Your final point is incoherent. You believe that corporations give money, but don't expect anything in return. You believe that politicians accept money, but don't expect they have to do anything in return. Which brings up the critical point: If nobody expects anything, why are all these checks being written?
One of the newer fund-raising techniques being used is to:
1) Pick a victim,
2) Write a piece of Legislation that would seriously damage the victim,
3) Start the legislation through the process of becoming law,
4) Visit the victim, making sure that he knows you could be convinced to abandon said legislation for a suitable bribe...er, campaign donation,
5) Wait while victim writes the check,
6) Go back and pull the Bill from the docket,
7) Repeat the following year.
Often as not, it's not the businesses controlling the policitians, but the politicians blackmailing the businesses. Yes, blackmail is such an ugly word, but it frequently fits very well in describing how politicians ask for campaign contributions from businesses.
Seriously, could someone please explain to me one more time how it is that this man was even re-elected?
In a nutshell, his major opponent was an imbecile who couldn't campaign his way out of a wet paper bag - he lied when he should have told the truth, and told the truth when he should have lied.
Just how stupid is America?
Not quite stupid enough to let the Agriculture and Fishery Meeting adopt Software Patents for all of Europe without a vote, but beyond that, no brighter than anyone else.
It's always interesting to see people who assume that THEIR interests should be assumed by a foreign government. Hint: the EU government, nor any member nation has my best interests at heart (these days, I'm not even sure it has the European people's best interests at heart). The US government doesn't have the best interests of Europe or Europeans at heart (and it may not have the best interests of the American people at heart - at least not the hlaf that's out of power at any given time). And that (the non-parenthetical part) is the way it should be.
A company can sucker people with shell-games like you describe, and then default and walk away. I don't think our government is doing that. There are things companies can do which governments can't, and vice-versa, because the motives of the two are completely different.
In this case, it's not about motives, it's about means. A corporation can't just raise prices across the board without losing customers (unless it's a monopoly, of course). A government can, by raising taxes, do exactly that.
And how would people notice that the government was playing a shellgame with the money/trust-fund? The only possible hint that they are is if the solution finally voted on to keep Social Security solvent is to raise Social Security taxes.
We've seen the government give us Perpetual Copyright on the installment plan. If they raise the Social Security (not Income or other taxes, mind, but Social Security tax) tax in the near future to the point where the breka-even point on Social Security disbursements is pushed out another twenty years or so, then we can be pretty sure that's the route they'll take in 20 years.
And that route is the one where they get to spend the Social Security revenues any way they like, and NEVER buy back those T-Bills stacking up in the Social Security vaults.
Keep an eye on this one. Keeping Social Security solvent WILL require tax increases. It's just a question of which taxes, and when. If the final decision involves raising income taxes to keep SS going, then fine, the Trust Fund has some meaning. If it involves raising SS taxes, then the government has palmed the pea, and you're playing in a rigged shellgame.
If the government fails to pay back US Treasury notes, even to itself,
The lovely thing about paying back T-Bills to yourself is that noone can actually tell whether you did it. You tax people, you buy backs some T-Bills (move money from left pocket to right), you take money out of right pocket and pay some bills. Alternatively, you tax people, you DON'T buy back some T-Bills, you take money out of the left pocket and pay some bills. Notice how the bills get paid whether the T-Bills are redeemed or not?
If you remove the Trust Fund from equations, then you also have to remove it from the national debt (which includes money owed to the trust fund), which decreases the need for revenue by exactly the same amount you're referring to.
This is more or less true. Since about 40% of our National Debt is the "Social Security Trust Fund", our National Debt is much lower than most give it credit for being. In fact, our PUBLIC Debt (the part that's NOT the Trust Fund) declined for the last four years of Clinton's terms, and the first year of the Younger Bush's. It only started to rise after 9/11.
However...that doesn't mean that the revenue requirements go down. Revenue requirements are based on Social Security OUTLAYS, not on Social Security Revenues. We have been taking in ~$200 billion EXTRA Social Security taxes every year for the last few (dozen? not sure when it happened), but we've been spending it as it goes along. And we haven't been paying interest on the Intragovernmental Debt, since none of those T-Bills has been redeemed. That'll start in 2018 (barring any changes in Tax rates, mortality rates, etc). Then we'll be taking in in Social Security taxes as much as we need, and the ~$200 billion per year that had been going to the general fund will stop being "intragovernmental Debt", and start being "Public Debt" - which latter we have to pay interest on whenever the T-Bills come due, not just ignore them quietly like we've been doing.
So, more taxes. Either that, or we find some sucker to buy our T-Bills. Note that we'll have to sell about 50% more per year then than now, to cover the Debt. Or, more likely, raise taxes - my guess being Social Security taxes, since we can carefully hide the shell game with the Trust Fund if we never have to redeem any of it.
Again, we pay more taxes either way, so we can safely treat the "Trust Fund" as a legal fiction. Note, by the way, that if a Corproation were to manage its Pension Plan the way Social Security is done (by lending the Pension Fund to itself and spending the money received), the CEO/CFO/Board of Directors/many other officers of the corp would be doing time in Federal Prison.
Did you actually follow the link you posted? Even it concedes that Spider-man was "half Stan Lee". It also mentions that the scripts were the Stan Lee contribution - Ditko did the artwork.
It is extremely unlikely that Steve Ditko had a contract quite as generous as Stan Lee's, so it is extremely unlikely that Steve Ditko should get any of the money mentioned (that's Stan Lee's share of the pie, regardless of the money due to anyone else).
"Idiot argument"??? I should have timed how long it would take for this discussion to devolve into ad hominem.
