If you hate the UN so much, why don't you pull out of it? It is idiotic of you to hate the UN when USA is the one that provides the most money (of any country) to it...
Relying on business views is almost meaningless, for they make the rules.
You may claim the stated stance is backward but you can't deny that society will be better off with the "modern view". Imagine how science would have evolved if knowledge, which includes articles, works published, experiment steps, etc were limited. It never would have spread.
You are espousing the business perspective that profits are lost by spread of information. This is true. BUT remember that the only reason it is like that is because businesses started making money off of it. If they didn't it wouldn't be like this. Going back to the scientific revolution example, people didn't make money off of it (at least not like with intellectual property and other laws). In contrast, nowadays, science's growth is going to be stunted because of IP laws. A good example would be the biology fields. *I* predict that biological sciences will not evolve too far in the future because many of the key discoveris, knowledge, etc are tied up in intellecutal property. It wouldn't surprise me if some company patented a process to splice together genes (for example) and only let people/universities/etc that cut a deal with it. In contrast, in the past, someone patenting an experimentation process is unthinkable. If anything, all scientists copied someone else as soon as he/she developed a technique.
IBM is just as worse as Microsoft is. In fact, the worst of the big tech companies is probably Intel--far worse than MS. Admit it... The reason MS wins EASILY is because they actually make good products (some of them) and have a strong marketing. Examples of good products include MS Visual Studio (name a competitor now or then which was as good), MS Encarta (ever wonder why it killed the other encyclopedia vendors), Office (it was better than Wordperfect or Smartsuite at that time), etc...
If you love capitalism and love totalitarianism, you'll love Singapore. Most capitalistic country on earth (according to CATO institute) while being a totalitarian...
Disclaimer: I have never livd there nor do I ever want to. I would rather live in EVIL Cuba than Singapore...
I'm sure that $50b isn't an accurate figure. Maybe it is the cost of the actual mission but you spent a lot more on research and things like that before.
In any case, I don't think there is any point of debating. We both have opposite views. I value cooperation while you value competition. I value scientific missions while you seem to value political missions. I personally consider the landing on the moon to be a waste because it was a political mission ('let's land on moon and plant our flag.... let's cut all the programs after that') vs scientific mission ('let's land on moon and try to build a base or study gravity or something')...
If USA or any other country gets into a space race to Mars for political reasons it is a complete waste of time. After you or someone else lands on Mars, everyone will pack up and go home. In contrast a scientific mission whose goal is to build a base on Mars and study the terrain (for example) would be valuable...
I personally value space missions as follows:
1. scientific missions ('let's build a base')
2. commercial missions ('let's try to mine')
3. political missions ('let's get there first and plant our flag')
Our leaders have presumably studied the Japanese invasion of Manchuria and the Italian invasion of Ethiopia prior to World War 2, and the results of the West not taking a hard stand on them.
History is not a strong point of so-called leaders... history proves it:)
None of our allies would trust our commitments anymore.
USA practices REALPOLITIK so none of your "allies" really trust you anyway. Realpolitik is politics based on reality (ie. pragmatism) as opposed to idealism or ethical/moral objectives. Whether you like him or not, Charles de Gaulle said it best: 'countries have no friends; they only have interests' Most people realize that to be true. It's not a USA thing; all countries are like that. Many of USA's allies already realize it and are starting to make contingency plans. For example, europe is attempting to create its own military and rely on itself more.
Many of our allies do not have nukes only because we pledged to protect them under the umbrella of ours.
Key US allies have nukes so this isn't a big deal. For example, Britain and France both have nukes...
Also, all our enemies and "competitors" would suddenly become much bolder because they knew we did not have the balls to keep threats that we had made.
