AWAY!"
Would you also drive past a terrible car accident on a lonely road without even calling 911? After all, you didn't crash your car. Why should you help the people who did?
We also had conscription during WWII, in case you have forgotten.
OK True. But in WWII there were only 4% dissenting. Very small percent.
As for responsibility, what about the person who works THEIR ENTIRE LIFE at a menial job JUST SO they won't need Welfare. They work their asses off to make ends meet and take care of their families. In all this, however, they only manage to break even.
I don't think anyone in the history of the world has worked JUST SO they won't need welfare. I think they work to purchase food, housing, you know, stuff like that. And if they only break even, what exactly is your point?
Is it TOO MUCH for someone such as yourself, who seems to have done alright for themselves, to give JUST A LITTLE?
Is 15.3% 'little' to you? It isn't to me. Im doing OK but not good enough to where 15.3% doesn't matter.
... alien mind control.
Have gnu, will travel.
Clue me in here a bit if you would. Why are we (US) so up in arms over Russia messing with Georgia? Is there something about Georgia that is of strategic importance to us? I mean, I know we don't like in general, countries going to war, but, I don't understand what the 'serious implications' of this move by Russia are....
Besides it being between Florida and South Carolina?
Take that you euro-trash that says USians don't know geography!
You're thinking small. Why miniaturize the laser, when we could instead enlarge the sharks? -John Searle
Democrats had this choice this time between two relatively junior senators, but at least one of them shared a bed with a president. Of course, she didn't want to mention that too much because she apparently wasn't good enough at it to keep him from looking elsewhere.
It's not society's job to maintain your broken personal business model. Find a company and stick with it instead of building them up and flipping them.
It does not hurt successful, fortunate people such as yourself ONE BIT to help those less fortunate than yourself.
Did you ever think that maybe if it wasn't forcibly taken from him that he WOULD wind up helping the less fortunate anyway? Oh wait - let me guess - you think that he is being 'selfish'. The poor would be better served anyways without those high-paid government employees being middle-men.
As long as the tax rate is less than 100% on the additional income, there is still incentive to earn more.
Yes but the opportunity costs of work look more and more attractive. If I can work one more hour and earn $100, I'll do it. Heck I'd work every weekend for a year at $100/hour. Now throw in a 85% tax rate, reducing it to $15/hour, and I'd pass. (And I'm not pulling that number out of nowhere, that was approximately the top tax bracket in Sweden in the 1970s.)
Furthermore, if you subscribe to the school of thought that motivation to earn is relative rather than absolute, then this loss of incentive may be even smaller than is commonly thought.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but shouldn't it be the opposite? If the motivation to earn is absolute, then you won't lose any incentive.
if a 15% tax on gross income was proposed, who would pay more in taxes? the rich or the poor? Even though the percentage is the same, the rich say that it is unfair since they are paying more.
The rich oppose a flat tax because they lose the wonderful deductions they have under the current system, which means they would pay a higher percentage under the flat tax.
If you wanted to keep the current tax system but make all the tax brackets 15%, I'm sure they would vote for you.
There is more to it. There are 2 sides to every sale. In order for someone to sell a barrel of oil at a set price, someone else must buy that barrel at the said price. Speculation alone cannot drive up the prices like you suggest since there are people out there willing to pay the price. It is supply and demand. Keep that in mind when you think about the issue. Speculators certainly play a role, but their influence is made possible by the end consumers willingness to buy at that price. I know the issue is complicated with oil being such a vital part of our economy and lives, but when you boil it down to its source, the blame is most certainly not on the speculators. Instead, it is the people, if they believe the price of oil to be inflated as much as $30 to $60 a barrel, who buy the oil at that inflated rate. Chew on that.
It is almost a question of what is more evil... doing evil or allowing evil to be done. Most rational people would say allowing evil to be done is worse than actually committing the evil deed. In this case, the buyers are allowing the evil to be done. While both are wrong, one is certainly worse, if even only from a philosophical standpoint, it is most certainly a valid point.
Invexi - a Phoenix, AZ based web design and web development company.
Frankly, with the boomers all moving to old-people welfare in the next decade, we need an influx of warm bodies to help pay for them. Immigration, extra babies, whatever.
Sweet plan! Let's have a super baby boom to help pay for the last baby boom. And then in 50 years, we'll have a super mega baby boom.
I'm just curious, in the one post you said:
and then you said you sell them at some point. Is the $500k you refer to your yearly income while they're profitable, or including the sale. If it's the former, then you may be making significantly more than you suggested at first (your $100k number). I guess the point is that the former may weaken your argument and the latter may strengthen it.
Some bring out the best in others, some the worst. Some bring out far more.
The big deal is that there are many former Soviet bloc countries that are both free and our allies, Georgia being one of them. Ukraine might be next on Russia's hit list. I don't particularly want the Soviet empire to return, which is why I think this is a big deal.
So, your claim to maturity and attention to detail is that you work at a low paying job and live with mommy and daddy? Back up, folks, and let the expert speak so that he may enlighten us with his views on wealth redistribution!
I'll worry about myself - I can invest my money better than the government can - but why should I help you retire?
I'm sure many of the people that put their life savings in Enron felt the same....
"Only one thing, is impossible for god: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." Mark Twain
How is Obama replacing 5 million barrels a day tomorrow? Tuneups and inflating tires? McCain has made it pretty clear he is for all alternative fuel source AND drilling.
So, essentially what you're saying is that we should ignore actions that will actually have the effect of lowering demand by increasing fuel efficiency, and that can be done now by individuals, and instead we should go with the stupid fucking dittohead plan of offshore drilling, which has greater long term costs than gains, and has no short term gains at all?
Yes, lets drill drill drill. No, it won't do anything to help anyone. Sure, the resulting environmental damage will wreak havoc on all kinds of tourism and other important industries, but in the long term it will also have a statistically insignificant effect on oil prices!
I mean, what the fuck? How can you be so blindly, happily, willfully fucking ignorant? How can you simply bend over and let an elephant fuck you in the ass, screaming "Thank you" the whole time?
The world you experience is only a close approximation of reality.
It does not hurt successful, fortunate people such as yourself ONE BIT to help those less fortunate than yourself.
Did you ever think that maybe if it wasn't forcibly taken from him that he WOULD wind up helping the less fortunate anyway? Oh wait - let me guess - you think that he is being 'selfish'. The poor would be better served anyways without those high-paid government employees being middle-men.
I'm simply judging by human nature.
People, ON THE AVERAGE (I'm not talking about you or him, I'm talking about the law of AVERAGES) people don't always do what is in their best interest, LIKE SAVE FOR THE FUTURE.
And, make no mistake, you and I WILL be paying for them one way or the other.
This is just like the arguments AGAINST a National Healthcare System.
We already have a National Healthcare System, people are just too stupid (like GWB) to realize it, it's called the Emergency Room.
If people had guaranteed insurance, provided by the state, they would go to doctors and PREVENT problems, instead of just treating them.
A National Healthcare system would most likely LOWER the costs WE now incur through programs such as Medicare and Medicaid.
"Don't be a martyr -- BE THE ONE WHO GOT AWAY!"
where everyone "gets to keep more of their hard-earned money so that they can create jobs."
Your belief that the market fixes everything fails when people are incompletely or inaccurately educated on what their options are. This goes for everything from health care to purchasing a car to deciding where to send your child to school. NOTHING can guarantee a good education, so your "ultimate free market" fails to be truly egalitarian. Those who have not will continue to have not despite their best efforts; social mobility goes out the window, class stratification becomes worse and worse and the economic population distribution turns more and more from the diamond it was in the 50s and 60s into the pyramid it used to be and is becoming again now. The middle class is shrinking at an alarming rate because of your precious deregulation and increasingly free market.
We can have public education that seeks to holistically educate people so they truly can "vote with their dollars," but... that's not okay in your book, is it?
+++ATH0
For those who don't know, Oil is priced based on GLOBAL markets, not production cost. SO drilling in the Continental United States is a sweet proposition for Oil Companies because they can pull it out of the ground for nothing but the production costs, BUT CHARGE LIKE THEY BOUGHT IT OVERSEAS.
As long as a SINGLE barrel of oil comes from outside the United States, ALL OIL PRODUCED IN THE UNITED STATES WILL COST PRETTY MUCH THE SAME regardless of the production costs.
Even if we produced all of our own oil, the price wouldn't change for the same reason -- if they can sell it for more in some other country, they will!
However, you're wrong. The idea is that by drilling locally, we will increase the overall world supply of oil. THAT would reduce the price.
This goes the same for McCain's ludicrous 'Gas Tax Holiday'. If you remove the Federal Gas tax (which is less than 25Ã for gasoline), then gasoline distributors will simply raise their prices by the EXACT amount removed.
No they wouldn't. One gas station would think, "Hey I'll cut 1/2 of it and outsell my neighbor." The neighbor would think, "Crap, I have to cut 3/4 of mine, then I'll outsell my neighbor." Etc. If that didn't happen, then you're right it would be because of price fixing.
It's different from the barrel of oil situation because those are surcharges that the consumer pays that don't directly affect the gas station's costs.
However, I agree with you that our stubbornness in refusing to develop nuclear power is enormously frustrating. Our regulations against fuel reprocessing make no sense ("OMG PROLIFERATION RISK!"). Build it in MY backyard if I get to have electricity for pennies; I am secure in the knowledge that modern plants are less dangerous to live next to than a granite outcropping.
+++ATH0
Because you can not have your cake and eat it too. The analogy is in gp is wrong. The proper one is, its like if a fat kid didn't eat the slice of cake in front of him because he knew that if he let it sit until tomorrow it would magically grow into an entire cake, which he could then eat.
Note to stupid motherfuckers: I am not saying more oil will magically grow in the ground. If thats what you think, you don't understand the discussion and should go back to wanking to pictures of John McCain's head photoshopped onto Orlando Bloom's body.
The world you experience is only a close approximation of reality.
It always amazes me to hear stuff like that. The Obama plan is not hard to find:
http://www.barackobama.com/pdf/factsheet_energy_speech_080308.pdf
Dissolve... Resolve... Evolve...
We need term limits in Congress.
I was for term limits in California when they were first enacted, much for the same reasons as you. That said, they have been a plain and unmitigated disaster for this state because of the many unintended consequences they have produced.
First, there was gerrymandering. Since it was now impossible for an individual to hold a district for 20 to 30 years, the Democratically controlled legislature drew safe districts that would vote Democrat for the next 20 to 30 years. Republicans went along with this because the ones in power also got enough safe districts to hold up approval of the annual budget (which requires a 2/3 vote to pass).
Second, as a biproduct of gerrymandering, politics in the California became highly partisan. Since almost all legislative districts in California consistently vote 60/40 in favor one party, the real election became the primary. Of course, one wins the primary by appearing the fringes of his or her party. Thus, our state legislators and senators started to further toward both the left and right. Most moderates never made it to the general election.
Third, the rank partisanship, led to gridlock in the legislature, especially with the state budget. Democrats refuse to cut spending in tough times, and Republicans refuse to raise taxes, regardless of the need to do so. What should be a process of compromise, is reduced to an annual game of chicken because neither side wants to back down from their ideological rhetoric.
Fourth, these budget problems are exacerbated even further by the increased influence of lobbyist groups in the capitol. This is perhaps the most insidious consequence of term limits. Because legislators and senators are out after 6 and 8 years respectively, they often have very little time to learn the legislative process and become experts on the subjects their committees govern. Thus they have to rely on lobbyist groups for information and viewpoints. Think K Street in DC but much worse.
There are a host of other maladies that term limits have wrought on this state, like the political musical chairs our politicians play, but these four are by far the worst. Term limits is the best example of the law of unintended consequences. For every problem they solved did they created another equally bad or worse one.
The sun beams down on a brand new day, No more welfare tax to pay, Unsightly slums gone up in flashing light...
Would you also drive past a terrible car accident on a lonely road without even calling 911? After all, you didn't crash your car. Why should you help the people who did?
Depends. If you took money out of every one of my paychecks for 'compulsory 911 calling fees' then I probably wouldn't call. If you didn't, I probably would call. Makes about as much sense as your analogy.
You can fool all of the dittoheads all of the time though, so thats handy.
The world you experience is only a close approximation of reality.
That you can consider the US's economy as "today's socialist economy" really puts everything you say in perspective...
I'm sure many of the people that put their life savings in Enron felt the same....
And guess what - they probably walked away with about the same amount of money that I'll get from social security!
15% IS a fingernail slice, compared to the rest of the s__t in most people's budget (Cable, Junk Food, etc.)
Well then, you shouldn't mind if I take 15% of your fingers. You know, for those who don't have fingers and what not. It's really only going to be just the end part with the fingernails. You won't miss it, as you were probably just going to do something wasteful with them anyway, like posting your opinion on slashdot.
People don't have a choice. They need to buy heating oil and to fill up their car just to make a living. No one accepts the cost of gas, but no one has any reasonable alternatives at the moment.