The argument was idiotic, not yourself.
You argue that the Trust Fund "circumscribes the behavior of future legislatures". I argue that it does no such thing. It requires only that they carefully conceal the nature of what they do from the general public.
By your argument, if the Federal Government were to decide to guarantee every living American $1,000,000, then establish a "Trust Fund" to handle the process, then that process would, by definition, be achieved. In spite of a $300 trillion price tag.
My argument is that if the effect of having the "Trust Fund" is exactly the same as NOT having it, it does not exist. Since its existance is not necessary to explain the behaviour of the Government (or anything else), it is better to assume the non-existance of the thing.
Or do you believe that if there were NO "Trust Fund", that the government would NOT suffer an "ensuing sh*t storm" if it repealed Social Security? Trust me, whether the T-Bills sit in the office or no, the Government must be extremely careful in their handling of the Social Security Tax receipts - hence the "Trust Fund", to conceal the fact that they are spending the money as fast as it comes in, and reporting this spent money as a "surplus in Social Security".
I was speaking of "we" as in "the tazpaying citizens of the USA", not as in "you and me".
I find it interesting that you have no problems with the idea of taxing OTHER PEOPLE to pay for your share of the Federal Treasury. Personally, I find that a reprehensible thing, but I'm odd that way.
The existence of the Trust Fund guarantees that SS benefits will be funded beyond 2018, come hell or high water.
Nonsense! The government could pass a law tomorrow abolishing the "Trust Fund", and returning the T-Bills it contains to the Federal Treasury. Since they are an IOU the Government wrote to itself, the action would have zero effect on whether Social Security were funded.
In addition, the Government could quite easily pass a law establishing "means testing" for SS benefits, set them so stringently that noone would qualify, and just keep on collecting Social Security taxes, and "lending" said tax receipts to the General Fund.
You really should get a grip on the idea that nothing really restrains the Government from passing a new law, other than fear they'll lose the next election. The more solidly the Districts are defined so as to guarantee election of a member of a particular Party, the more likely they are to believe they can get away with anything.
I argue that saying "the Trust Fund does not exist" is equivalent to saying "its bonds will be defaulted". They mean the same
Idiot argument. The Bonds can be defaulted whether the Trust Fund were real or not. And the Trust Fund could be perfectly real and valid, whether the Bonds they held were worth something or not.
I am arguing that if having the Trust Fund requires exactly the same financial behaviour as not having the Trust Fund, then it doesn't exist. So if the government must raise taxes to pay for SS benefits starting in 2018 (which it does, since it will have to get the money to pay off those T-Bills somewhere), then for all practical purposed, there is no Trust Fund.
You may argue that the T-Bills represent a promise, and so make the Trust Fund real and actual, but whether the promise is made or not, the taxes must be raised, so it's meaningless.
Whose taxes will they raise? No idea at all. Probably everyone's SS taxes will go up, which, interestingly, will make sure that the "money" in the "Trust Fund" will never really be touched. Possibly they'll do it in Income taxes, though (not likely, since that would expose the Trust Fund for what it really is - meaningless). By 2053 or so, the taxes must be raised from (currently) 12.7% to about 17% to keep the books balanced.
Not accounting for possible increases in benefits, and increases in lifespan between now and then. I suggest looking over the last 50 years for trends as to how the benefits and life-expectancy will change, and extrapolating from there.
"This piece of crap software isn't guaranteed to do anything useful, in fact, it may even destroy things you previously owned, for which destruction we are not liable, because we warned you it was both worthless and dangerous
"But...
"If you should DARE to copy this Priceless Jewel of a program, for any reason at all, then we will hound you to the end of the world or until the end of time, whichever comes last"
You're very keen to try and draw analogies with WWII, but like most analogies on slashdot, it's just pointless and silly. You seem to have missed out on the main point - that Saddam "invaded" Kuwait with what he believed to be the support of the US. Likewise, the US was actively supporting Iraq against the Iranians. It may well be that his "invasion" of Iraq was a "bad" thing, but it's far far worse for a country to encourage such an action, actively help such an action, then turn around and use that as an excuse to attack.
So, Hitler can be excused for his invasion of Czechoslovakia because he had the approval of the UK and France? Or do you not remember Neville Chamberlain and "peace in our time"? Must have been pretty evil of Britain - perhaps we should have been on the German side in WW2, to punish the Brits for their perfidy.
Unfortunately, there are a great many parallels between WW2 and other events - it wasn't anywhere near as unique as many people (you included, obviously) seem to think. Even the Concentration Camps weren't unique, though the scale of the German effort in that regard was certainly unsurpassed in recent history. I point out the Boer Wars as examples of the use of Concentration Camps. And, arguably, the American habit of putting the Amerinds on "Reservations" (the Reservations may have been a bit large to be properly considered "concentration camps" - one was the size of Oklahoma - in fact, one WAS Oklahoma)
Let's see, countries actively helping one another to do something, then attacking one another - Germany and the USSR comes to mind. They were allies, who, among other things, cooperated in development of tanks, and the invasion and dismemberment of Poland. Alas, both were planning on invading the other when the time was right - it happened to be "right" for the Germans before it was "right" for the Russians, so the Russians ended up as OUR allies.
And of course, one must remember the United Nations. Of which Iraq was a member. Surely you remember that part? Article One of the UN Charter (which Iraq had signed onto, if you'll remember) states, in part:
To maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace;
Now, it can be argued that the USA is guilty of that same offence (which you are trying to assert, not very successfully). The guilt or absence of guilt of the USA is irrelevant to the question of Iraq's guilt. And vice versa, of course.