USA has already backpedalled many times so this isn't even an issue. Examples include Iraq (now enemy), France (now not so friendly), South Korea (not getting along well), Afghanistan (friend->enemy->now friend), Vietnam, Saudi Arabia (close friend likely to become your next invasion target), etc. Granted, these aren't your CLOSE allies but the point still stands. I don't think anyone really expects USA to guard them anymore. For example, countries like Japan (which relied on USA exclusively) are contemplating independence. Some Japanese officials have even considered developing nuclear weapons (to counter North Korea and in the future, China)...
The main reason for this shift is that the interests of USA and its friends don't align well. During the Cold War, the interests were almost identical--not so anymore...
Don't be so sure we won't push the button if it comes to that.
Unless you have someone who doesn't care about life (such as a Chritian Fundamentalist or something), I don't see you guys using nukes to help someone else UNLESS you are not guaranteed to get nuked in return. For example, I can see USA using it against, say, Saudi Arabia. But not against North Korea (for example).
We also came close to using them several times since then (starting in Iran, I believe).
I am not familiar with that. My understanding is that USA hasn't seriously considered nuclear weapons since WWII. Even during Vietnam, the idea was shot down quickly.
China has speculated that we would not trade LA for Taiwan, but as I already pointed out it is not a simple matter of defending Tiawan for the Tiawanese.
It won't be that simplistic. China will not seriously consider nuclear weapons until it has more than 2000 nukes. Right now, it has between 15 and 100 (depending on who you look at). China will never use ONE nuke on LA or something like that. It will only use it if it can launch thousands of them. If there is a war, all nukes will be used OR none. It makes no sense, not to mention highly irrational, to launch a few.
A full up world war would be a horrible thing;
As soon as the war seems inevitable, I'm going to move to Antartica and live with the penguins...you want to join me?;)
...the last one might have been prevented if we had engaged the Axis powers in a small one sooner.
You never could have prevented WWII for one simple reason. USA and Britain supported the fascists early on. Not many people in America know this but USA and Britain actively supported precursor to the Nazi organizations. They were fas
I could be wrong but I don't think radiation from nuclear weapons is that far-reaching (if you will). Nuclear weapons are actually supposed to be quite clean--at least compared to nuclear power plant meltdowns.
Even if US cities are indirectly impacted, I highly doubt that USA will want to sacrifice itself (ie. the whole). If you were American, would YOU launch a nuclear strike against say Russia, knowning that you would be wiped out?
Europe no longer trust the US as much as we use to, and that is a very bad thing.
Actually that's a good thing! YOu are more independent now and you aren't a lap dog of USA anymore... Your economies are more independent, your environmental policies are different, independent foreign policies, etc...
Spoken like a competition-loving capitalist, although I suspect you don't even realize what you are saying...
The problem with what you are saying is that large projects, or anything monumental in nature, will never be pursued. Space is one such thing, where a lot of money, time, resources, technology, etc are required. There is no fucking way humans are going to leave the solar system if everyone is competiting. I can guarantee you that. Even a 10 trillion dollar future corporation which rules many countries cant' afford it.
Competition works for some things but it never works for large projects. Even if you start with competition, it ultimately ends up as a monopoly or an oligopoly. Consider some of the largest infrastructure projects on earth. There aren't many companies bidding on them; there aren't many countries involved in them; etc.
Co-operation will triumph over competition... one day!
That is a COMPLETELY misleading analysis. The amount of resources (Ie. money) spent is drastically different. If USA, and its partners, spent the same amount on ISS as the moon projects, then you may have a point. But as it stands now, you can't claim that the ISS isn't working out when no one, including USA, is really spending much on it.
What you are saying is similar to who some people claim that NASA is doing nothing nowadays. That's complete nonsense of course. If USA spent the same amount now as then (adjusted for inflation of course), I'll bet NASA's projects would be larger and more impactful...