I was born into quite the poor family. My parents worked their way up into middle class, though just barely. I am just inside middle class, as well and can still say that I would prefer have my SS money in hand, so I could make it go farther. I would have liked to use that money to directly fund college for myself with a much lowered school loan. I would also be able to pay off said loan much more quickly, due to a larger pay check. Once out of school, I could begin to invest the extra money that I am making by not having to pay into SS (considering that I can, and do, now live off less than my paycheck) and create a much better retirement package for myself than I'll ever get with the government.
I don't feel sorry for the people that would squander their extra cash for a "nice ride" or some "phat lewt" or whatever. If they don't want to plan for the future, I hope they at least treated their children right so that they may care enough about them to support them.
"Little is much when little you need."
It's debatable. Look at the world's response to how we handled Katrina. We were a laughingstock. That probably hurt our world standing more than what we gained by sending money to Africa.
NPR had a great report on China's involvement with African countries a little while ago. Here's how it works -- China wants oil. So they go to an African country that has oil, and they say "In exchange for oil we will build roads for you." The government thinks that's a good deal, so they do it. Now China says, "Oh yeah, and like, we're bringing in our own Chinese construction companies to do it, so you don't have to even supply the labor!" And the government thinks that's a good deal.
So the net effect is that China provided thousands and thousands of jobs to poor Chinese people who didn't mind living abroad for a few years. They all got paid in Chinese currency, and probably send most of the money back home (they live in dormitories while they're working). In a few years, China has a more skilled work force (all that training for construction, which is in high demand in China), and it was all paid for by the country they were helping (because they get free oil).
That is brilliant. And the funny thing is that China's world image skyrockets because the people see them doing the work themselves, right there. And the African governments absolutely love them because China doesn't have any strings attached. They just work, and get free oil.
Why can't American aid be like that?
Did you know that South America has a gallon of gas priced under $1 USD? They're not losing money on it, and it's not subsidized. How are they doing it? Simple, they're turning coal into oil products. South Africa also buys most of their coal from the US.
Huh? You must be talking about some other South America, one different from the one I am in...
That might be the case in larger cities, but in smaller towns (like where there is ONE gas station) the price wouldn't change a bit.
Keeping in mind that these small towns are the ones hurting the most.
Again, it would hurt a whole lot more than help.
As for increasing Global Supply, I don't think increasing the Global Supply by 200,000 Barrels is going to do a whole hell of a lot when the World now uses over 80,000,000 MILLION barrels (and will use even more a decade from now when this 200,000 hits the market).
"Don't be a martyr -- BE THE ONE WHO GOT AWAY!"
Flamebait? What?
Even if you don't agree with the poster, and I am not saying that I necessarily do either, I think that this post is an interesting angle on the situation and it isn't even worded to be inflammatory!
if we didn't flip-flop, we would still be living in caves
True, and if we didn't flip-flop, the first sea creatures to attempt to venture onto land would have died because they couldn't have made it back to water so we'd all still be living in the ocean. Flip-flopping is very important!
The enemies of Democracy are
So, your claim to maturity and attention to detail is that you work at a low paying job and live with mommy and daddy? Back up, folks, and let the expert speak so that he may enlighten us with his views on wealth redistribution!
Actually, I work for my Father (my parents are divorced). He owns a Publishing company, who itself owns seven Newspapers.
Trust me when I say I do pretty well for myself.
However, I still do not WASTE money on garbage, as a lot of people who make a lot less do.
You can make fun of the fact that I live at home all you want, it doesn't change the fact that I pocket more cash than most people I know who make more than I do.
I simply didn't see the need to tie myself up with a house/apartment rent BILL when I didn't have too.
It has been my experience that the people who bitch most about bills are the ones who INCUR the most Bills.
You cut off luxuries (yes, they are luxuries, not necessities) of Cable/Satellite, DSL/Cable and then come talk to me about how much of a burden taxes are.
"Don't be a martyr -- BE THE ONE WHO GOT AWAY!"
Ok. You point out an issue that would make oil prices high, there are little to no alternatives to oil to satisfy our energy needs. To stay on topic, that has nothing to do with the speculators allegedly driving prices up, but instead the prices are influenced by the immense demand for the product.
Invexi - a Phoenix, AZ based web design and web development company.
I think you've put your finger on the essential point here, which is the Russian desire to create a sphere of influence.
The problem I see with a "very hard line" is that it's not credible. You've got to imagine yourself in Putin's shoes (which are the ones that count). Take a blank piece of paper and draw a line down the middle. On the left hand side you list the advantages to meddling in Georgia. On the right hand side you put the disadvantages.
What, exactly, is the United States able to credibly add to the right hand side of the equation? Not bloody much other than tough talk, which, I'm afraid, is not going to scare Putin very much. Our military is already over committed. Our economy is weak and vulnerable to energy price fluctuations. Speaking of energy prices, Russia has our allies spread-eagled over the energy barrel. Even we import 762 thousand barrels of Russian oil a day, which is about 15% as much as we produce domestically.
It's going to take patience to address the issue of Russian meddling in other countries, and a lot more credibility than the US currently enjoys.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Consider the people who work at Tim Hortons sixteen hours a day, go home, watch some hockey and sleep.
I thought Social Security was only for American citizens... When did Canadians start getting benefits?
just an analog boy living in a digital age.
point taken. No, currently I would not yet say we are socialist, but it sure seems that that's the way we're going.
Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle, and quick to anger.
If people had guaranteed insurance, provided by the state, they would go to doctors and PREVENT problems, instead of just treating them.
Then why is it that you are twice as likely to die from prostrate cancer in Germany? Why are women in Germany more likely to die from breast cancer? They have "universal" coverage.
(increasingly so when Russia and China start to get low on oil)
Russia has impressive reserves, and they are leveraging them to become a world leading energy producer. China is already oil-poor, and their need is one of the big factors driving demand (and therefore price) way up. They are also looking into lots more nuclear power, and they are chewing into their coal reserves quickly.
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
I live in Buffalo, NY, just over the Canadian border. I suppose that explains a lot. :-)
Because eating the first piece does prevent you from getting the bigger piece. (I could have said "he'll get a slice twice as big instead" to be more clear.) The oil companies can't sell their oil twice; they either sell it now for profit, or wait until later when they think they can sell it for more profit.
It is the profit from the sale.
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It is the Republicans, not the Democrats, who are the big spenders.
While it is true that the GOP has done little to reduce spending, keep in mind they are now in the minority in Congress, yet FY 2008 Federal spending will be at least $200 billion more than FY 2007 spending, a 7% increase. Or in other terms, FY 2007 Federal Spending was 19.976% of GDP, and FY 2008 spending will be 20.482% of GDP.
I'm sure Democrats will raise taxes when possible. I doubt they will reduce spending.
For more info, see US Government Spending.com
> Why are we (US) so up in arms over Russia messing with Georgia?
We here in the US do _not tolerate_ a nation which invades and occupies another sovereign nation.
25% Funny, 25% Insightful, 25% Informative, 25% Troll
Well, that is true as far as it goes. However, in business (especially startups) you will find that the people that are really good at first stage startups are typically not good at later stage startups - so markets are more efficient if the original starter (typically an engineer-type) can sell the company to someone that takes it mass market (typically a marketing type). The proposed tax laws will kill this, and eliminate a large number of startups - and therefore eliminate jobs (small companies provide most jobs, especially to those that really need them).
I am not alone - everyone I know in the industry is doing the same thing. Look at the M&A industry! Everyone is selling now to avoid the "Obama tax" - and no one is starting new businesses. This will be a big deal in a few years - the new jobs of tomorrow are being eliminated today in the interest of funding more government BS.
(And you seem to be saying, "you're not like me, and this doesn't effect me, so eat s*** and die." This is not the optimal way to run an economy, where we are all better off by allowing each other to excersize our differences.)
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What are you smoking? Have you read what obama plans to do to fix things? Go to his website and look at his brilliant plans.
Obama's fix for nearly every solution is to spend more money on it! Not just a little but allot in some cases 4 time more than the current amount. And how does he plan to pay for it? He plans to raise taxes. Wow what a brilliant idea! But to be fair he is not going to raise taxes on the poor, instead he is going to spend more Government money and give away money to the poor and call it a tax refund.
If you really want to have a great economy don't punish the successful, just to give a handout to the the poor. This encourages the poor to be lazy. Placing the tax burden of the entire country on the successful pulls money out of the economy and places it in the hands of the Government where it is often wasted, mismanaged, and handed out to those who are the least likely to do anything constructive with their money to stimulate the economy.
If people had guaranteed insurance, provided by the state, they would go to doctors and PREVENT problems, instead of just treating them.
Then why is it that you are twice as likely to die from prostrate cancer in Germany? Why are women in Germany more likely to die from breast cancer? They have "universal" coverage.
Because they have HMO quality Universal Coverage.
We already have excellent Healthcare centers. The Government could provide the EXACT SAME service as a private Insurance Company for PENNIES on the dollar compared to said Private Insurance company.
If you take profit motive out of it, the Government, by its sheer size as a insurer, could cut out the duplicate paper costs and put more money toward PURE medical treatment.
"Don't be a martyr -- BE THE ONE WHO GOT AWAY!"
By the way, in case you are wondering, most times you can sell a company for about 5 times the profit - so you can sell a company making $100K/yr for $500K. (There are caveats, etc, but the average is 5-8 times - and it would be pretty hard to get 8 times right now!)
If I held the company longer, I could get a reasonable income - but at the cost of eliminating all the new jobs I could create by making a new company.
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None of these people want to represent the average person. They just want the vote.
So they all become pandering cowards who will say whatever to whoever.
The job of leadership is pretty awful, and the compensation is not that great based on what you have to deal with to get there. Now ask yourselves, "So what ulterior motives do politicians have to spend that much time and energy for such a crappy job?"
No incumbents, not no where, not no how.
Vote them out every term.
Did you know that South America has a gallon of gas priced under $1 USD? They're not losing money on it, and it's not subsidized. How are they doing it? Simple, they're turning coal into oil products.
This is BS. If anyone was producing gasoline or oil at below global market prices, they would sell it on the global market at the global market price to maximize profits. If they are not, then there are government price caps or subsidies going on.
For example Venezuela has a tremendous amount of gasoline subsidy, bringing the consumer price to 7 cents a gallon. The Venezuelan government pays more than $9 billion each year in gasoline subsidies.
Other Latin American countries also have huge subsidies: Mexico: $19 billion, Argentina: $11 billion, Colombia: $3 billion. Even otherwise fairly capitalist Chile has a $1 billion "fuel price stabilization fund."
There are already loads of sphere of influence. In fact, the 4 super powers (America, EU, Russia, and China ) have spheres of influence. Want to stop Russia's sphere? Move EU and America to AE and nukes combined with electric cars. Russia would dry up quickly. China is a bit more difficult. But EU and America can push to re-establish manufacturing via CLEAN LOW-COST ENERGY combined with automated manufacturing. Issue solved. The problem is that both EU and America have too many companies that influence our politicians.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
None of these people want to represent the average person. They just want the vote.
So they all become pandering cowards who will say whatever to whoever.
The job of leadership is pretty awful, and the compensation is not that great based on what you have to deal with to get there. Now ask yourselves, "So what ulterior motives do politicians have to spend that much time and energy for such a crappy job?"
Because there do exist those who think they can do it better and make a difference.
I know how naive that sounds, but I also believe it to be true. I have too, else why continue at all?
"Don't be a martyr -- BE THE ONE WHO GOT AWAY!"
I think this is something that most people forget. Your vote for a winning candidate doesn't matter when the race isn't close. If you live in California or Texas for example you already know how the results will turn out. So voting for a Democrat or Republican in one of those states is a waste. Whereas voting for a thirdparty candidate can give a voice to your opinions and possibly influence whoever does end up getting elected.
Of course the best solution would be to change the voting system. But it's doubtful that will happen anytime soon.
Yeah, a bear will do that when you walk up to him and smack him in the nose.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
They already will pay for it; along with everything else. See also: Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security
Hmmm. While this might be worth doing, it doesn't strike me as being as easy as you seem to be suggesting. For one thing it'd take several years to bring the new cars into production and a decade longer to replace the current fleet.
So overall, not a quick and easy solution to the Russia problem.
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As long as the tax rate is less than 100% on the additional income, there is still incentive to earn more.
You should not ignore the costs of working. For a family with children, moving both parents into working means paying for child care. Working generally involves a commuting cost and sometimes a clothing cost. A slight change in income and payroll taxes may cause a large number of people to leave the workforce.
The progressive tax system is necessary regardless of the effect it has on motivation, but because there are social costs that has to be paid. Costs which can not and are not internalized by market forces.
Of course, you assume that government has the ability to effect externalities. Sometimes it does. Often it does not. And when it fails to address externalities, even if well-intentioned, it may end up costing society more than the externalities it sought and failed to solve (one word: Iraq).
Taxation itself has a deadweight loss to the economy. Thus you should be careful before you tax, since you are inherently costing society in the process of taxing. What you do with the tax should have a proven ability to provide a return to society greater than its deadweight loss.
A better argument for progressive taxes is because "that's where the money is." In 2006, the top 50% of US income earners paid 97% of income tax dollars, and the top 1% of income earners paid 40% of all income tax dollars.