I tend to think that those UN Resolutions that the USA pushed through granted a pass to teh USA in terms of attacking Iraq (that would come under "take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace"), but it is certainly arguable, by those who like to argue.
The Federal Goernment has no Rights at all. It has Powers. That said:
Does it have the Power to build roads? Possibly. Probably not, though, since they don't even claim that Power today. Note that all roads (even the Interestate Highway system) are actually built and maintained by the States. The Federal government DOES provide a substantial portion of the costs of the Interstate system, mind, so perhaps they are claiming that Power.
Does it have the Power to buy land for Federal Parks? It doesn't actually have to do so, since it owns all lands not previously claimed by a private individual, or a State. Note the Homestead Act, where the Federal Government granted homestead rights to individuals who wished to lay claim to unseated land in the terrritories.
Beyond that, buying land is quite legal, pretty much anywhere. Taking land without paying is a whole other issue, but we're not talking about that.
Does it have the Power to buy Louisiana and Alaska? Yes, definitely. If it can buy land from private individuals, surely it can do so from other governments that are stupid enough to sell.
Does it have the Power to put up a monument? Yes.
Note that paying for those things comes under the Power to collect taxes, which was severly circumscribed before the Income Tax Amendment was passed.
Welfare? Not what you think it does, quite. Nor does that phrase give the Federal GOvernment Powers not explicitly granted. Though I concede that the Federal Government has been using that clause, and the Interstate Commerce Clause, to justify a great many things that would have been deemed unconstitutional 100 years ago, much less 200 years ago.
Note that words change usage over time. "Awful, pompous, and artificial" was once used to describe a Cathedral. At the time, it was a compliment to the designers and builders. It was equivalent, in modern usage to "Awesome, filled with grandeur, and made by men". In the same time period "meat" meant, more or less, what "bread" does today. At that time, a steak wasn't "meat", it was "flesh" (or, far more likely, a "steak"). As an example from a later period "regulated" once meant "trained" - as in "A well regulated militia" was equivalent to "a well-trained militia" (in modern terms).
That said, it must also be remembered that "United States" was plural at that time, not singular. "Provide for the general welfare of the United States" meant that the Federal Government could provide for the general welfare of the States, not the People of said States.
Much of this was changed with FDR. Who pushed laws through that he knew were unconstitutional (his Attorney General told him so in several cases), and threatened to pack the Supreme Court with Yes-men to get them to approve the laws come the inevitable challenge. The Supremes of that time caved, and let him have his unconstitutional laws, in order to prevent the packing of the Supreme Court (which would have destroyed the Constitutional function of the Court).
After FDR proved it could be done, every Congress/President since then has been pushing the boundaries a bit farther.
Note that FDR, by passing his unconstitutional laws, may very well have averted a military coup in the USA (such a coup was in the planning stages in the 30's), or a civil war. Note further that I am divided in my opinions of what he did. I tend to believe that he made some short-term decisions that were utterly necessary, but that had long-term consequences that were utterly deplorable. But we'll see about that, when the long term has come and gone....
Hitler's tanks never posed a threat to the USA either. Nor did his Navy or Air Force.
It was well known in German military circles in the '30s that the USA was the 800# gorilla in that day and age.
General Heinz Guderian made the point that while German industrial capacity was comparable to France, the UK, or the USSR, it was dwarfed by the USA. Subsequent events showed that he was exactly right.
Note, however, that we didn't go to war with Germany because it posed a threat to us. And we didn't do it because they declared war on us. We did it because we didn't want to let Hitler control Europe (if he had, his industrial capacity (including all the conquered industry) would have been almost 30% of our industrial capacity - still not a threat to us).
Saddam didn't invade "the Middle East". His forces may have been within Iranian territory at times during the Iran-Iraq war (but it should be noted that he was a friend of the West at the time; indeed he had backing and assistance from the US, both during the war and during the now infamous chemical attack at Halabja). That leaves Kuwait as the only "sovereign territory" that Saddam "invaded".
No, and Hitler didn't invade "Europe" - He invaded Poland and France and Belgium, and the Netherlands,and Greece and the USSR. Among others. He didn't invade the UK, or Spain or Italy or Portugal, or Bulgaria, or Romania. Among others.
Saddam having forces within Iranian territory sounds like an invasion to me. I can't see what else you call it when some other guy's Army is on your land. Same with Kuwait.
And Hitler had the (More than) tacit approval to invade Czechoslovakia - does that make such invasion "right"? I don't think so, in either Hitler's or Saddam's cases.
The fact that Saddam was a "friend of the West" doesn't make his invasion of Iran any better a thing. Any more than the fact that Hitler was fighting Communism (check the papers of the time - before Hitler invaded the USSR, the USSR was one of the West's bogeymen. Afterwards, they were our "courageous allies") excuses his invasion of the USSR.
A single year is meaningless. It's the trends that are important.
And I wasn't making the point that gridlock makes better budgets. Note that the worst budgets were with a gridlocked government (Reagan era). And the best were with a gridlocked government (latter six years of CLinton era).
I suspect that, all things being equal (they never are, of course), the "best" budgets come immediately after a CHANGE in the House of Representatives. I think budget deficits will tend to be worse the longer the Republicans control the House, then get better when the Dems take control back. Then get worse the longer the Dems have control, repeating ad inifinitum.
Unfortunately, there are too many factors that aren't controlled for in my "suspicion" as to the nature of the budget deficit. Raw budget numbers and inflation are a pretty limited subset of the economic data that impacted the budgets for the last 28 years.