If China invades Taiwan, USA likely will NOT get involved (other than some baseless threats and arming Taiwan). USA cares about Taiwan as much as they care about Greenland, which is to say not much. For instance, consider the US rhetoric that it will use nuclear weapons if China invades Taiwan. How many people actually believe that? Not many--at least those in power and with knowledge. USA will never sacrifice itself (by using nukes) for some foreigners it could care less about. The only time it will use WMD is if it (i.e. its own citizens) are attacked. It will never use it when other people are involved (whether it is Taiwanese, Israeli, Canadian, etc).
Having said that, I don't think China will invade Taiwan any time soon. Believe it or not, Taiwan is not that important to China. There is no oil there (#1 resource), there is no uranium (needed for nuclear weapons), etc. It is simply a nationalistic goal... As ludicrous as this may sound, I claim Tibet is more important to China that Taiwan. The influence from Tibet on the totalitarian regime (vis a vis buddism) has a greater impact than anything from so-called "democrats" in Taiwan...
The probability of Taiwan "merging back" with China (via peaceful means) is much higher than it seperating and gaining independence. Once China becomes a superpower and starts dominating economics (ie. becomes richer), Taiwanese will likely join (especially given that they speak the same language and the culture is similar--this is akin to how I believe North and South Korea will merge within my lifetime).
The wealthiest 50% of the U.S. pay 96% of all income taxes. Bet you have never read this before. Despite the fact that this is from 2000, I doubt things have changed significantly since. So shouldn't the people who pay the most, get the most back?
That just proves the original point: that the tax cuts are for the wealthy.
Wherever capitalism has flourished, however, the poor, on the other hand, have done fantastic.
Tell that to some guy in Brazil... one of the richest countries in South America, and a country with an upper class that is richer than some parts of USA (eg. there are more Armani suits sold in Sao Paulo than even New York)...yet the lowre classes in Brazil is far worse off than many other places...
And your whole idea of 'luxury' is meaningless. When you are talking about classes, you are talking about RELATIVE differences. In absolute terms, the poorest guy in USA (who is almost homeless) is richer than the upper-middle class in China (who actually have a home and tv)...Comparing across time is also meaningless...
Well, for one thing it's the flip side of what you termed 'right-wing.' der!
err.. no it's not. I don't see anyone on the left supporting the inefficiencies you speak of.
In any case, every single major tax cut in the past century has been followed immediately by economic growth and within, including Bush's, which have lifted us out of the tech-bubble recession.
lol I guess falsities turn into truth in your fantasy world. USA is NOT out of the recession. And the "lifting" you talk of was goin gto happen anyway. In any case, even those that are in favour of the tax cuts claim that it will take 3 or 4 years for them to make an impact.
What would you do? RAISE taxes? When has that EVER created growth?
I don't know if raising taxes ever creates growth but spending certainly does. Right now, Europe is trying to get out of the recession by spending, while USA is relying on tax-cuts. Let's see which one works.
BTW, you must be living in a delusional world if you think USA is out of the recession. According to (capitalist) economists, it may be--but there are tons of unemployed and consumer spending is weak...
Since the national debt has expanded WAY more than the size of the national debt, and most of that debt is owed to Americans, it was certainly worth it.
There is a typo there but anyway, your point is understood. Just the fact that most of the debt is owned by the Americans doens't mean it can be conveniently ignored. Debt is debt! It won't go away just because YOU own it instead of some foreigner!
:) His info is correct though... I'm sure the top 1% pay more in taxes than the bottom. Bill Gates probably pays more in taxes than all the slashdotters combined...
But your example is completely meaningless.. Countries like Yugoslavia/Serbia/etc were probably spending more on their military than even USA (relative to GDP). What made the genocide of the Serbs, Croats, etc quick? Their strong militaries...
Something you fail to realize: most of the money is spent on "discretionary" things, but in an incredibly inefficient way: useless/counterproductive liberal bureaucrats who can't be fired and have 12 assistants, incredibly lavish facilities, contracts for unions that go way over budget and take 5 times as long to accomplish simple crap, $50 billion in fraud annually because the General Accounting Office can't figure out where the tax dollars are being spent, sweet Jesus I could go on and on and on...
hmm... what does this have to do with the left? You go and clean up the govt. I'm not going to stop you...