Zing!
You'll have that sometimes...
On FISA. Now he wants to spend more good money after bad on the white elephant called the shuttle.
We already have excellent Healthcare centers. The Government could provide the EXACT SAME service as a private Insurance Company for PENNIES on the dollar compared to said Private Insurance company.
I don't mean to pick on you today, but geez. The government CAN'T EVEN PAVE THE ROADS PROPERLY. WHAT MAKES you THINK they CAN provide YOU health CARE? Show me one successful government program that private industry can't do better....(outside of the military)
You'll have that sometimes...
The last time I can recall would be Carter '77-'81, but I don't remember any huge spending binge. Now you could go back further, before my lifetime... LBJ '65-'69 and see a similar increase in spending.
It seems as though Bush's spending binge from 2001-2006 had to do with two things... Increased defense spending, which was in some ways justifiable, and Karl Rove's political goal of creating a "Permanent Republican Majority". The Rove thing goes back to the psychology thing, that they believed the only way to get people to like your guys was to hand out the dole.
Then again, the main thing LBJ and Bush have in common is they're bloody Texans. Maybe this is a Texas thing?
It is a simple fact of life that we are only as strong as out weakest link, and social security makes sure the weak links of our society are taken care of.
At the expense of those of us who aren't fuckups.
Yeah see - I'm taking personal responsibility now and saving now.
Apparently they don't know how to spell 'Americans' either....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Actually, I work for my Father (my parents are divorced). He owns a Publishing company, who itself owns seven Newspapers.
Trust me when I say I do pretty well for myself.
However, I still do not WASTE money on garbage, as a lot of people who make a lot less do.
You can make fun of the fact that I live at home all you want, it doesn't change the fact that I pocket more cash than most people I know who make more than I do.
I simply didn't see the need to tie myself up with a house/apartment rent BILL when I didn't have too.
It has been my experience that the people who bitch most about bills are the ones who INCUR the most Bills.
You cut off luxuries (yes, they are luxuries, not necessities) of Cable/Satellite, DSL/Cable and then come talk to me about how much of a burden taxes are.
SO, your defense for being called out is to define yourself as a rich kid living at home.
Sorry man, you fail.
Maybe if you realized you were pushing your responsibilities off to your Dad you would get it. Yeah sure , YOU'RE not paying for the stuff you say other people waste their money on - your Daddy is.
Bragging that you're pocketing more cash than people who choose not to suck off their parents longer than they have to isn't really that impressive. You seem to have a lot to say about how well you are doing and how we should all follow your lead. The reality is your lead is actually copping out and pushing those responsibilities off to another person.
Yeah, that's enlightened.
I find it interesting when a candidate changes his opinion several times on a issue based on random polling data how its refered to by writers who support him as "evolving" when others would refer to this is "flip flopping". He has no core values. He's a politician. He'll say whatever he needs to say to get elected. If he opens his mouth and says something rediculous the press will reinterpret it for him while he "evolves" his position into something resembling coherent thought.
I understand what you mean, but characterizing SS as a Ponzi scheme is specious, ignoring that SS funds are invested in the government. Furthermore, as a pool SS fund returns aren't far off performance for similar (extremely low!) risk investments. I suppose you'd rather *all* our vast debt be owned by China?
So lets do the math (I'm honestly not sure which way it's going to end up, so I'm trying not to go into this with preconceived notions of whether the air pressure thing will help). Full disclosure, I am an Obama supporter, and think offshore drilling is a short-sighted plan.
According to your fact sheet, properly inflated tires can provide up to 3% better fuel economy. According to the Department of Energy, US residential vehicles drove 1,793 billion miles in 1994 (the most recent year a lazy Google lookup brought - if someone has more recent data, by all means lets use that). According to what I could find, 1 gallon of crude makes approximately .45 gallons of gasoline (based on brief Google search - anyone have more accurate numbers?) I wasn't able to find national averages for fuel efficiency, so I'm going to pull numbers out of my ass, but use a few different possible 'national MPG' numbers for comparison, so we can at least can idea of whether the tire pressure idea could have any impact...
First, lets look at a national average of 10 MPG (probably too low). At 1,793 billion miles in 1994, consumers used 179.3 billion gallons of gas, assuming that 10 MPG number. But if they were driving on low tires (at 97% fuel efficiency...) they had 9.7 MPG and used 192.8 billion gallons of gas. So, in that case, Americans could have saved up to 13.5 billion gallons of gas inflating their tires. Max savings: 30 billion gallons of crude oil, or 710 million barrels
Assuming 20 MPG, the hypothetical 97% fuel efficient country drives around at 19.4 MPG and uses 92.4 billion gallons of gas, versus 89.7 billion gallons of gas at 20 MPG (a potential savings of 2.75 billion gallons). Max savings: 6.1 billion gallons of crude oil, or 145 million barrels
At 30 MPG (extremely unlikely, but presented for the sake of completeness) the country drives around at 29.1 MPG and uses 61.6 billion gallons of gas, versus 59.8 billion gallons at 30MPG (a potential savings of 1.8 billion gallons). Max savings: 4 billion gallons of crude oil, or 95 million barrels
So what do those numbers mean? Well, according to the Energy Information Administration, offshore drilling would potentially tap 18 billion barrels of crude, with production at max capacity by 2030.[1] So it looks like, even at the extreme end, just inflating tires would only be in the ballpark of 5% of the lower 48 states' offshore drilling capacity. (If all my math is right, which seems rather unlikely for math done during my lunch break...anyone spot any major flaws?)
At the same time, those savings would be per year. The same report says that offshore drilling would not have a large effect on oil production or prices "before 2030,"[2] so that 100 million barrels (the lower end of the savings spectrum) would add up to 2.2 billion barrels saved by 2030, a more respectable chunk of the estimated offshore capacity. So While I certainly don't pretend to have done enough research to say what (if anything...) can bring down gas prices, it looks like offshore drilling is not the short-term answer McCain says it is. Likewise, a 3% drop in gas prices in my area (Chicago) would be 12 cents, which is nothing to sneeze at - in fact, when I go in to get my oil changed this month, I'm going to make sure they check my tire pressure...
-Trillian
[1] - http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/aeo/otheranalysis/ongr.html
[2] - http://climateprogress.org/2008/06/18/eia-bombshell-offshore-drilling-would-not-have-a-significant-impact-on-domestic-crude-oil-and-natural-gas-production-or-prices-before-2030/
Then why isn't Delta cutting the middleman and engaging in its own speculation?
Answer: because speculators are giving us all a valuable service: they are allowing us to better allocate oil resources over time. Assume that oil next year will be more expensive. Should we then use less oil today, so that we have more next year? Also, if we use less oil today we can learn how to reduce our consumption, reducing the damage of the coming high prices. Now each of us can't predict oil prices -- but the speculators do. If they think oil will be expensive next year, they buy some now. This raises today's prices, but will have the effect of reducing consumption and lowering next year's prices. Essentially, they moved part of next year's shortage into this year -- without any central planning authority. Conversely, if speculators thought oil was about to become cheap, they would sell oil today (moving towards the present the future benefit of lower prices) and also invest in oil-using industries, giving these industries the capital to prepare for the upcoming cheap oil. In fact, the airlines themselves speculate heavily on oil. If the speculators are adding $30-$60 to the price per barrel, this means that they are expecting the price to go up at least this much. If they are right, then the speculation may have staved off this future. If they are wrong, cheaper oil is just around the corner and they will lose a lot of money. Seems to me like the airlines should be happy.
I'll worry about myself - I can invest my money better than the government can - but why should I help you retire?
Really? I'm sure you can get better return for higher risk, but SS is about a safety net - it is low-risk by design. Can your portfolio survive a bear market for 10 years? Come on - we're dying to know - how's your portfolio been doing the last few years? SS isn't borked because of poor investment performance, it is borked because there are a heck of a lot of boomers demanding their cut at the same time.
NO ONE has any sense of DUTY or RESPONSIBILITY now days. Damn right - if they were responsible we wouldn't need Social Security!
Ack - so you argue that all (*every*) person who runs out of money before they die is irresponsible? This isn't about keeping slacker grannies living out their golden years on the golf course with us peons footing the bill, it is about trying to keep people from dieing on the streets.
Newton, Galilei, Mendel, Bohr, Da Vinci and several tens of thousands of their fellow trailblazing scientists and engineers would like to cash in their checks now...
Makes sense, but isn't this capital gains tax, not income tax?
Is the 500K the sale price, or the sale price minus the investment made in the original company?
Correct - the killer is that Obama wants to double the capital gains tax.
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The oil companies can't sell their oil twice; they either sell it now for profit, or wait until later when they think they can sell it for more profit.
Ah, I see what you're saying now. It's a different take on the analogy that I was talking about. You're saying that oil companies are purposely causing a supply shortage by not drilling for the oil they could be drilling, to raise the price of oil, so they can drill it in the future for a higher price point. Is that what you're saying?
"The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth." ~1984 George Orwell
Troll?
Oh, I'm sorry. Did I point out something that is incorrect? Or are we just playing the political correctness game? Are you, mr. moderator trying to tell me that that the income tax is any less of a rip off than social security? Or are you defending the middle east meddling? Or maybe the eugenics... Or is it that you just hate Roosevelt, and Wilson's big government doesn't compare? Clearly your mod is a baseless political one. You needn't worry about me voting for Obama. NASA isn't the only issue. His stand on civil and individual rights, and the war is enough to keep him off my ballot. He's doing nothing but blowing in the wind. It should be easy to see that. Both of these guys are. Too bad the winds of freedom aren't strong enough to have an effect on either of them. Of course if people cared about that, neither would be on the ballot now, would they? Both sides of the Party would be "wiped off the map". So mod me down to your heart's content. At least the post is here to read.
What?
Right from the second page, if you bother hitting "next page". Not exactly a ringing endorsement, but certainly not the dismissal you claim, and he expects to use federal money to encourage nuclear power:
Asked his views on nuclear power in Jacksonville, Florida on Friday, Obama said, "I think that nuclear power should be in the mix when it comes to energy." But he added, "I don't think it's our optimal energy source because we haven't figured out how to store the waste safely or recycle the waste."
Obama supports using federal research and development dollars to explore whether nuclear waste can be stored safely for reuse.
Nothing new about that! The German war machine was fueled by ersatz gasolene made from coal during both world wars, and there was at least one experimental plant in the US after the second one. It didn't last long because prices were too low back then for it to be profitable. Considering today's prices, I'm surprised they're not doing it already, especially considering how much coal there is in the US just waiting to be dug up.
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1. The opportunity cost of work from your perspective is calculated per unit of labor. From my perspective it is per unit of productivity.
The majority of labor hours worked per worker is relatively consistent across most of the labor market for those that are employed full-time. There is a reason for this, and that is because people do not work to maximize earning, but to maximize utility. Utility in itself is very hard to quantify, and consuming utility takes time.
If economists are making the assumption otherwise, they are ignoring the behavior of the labor market in a very fundamental way.
What you want to do is not to increase the hours people work, but to increase the amount of productivity for a particular unit of work. If people can work the same amount of time, but produce much more, then they would not mind being taxed a little bit more on the additional productivity. (Of course I am assuming that people are paid for the amount they produce, and often that is not a fair assumption to make :)
2. Let us put it this way. World-class track athletes are often in milliseconds of each other, but these milliseconds count like nothing else. The reference is often not one's own earning, but the earning of others in the society as a whole.
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Your original post did not mention capital gains tax at all, it talked about "income" and taxes. Capital gains tax is less than 50% even under Obama's plan.
Getting to Social Security, you tell me ONE THING wrong with making sure people have something when they retire. I'll worry about myself - I can invest my money better than the government can - but why should I help you retire?
Individual success and failure are not isolated in an economic system.
Social services (such as social security) are based on a simple equation:
if (cost_of_services <= (cost_of_social_ill)) { provide_services(); }
That's the justification for providing insurance against poverty, even given the inefficiencies and abuses inherent in providing it. As you (theoretically) derive economic benefit from providing these social services, it should not be considered altruism.
http://plausible.coop
Can your portfolio survive a bear market for 10 years? Come on - we're dying to know - how's your portfolio been doing the last few years?
Just great thanks to Gamestop! Got in at 32, should have sold when it broke 60, no biggie as it's still in the mid 40's. Budweiser was staying flat and I sold right before it jumped on the InBev deal. Oh well - I still didn't lose money.
SS isn't borked because of poor investment performance, it is borked because there are a heck of a lot of boomers demanding their cut at the same time.
Sounds eerily like a pyramid scheme to me!
Ack - so you argue that all (*every*) person who runs out of money before they die is irresponsible?
No, you're right - stuff happens, people go broke. I just don't think it's the government's responsibility to care for me or you. There are plenty of charitable organizations that would have more money if we weren't paying 15.3% into SS.
It is very complex - my accountant hands me a book (a very expensive book, by the way) each year that is my taxes. To be honest, I really only know the bottom line - I have to pay half my money to the government (state and federal), and Obama has decided that I don't pay enough.
I'm just sick of it - when did I become his slave?