As a f'rinstance, the Federal Debt increased at a 50% annual rate during WW2. 1% inflation, plus a ~50% increase rate suggest a government totally out of control. Add in a World War, and you suddenly start wondering how they managed so SMALL an increase in Debt.
There are a lot of reasons for an increasing Debt. Most of them are bad, some are good. I happen to think winning WW2 was a good one. I also happen to think driving the Soviet Union out of business was a good thing.
I'm not so happy about increasing Debt to pay the routine bills (which we did during Clinton's terms, Carter's, the Elder Bush's)- if we don't get to the point where we balance our budget except for really unusual situations, we're going to be looking at some really bad times by and by.
Islam has similar dietary guidelines - not eating pork, that sort of thing. A kosher meal is more likely to fit the Islamic definition of "good food" than a non-Kosher meal is.
From 1992-1994, the Federal Debt increased $628,129,254,491.66. That's about 7.4% per year. Adjusted for inflation, that's 4.4%. Those are the two years that the Democrats controlled the purse strings during Clinton's terms.
From 1995-2000, the Federal Debt increased $981,428,299,873.54. That's about 3.2% per year. Adjusted for inflation, that's 0.9%. Those are the six years the Republicans controlled the purse strings during Clinton's terms.
From 2001-2004, the Federal Debt increased $1,704,874,486,443.46. That's a whopping 6.8% per year. Adjusted for inflation, that's 4.9%
For reference, closest time in recent memory to the poitical situation we have now, but with party's reversed, would have been Carter's term in office. It's not terribly close, mind you.
From 1977-1980, the Federal Debt increased $276,666,000,000 (these figures are not as precise as the others, presumably because the source (Bureau of Public Debt, part of the Treasury Department) didn't actually exist then). That's about 9.2% per year. Adjusted for inflation, that's 1.4%.
Or Clinton's situation, reversed - when Reagan was in office.
From 1981-1988, the Federal Debt increased $1,672,128,000,000. That's about 13.7% per year. Adjusted for inflation, that's 8.0%.
I included the rate of change, since it is the most relevant factor, really.
Note that the lowest growth rate occurred when the Republicans controlled the House for the first time in 40 years. Note that the highest was when the Democrats controlled the House (toward the tail-end of that 40-year control). Note that I didn't bother to check the numbers for the first Bush, because I forgot about him completely.
Note further that averaged over the last 28 years, the Federal Debt has risen at an average rate of 5.7% per year, adjusted for inflation. Considerably higher than during the last four years, I might add.
If the shuttle had a fuel tank the size of the moon, it still wouldnt even be able to get up to 1/10th the speed of light! (this is due to the mass of the liquid oxygen)
Umm, no. It is due to the specific impulse of chemical fuel.
If the Shuttle had a fuel tank the size of the moon, and were using a scramjet (yes, it's impossible, but we can play what-if games), and the fuel tank had zero empty mass (it's a big ball of LH2, supported by our goodwill), then the deltaV of the Shuttle would be on the order of 0.33% of lightspeed.
Note that that 1/3 of 1% (of c) deltaV only required three impossible conditions to achieve.
My, you haven't read your Constitution or Federalist Papers recently, have you?
If it was not SPECIFICALLY ALLOWED by the Constitution, then it was, by definition, forbidden to the Federal Government.
This, in fact, is why the Bill of Rights was opposed by some of the Founding Fathers - since the Feds weren't specifically given the power to limit free speech, or religion, or the ownership of firearms, then they couldn't do it, and repeating that they couldn't in the Bill of Rights was redundant. From The Federalist Papers, number 80, by Alexander Hamliton:
I go further, and affirm that bills of rights, in the sense and to the extent in which they are contended for, are not only unnecessary in the proposed Constitution, but would even be dangerous. They would contain various exceptions to powers not granted; and, on this very account, would afford a colorable pretext to claim more than were granted. For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do? Why, for instance, should it be said that the liberty of the press shall not be restrained, when no power is given by which restrictions may be imposed? I will not contend that such a provision would confer a regulating power; but it is evident that it would furnish, to men disposed to usurp, a plausible pretense for claiming that power. They might urge with a semblance of reason, that the Constitution ought not to be charged with the absurdity of providing against the abuse of an authority which was not given, and that the provision against restraining the liberty of the press afforded a clear implication, that a power to prescribe proper regulations concerning it was intended to be vested in the national government. This may serve as a specimen of the numerous handles which would be given to the doctrine of constructive powers, by the indulgence of an injudicious zeal for bills of rights.
I used to think he was an idiot for opposing the Bill of Rights, until I read that particular remark, and realized how much mileage the government has gotten out of exactly that sort of reasoning.
Great idea! Of course, that means that if you are going to have an income of less than $25,000, it might as well be zero, so don't bother saving for retirement.
Means testing will have a negligible effect on Social Security outlays, since any test you define can be gamed quite easily.
1) The Social Security Trust Fund is a series of IOU's from the Treasury.
And stock is just a series of IOU's from corporations, and bank accounts are just a series of IOU's from the banks, etc. How is Social Security's investment in the Treasury any different than any other investment in anything?
Stock is an IOU (well, not really, but let's assume it is for the sake of argument) that a company gives to someone else.
The Social Security Trust Fund is an IOU that the government gives to itself. Imagine that you looked in your wallet and found $5 there. And then realized that you needed $8. So you take three dollars out of your wallet, and stick them in your pocket. And put an IOU for $3 in your wallet. So the $3 in your pocket, plus the $2 in your wallet, plus the IOU add up to $8. You're good to go, right?
That's what the Social Security Trust Fund is. An IOU you write to yourself, so you'll have the money to pay the rent after you spend everything you have at the Casino.