Any Washington insider will tell you that w/o the pro-growth Bush tax cuts congress would have spent that money anyway, just on wasteful, non-stimulative pork projects.
First you bash the politicians for being inefficient and hoarding the money, and now you listen to these sames guys to support your trickle-down-in-1-million-years tax-cut theory?
The idea is run the right kind of deficits now (tax cuts and pro-private sector-growth spending), hoping the resulting economic growth will overcome them later, like it always has.
Except the capitalists you worship fail to tell you one thing: the original debt has still not been paid off. If corporations, who are all capitalist, were following your advice, they would be bankrupt within 10 years.
I know that... the top 1% also owns more wealth... If the top 1% DID NOT pay more taxes, I would be shocked, given the massive wealth disparity in USA...
You are confusing capitalism with representative democracy. Therein lies the source of your confusion. Government spending is not so much a function of capitalism as it is of the political will of the majority of voters and corporate contributors.
Maybe if countries were running democracies, you may be right. But countries like USA are nothing more than PLUTOCRACIES--governments controlled by the elite. Majority of the voters? lol Just keep believing that you live in a democratic paradise:( The elites, who are capitalists, backed by large corporations, bankers, economists et al, control USA. These guys are practicing capitalism. Therefore, capitalism is partly to blame. As a matter of fact, the success and failure of capitalism is intertwind with your so-called "representative democracy"... I know you are not practicing PURE capitalism but it still is capitalism...
At the end of the day, the debt will be paid off by dollars. This may or may not have any relation to GDP at that time.
hmm... govt income = function of dollars...
Government will never shrink.
yeah... that's why it was supposed to be a hypothetical scenario... I don't expect the US govt to shrink, especially given that it is an IMPERIAL power. Imperial powers keep getting bigger and stronger and simply collapse at some point and don't really shrink...
Debt service as a percentage of dollar GDP is a significant statistic.
for now...
1. Who cares if the debt is ever paid off?
It doesn't have to be paid off completely but it has to be managed. I might be biased since I'm a socialist but I personally predict that the collapse of capitalism may be due to debt. In case, you haven't realized, debt/interest/etc are exponential. The interest will start to eat you away. A lot of poor countries are on the verge of collapse because they can't afford their debt payments. This might be an impossibility in USA--or is it?
The US debt is largely owed to social security anyway.
I'm not an American so you may know more than me....but... I thought most of the US debt is intergovernmental obligations (ie. between one level of gov to next). This may or may not be social obligations, but whatever it is, the states and cities will have big problems if the debt isn't paid.
3. I would be highly uncomfortable having the US government own private assets, such as stock shares, as it would politicize private enterprise and ultimately amount to nationalization of industry.
I don't want to get into that... but it's not like as if it's any different now. I mean, what's the difference between the govt subsidizing large corporations to the tune of billions of dollars vs outright owning them?
If GDP grows and the debt does not grow as fast as GDP, there will never be a public debt problem in the US, regardless of what happens with the deficits.
Well you are right... IF... the GDP grows faster than the debt growth+deficit, AND people are content paying moeny to service a blackhole, called interest...
My personal favorite is the Big Mac index.
I don't know if that was being sarcastic but the BigMacIndex is another one of those idiocies only capitalistic economists can invent. Don't these guys realize that marketing has a bigger impact on prices across countries than anything else?
Yeah.. I don't know what any of this has to do with socialism. If it were a progressive tax vs regressive or something like that then maybe it is an issue. But not taxing the internet is totally irrelvant. I don't think anyone really wants to see the internet being taxed...
This is really a corporate matter. I'll bet that the decision was won after battles between one corporate sector vs another.
Slashdot Mirror
If you hate the UN so much, why don't you pull out of it? It is idiotic of you to hate the UN when USA is the one that provides the most money (of any country) to it...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Relying on business views is almost meaningless, for they make the rules.