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Almost -- I'm saying that, if an oil company expects the price of oil to go up over time, it seems they have little incentive to drill as much as they can right now. Rather, they have greater incentive to drill only enough to cover their various costs (including exploration and research), and then save what oil they can for later when the price point has gone up on its own. (In other words, to speculate on the future oil market.) But on the other hand, maybe for various business reasons shorter-term profits would be more appealing -- I don't know enough about stockholders and such to know which way it would go.
You bring up an interesting point though, that if the oil companies intentionally decrease supply, they can drive prices up at the cost of additional sales in the short term. The risk there would be driving people away from oil use, such as we've seen in the reduction of driving in the US over the past year.
The whole point of the Strategic Reserve is to be used for emergencies.
Some would say that in the current economic and political climate, America does have an emergency on its hands.
Of course, by 'emergency' you're actually talking about something blatantly obvious like a hurricane disaster or war. Whether you like it or not, America's dependence on Middle Eastern oil *is* a problem.
"Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job." - Douglas Adams
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
He was refering to the Challenger accident in 1984. Perhaps low funding helped contribute to the Columbia accident of 2003. But to say it was "entirely caused" by a budget cut is just wrong. There are two observations to make. First, if the Shuttle had been placed on top of the vehicle rather than on the side, there wouldn't have been an ice strike. Second, if the Shuttle's thermal protection system, the ceramic tiles that line its belly and protect it during atmospheric reentry, were made of something more durable like a heat resistant metal heat shield, Columbia might have survived reentry. Even if not, repairing a metal heat shield would have been a much less risky endeavor than repairing the extremely fragile tiles. The bad scenario here occurs when an astronaut while attempting to repair some tiles causes more damage than they fix. The Shuttle would have needed a lower mass to crosssectional area to use a more physically durable heat shield, but it is feasible.
The Columbia accident was fundamentally a problem caused by long ago design decisions. No matter how much money you throw at the problem, as long as you have the Shuttle mounted where it is and the tiles as delicate as they are, there will continue to be potentially lethal ice strikes. In comparison, the Challenger accident occured as the result of operating outside of mission parameters (ie, outdoor temperature was too cold resulting in brittle o rings in the solid rocket boosters and burn through).
A related problem is simply that the Shuttle was operating outside of the funding environment that it was intended for. There were supposed to be many more orbiters and 40 flights per year. You can get a lot of good safety data from that many flights. But it requires somewhere around $10 billion a year in funding just for the Shuttle in order to meet that launch rate. No reason to expect that NASA would actually see that much funding. At the time that the Shuttle was being designed (in the 70's), the funding cuts were obviously permanent and inevitable. As I see it, lack of funding here is just another design flaw.
True, but the more that is printed, the less each dollar is worth. An extreme example of this is the Weimar Republic in Germany, and we all know how well that worked out...
Similar to the upcoming US election results
Because they vote in larger numbers.
www.joshferguson.org
The problem is that Bush/McCain response has no teeth due to the fact that we invaded and occupied a sovereign nation without provocation only a few years ago. I've had enough of these war-mongers in office. We can't afford it and I really hope people wake up come election time.
Support a great indie game: http://www.abaddon360.com
Because every politician since the beginning of time has had to change their opinions during a campaign in order to get elected? Moron :/
Support a great indie game: http://www.abaddon360.com
We already have excellent Healthcare centers. The Government could provide the EXACT SAME service as a private Insurance Company for PENNIES on the dollar compared to said Private Insurance company.
I don't mean to pick on you today, but geez. The government CAN'T EVEN PAVE THE ROADS PROPERLY. WHAT MAKES you THINK they CAN provide YOU health CARE? Show me one successful government program that private industry can't do better....(outside of the military)
I'm so sick of hearing this.
People talk about the Government like it's some big creature that is just barely tamed.
The Government is made up of people, people who, at the root of it, WE ELECT.
If you are saying that YOUR elected Representative isn't doing their job, then you need not to vote for them next time. I don't.
IF the Government can't do things better than Private Industry, then it is because YOU aren't doing your job as a voter.
Is that what you are saying?
"Don't be a martyr -- BE THE ONE WHO GOT AWAY!"
You don't challenge him on his positions though (and by you, I mean the radio pundits and news anchors). They just call him a flip flopper while ignoring the list that is 4x as long that McCain has flipped on. Yet McCain says he is evolving. It is just hypocritical and annoying. You can spin any news any way you want. You want to spin this one? Well, you are being an idiot. And I am not afraid to call you out on it.
Support a great indie game: http://www.abaddon360.com
Georgia was bear-baiting Russia. It was only a matter of time before they responded.
Don't believe that for a second. Russia had been pushing Georgia for a long time into this. That doesn't make what Georgia did trying to take back South Ossetia a smart move. Nor was it easily justifiable - legally or otherwise. Georgians either lost their cool or seriously misjudged their strength and/or Russian's intentions. Nothing in that changes the fact that Russia is the aggressor here.
Russia would quasi partner with China if we do not
In the long term this is almost impossible. Both nations are happy to use the other to limit power of USA/West (including the UN Security Council), but they are not natural allies. In fact, Russia is already dearly concerned about China's rise. Russia holds large areas of historically Chinese territory. They compete fiercely over influence in Central Asia. There is very little respect between the two peoples. Historically corporatist/fascist regimes are not good at solving their differences to pursue a common policy.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers - Pablo Picasso
It is a simple fact of life that we are only as strong as out weakest link, and social security makes sure the weak links of our society are taken care of.
At the expense of those of us who aren't fuckups.
Yes. Even at the expense of those of us who aren't fuckups.
Though I still find it telling that the people who WON'T need Social Security are the first ones wanting to get rid of it.
I find it sad that today we have so little compassion for those less fortunate among us.
What do you think? You're taxes will go down? THEY WON'T. If you aren't paying into Social Security (a person earlier said they paid $6000 a year into it), YOU WILL be paying more taxes into something else.
More than likely something FAR less noble.
"Don't be a martyr -- BE THE ONE WHO GOT AWAY!"
Yeah see - I'm taking personal responsibility now and saving now.
And that is good.
Social Security isn't supposed to be a replacement for saving, it's meant as an insurance policy.
An insurance policy that is DAMN CHEAP compared to the possible alternatives (if you suffer some financial problem to late in life to recover, etc.)
"Don't be a martyr -- BE THE ONE WHO GOT AWAY!"
Actually, I work for my Father (my parents are divorced). He owns a Publishing company, who itself owns seven Newspapers.
Trust me when I say I do pretty well for myself.
However, I still do not WASTE money on garbage, as a lot of people who make a lot less do.
You can make fun of the fact that I live at home all you want, it doesn't change the fact that I pocket more cash than most people I know who make more than I do.
I simply didn't see the need to tie myself up with a house/apartment rent BILL when I didn't have too.
It has been my experience that the people who bitch most about bills are the ones who INCUR the most Bills.
You cut off luxuries (yes, they are luxuries, not necessities) of Cable/Satellite, DSL/Cable and then come talk to me about how much of a burden taxes are.
SO, your defense for being called out is to define yourself as a rich kid living at home.
Sorry man, you fail.
Maybe if you realized you were pushing your responsibilities off to your Dad you would get it. Yeah sure , YOU'RE not paying for the stuff you say other people waste their money on - your Daddy is.
Bragging that you're pocketing more cash than people who choose not to suck off their parents longer than they have to isn't really that impressive. You seem to have a lot to say about how well you are doing and how we should all follow your lead. The reality is your lead is actually copping out and pushing those responsibilities off to another person.
Yeah, that's enlightened.
First, if you had bothered to read my post, you would have seen that my parents are divorced. I live with my Mother.
I pay 60% of the household bills because I have a superior income to hers. HOWEVER, between us (and this was my point, had the chip on your shoulder not have blocked your vision) we BOTH pay LESS together than we would separately.
BY STAYING HOME the cost of paying my own way is LESS than on my own.
To be fair, my system would work just as well for those with a roommate. That is basically what we're doing, sharing a house, both paying 50%, AND BOTH POCKETING MORE MONEY BECAUSE OF IT.
I think that IS enlightened, thank you very much.
Most people I know couldn't WAIT to leave home the minute they turned 18 and, now, might be making more than me, but are pocketing LESS.
Again, these are the people who are the quickest to bitch about *perceived* higher taxes. Instead of being upset about how much they pay in taxes, they should DECREASE their spending.
If you make enough to suit yourself (pay your bills AND buy toys), them good for you. I'm not saying I'm better than you, I'm simply stating that a lot of people are blaming others for their troubles when they should be looking in the mirror.
"Don't be a martyr -- BE THE ONE WHO GOT AWAY!"
The sad thing is, if the bloated life-sucking tick that is DoD were cut down to size, we'd have plenty of money for both education and Constellation.
The thing to remember is that the US DoD performs a great deal of highly valued tasks. NASA does not. Sure with sensible weapon systems, procurement procedures (including lessened export restrictions), and a bit more military base consolidation, we probably could reduce the US military costs by more than the desired 5%. But most of the costs would remain. The only way to significantly reduce military costs is to reduce the demands placed on the military.
Let's keep in mind also that the US military is the number one funder of space projects globally. They've even attempted to address some of the commercial launch issues (via the EELV program and later ULA), an area in which NASA has long been negligent.
Zubrin has outlined a straightforward plan to settle an entire other planet at relatively low cost. What the hell is the hold-up? How is it this is not the most obvious project in the solar system?
For starters, the Moon is a more obvious target since it can contribute directly to Earth orbit construction and it's short distance from Earth allows for much more effective use of Earth-side labor (eg, via teleoperation).
Like I said (and you've proved) it's all about the math.
I COULD have said "It's the math, stupid", but that would have been a touch much :).
"Don't be a martyr -- BE THE ONE WHO GOT AWAY!"
Or, we could build a bunch of trebuchets and launch the baby boomers to their deaths. As an added bonus, we could hook them up to electrical generators to help with our power needs. It would also help solve the obesity problem in the States since a lot of young people would need to load the baby boomer into the trebuchet, set it, and launch it.
I don't know. Perhaps I'm just too annoyed, but the Baby Boomers got all the benefits of free childhood education (before it turned to the shit that is the public education system today), low college tuition, and now social security benefits and they are perfectly happy to let it all fall to shit for the rest of us. Most of them didn't even bother raising their kids, but were happy to create "latch key kids" as they were called in the 70's and 80's. And, to top it all off, even though they received inheritances from their parents, they are leaving nothing to their children. Even their houses will be owned by investors who have given them reverse mortgages. And don't even get me started on how they have fucked up the housing market.
Baby Boomers launched from trebuchets. The wave of the future.
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Yes, I could never understand that. Even Dennis Kucinich, who is probably the most "liberal" Congressman (it's *not* Obama you dittohead dumbasses), only wants a single-payer health system. He isn't asking for socialized medicine. To you right-wingers who think there is no difference, try to learn about the difference between, say, the health care systems in the UK and in Sweden. But then you might have to learn about some place other than the U.S., and I know how scary that is for you.
Similar to the upcoming US election results
You mean JFK had all the engineering worked out for the Apollo program? Wow, it's too bad he was assassinated. We could have had space stations near Alpha Centauri by now!
Similar to the upcoming US election results
I was in Ecuador in '05 and the price of gas was over $3/litre. Yeah, that's well over $10 per gallon. Oh, and the average yearly income was on the along the lines of $3K. Needless to say, there weren't a lot of people driving. Oh, and the military was doing exercises right next to an oil pipeline that was supposedly pulling fuel to send to the US.
Yeah, we all thought something was wrong with the picture too....
So where again was this $1/gallon gas?
It is very complex - my accountant hands me a book (a very expensive book, by the way) each year that is my taxes. To be honest, I really only know the bottom line - I have to pay half my money to the government (state and federal), and Obama has decided that I don't pay enough.
I'm just sick of it - when did I become his slave?
Cap gains right now is ~15%. The proposal is to move it back to the 1990's level, which iirc was in the low 30's. Seems reasonable to me as that is roughly in the same area as income tax brackets.
Your 50% you're giving to the IRS doesn't have a ton to do with Obama's plan, and if you're turning over businesses every few years for that much profit, you won't see much empathy from most of the electorate.
nice try to slide in an agenda using a poor analysis by some BW wannbe investigator.
You can't judge a whole party that's been around for 100 years due to one 'bad' president (and like the worse, but still) nor just use a single article from a magazine. This is just reading the media that's catering to you and your point of view. And that you reference them, they got you hook, line, and sinker. I love the [new] media, it's become much harder to find the truth, though easy to find the facts nowadays.
If that was the case then all democrats are just like McGovern, out of touch... But then again, some democrats are fiscally responsive (Clinton) and some not (Carter)--it all depends on the current times and what the president sees as a priority to the peoples' agenda. Choose wisely... One should ask, is Obama's agenda really something we should agree and act upon now or is it too far-sighted?
If they weren't running for office, I don't think we would care.
The thing is that when Obama hit the national stage back in 2004 he talked about one America and yadda yadda. Well compromising on drilling to get some of his goals accomplished is just the type of thing that happens in a less partisan America.