..basically build the elevator on the ground, make it long enough (say, would 500 miles long do it? 1000?
30,000 miles. That's a good starting guesstimate. You might be able to do it in 25,000, you might not - depends on how large the mass that you use as a tensioner at the upper end is. It can't be less than (longer than geosynchronous orbit) though, which puts the absolute minimum over 22,000 miles.
Slashdot Mirror
One of the newer fund-raising techniques being used is to:
1) Pick a victim,
2) Write a piece of Legislation that would seriously damage the victim,
3) Start the legislation through the process of becoming law,
4) Visit the victim, making sure that he knows you could be convinced to abandon said legislation for a suitable bribe...er, campaign donation,
5) Wait while victim writes the check,
6) Go back and pull the Bill from the docket,
7) Repeat the following year.
Often as not, it's not the businesses controlling the policitians, but the politicians blackmailing the businesses. Yes, blackmail is such an ugly word, but it frequently fits very well in describing how politicians ask for campaign contributions from businesses.
The British declared war on Germany on 3 September, 1939, just two days after the invasion of Poland began.
They're talking about the die-off before the Dinosaurs, not after.
Did Richard Perle bother to explain just which laws the invasion violated? Or did he just assert the illegality without explanation?
In a nutshell, his major opponent was an imbecile who couldn't campaign his way out of a wet paper bag - he lied when he should have told the truth, and told the truth when he should have lied.
Just how stupid is America?
Not quite stupid enough to let the Agriculture and Fishery Meeting adopt Software Patents for all of Europe without a vote, but beyond that, no brighter than anyone else.
It's always interesting to see people who assume that THEIR interests should be assumed by a foreign government. Hint: the EU government, nor any member nation has my best interests at heart (these days, I'm not even sure it has the European people's best interests at heart). The US government doesn't have the best interests of Europe or Europeans at heart (and it may not have the best interests of the American people at heart - at least not the hlaf that's out of power at any given time). And that (the non-parenthetical part) is the way it should be.
In this case, it's not about motives, it's about means. A corporation can't just raise prices across the board without losing customers (unless it's a monopoly, of course). A government can, by raising taxes, do exactly that.
And how would people notice that the government was playing a shellgame with the money/trust-fund? The only possible hint that they are is if the solution finally voted on to keep Social Security solvent is to raise Social Security taxes.
We've seen the government give us Perpetual Copyright on the installment plan. If they raise the Social Security (not Income or other taxes, mind, but Social Security tax) tax in the near future to the point where the breka-even point on Social Security disbursements is pushed out another twenty years or so, then we can be pretty sure that's the route they'll take in 20 years.
And that route is the one where they get to spend the Social Security revenues any way they like, and NEVER buy back those T-Bills stacking up in the Social Security vaults.
Keep an eye on this one. Keeping Social Security solvent WILL require tax increases. It's just a question of which taxes, and when. If the final decision involves raising income taxes to keep SS going, then fine, the Trust Fund has some meaning. If it involves raising SS taxes, then the government has palmed the pea, and you're playing in a rigged shellgame.
The lovely thing about paying back T-Bills to yourself is that noone can actually tell whether you did it. You tax people, you buy backs some T-Bills (move money from left pocket to right), you take money out of right pocket and pay some bills. Alternatively, you tax people, you DON'T buy back some T-Bills, you take money out of the left pocket and pay some bills. Notice how the bills get paid whether the T-Bills are redeemed or not?
If you remove the Trust Fund from equations, then you also have to remove it from the national debt (which includes money owed to the trust fund), which decreases the need for revenue by exactly the same amount you're referring to.
This is more or less true. Since about 40% of our National Debt is the "Social Security Trust Fund", our National Debt is much lower than most give it credit for being. In fact, our PUBLIC Debt (the part that's NOT the Trust Fund) declined for the last four years of Clinton's terms, and the first year of the Younger Bush's. It only started to rise after 9/11.
However...that doesn't mean that the revenue requirements go down. Revenue requirements are based on Social Security OUTLAYS, not on Social Security Revenues. We have been taking in ~$200 billion EXTRA Social Security taxes every year for the last few (dozen? not sure when it happened), but we've been spending it as it goes along. And we haven't been paying interest on the Intragovernmental Debt, since none of those T-Bills has been redeemed. That'll start in 2018 (barring any changes in Tax rates, mortality rates, etc). Then we'll be taking in in Social Security taxes as much as we need, and the ~$200 billion per year that had been going to the general fund will stop being "intragovernmental Debt", and start being "Public Debt" - which latter we have to pay interest on whenever the T-Bills come due, not just ignore them quietly like we've been doing.
So, more taxes. Either that, or we find some sucker to buy our T-Bills. Note that we'll have to sell about 50% more per year then than now, to cover the Debt. Or, more likely, raise taxes - my guess being Social Security taxes, since we can carefully hide the shell game with the Trust Fund if we never have to redeem any of it.
Again, we pay more taxes either way, so we can safely treat the "Trust Fund" as a legal fiction. Note, by the way, that if a Corproation were to manage its Pension Plan the way Social Security is done (by lending the Pension Fund to itself and spending the money received), the CEO/CFO/Board of Directors/many other officers of the corp would be doing time in Federal Prison.
Did you actually follow the link you posted? Even it concedes that Spider-man was "half Stan Lee". It also mentions that the scripts were the Stan Lee contribution - Ditko did the artwork.
It is extremely unlikely that Steve Ditko had a contract quite as generous as Stan Lee's, so it is extremely unlikely that Steve Ditko should get any of the money mentioned (that's Stan Lee's share of the pie, regardless of the money due to anyone else).