You may claim the stated stance is backward but you can't deny that society will be better off with the "modern view". Imagine how science would have evolved if knowledge, which includes articles, works published, experiment steps, etc were limited. It never would have spread.
You are espousing the business perspective that profits are lost by spread of information. This is true. BUT remember that the only reason it is like that is because businesses started making money off of it. If they didn't it wouldn't be like this. Going back to the scientific revolution example, people didn't make money off of it (at least not like with intellectual property and other laws). In contrast, nowadays, science's growth is going to be stunted because of IP laws. A good example would be the biology fields. *I* predict that biological sciences will not evolve too far in the future because many of the key discoveris, knowledge, etc are tied up in intellecutal property. It wouldn't surprise me if some company patented a process to splice together genes (for example) and only let people/universities/etc that cut a deal with it. In contrast, in the past, someone patenting an experimentation process is unthinkable. If anything, all scientists copied someone else as soon as he/she developed a technique.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Marx is right; you guys and your capitalism is not... Capitalism WILL collapse!!!
Sivaram Velauthapillai
IBM is just as worse as Microsoft is. In fact, the worst of the big tech companies is probably Intel--far worse than MS. Admit it... The reason MS wins EASILY is because they actually make good products (some of them) and have a strong marketing. Examples of good products include MS Visual Studio (name a competitor now or then which was as good), MS Encarta (ever wonder why it killed the other encyclopedia vendors), Office (it was better than Wordperfect or Smartsuite at that time), etc...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Anyone else sick of people taxing technology?
Why shouldn't technology be taxed? Technology is a great profit-generator for the owners, so why not tax it?
Sivaram Velauthapillai
I'm sure many would point out that we've had no problems with the Panama Canal yet.
Since Panama is a US proxy state, it would shock me if there were any more problems...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
If you love capitalism and love totalitarianism, you'll love Singapore. Most capitalistic country on earth (according to CATO institute) while being a totalitarian...
Disclaimer: I have never livd there nor do I ever want to. I would rather live in EVIL Cuba than Singapore...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
I would be more than happy to purchase your congress from you. Shall we start negotiations on Monday?
;)
Sivaram Velauthapillai
I'm sure that $50b isn't an accurate figure. Maybe it is the cost of the actual mission but you spent a lot more on research and things like that before.
In any case, I don't think there is any point of debating. We both have opposite views. I value cooperation while you value competition. I value scientific missions while you seem to value political missions. I personally consider the landing on the moon to be a waste because it was a political mission ('let's land on moon and plant our flag.... let's cut all the programs after that') vs scientific mission ('let's land on moon and try to build a base or study gravity or something')...
If USA or any other country gets into a space race to Mars for political reasons it is a complete waste of time. After you or someone else lands on Mars, everyone will pack up and go home. In contrast a scientific mission whose goal is to build a base on Mars and study the terrain (for example) would be valuable...
I personally value space missions as follows:
1. scientific missions ('let's build a base')
2. commercial missions ('let's try to mine')
3. political missions ('let's get there first and plant our flag')
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Our leaders have presumably studied the Japanese invasion of Manchuria and the Italian invasion of Ethiopia prior to World War 2, and the results of the West not taking a hard stand on them.
:)
;)
...the last one might have been prevented if we had engaged the Axis powers in a small one sooner.
History is not a strong point of so-called leaders... history proves it
None of our allies would trust our commitments anymore.
USA practices REALPOLITIK so none of your "allies" really trust you anyway. Realpolitik is politics based on reality (ie. pragmatism) as opposed to idealism or ethical/moral objectives. Whether you like him or not, Charles de Gaulle said it best: 'countries have no friends; they only have interests' Most people realize that to be true. It's not a USA thing; all countries are like that. Many of USA's allies already realize it and are starting to make contingency plans. For example, europe is attempting to create its own military and rely on itself more.