They aren't so much position changes as acknowledgments that you just aren't gonna get everything you want without giving something in return. Ultimately politicians answer to the people so I have no problem with position changes that put the people's wishes up front when reasonable.
Dissolve... Resolve... Evolve...
There's been at least one proposal in the Senate to prohibit speculation on certain types of commodities, including crude oil futures.
There's plenty of oil for the time being, but the equities markets blew up about a year ago and so hedging was happening in the commodity markets. As you can see lately, the commodities speculation has gone down as those investors put money elsewhere again.
(increasingly so when Russia and China start to get low on oil)
Russia has impressive reserves, and they are leveraging them to become a world leading energy producer. China is already oil-poor, and their need is one of the big factors driving demand (and therefore price) way up. They are also looking into lots more nuclear power, and they are chewing into their coal reserves quickly.
It would probably be helpful if China would stop setting their coal mines on fire.
And really, the best possible outcome would be for the US to not even need Russia's oil reserves. If it came down to just needing oil for manufacturing purposes (not for internal combustion engines), we really do have all the resources we need for a LONG time, if we're willing to pay a bit more for that tupperware container.
I don't agree on public financing. Obama said that he would talk about the public funding issue with the Republican candidate to see if a deal could be worked out that would include 527 groups as he didn't want to commit to public funding and get "swift boated" by better funded groups outside of the system. You can argue that this was an unattainable goal as McCain can't control everybody (though apparently the Democratic 527s appear to be willing to follow Obama on this), but that was Obama's position.
More importantly, Obama's bigger position (and, incidentally, the justification for using the public financing system) has always been the idea of getting big money and influence out of politics. The public financing system was one way to do that, Obama's individual donor network just happens to be another - more lucrative - way that also doesn't put the American taxpayer on the hook.
So you can say that Obama could have more vigorously negotiated with McCain - who had an even worse flip flop on campaign finance that could still very well get him into legal trouble - but you can't say that his stance on public financing of campaigns has changed or that he acted in a way counter to his stated principle, and that would have been the questionable deed.
Dissolve... Resolve... Evolve...
Yes, but a bear doesn't need weeks to prepare a paw swing. The analogy doesn't hold.
It sounds like you've been drinking the obama kool-aid.
Why are you and others even talking about automobiles so much? That's the smaller piece of the carbon pie. The larger, much bigger piece is electricity production. Electricity production makes up 40% of US CO2. Autos are 25%.
Stop playing in the kiddie pool, and hop on board the real problem and find the real solutions that make a real difference. There's an answer that's been here for decades, nuclear power. Get on board. Obama is against it, McCain is for it. Ask why Obama wants to fund ethanol research and not nuclear development ... and vote McCain. You can dream about other alternative fuels that have the nasty side effects of raising food prices for the world's impoverished, or you can get a clean solution now.
"The Republicans have, ever since Reagan"
So, for twenty years then? The whole of political history...
Second, Democrats support social programs (or do you disagree?). They cost money. Republicans support defense spending (it is by far their major budget item). It costs money. Comparing the two is, well to borrow your word "dumb". They are not the same, do not accomplish the same goals, do not have the same benefits and drawbacks, and so saying "Democrats spend more" or vice versa is naive bullshit.
They BOTH spend. A TON. Social Security and Medicare on one side, Defense on the other. Mostly. So why, when it's blatantly obvious that there is a lot of money being spent on bullshit, do so many people engage in partisan dick waving contests?
"Here, here's a link that DEFINITIVELY PROVES your assclowns are spending far more than our beloved champions!HREF="http://www.google.com/search?q=you+are+a+moron&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a">PROOF!"
Blech.
You're going to get fleeced regardless. Instead of debating tax reform, money policy, or something important, we get
Which is just, well, wrong. It's totally wrong. I see this, and it makes me want to scream. It makes me wonder if people genuinely expect the President to know everything about everything, and then it makes me wonder if people are so thick, so arrogant, as to assume that a difference in political opinion is equivalent to ignorance.
I promise you, McCain has a bevy of advisers who are smarter than you, who have helped him shape his policy, and you make the assumption that because they have different priorities, they are fools, or ignorant.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Maynard_Keynes
See that guy. He was an advocate of deficit spending. He knew more about it than you. But you presume that his difference of opinion makes him a "fool". And that's enough to make you vote for Obama.
But you know what? That's your right. You're entitled to allow whatever you desire to sway your decision. That's America.
And I'm allowed to say it sucks.
OPEC supplies 53.8% of our oil imports (a little over 5.25 million barrels per day out of a little over 20 million barrels per day used).
People, it's simple math.
Simple math, eh? How is 5.25 anywhere near 53.8% of 20+?
The fact that the government is fucked doesn't make it a good idea.
There's nothing noble about forced charity.
"While it wouldn't maybe help the INDIVIDUAL very much, the ENTIRE COUNTRY would benefit a decent amount."
Great, so the country will benefit from [mainly] inflating their tires.
I sure hope those tire gauges from China are accurate, cause the last 2 I bought here and here are different by 9psi.
Looks like the country benefiting from this isn't ours at 14.99 a pop.
Let's face it, neither plan from either candidate satisfies the public--it's because BOTH are relying on industry and corporations (for alternative energy and efficiency) to solve it. Conservation is a start, but a long road--and we're looking at 20-30yrs.
I doubt either candidate will supply the answer we need, but sure would like to give us the answer we want. Hey, it's an election year!
He changed his mind and is afraid that they'll label him a flip-flopper.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
That might be the case in larger cities, but in smaller towns (like where there is ONE gas station) the price wouldn't change a bit.
Fair enough... my only experience is in places where gas stations come in threes or fours. I'm not familiar with small town economics. Most people in the US live in cities these days so you can't ignore that it would help most people, even if it's not the people who need help the most.
As for increasing Global Supply, I don't think increasing the Global Supply by 200,000 Barrels is going to do a whole hell of a lot when the World now uses over 80,000,000 MILLION barrels (and will use even more a decade from now when this 200,000 hits the market).
Where are you getting 200k from? I would guess that production from *all* untapped sites in the US is more than that.
Either way, I believe the Gulf of Mexico produces about 1.2 million barrels a day. A 200k increase amounts to 16% of that. That is pretty significant if you ask me. When a hurricane shuts down 20% of Gulf production, we see the impact in oil prices. (Although admittedly I believe the stronger impact is end-user price changes due to refinery shutdowns in that region.)
According to this report, the 95% probability case for ANWR production is:
EIA scheduled daily production rates for postulated yearly development rates of 250 and 400 million barrels per year. The production rate peaks at 650,000 barrels per day for the development of 250 million barrels per year and at 800,000 barrels per day for the 400 million barrels per year development case.
So we're talking 650k to 800k barrels per day from ANWR alone.
With all those capital letters, you just *know* the argument is worth having. Cool and collected discussion ftw.
(No, I'm not an American. Its actually kinda funny/scary reading all these pointless arguments.)
Yes, but a bear doesn't need weeks to prepare a paw swing. The analogy doesn't hold.
The analogy doesn't hold because countries are not bears. Different optimisation strategies for the organism altogether.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
http://spaceplace.nasa.gov/en/kids/spinoffs2.shtml
There are thousands and thousands of them, but here's a few:
What do all the things pictured on this page have in common? They all use technologies or materials that were originally developed for the space program.
TV satellite dish TV Satellite Dish
NASA developed ways to correct errors in the signals coming from the spacecraft. This technology is used to reduce noise (that is, messed up picture or sound) in TV signals coming from satellites.
MRI image of head Medical Imaging
NASA developed ways to process signals from spacecraft to produce clearer images. (See more on digital information and how spacecraft send images from space.) This technology also makes possible these photo-like images of our insides.
Eye chart Vision Screening System
Uses techniques developed for processing space pictures to examine eyes of children and find out quickly if they have any vision problems. The child doesn't have to say a word!
Ear thermometer Ear Thermometer
Instead of measuring temperature using a column of mercury (which expands as it heats up), this thermometer has a lens like a camera and detects infrared energy, which we feel as heat. The warmer something is (like your body), the more infrared energy it puts out. This technology was originally developed to detect the birth of stars.
Fire fighter Fire Fighter Equipment
Fire fighters wear suits made of fire resistant fabric developed for use in space suits.
Smoke detector Smoke Detector
First used in the Earth orbiting space station called Skylab (launched back in 1973) to help detect any toxic vapors. Now used in most homes and other buildings to warn people of fire.
Sun glasses Sun Tiger Glasses
From research done on materials to protect the eyes of welders working on spacecraft, protective lenses were developed that block almost all the wavelengths of radiation that might harm the eyes, while letting through all the useful wavelengths that let us see.
Sport utility vehicle Automobile Design Tools
A computer program developed by NASA to analyze a spacecraft or airplane design and predict how parts will perform is now used to help design automobiles. This kind of software can save car makers a lot of money by letting them see how well a design will work even before they build a prototype.
Dust Buster vacuum cleaner Cordless Tools
Portable, self-contained power tools were originally developed to help Apollo astronauts drill for moon samples. This technology has lead to development of such tools as the cordless vacuum cleaner, power drill, shrub trimmers, and grass shears.
Bicycle Aerodynamic Bicycle Wheel
A special bike wheel uses NASA research in airfoils (wings) and design software developed for the space program. The three spokes on the wheel act like wings, making the bicycle very efficient for racing.
Skier Thermal Gloves and Boots
These gloves and boots have heating elements that run on rechargeable batteries worn on the inside wrist of the gloves or embedded in the sole of the ski boot. This technology was adapted from a spacesuit design for the Apollo astronauts.
Pen Space Pens
The Fisher Space Pen was developed for use in space. Most pens depend on gravity to make the ink flow into the ball point. For this space pen, the ink cartridge contains pressured gas to push the ink toward the ball point. That means, you can lie in bed and write upside down with this pen! Also, it uses a special ink that works in very hot and very cold environments.
Football player Shock Absorbing Helmets
These special football helmets use a padding of Temper Foam, a shock absorbing material first developed for use in aircraft seats. These helmets have three times the shock absorbing ability of previous types.
Ski boot Ski Boots
These ski boots use accordion-like folds, similar to the design of space suits, to allow the boot to flex
We are one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. Back to you with the weather, Bob!
... in Europe.
Good arguments. Like I said, Obama's not perfect. However, as it stands, after all the Bush tax cuts, the oil companies are undertaxed.
UNDER taxed? Does a 25% tax rate on GROSS receipts (a 250% tax rate on net profit) need to be higher?
Last year, ExxonMobil sold $404 billion worth of product. On those sales, they made $40 billion in profit (10%). They paid $102 billion in taxes (25% of gross receipts).
Compare that to the 15.3% profit that Apple made, while paying just 6% taxes (measured against gross receipts).
How ExxonMobil is undertaxed I'll never understand...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
About those oil companies being under taxed, they currently pay about three times their profit in taxes. Those recent big 20 something billion in profits for Exxon are after they paid over 60 billion in taxes.
The purpose of language is communication, If the idea is clear the grammar ain't important
Tim Horton's... Hockey? Am I correct in that you can't vote in this election?
Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think. -Ayn Rand
I honestly don't know what roads the government has paved, but i don't think very many. They pay civy outfits to do it i'm sure. Also i really think most government programs you have seen are local (city/state) programs. You know, like DMV, police, fire departments, heath inspectors. Also i'm pretty sure the US Army core of engineers is supposed to be really fucking great? They build dams, bridges, all sorts of things for the public. I don't know what kind of health care solutions are on the horizon, but i'm well taken care of. I'd like to share my health care story with you, if you don't mind.
Did some time in the Army and was honorably discharged. After returning from a year in Iraq i slowly became really sick. I was a civy then and didn't know what to do. So i drove up to a VA hospital and asked. They signed me up, took 10 minutes (seriously!). Like 6 blood tests later (mono, HIV, all sorts of cruft), needles in the neck, camera thing in the nose and down the throat, neck & chest X-ray, cat scan (kind of fun, btw), and a lymphnode biopsy, they told me i had Lymphoma. All this cost me $8 (US dollars) for some pain meds after the biopsy surgery. I'll cut the story there.. but the point is the Gov't already provides excellent health care to a percentage of the US people. I don't see why a similar program couldn't be expanded?
The people will obviously have to pay for it with taxes, but that should be optional. A citizen should be able to opt out and see any private doctor/hospital if they choose (and deal with all the insurance shenanigans and overpriced bs.. $5 for surgical gloves! seriously.)
http://soylentnews.org/~tibman
What impact or importance does your job have that affords you a $6000 chunk to go to SS? In other words, if you tell me you're a programmer without an actual Engineering degree and knows dick about doing more than writing video games don't come whining to me when the Depression hits and your job skills are no longer in-demand, because no one gives two tits about playing a game or surfing the web when there are no freakin' jobs around.
I'll put it bluntly: Your job, my engineering jobs and programming jobs all exist because this country subsidized the Backbone for AT&T and the rest of the entire Industry in order to even have a f'n industry where you can bitch that you saw $6000 going to SS. The same goes for the Aerospace, Construction, Oil and every other traditional engineering industry where my skills and others exist with a joint relationship of public/private funds.