The argument was idiotic, not yourself.
You argue that the Trust Fund "circumscribes the behavior of future legislatures". I argue that it does no such thing. It requires only that they carefully conceal the nature of what they do from the general public.
By your argument, if the Federal Government were to decide to guarantee every living American $1,000,000, then establish a "Trust Fund" to handle the process, then that process would, by definition, be achieved. In spite of a $300 trillion price tag.
My argument is that if the effect of having the "Trust Fund" is exactly the same as NOT having it, it does not exist. Since its existance is not necessary to explain the behaviour of the Government (or anything else), it is better to assume the non-existance of the thing.
Or do you believe that if there were NO "Trust Fund", that the government would NOT suffer an "ensuing sh*t storm" if it repealed Social Security? Trust me, whether the T-Bills sit in the office or no, the Government must be extremely careful in their handling of the Social Security Tax receipts - hence the "Trust Fund", to conceal the fact that they are spending the money as fast as it comes in, and reporting this spent money as a "surplus in Social Security".
I find it interesting that you have no problems with the idea of taxing OTHER PEOPLE to pay for your share of the Federal Treasury. Personally, I find that a reprehensible thing, but I'm odd that way.
The existence of the Trust Fund guarantees that SS benefits will be funded beyond 2018, come hell or high water.
Nonsense! The government could pass a law tomorrow abolishing the "Trust Fund", and returning the T-Bills it contains to the Federal Treasury. Since they are an IOU the Government wrote to itself, the action would have zero effect on whether Social Security were funded.
In addition, the Government could quite easily pass a law establishing "means testing" for SS benefits, set them so stringently that noone would qualify, and just keep on collecting Social Security taxes, and "lending" said tax receipts to the General Fund.
You really should get a grip on the idea that nothing really restrains the Government from passing a new law, other than fear they'll lose the next election. The more solidly the Districts are defined so as to guarantee election of a member of a particular Party, the more likely they are to believe they can get away with anything.
I argue that saying "the Trust Fund does not exist" is equivalent to saying "its bonds will be defaulted". They mean the same
Idiot argument. The Bonds can be defaulted whether the Trust Fund were real or not. And the Trust Fund could be perfectly real and valid, whether the Bonds they held were worth something or not.
I am arguing that if having the Trust Fund requires exactly the same financial behaviour as not having the Trust Fund, then it doesn't exist. So if the government must raise taxes to pay for SS benefits starting in 2018 (which it does, since it will have to get the money to pay off those T-Bills somewhere), then for all practical purposed, there is no Trust Fund.
You may argue that the T-Bills represent a promise, and so make the Trust Fund real and actual, but whether the promise is made or not, the taxes must be raised, so it's meaningless.
Whose taxes will they raise? No idea at all. Probably everyone's SS taxes will go up, which, interestingly, will make sure that the "money" in the "Trust Fund" will never really be touched. Possibly they'll do it in Income taxes, though (not likely, since that would expose the Trust Fund for what it really is - meaningless). By 2053 or so, the taxes must be raised from (currently) 12.7% to about 17% to keep the books balanced.
Not accounting for possible increases in benefits, and increases in lifespan between now and then. I suggest looking over the last 50 years for trends as to how the benefits and life-expectancy will change, and extrapolating from there.
"This piece of crap software isn't guaranteed to do anything useful, in fact, it may even destroy things you previously owned, for which destruction we are not liable, because we warned you it was both worthless and dangerous
"But...
"If you should DARE to copy this Priceless Jewel of a program, for any reason at all, then we will hound you to the end of the world or until the end of time, whichever comes last"
So, Hitler can be excused for his invasion of Czechoslovakia because he had the approval of the UK and France? Or do you not remember Neville Chamberlain and "peace in our time"? Must have been pretty evil of Britain - perhaps we should have been on the German side in WW2, to punish the Brits for their perfidy.
Unfortunately, there are a great many parallels between WW2 and other events - it wasn't anywhere near as unique as many people (you included, obviously) seem to think. Even the Concentration Camps weren't unique, though the scale of the German effort in that regard was certainly unsurpassed in recent history. I point out the Boer Wars as examples of the use of Concentration Camps. And, arguably, the American habit of putting the Amerinds on "Reservations" (the Reservations may have been a bit large to be properly considered "concentration camps" - one was the size of Oklahoma - in fact, one WAS Oklahoma)
Let's see, countries actively helping one another to do something, then attacking one another - Germany and the USSR comes to mind. They were allies, who, among other things, cooperated in development of tanks, and the invasion and dismemberment of Poland. Alas, both were planning on invading the other when the time was right - it happened to be "right" for the Germans before it was "right" for the Russians, so the Russians ended up as OUR allies.
And of course, one must remember the United Nations. Of which Iraq was a member. Surely you remember that part? Article One of the UN Charter (which Iraq had signed onto, if you'll remember) states, in part:
To maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace;
Now, it can be argued that the USA is guilty of that same offence (which you are trying to assert, not very successfully). The guilt or absence of guilt of the USA is irrelevant to the question of Iraq's guilt. And vice versa, of course.
I tend to think that those UN Resolutions that the USA pushed through granted a pass to teh USA in terms of attacking Iraq (that would come under "take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace"), but it is certainly arguable, by those who like to argue.
Does it have the Power to build roads? Possibly. Probably not, though, since they don't even claim that Power today. Note that all roads (even the Interestate Highway system) are actually built and maintained by the States. The Federal government DOES provide a substantial portion of the costs of the Interstate system, mind, so perhaps they are claiming that Power.