Many of our allies do not have nukes only because we pledged to protect them under the umbrella of ours.
Key US allies have nukes so this isn't a big deal. For example, Britain and France both have nukes...
Also, all our enemies and "competitors" would suddenly become much bolder because they knew we did not have the balls to keep threats that we had made.
USA has already backpedalled many times so this isn't even an issue. Examples include Iraq (now enemy), France (now not so friendly), South Korea (not getting along well), Afghanistan (friend->enemy->now friend), Vietnam, Saudi Arabia (close friend likely to become your next invasion target), etc. Granted, these aren't your CLOSE allies but the point still stands. I don't think anyone really expects USA to guard them anymore. For example, countries like Japan (which relied on USA exclusively) are contemplating independence. Some Japanese officials have even considered developing nuclear weapons (to counter North Korea and in the future, China)...
The main reason for this shift is that the interests of USA and its friends don't align well. During the Cold War, the interests were almost identical--not so anymore...
Don't be so sure we won't push the button if it comes to that.
Unless you have someone who doesn't care about life (such as a Chritian Fundamentalist or something), I don't see you guys using nukes to help someone else UNLESS you are not guaranteed to get nuked in return. For example, I can see USA using it against, say, Saudi Arabia. But not against North Korea (for example).
We also came close to using them several times since then (starting in Iran, I believe).
I am not familiar with that. My understanding is that USA hasn't seriously considered nuclear weapons since WWII. Even during Vietnam, the idea was shot down quickly.
China has speculated that we would not trade LA for Taiwan, but as I already pointed out it is not a simple matter of defending Tiawan for the Tiawanese.
It won't be that simplistic. China will not seriously consider nuclear weapons until it has more than 2000 nukes. Right now, it has between 15 and 100 (depending on who you look at). China will never use ONE nuke on LA or something like that. It will only use it if it can launch thousands of them. If there is a war, all nukes will be used OR none. It makes no sense, not to mention highly irrational, to launch a few.
A full up world war would be a horrible thing;
As soon as the war seems inevitable, I'm going to move to Antartica and live with the penguins...you want to join me?
You never could have prevented WWII for one simple reason. USA and Britain supported the fascists early on. Not many people in America know this but USA and Britain actively supported precursor to the Nazi organizations. They were fas
I could be wrong but I don't think radiation from nuclear weapons is that far-reaching (if you will). Nuclear weapons are actually supposed to be quite clean--at least compared to nuclear power plant meltdowns.
Even if US cities are indirectly impacted, I highly doubt that USA will want to sacrifice itself (ie. the whole). If you were American, would YOU launch a nuclear strike against say Russia, knowning that you would be wiped out?
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Europe no longer trust the US as much as we use to, and that is a very bad thing.
Actually that's a good thing! YOu are more independent now and you aren't a lap dog of USA anymore... Your economies are more independent, your environmental policies are different, independent foreign policies, etc...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Spoken like a competition-loving capitalist, although I suspect you don't even realize what you are saying...
The problem with what you are saying is that large projects, or anything monumental in nature, will never be pursued. Space is one such thing, where a lot of money, time, resources, technology, etc are required. There is no fucking way humans are going to leave the solar system if everyone is competiting. I can guarantee you that. Even a 10 trillion dollar future corporation which rules many countries cant' afford it.
Competition works for some things but it never works for large projects. Even if you start with competition, it ultimately ends up as a monopoly or an oligopoly. Consider some of the largest infrastructure projects on earth. There aren't many companies bidding on them; there aren't many countries involved in them; etc.
Co-operation will triumph over competition... one day!
Sivaram Velauthapillai
You have a problem with hippies? Should I send my flower-giving assasins after you? ;)
Sivaram Velauthapillai
That is a COMPLETELY misleading analysis. The amount of resources (Ie. money) spent is drastically different. If USA, and its partners, spent the same amount on ISS as the moon projects, then you may have a point. But as it stands now, you can't claim that the ISS isn't working out when no one, including USA, is really spending much on it.