The Law of Cause and Effect has it's many spherical digraph connections and if you can't grasp advancing and investing back into our Nation's infrastructure don't expect a handout when your lifestyle goes into the toilet and you no longer see a paycheck on the horizon.
White collar jobs are no more guaranteed then blue collar jobs.
Investment in this Nation's Infrastructures [Waterways, Rails, Modular Power Grids, Fiber/Wireless, Solar, Wind, Algae Biofuels, et al] are the only means to seeing steady long-term economic stability, but I'll be damned if I let "Barry" syphon every idea, when it's convenient, and call it some grand scheme to lead us up this mythical mountain top.
I'm looking forward to seeing that pindick loose in November.
McCain has already stated he's only running for 1 TERM. That means I can actually vote for a Woman with more balls then both of them in 2012 and feel glad to know it takes a B***H to get the job done when the Dicks are too busy wagging the dog.
I'm 39, earned my B.S. in Mechanical Engineering followed by Computer Science and if these cowards can't come up with a joint Private/Public 25 year juggernaut to get this country moving forward so people from blue collar to white collar can be content in doing something that improves the lives of their fellow citizens then it's quites clear than neither one of them knows the meaning of ``The United States of America,'' first coined by Sir Thomas Paine.
More money needs to be invested into NASA with target goals that directly address the aims of Solar, Wind and Bio solutions to get the country's machine cranking out at full blast.
IRAQ should pay us $1 Billion, per month for the next 20 years, minimum in order to pay down a portion of their debt and make sure their surplus goes to rebuilding that nation and give it's people aims that directly helps the world instead of just swapping one dictator for another and have our US Government behind the scenes pulling the strings.
The primary impediment to drilling in currently leased land is lawsuits from environmentalists. In fact, 8 of the 10 years that are estimated to bring oil from new drilling online is due to lawsuits and stalling from environmentalists. Another year of that is due to bureaucracy in Federal Land management. The actual time it takes for new production is anywhere from 12 to 18 months of actual work depending on local factors.
The purpose of language is communication, If the idea is clear the grammar ain't important
We already have excellent Healthcare centers. The Government could provide the EXACT SAME service as a private Insurance Company for PENNIES on the dollar compared to said Private Insurance company.
I don't mean to pick on you today, but geez. The government CAN'T EVEN PAVE THE ROADS PROPERLY. WHAT MAKES you THINK they CAN provide YOU health CARE? Show me one successful government program that private industry can't do better....(outside of the military)
Look at your city counsel and state congress for not using the best materials and you'll discover the businesses vying for the contracts don't give a rat's ass about road longevity--they want to make repeat business on maintenance contracts. We shouldn't have asphault roads and maintenance should occur on the average of over a decade between small upkeeps. Instead of shooting the Government and only the government we should have the law of Lowest Bid revoked at the state level.
Engineering Management 101 is clear that the lowest maintenance solutions are the better solutions, cost the least, over time, but are the more expensive, in the short-term, and with contractual laws targeting lowest initial bid the businesses that feed on such substandard work lobby the crap out of your state legislators who rarely know anything of Engineering Mgmt to be sure they continue to have such contract bids.
you won't see much empathy from most of the electorate.
Then I guess they won't miss the jobs I was providing either.
while (sig==sig) sig=!sig;
I misspoke. Around 5.25 comes from Saudi Arabia itself, the other 5 million or so come from the rest of OPEC, Canada, Mexico, and Venezuela.
My point was that we would never need import oil from Saudi Arabia, which is where the majority of the 9/11 hijackers came from.
"Don't be a martyr -- BE THE ONE WHO GOT AWAY!"
And how much has Bush spent on his initiatives for Africa, like AIDS reduction?
Isn't that the same funding that Bush offered to Brazil, but they turned it down because it was too restrictive (i.e. strict restrictions on generic AIDS medication, condom programs, etc.)?
- RG>
Hey pal, this isn't a pleasantforest, so don't waste my time with pleasantries!
Funny, but those that try to equate the U.S. action in Iraq to the Russian action in Georgia aren't paying attention.
Oh come now. You know people resent being told they've been had. The only response you will get from them is, "Kill the messenger!"
What?
mod parent up! funny!
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The problem with the word "American" is that, technically speaking, Canadians, Mexicans, Cubans, and South Americans are all "American". The GP is clearly trying to be more specific. (Although, "Usonian" seems to be a less awkward alternative.)
The details are trivial and useless; The reasons, as always, purely human ones.
Secondly, I'd like to take issue with your statement that saving our oil reserves for later is a good idea.
I don't think I ever said that. Personally, I'd prefer if our oil reserves were never mined unless it's being mined for something other than burning in an automobile.
OK, seems I was wrong about that. My apologies. Regardless, Bush did cut their taxes and I'm not sure I see any good reason for him to have done that. Tax cuts are usually made to encourage growth and I don't see any growth problems in the oil industry. As far as I'm concerned, the oil companies need to justify keeping the tax cuts.
So, for twenty years then? The whole of political history...
The most recent part of it, certainly, which is the most important part to me.
Second, Democrats support social programs (or do you disagree?). They cost money. Republicans support defense spending (it is by far their major budget item). It costs money. Comparing the two is, well to borrow your word "dumb". They are not the same, do not accomplish the same goals, do not have the same benefits and drawbacks, and so saying "Democrats spend more" or vice versa is naive bullshit.
It's well known that the deficit has decreased under democrats. You can debate why that is, but it certainly is true. Besides, I'd rather support social programs than invasions any day of the week.
They BOTH spend. A TON. Social Security and Medicare on one side, Defense on the other. Mostly. So why, when it's blatantly obvious that there is a lot of money being spent on bullshit, do so many people engage in partisan dick waving contests?
Because social programs are what the US needs, not more war. However, I agree that many of the social program implementations so far have been pretty misguided. But that is no reason to assume that they are all bad, as you seem to be doing here.
You're going to get fleeced regardless. Instead of debating tax reform, money policy, or something important, we get
Fine, let's all give up and let the country go to hell. I was responding to a specific poster about a specific topic. Sorry if I didn't get to your favorites.
Which is just, well, wrong. It's totally wrong. I see this, and it makes me want to scream. It makes me wonder if people genuinely expect the President to know everything about everything, and then it makes me wonder if people are so thick, so arrogant, as to assume that a difference in political opinion is equivalent to ignorance.
Hey, I'm just quoting the man. He said himself he doesn't understand it as well as he should.
I promise you, McCain has a bevy of advisers who are smarter than you, who have helped him shape his policy, and you make the assumption that because they have different priorities, they are fools, or ignorant.
Yes, he has advisers like the former CEO of eBay who bought Skype and has regretted it ever since. And he's gone through a lot of people who have said really dumb things in public. Excuse me if I've lost faith.
I promise you, McCain has a bevy of advisers who are smarter than you, who have helped him shape his policy, and you make the assumption that because they have different priorities, they are fools, or ignorant.
I doubt it. I'm arrogant enough to doubt just about anyone is smarter than me, but regardless, his policies are bad for America. You can link to Keynes or Adam Smith or whoever you like. You can't just throw out a term like "deficit spending" and expect me to cave in to what you say. Let me throw a term back at you. Structural deficits are bad. That's what the US has. In Keynesian economics, Governments are expected to run a deficit during economic downturns so as to stimulate the economy, but the deficit is supposed to turn into a surplus when the economy is growing again, thus checking the growth through taxes to prevent unsustainable growth. And I didn't even click your damned link. I bet if you click it, it will explain all of that.
Anyway, let me know when you've read that or when you've found an economist who actually does agree with republican spending habits. I bet you're going to have a hard time with that.
If he said "Has the woman EARNED the resource to keep a child? Has she EARNED health care?"
Somehow I don't think either party will be very receptive to the idea of mandatory obortion.
I think this is a very effective argument to throw in the face of many republicans: if you want to reduce the need for abortions, you have to increase poor/single parents' ability to take care of children. And teach them to use effective contraceptives, ofcourse.
"Today, oil speculators purchase 66 percent of all oil futures contracts, and that reflects just the transactions that are known. Speculators buy up large amounts of oil and then sell it to each other again and again. A barrel of oil may trade 20-plus times before it is delivered and used; the price goes up with each trade and consumers pick up the final tab. Some market experts estimate that current prices reflect as much as $30 to $60 per barrel in unnecessary speculative costs."
I didn't know this. At least I didn't know it was this bad. People are getting rich from oil trade while contributing to the problem instead of the solution. Looks like we need to work on a more efficient fuel trade.
What you want, after all, is Greenspan as Mr. President.
Now, now. :-)
I don't believe an economist would necessarily be a good president (though the Canadian Prime Minister is an economist and he seems to be doing alright).
Lots of politicians all over the world are economists. I think the US is one of the few countries that has more lawyers than economists in politics.
There must be a lesson in there somewhere...
Apparently "Social Security" in the U.S. is only about retirement. Let me tell you a little fantasy story about Belgium.. A country that has Social Security down to an art...
When i get sick, i go to the doctor and just get treated.. (it REALLY does not mather what i have.. from the flue to cancer etc).. my doctors visit costs me about 20 ( that's $30 more or less)... if i have to stay home.. i still get paid.. gradually this lowers to 50% of my wage (over 2 years)
If i get on disabbility.. i still get paid..
If i break an arm, my kid breaks an arm or ANYONE else breaks an arm.. it get's fixed.. not visa, private healthcare blah blah.. you just walk in the E.R., and they fix it.. (had this 2 years ago.. paid a whopping 90 in total for the whole fixing ...
Then.. when the time has come to retire.. i get paid 75% of my last paycheck every month.. for the rest of my life..
and ok.. i pay about 45% of my income to taxes (this percentage is relative to your wage).. and chances are, i'm not the only one benefitting from this cause the amount i pay will probably only get back to me when i get really sick (which i don't really plan :p) OR when i would get to go until 130 years old (which is higly unlikely aswell ;-) )
The rest of the cash go to the other, less fortunate.. people without jobs who still get paid a "survival" paycheck .. this is called being social.. It's pretty damn stupid to say that you should not help someone else.. cause you know what ? If people get pushed into a position where they cannot get decent healthcare,cannot support their family because a streak of bad luck ( 9/11 made a lot of people lose their jobs over here).. then they probably start finding other ways to get their primary needs satisfied (house, food) etc... which in a lot of cases is the criminal circuit..
do you honestly think this is cheaper on society ? Who pays the extra cops you need ? Who pays healt insurrance and how much ? I preffer to be social to other people in my country ANY given day, knowing for sure that our system will prevent someone from dying, just because they did not have the cash to pay healt inssurance.. or that someone who had a accident and cannot go to work anymore, does not have to be lying somewhere in the gutter but gets supported by the system.. or like the veterans in the US who just get dumped after they "protected the freedom"...and finally.. that when i, or my family get sick.. we get treated and not asked for a visa card first.. (This happened to a collegue of mine who got an allergic reaction to some food while we were in the U.S. he could not breath anymore, we rushed him to the E.R. where they refused treatment until we could come up with a visa card..)
Social security is indeed paying for yourself AND others.. but i bet you will look at it differently when you or your family suddenly needs a 300k treatment and can't come up with thecash...
In some places, such as France, it's so bad that for many people, it's more profitable to live off welfare than to work.
In most countries with a welfare system like France's you lose part of your welfare if you go and find a job, in proportion to the amount you earn - ie. unless you find a job that pays more than what you can get in welfare, you won't have more money. To many it doesn't make sense to go and work unless it gives you a better income; and who can blame them, really? So, this has nothing to do with the tax system and everythign to do with the way welfare is given.
Still, there is some truth in what you say. There are many ways that a family with a high income can legitimately have greater financial needs than a family with a low income. Take anybody with a university education, for example; they will typically have had to borrow money to finance their studies, so they start their working life in significant debt, which means they can easily have a higher salary, but less disposable income than an average manual labourer.
I don't think it is possible to find a truly fair tax system, but it is possible to make it so that it isn't too unsufferable. As for encoraging people to become more productive - it has little to do with money, unless you feel the squeeze and really need to find a way to earn more. People work hard with things they like to do - hence the open source movement, where people work for nothing and are sometimes hugely productive.
Yes, because the much more apt comparison is to US action in Kosovo.
yeah because its not like Georgia started it by attacking a small area that had declared independence and which like Russia. nah must be those damn commies.
IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
No, it's people treating Obama like everything he does is somehow enlightened and above reproach. The Obamaphiles are some of the worst followers I have EVER seen - worse than some of the Bush supporters, who will at least name SOMETHING they don't like at this point.
Oddly enough, Obama was one of the more partisan members with possibly the MOST leftist voting record in the senate. I don't recall him making very many efforts to cross party lines on any votes. Can't say that about McCain.
And guess what - they probably walked away with about the same amount of money that I'll get from social security!
I wouldn't worry...the politician that is willing to cut Social Security before other programs will be slitting their own political wrists.
At best they'll raise the age limit and it'll be something like if you were born before X then you'll have to be Y years old before you can claim full benefits.
"Only one thing, is impossible for god: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." Mark Twain
You won't get an argument out of me on any of those points! I agree 100%!