Does it have the Power to buy land for Federal Parks? It doesn't actually have to do so, since it owns all lands not previously claimed by a private individual, or a State. Note the Homestead Act, where the Federal Government granted homestead rights to individuals who wished to lay claim to unseated land in the terrritories.
Beyond that, buying land is quite legal, pretty much anywhere. Taking land without paying is a whole other issue, but we're not talking about that.
Does it have the Power to buy Louisiana and Alaska? Yes, definitely. If it can buy land from private individuals, surely it can do so from other governments that are stupid enough to sell.
Does it have the Power to put up a monument? Yes.
Note that paying for those things comes under the Power to collect taxes, which was severly circumscribed before the Income Tax Amendment was passed.
Welfare? Not what you think it does, quite. Nor does that phrase give the Federal GOvernment Powers not explicitly granted. Though I concede that the Federal Government has been using that clause, and the Interstate Commerce Clause, to justify a great many things that would have been deemed unconstitutional 100 years ago, much less 200 years ago.
Note that words change usage over time. "Awful, pompous, and artificial" was once used to describe a Cathedral. At the time, it was a compliment to the designers and builders. It was equivalent, in modern usage to "Awesome, filled with grandeur, and made by men". In the same time period "meat" meant, more or less, what "bread" does today. At that time, a steak wasn't "meat", it was "flesh" (or, far more likely, a "steak"). As an example from a later period "regulated" once meant "trained" - as in "A well regulated militia" was equivalent to "a well-trained militia" (in modern terms).
That said, it must also be remembered that "United States" was plural at that time, not singular. "Provide for the general welfare of the United States" meant that the Federal Government could provide for the general welfare of the States, not the People of said States.
Much of this was changed with FDR. Who pushed laws through that he knew were unconstitutional (his Attorney General told him so in several cases), and threatened to pack the Supreme Court with Yes-men to get them to approve the laws come the inevitable challenge. The Supremes of that time caved, and let him have his unconstitutional laws, in order to prevent the packing of the Supreme Court (which would have destroyed the Constitutional function of the Court).
After FDR proved it could be done, every Congress/President since then has been pushing the boundaries a bit farther.
Note that FDR, by passing his unconstitutional laws, may very well have averted a military coup in the USA (such a coup was in the planning stages in the 30's), or a civil war. Note further that I am divided in my opinions of what he did. I tend to believe that he made some short-term decisions that were utterly necessary, but that had long-term consequences that were utterly deplorable. But we'll see about that, when the long term has come and gone....
It was well known in German military circles in the '30s that the USA was the 800# gorilla in that day and age.
General Heinz Guderian made the point that while German industrial capacity was comparable to France, the UK, or the USSR, it was dwarfed by the USA. Subsequent events showed that he was exactly right.
Note, however, that we didn't go to war with Germany because it posed a threat to us. And we didn't do it because they declared war on us. We did it because we didn't want to let Hitler control Europe (if he had, his industrial capacity (including all the conquered industry) would have been almost 30% of our industrial capacity - still not a threat to us).
Saddam didn't invade "the Middle East". His forces may have been within Iranian territory at times during the Iran-Iraq war (but it should be noted that he was a friend of the West at the time; indeed he had backing and assistance from the US, both during the war and during the now infamous chemical attack at Halabja). That leaves Kuwait as the only "sovereign territory" that Saddam "invaded".
No, and Hitler didn't invade "Europe" - He invaded Poland and France and Belgium, and the Netherlands,and Greece and the USSR. Among others. He didn't invade the UK, or Spain or Italy or Portugal, or Bulgaria, or Romania. Among others.
Saddam having forces within Iranian territory sounds like an invasion to me. I can't see what else you call it when some other guy's Army is on your land. Same with Kuwait.
And Hitler had the (More than) tacit approval to invade Czechoslovakia - does that make such invasion "right"? I don't think so, in either Hitler's or Saddam's cases.
The fact that Saddam was a "friend of the West" doesn't make his invasion of Iran any better a thing. Any more than the fact that Hitler was fighting Communism (check the papers of the time - before Hitler invaded the USSR, the USSR was one of the West's bogeymen. Afterwards, they were our "courageous allies") excuses his invasion of the USSR.
And I wasn't making the point that gridlock makes better budgets. Note that the worst budgets were with a gridlocked government (Reagan era). And the best were with a gridlocked government (latter six years of CLinton era).
I suspect that, all things being equal (they never are, of course), the "best" budgets come immediately after a CHANGE in the House of Representatives. I think budget deficits will tend to be worse the longer the Republicans control the House, then get better when the Dems take control back. Then get worse the longer the Dems have control, repeating ad inifinitum.
Unfortunately, there are too many factors that aren't controlled for in my "suspicion" as to the nature of the budget deficit. Raw budget numbers and inflation are a pretty limited subset of the economic data that impacted the budgets for the last 28 years.
As a f'rinstance, the Federal Debt increased at a 50% annual rate during WW2. 1% inflation, plus a ~50% increase rate suggest a government totally out of control. Add in a World War, and you suddenly start wondering how they managed so SMALL an increase in Debt.
There are a lot of reasons for an increasing Debt. Most of them are bad, some are good. I happen to think winning WW2 was a good one. I also happen to think driving the Soviet Union out of business was a good thing.
I'm not so happy about increasing Debt to pay the routine bills (which we did during Clinton's terms, Carter's, the Elder Bush's)- if we don't get to the point where we balance our budget except for really unusual situations, we're going to be looking at some really bad times by and by.
Islam has similar dietary guidelines - not eating pork, that sort of thing. A kosher meal is more likely to fit the Islamic definition of "good food" than a non-Kosher meal is.