What you are saying is similar to who some people claim that NASA is doing nothing nowadays. That's complete nonsense of course. If USA spent the same amount now as then (adjusted for inflation of course), I'll bet NASA's projects would be larger and more impactful...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
If China invades Taiwan, USA likely will NOT get involved (other than some baseless threats and arming Taiwan). USA cares about Taiwan as much as they care about Greenland, which is to say not much. For instance, consider the US rhetoric that it will use nuclear weapons if China invades Taiwan. How many people actually believe that? Not many--at least those in power and with knowledge. USA will never sacrifice itself (by using nukes) for some foreigners it could care less about. The only time it will use WMD is if it (i.e. its own citizens) are attacked. It will never use it when other people are involved (whether it is Taiwanese, Israeli, Canadian, etc).
Having said that, I don't think China will invade Taiwan any time soon. Believe it or not, Taiwan is not that important to China. There is no oil there (#1 resource), there is no uranium (needed for nuclear weapons), etc. It is simply a nationalistic goal... As ludicrous as this may sound, I claim Tibet is more important to China that Taiwan. The influence from Tibet on the totalitarian regime (vis a vis buddism) has a greater impact than anything from so-called "democrats" in Taiwan...
The probability of Taiwan "merging back" with China (via peaceful means) is much higher than it seperating and gaining independence. Once China becomes a superpower and starts dominating economics (ie. becomes richer), Taiwanese will likely join (especially given that they speak the same language and the culture is similar--this is akin to how I believe North and South Korea will merge within my lifetime).
Sivaram Velauthapillai
The wealthiest 50% of the U.S. pay 96% of all income taxes. Bet you have never read this before. Despite the fact that this is from 2000, I doubt things have changed significantly since. So shouldn't the people who pay the most, get the most back?
That just proves the original point: that the tax cuts are for the wealthy.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Wherever capitalism has flourished, however, the poor, on the other hand, have done fantastic.
Tell that to some guy in Brazil... one of the richest countries in South America, and a country with an upper class that is richer than some parts of USA (eg. there are more Armani suits sold in Sao Paulo than even New York)...yet the lowre classes in Brazil is far worse off than many other places...
And your whole idea of 'luxury' is meaningless. When you are talking about classes, you are talking about RELATIVE differences. In absolute terms, the poorest guy in USA (who is almost homeless) is richer than the upper-middle class in China (who actually have a home and tv)...Comparing across time is also meaningless...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Well, for one thing it's the flip side of what you termed 'right-wing.' der!
err.. no it's not. I don't see anyone on the left supporting the inefficiencies you speak of.
In any case, every single major tax cut in the past century has been followed immediately by economic growth and within, including Bush's, which have lifted us out of the tech-bubble recession.
lol I guess falsities turn into truth in your fantasy world. USA is NOT out of the recession. And the "lifting" you talk of was goin gto happen anyway. In any case, even those that are in favour of the tax cuts claim that it will take 3 or 4 years for them to make an impact.
What would you do? RAISE taxes? When has that EVER created growth?
I don't know if raising taxes ever creates growth but spending certainly does. Right now, Europe is trying to get out of the recession by spending, while USA is relying on tax-cuts. Let's see which one works.
BTW, you must be living in a delusional world if you think USA is out of the recession. According to (capitalist) economists, it may be--but there are tons of unemployed and consumer spending is weak...
Since the national debt has expanded WAY more than the size of the national debt, and most of that debt is owed to Americans, it was certainly worth it.
There is a typo there but anyway, your point is understood. Just the fact that most of the debt is owned by the Americans doens't mean it can be conveniently ignored. Debt is debt! It won't go away just because YOU own it instead of some foreigner!