IF the Government can't do things better than Private Industry, then it is because YOU aren't doing your job as a voter.
Do you really believe that?
You'll have that sometimes...
Right, but the bottom line is that it's the responsibility of the government (state, local and federal) to insure that they're doing that part right. So if the government can't make good contracts when dealing with roads, what makes you think they'll make better ones with regards to your health care?
You'll have that sometimes...
You mean JFK had all the engineering worked out for the Apollo program? Wow, it's too bad he was assassinated. We could have had space stations near Alpha Centauri by now!
No, but he DID meet with NASA and all of the relevant officials and designed a plan *before* he announced it in his famous moon speech. Obama has "called" for the US to eliminate its oil dependence, with NO plan, no knowledge of whether it's possible and most important nothing to back it up.
You'll have that sometimes...
In the parent comment I mentioned the House vote, but neglected to mention the Senate..
The original senate vote was 77 Ayes (48 republicans and 29 democrats) and 23 Nays (1 republican, 1 independent, and 21 democrats). If the democrats voted together then the vote would have been 48 Ayes and 52 Nays which would have killed the authorization for war with Iraq...
Again another example of one party trying to place the blame on the other when in fact both are to blame...
Now how in the hell did I get the war vote in the conversation? Oh yea, the real power of the president and how third parties need to garner congressional seats first...
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
my doctors visit costs me about 20 ( that's $30 more or less)
...
Costs me $20 also!
if i have to stay home.. i still get paid.. gradually this lowers to 50% of my wage (over 2 years)
Me too! Not out of SS though - and it wouldn't drop to 50% either.
you just walk in the E.R., and they fix it.. (had this 2 years ago.. paid a whopping 90 in total for the whole fixing
My ER visits are only $75!
Then.. when the time has come to retire.. i get paid 75% of my last paycheck every month.. for the rest of my life..
I'm unsure where i'll be on that one, but hopefully i'll be making more than 100%!
i pay about 45% of my income to taxes
Ah got me there - here in the US it's more like 50% - why do you think Budweiser sold out? - they pay less taxes in Europe than in the US.
It's pretty damn stupid to say that you should not help someone else
But that's not what I said - on my way to work this morning I actually gave some guy a ride to his car because he ran out of gas and was walking with his gascan. You do realize people have been helping each other since before governments existed, right?
when i, or my family get sick.. we get treated and not asked for a visa card first
Wow we are pretty similar - can't recall that happening here - I think that would violate EMTALA!
but i bet you will look at it differently when you or your family suddenly needs a 300k treatment and can't come up with thecash...
I had 2 surgeries last year and me and the wife had our first child. Not once did they ever ask for the money up front!
We have 100% of our total petroleum needs (20 million barrels a day) sitting right here, in the Continental US. And we have that supply rate for 270 YEARS. And at $40 per barrel.
.
It's called oil shale. In 10 years the US could not only produce every drop of oil it needs on a daily basis, but export over 8 million barrels a day to other countries. And do it for nearly 3 centuries.
What's stopping this? It's not the Governors or State Assemblies of Utah and Wyoming. It's the Democrats in Congress who insist on maintaining the prohibition on oil shale production.
You need to talk to Governor Bill Ritter of the Great State of Colorado.
http://www.colorado.gov/cs/Satellite/GovRitter/GOVR/1216720881519
He has GONE ON THE record to say that Oil Shale mining is "Premature" simply because we don't have the slightest clue what type of environmental impact it will have.
I'm not talking about some possible Global Warming related impact a decade from now, I'm talking about a local disruption that might rob people of drinking water. This in a area that is already looking at droughts because of Snow droughts the last couple of years.
You see, there's a reason why this so called "Gold Mine" isn't being mined (despite what Fox/CNN/MSNBC might have told you). Because we don't have the SLIGHTEST F__CKING CLUE what the long term effects on the surrounding areas might be.
A lot of these areas depend on TOURISM to make money. Very few tourists want to see a pockmarked Mountain.
Maybe if you lived there, you would understand.
P.S. I might also draw your attention to:
http://www.wilderness.org/NewsRoom/Statement/20080610.cfm
"Don't be a martyr -- BE THE ONE WHO GOT AWAY!"
"While it wouldn't maybe help the INDIVIDUAL very much, the ENTIRE COUNTRY would benefit a decent amount."
Great, so the country will benefit from [mainly] inflating their tires.
I sure hope those tire gauges from China are accurate, cause the last 2 I bought here and here are different by 9psi.
Looks like the country benefiting from this isn't ours at 14.99 a pop.
Let's face it, neither plan from either candidate satisfies the public--it's because BOTH are relying on industry and corporations (for alternative energy and efficiency) to solve it. Conservation is a start, but a long road--and we're looking at 20-30yrs.
I doubt either candidate will supply the answer we need, but sure would like to give us the answer we want. Hey, it's an election year!
I don't know any country that would make a profit off the .001% of the dumba__ that would pay $14.99 for a tire gauge that the rest of the WORLD can buy at their local gas station for LESS than $1.
Where in the hell are you buying Tire Gauges?
http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B000NPPBB0/sr=8-15/qid=1219119626/ref=olp_tab_new?ie=UTF8&coliid=&me=&qid=1219119626&sr=8-15&seller=&colid=&condition=new
And that's from Amazon.
"Don't be a martyr -- BE THE ONE WHO GOT AWAY!"
Hilarious. I should save this somewhere. If you missed it, I explained what was wrong with your idea about Keynes supporting what you say. As in most things in the world, it's nuanced. Deficit spending is not unconditionally good and Keynes did not support it in all cases. I get that you don't get that. I find it quite amusing. But thank you for telling me you won't respond anymore, as humorous as your responses have been.
P.S. if you think I'm a democrat, you're dumber than you look.
And further, there were ZERO specific oil-industry tax cuts by President Bush. Tax cuts were economy wide, not targeted. About as specific as the tax cut President Bush targeted for you, via the income tax reductions. So how about you justify your targeted tax cuts first; what's that, there wasn't a bill targeting you? Same with "Big Oil".
You said it yourself - tax cuts encourage growth. When is encouraging growth a bad thing, especially in industries that essentially power and move the nation? What country has ever taxed itself into prosperity? Think about that when considering who really understands economics...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Encouraging growth is a bad thing in a lot of cases. That's what causes boom/bust. You don't encourage the growth of healthy markets. If the oil industry is doing just fine without the tax cuts (and the tax cuts affected the rich and big companies more than the small and poor, so the oil companies were the beneficiaries), then why cut their taxes?
Oh, and just to make it really clear in case there's some poor sod who actually bought into something in your post, here's the Wikipedia link about Keynes and deficit spending which I talked about. Specifically, "Following John Maynard Keynes, many economists recommend deficit spending in order to moderate or end a recession". In other words, back when we weren't in a recession, we should not have been running a deficit.
So again, please let me know when you find an economist who actually supports your armchair economic theories.
I wish we had a presidential candidate, that would spend $2 million on our failing health care system, and back a nationwide low-cost healthcare plan, that doesn't have outrageous requirements, like what we have now.
Visit Modern Day Daddy today
Perhaps there's some other theories out there as to the reasons such companies aren't drilling (or drilling more) on their currently leased locations, but I think the simplest solution here is the correct one. No Profits = No Drilling.
You missed the important strategic point in GP's post that answers your question.
We know (a) Oil is a limited resource (b) it is a practical necessity for the manufacture or plastics and other derivatives that make our modern life possible, (c) When it's gone, we aren't getting more of it, ever. (synthetics are part of this equation, but ancillary to the point of this post, so let's leave that for another time).
My point is, keep the oil in the ground. Use the oil from the rest of the world before our own - we have a man made strategic reserve, but also a nature made one as well.
While I'm not happy with what I pay for gas, oddly enough, I want it this way. I remember the "crying indian" commercial as a kid talking about how it was the responsibility of parents to keep the planet healthy for their children. Now I'm a parent, and I bear this responsibility in mind.
This brings me to why I want high prices. As long as prices are high, there is an economic incentive to shift toward non-oil/renewable energy sources... it's happening even now. Eventually, there will be enough shift so that (hopefully) our oil consumption will resemble a caravan moving through an endless desert, husbanding their water because they know to run out is to die.
The first part of this shift has already begun, and required nothing more than the proper economic conditions we see today. The remainder of the shift -- continuing the transition to the point where we do not rely on oil at all for things as "pedestrian" as transportation or energy -- will require political will this country has never demonstrated. When the drop in oil demand causes prices to fall, people will again consume more oil. We -- I -- have failed to take to heart the first lesson of the 70s oil embargo (that oil is absolutely critical to our society). I am cynical about the chances that we will learn the second lesson -- that the strategic value of energy is far more valuable than the dollars needed to make ourselves fully energy independent.
It is at that crucial pass/fail, live/die moment -- that day when oil again becomes cheaper than renewable alternatives -- that we should all look at our children and remember our responsibilities.
This comment is my opinion and does not represent an official position of Donald Trump or others I do not work for
I believe that if we held the governments feet to the fire more often that we might be surprised how much better it got, absolutely.
It is "We the People..." NOT "Us the Government".
I get very upset (not necessarily at you, but general bumpkins I see on the street) when people keep the attitude "Oh, it's just so terrible", or "I can't do anything because of THEM" (whoever THEM is).
Talking about energy, it's always "well, why even try because you KNOW some big-oil conspiracy will hide it" yada, yada, yada.
I hate people who sit on their asses and wonder why s__t just falls on their shoes, instead of looking in the mirror and realizing THEY are in control of their lives.
"Don't be a martyr -- BE THE ONE WHO GOT AWAY!"
Yes, and spouting nonsense about having TRILLIONS of barrels of oil (forgetting they are inconveniently lock IN SOLID ROCK) and those "darned oh Democrats won't let us get to it" isn't playing to your base?
If it were possible, it would have been done already.
These companies already have hundreds of acres to 'practice' on and, guess what, THEY CAN'T MAKE IT WORK.
What makes you think that if they can't make it work on the 200 acres they already have, they will magically make it work if given 200 MILLION acres.
Any thinking to the contrary is naive and wishful.
"Don't be a martyr -- BE THE ONE WHO GOT AWAY!"
Apparently, you cared enough to reply. Please point out where I lied and what about. At this point, you're simply doing personal attacks and avoiding the main problem of economics, it seems, as you know you've lost the argument. Also, please notice the "If you think I'm a democrat" which doesn't actually mean I said you think I am. All it means it that if you don't think I'm a democrat, maybe you're only exactly as dumb as you look instead of dumber. :-)
I appreciate the props but my point was that big government didn't start with FDR. You can go back to Teddy Roosevelt's interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine, Lincoln and his war with the confederacy, "Manifest Destiny" of the early and middle 1800s, John Adams and his Aliens and Sedition Act. The government has always been on the attack, ever expanding since the very beginning. It is noteworthy though that if it wasn't for the GI bill after the war, there would be no American middle class consumerism. It is indeed a government creation. It is critical for maintenance of the grand illusion. But like you said, it is self serving, because without it people would vote them out.
What?
That's your view from within the US, but across the pond they tend to refer to everybody on this continent as American.
The details are trivial and useless; The reasons, as always, purely human ones.
Please see this Wikipedia article about oil shale, and this Wikipedia article about the extraction of the same. Now you can go back to your troll hole and think of another idiotic comment...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
By the way, I don't appreciate your racist, antisemitic, and terroristic threats. If you keep this up, I will have to report you to the Secret Service and the FBI as well as complain to the Slashdot owners about your behavior.
Those articles say nothing accept what has already been said here.
Everyone keeps trying (kinda like how people used to try and turn Lead into Gold, what was that called?) BUT NO ONE HAS SUCCEEDED
Do you not think that after this long of high oil prices if it were possible, someone would have done it?
I'm not disputing the fact that it is technically possible. It is technically possible to turn Shale Oil into Gasoline/Diesel.
HOWEVER, it takes more energy to turn the Shale Oil into these fuels THAN YOU GET FROM USING THE FUELS.
Right now, they are using Electricity to heat the rock in the ground so they can pump the stuff to the surface for processing. It makes FAR more sense to use the MASSIVE amounts of electricity in Electric Vehicles.
Why does everyone act as though you've called them a bad name because you quote physics? Just because you don't like the physics doesn't make them wrong.
"Don't be a martyr -- BE THE ONE WHO GOT AWAY!"
False. I point you to the second link I posted that contained the following:
(Shell) asserts a ratio of approximately 18 units of energy produced per unit used
and
A 1984 study estimated the EROEI of the various known oil shale deposits as varying between 0.7â"13.3
Yes, you get up to 13 to 18 units of energy out for every unit of energy in. Kind of counter to what you claim.
And why haven't we done it yet? Ask your Democrat Congress why they refuse to allow development of oil shale, or offshore drilling. Utah, Wyoming, and the oil companies want to develop the shale oil; the Democrats in Congress do not.
It's nothing to do with physics, it's everything to do with economics and usage of energy. Electric planes - and to a large extent, electric cars - simply do not have the range or capacity of oil burning vehicles.