The largest tank battle in history happened during the Iran-Iraq War.
Before that War, the largest tank battle (the one still commonly believed to be the largest) was Kursk, in WW2.
Furthermore, said leader blatantly (through invasions) demonstrated his will to attack other countries in Europe,
Replace "Europe" with "the Middle East", and the statement is true of Iraq. Remember Iran and Kuwait?
Mind you, I don't think of Iraq as a parallel to WW2 Germany. More of a "wannabe" than a real player.
"The strong will do as they will, and the weak will suffer as they must" -- Pericles, as I recall.
It's another way of saying "might makes right", and just as vile as any other phrasing of the idea.
From 1992-1994, the Federal Debt increased $628,129,254,491.66. That's about 7.4% per year. Adjusted for inflation, that's 4.4%. Those are the two years that the Democrats controlled the purse strings during Clinton's terms.
From 1995-2000, the Federal Debt increased $981,428,299,873.54. That's about 3.2% per year. Adjusted for inflation, that's 0.9%. Those are the six years the Republicans controlled the purse strings during Clinton's terms.
From 2001-2004, the Federal Debt increased $1,704,874,486,443.46. That's a whopping 6.8% per year. Adjusted for inflation, that's 4.9%
For reference, closest time in recent memory to the poitical situation we have now, but with party's reversed, would have been Carter's term in office. It's not terribly close, mind you.
From 1977-1980, the Federal Debt increased $276,666,000,000 (these figures are not as precise as the others, presumably because the source (Bureau of Public Debt, part of the Treasury Department) didn't actually exist then). That's about 9.2% per year. Adjusted for inflation, that's 1.4%.
Or Clinton's situation, reversed - when Reagan was in office.
From 1981-1988, the Federal Debt increased $1,672,128,000,000. That's about 13.7% per year. Adjusted for inflation, that's 8.0%.
I included the rate of change, since it is the most relevant factor, really.
Note that the lowest growth rate occurred when the Republicans controlled the House for the first time in 40 years. Note that the highest was when the Democrats controlled the House (toward the tail-end of that 40-year control). Note that I didn't bother to check the numbers for the first Bush, because I forgot about him completely.
Note further that averaged over the last 28 years, the Federal Debt has risen at an average rate of 5.7% per year, adjusted for inflation. Considerably higher than during the last four years, I might add.
Isaac Newton, Galileo Galilei, Rembrandt van Rijn, Cardinal Richelieu, Thomas Locke, Johannes Kepler
A bit later...
George Washington, Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson
A bit earlier...
Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo Buonarroti
Just to name a few.
The possibilities are endlessly fascinating...
Umm, no. It is due to the specific impulse of chemical fuel.
If the Shuttle had a fuel tank the size of the moon, and were using a scramjet (yes, it's impossible, but we can play what-if games), and the fuel tank had zero empty mass (it's a big ball of LH2, supported by our goodwill), then the deltaV of the Shuttle would be on the order of 0.33% of lightspeed.
Note that that 1/3 of 1% (of c) deltaV only required three impossible conditions to achieve.
If it was not SPECIFICALLY ALLOWED by the Constitution, then it was, by definition, forbidden to the Federal Government.
This, in fact, is why the Bill of Rights was opposed by some of the Founding Fathers - since the Feds weren't specifically given the power to limit free speech, or religion, or the ownership of firearms, then they couldn't do it, and repeating that they couldn't in the Bill of Rights was redundant. From The Federalist Papers, number 80, by Alexander Hamliton:
I go further, and affirm that bills of rights, in the sense and to the extent in which they are contended for, are not only unnecessary in the proposed Constitution, but would even be dangerous. They would contain various exceptions to powers not granted; and, on this very account, would afford a colorable pretext to claim more than were granted. For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do? Why, for instance, should it be said that the liberty of the press shall not be restrained, when no power is given by which restrictions may be imposed? I will not contend that such a provision would confer a regulating power; but it is evident that it would furnish, to men disposed to usurp, a plausible pretense for claiming that power. They might urge with a semblance of reason, that the Constitution ought not to be charged with the absurdity of providing against the abuse of an authority which was not given, and that the provision against restraining the liberty of the press afforded a clear implication, that a power to prescribe proper regulations concerning it was intended to be vested in the national government. This may serve as a specimen of the numerous handles which would be given to the doctrine of constructive powers, by the indulgence of an injudicious zeal for bills of rights.
I used to think he was an idiot for opposing the Bill of Rights, until I read that particular remark, and realized how much mileage the government has gotten out of exactly that sort of reasoning.
Means testing will have a negligible effect on Social Security outlays, since any test you define can be gamed quite easily.
And stock is just a series of IOU's from corporations, and bank accounts are just a series of IOU's from the banks, etc. How is Social Security's investment in the Treasury any different than any other investment in anything?
Stock is an IOU (well, not really, but let's assume it is for the sake of argument) that a company gives to someone else.
The Social Security Trust Fund is an IOU that the government gives to itself. Imagine that you looked in your wallet and found $5 there. And then realized that you needed $8. So you take three dollars out of your wallet, and stick them in your pocket. And put an IOU for $3 in your wallet. So the $3 in your pocket, plus the $2 in your wallet, plus the IOU add up to $8. You're good to go, right?
That's what the Social Security Trust Fund is. An IOU you write to yourself, so you'll have the money to pay the rent after you spend everything you have at the Casino.
30,000 miles. That's a good starting guesstimate. You might be able to do it in 25,000, you might not - depends on how large the mass that you use as a tensioner at the upper end is. It can't be less than (longer than geosynchronous orbit) though, which puts the absolute minimum over 22,000 miles.