Bottom line: Obama and the Democrats do not want to develop the resources we have, and that has a direct result in keeping gasoline and oil costs high.
We are not running out of oil, we have plenty here to use to continue running our society until we find a FEASIBLE and ECONOMICALLY REALISTIC replacement.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
HOWEVER, it takes more energy to turn the Shale Oil into these fuels THAN YOU GET FROM USING THE FUELS.
.
False. I point you to the second link I posted that contained the following:
(Shell) asserts a ratio of approximately 18 units of energy produced per unit used
and
A 1984 study estimated the EROEI of the various known oil shale deposits as varying between 0.7â"13.3
.
Yes, you get up to 13 to 18 units of energy out for every unit of energy in. Kind of counter to what you claim.
And why haven't we done it yet? Ask your Democrat Congress why they refuse to allow development of oil shale, or offshore drilling. Utah, Wyoming, and the oil companies want to develop the shale oil; the Democrats in Congress do not.
It's nothing to do with physics, it's everything to do with economics and usage of energy. Electric planes - and to a large extent, electric cars - simply do not have the range or capacity of oil burning vehicles.
Bottom line: Obama and the Democrats do not want to develop the resources we have, and that has a direct result in keeping gasoline and oil costs high.
We are not running out of oil, we have plenty here to use to continue running our society until we find a FEASIBLE and ECONOMICALLY REALISTIC replacement.
Why in the hell would ANYONE want to 'keep' the United States using Oil.
You are HONESTLY going to sit there, and tell me Barack Obama would not LOVE to trot out and say, "Elect me and I'LL MAKE THE UNITED STATES ENERGY INDEPENDENT IN MY FIRST TERM".
More importantly, Why in the Hell wouldn't John McCain be saying that, WERE IT TRUE?
I love the way the Paranoids' Mind runs in circles, constantly sealing any cracks that appear in their paranoid theories almost as fast as they happen.
Also, riddle me this Mr. Wizard...The Republicans were in charge for TWELVE YEARS. Why in the Hell, IF you are correct, didn't THEY champion this? If this is such a DAMN GOOD DEAL why are only a handful of speculators (whom I consider to be modern day alchemists, trying to turn something worthless into something priceless) putting any money into this?
I'm not talking about the couple of Million Shell is throwing into it just to shut their investors up, I mean REAL MONEY. If it were truly this valuable, they would be spending BILLIONS on the leases THEY ALREADY OWN.
I'm afraid you've drank the "Shale Oil will fix everything" kool-aid.
"Don't be a martyr -- BE THE ONE WHO GOT AWAY!"
So yes, the Republicans tried to increase domestic drilling, and for the last 20 years the Democrats have been the obstructionists.
And the Republicans were not in charge for 12 years; rather, there were 4 years total where they had a 1 vote majority with the Bush administration. Prior to that, there was a Democrat in the Oval Office. For two years at the beginning of the Bush administration the Democrats held the Senate. And the Democrats have held Congress since 2006.
Speculators in the oil market? Of course they're not betting on the US - the pattern and history are solid with Democrats opposing any and all additional domestic production. What kind of environment is that when companies will be prevented from exploration and production?
Senator McCain is calling for more domestic drilling AND nuclear, both of which Senator Obama opposes. The Republicans have been pushing for increased exploration for decades, and the Democrats have held up. And now it finally comes to a head with Nancy Pelosi refusing to even allow a vote on the issue.
NOTHING is going to make us energy independent in 1 term; in 10 years, yes. We can have all the oil we need flowing from oil shale within 10 years. We can have all the electricity we want with nuclear. And we can do it in a decade, and keep doing it for nearly 3 more centuries.
Why Obama and the Democrats refuse to allow us to use our own resources - at a price 1/3rd what we pay others to give to us - is simply boggling. It's politics and class warfare; no other reason could possibly make sense.
If you like $4/gallon gas, and $3.80/gallon heating oil, thank your DEMOCRAT Congress.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
âoeThere is still a lot of oil to develop out there, which is why we donâ(TM)t call this geological peak oil, especially in places like Venezuela, Russia, Iran and Iraq,â said Arjun Murti, an energy analyst at Goldman Sachs. âoeWhat we have now is geopolitical peak oil.â
Oil shortages are not from lack of desire by the oil companies, or lack of technology or existing resources. Oil shortages - and the corresponding high prices - are because Governments, who overwhelmingly control the oil resources (87%) are restricting supply.
And countries with huge resources - like the US - are sitting by, fiddling as the economy burns to the ground.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
I use Propane, thank you very much :)
"Don't be a martyr -- BE THE ONE WHO GOT AWAY!"
Oh, and you might find this NY Times article enlightening, especially the following:
.
âoeThere is still a lot of oil to develop out there, which is why we donâ(TM)t call this geological peak oil, especially in places like Venezuela, Russia, Iran and Iraq,â said Arjun Murti, an energy analyst at Goldman Sachs. âoeWhat we have now is geopolitical peak oil.â
Oil shortages are not from lack of desire by the oil companies, or lack of technology or existing resources. Oil shortages - and the corresponding high prices - are because Governments, who overwhelmingly control the oil resources (87%) are restricting supply.
And countries with huge resources - like the US - are sitting by, fiddling as the economy burns to the ground.
This conspiracy theory has been put forward before and disproven.
There is no way in God's green Earth that SOMEONE, with these TRILLIONS and TRILLIONS of dollars to be made by increasing to a (virtually) unlimited supply something as indefensible, WOULD NOT have brought these things to market.
You can't convince me that GREED is that powerless a motivator. Whether by countries, or individuals.
"Don't be a martyr -- BE THE ONE WHO GOT AWAY!"
Nothing wrong with trying to educate those across the pond to this fact. No needs to rewrite history or anything.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Most people I know couldn't WAIT to leave home the minute they turned 18 and, now, might be making more than me, but are pocketing LESS.
Less money perhaps. They do however quite likely pocket a lot more freedom, alcohol, pot, slutty sixteen year olds, social contact with peers, random trips, and so on. Are those worth it? You bet. And I bet things would have to go seriously wrong before any of your friends would even consider moving back home. Living on your own might cost more, but some benefits are simply priceless.
I hate people who sit on their asses and wonder why s__t just falls on their shoes, instead of looking in the mirror and realizing THEY are in control of their lives.
Well that's because the system is entirely different on paper then it is in practice. On paper, it's "We the people" but in practice, it's "We the Party". The problem is I think a majority of people get disheartened by their politicians, even on the local level, that aren't voting their beliefs, but rather their political affiliation. When you every vote in the Senate and House that go right down party lines, with one or two exceptions, it's depressing and disheartening. The reason people feel like there is a big.* conspiracy pushing the national agenda is because most of the time, there is.
As far as the "government" being the bad guy, I'd like to explain how I see it. The "government" is made up of people. People who want power. I feel like very few politicians are in their positions to help out the country. They may start out that way on the city council or whatever, but I think they learn very quickly that politics is not about making the country better, and more about individual power and party power.
I think to a degree, it's a bit of human nature too. I mean, the guy who works in the restaurant manages to get his friends and family free booze or a free meal once in a while and I don't think it's that different in politics. It's just that we feel like our politicians should be above that and they're not. Then we see all the hypocrisy played out in the media, for example Newt waving his finger at Clinton's affair all the while having his own torrid affair, and it tends to make people feel disheartened about the system and not necessarily about the person. And who can blame them? (us)
If people in power want to gain the respect of the masses, they need to stop all the bullshit rhetoric, think of their people before their party and do what they say they're going to do.
You'll have that sometimes...
Second, if the Shuttle's thermal protection system, the ceramic tiles that line its belly and protect it during atmospheric reentry, were made of something more durable
This is due to the budget cuts I mentioned. Had they not occurred, the tps wouldn't have been the same borosilicate glass on a ceramic tile structure.
"I zero-index my hamsters" - Willtor (147206)
Second, if the Shuttle's thermal protection system, the ceramic tiles that line its belly and protect it during atmospheric reentry, were made of something more durable
This is due to the budget cuts I mentioned. Had they not occurred, the tps wouldn't have been the same borosilicate glass on a ceramic tile structure.
No, it's the result of a bad design decision. The budget cuts were expected. What went wrong here was that NASA designed a vehicle that was suboptimal and too big for the funding environment. Then they had to take various steps to fund the vehicle, including grabbing funding from the DoD, expanding the capabilities of the vehicle in order to attract more funding, etc. Frankly, it made no sense back then to run a vehicle that needs around 40 launches a year to be economical, could send seven people into space, or had these high fixed costs. If from the start, they had gone with a smaller and less capable vehicle, with lower mass to crosssectional area, they wouldn't have these funding or safety problems. In other words, design could have solved the funding problem.
It's also worth noting that NASA has chosen to keep the current tiles. I assume this is because NASA doesn't have a facility sufficient to test new tile materials except on a Shuttle itself during reentry. Given there are only three shuttles (funding again) left, NASA can't risk a shuttle to test out a new technology.
To summarize, claiming that Shuttle failures are due to not enough funding ignores that NASA could have developed less ambitious vehicles that better fit the funding environment that everyone knew was coming. So instead of getting vehicles that furthered NASA's goals in space, NASA got vehicles that depleted NASA's budget for its other activities. As the saying goes, the Shuttle sucked the oxygen out of the room. This is why I consider the original Shuttle design the worst mistake NASA has ever made.
I think that's pretty much irrelevant. The crossing party lines thing works for McCain because - according to the American people - the Republicans have dead ass wrong on almost everything. Crossing party lines is an asset when your party is seen negatively.
With that said Obama did get the non-proliferation bill passed with Senator Lugar and worked to pass a significant ethics bill - which is never popular with incumbents. I don't think that he is some sort of super legislator, but I think you're being simplistic in confining bi-partisanship solely to whether he crossed party lines on votes.
Also, I don't really think the way that those "liberal" vs. conservative ratings are made is all that trustworthy. I guess if you think that there could never ever be a good tax or regulation therefore a vote against one is "liberal." I'm as much for the free market as anyone, but I need a little more nuance before I can accept those ratings.
Dissolve... Resolve... Evolve...
That's all fine. Similarly, the cause for death in automobile accidents is getting into the car. Or if we don't take your view, we can also say that swerving into the oncoming lane was also a mistake.
In this particular case the cost would have been minimal and was well within the budget as it had been established for the decade before the Columbia disintegration. The replacement had already been tested successfully. The remaining barriers were in manufacturing. Given the number of major aerospace companies that had been competing to make a replacement TPS, at least they thought it wasn't likely that the budget would be cut so drastically that the program would disappear. Then after 9/11, budgets were cut without any attention to detail. There was still an expectation that expensive shuttle missions would continue, but essential programs related to them were cut. It probably would have been more prudent if the shuttle budget had been cut in other areas to keep safety projects alive. This project in particular would have saved NASA a lot of maintenance costs, even ignoring the disaster it would have averted.
You're arguing that the shuttle itself was a poor decision on NASA's part for budgetary reasons. Sure, why not? Given that, I'm arguing that NASA made further budgetary mistakes because of a culture of panic following 9/11, and that those mistakes contributed to the danger to Columbia.
"I zero-index my hamsters" - Willtor (147206)
That's all fine. Similarly, the cause for death in automobile accidents is getting into the car. Or if we don't take your view, we can also say that swerving into the oncoming lane was also a mistake.
Fair summary. I think to extend the analogy, maybe it is decided that the vehicle in question is an extremely high performance humvee. In order to make the humvee fit under budget and weight constraints, they end up taking some equipment off like perhaps the heavy bumpers and some of the internal structure. These decisions in turn increase the harm the driver experiences when they get into an accident. And as you note, the number one cause of automobile accidents is getting into the car. There's an inevitability to accidents. But these accidents don't necessarily result in fatalities.
And yes, I think you've adequately characterized the decision as bad for budgetary reasons. My point here is that budgetary matters are part of the engineering problem for a design. If a design is bad for budgetary reasons that are known at the time, then that is a design mistake just like the other mistakes you can do during this phase.
nonesense, I have family and cash to back it up, and won't go bankrupt paying for the doctor visit, and won't have my children starve.
If I was "Retired" and old, and family-less, and had to choose between food and medicine, I wouldn't steal the money from you to pay for either.
and you are advocating touchy feely notions of a society that just doesn't exist, it's not about value to society so much as it's about who would miss them. Utlimately we're all just dust in the wind, but when we go back to dust is important.
it's not a question of what they deserve, we get what we get because random chance, the rough hand of nature and our own choices cause us the problems we experience, it's not a question of deserve or justice or anything like that
That guy at Tim Horton's (who would have had a great donut 10 years ago, but today, not so much) can choose to better himself.
You honestly believe Social Security will one day, just cease to exist?
No, it won't cease to exist in an official sense, it will just continue to pay out increasingly smaller amounts of benefits while soaking the taxpayers for more and more of their income. Given the absolutely abysmal levels of interest earned on the Social Security pool, Social Security cannot possibly be more than a Ponzi scheme that will get weaker and weaker as the ratio of retirees to workers keeps rising.
Downmodding is the refuge of the weak. Don't downmod, make a better argument!