Sivaram Velauthapillai
:) His info is correct though... I'm sure the top 1% pay more in taxes than the bottom. Bill Gates probably pays more in taxes than all the slashdotters combined...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
But your example is completely meaningless.. Countries like Yugoslavia/Serbia/etc were probably spending more on their military than even USA (relative to GDP). What made the genocide of the Serbs, Croats, etc quick? Their strong militaries...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Something you fail to realize: most of the money is spent on "discretionary" things, but in an incredibly inefficient way: useless/counterproductive liberal bureaucrats who can't be fired and have 12 assistants, incredibly lavish facilities, contracts for unions that go way over budget and take 5 times as long to accomplish simple crap, $50 billion in fraud annually because the General Accounting Office can't figure out where the tax dollars are being spent, sweet Jesus I could go on and on and on...
hmm... what does this have to do with the left? You go and clean up the govt. I'm not going to stop you...
Any Washington insider will tell you that w/o the pro-growth Bush tax cuts congress would have spent that money anyway, just on wasteful, non-stimulative pork projects.
First you bash the politicians for being inefficient and hoarding the money, and now you listen to these sames guys to support your trickle-down-in-1-million-years tax-cut theory?
The idea is run the right kind of deficits now (tax cuts and pro-private sector-growth spending), hoping the resulting economic growth will overcome them later, like it always has.
Except the capitalists you worship fail to tell you one thing: the original debt has still not been paid off. If corporations, who are all capitalist, were following your advice, they would be bankrupt within 10 years.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
I know that... the top 1% also owns more wealth... If the top 1% DID NOT pay more taxes, I would be shocked, given the massive wealth disparity in USA...
You still didn't answer the original point...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
You are confusing capitalism with representative democracy. Therein lies the source of your confusion. Government spending is not so much a function of capitalism as it is of the political will of the majority of voters and corporate contributors.
:( The elites, who are capitalists, backed by large corporations, bankers, economists et al, control USA. These guys are practicing capitalism. Therefore, capitalism is partly to blame. As a matter of fact, the success and failure of capitalism is intertwind with your so-called "representative democracy"... I know you are not practicing PURE capitalism but it still is capitalism...
Maybe if countries were running democracies, you may be right. But countries like USA are nothing more than PLUTOCRACIES--governments controlled by the elite. Majority of the voters? lol Just keep believing that you live in a democratic paradise
At the end of the day, the debt will be paid off by dollars. This may or may not have any relation to GDP at that time.
hmm... govt income = function of dollars...
Government will never shrink.
yeah... that's why it was supposed to be a hypothetical scenario... I don't expect the US govt to shrink, especially given that it is an IMPERIAL power. Imperial powers keep getting bigger and stronger and simply collapse at some point and don't really shrink...
Debt service as a percentage of dollar GDP is a significant statistic.
for now...
1. Who cares if the debt is ever paid off?
It doesn't have to be paid off completely but it has to be managed. I might be biased since I'm a socialist but I personally predict that the collapse of capitalism may be due to debt. In case, you haven't realized, debt/interest/etc are exponential. The interest will start to eat you away. A lot of poor countries are on the verge of collapse because they can't afford their debt payments. This might be an impossibility in USA--or is it?
The US debt is largely owed to social security anyway.
I'm not an American so you may know more than me....but... I thought most of the US debt is intergovernmental obligations (ie. between one level of gov to next). This may or may not be social obligations, but whatever it is, the states and cities will have big problems if the debt isn't paid.
3. I would be highly uncomfortable having the US government own private assets, such as stock shares, as it would politicize private enterprise and ultimately amount to nationalization of industry.
I don't want to get into that... but it's not like as if it's any different now. I mean, what's the difference between the govt subsidizing large corporations to the tune of billions of dollars vs outright owning them?
If GDP grows and the debt does not grow as fast as GDP, there will never be a public debt problem in the US, regardless of what happens with the deficits.
Well you are right... IF... the GDP grows faster than the debt growth+deficit, AND people are content paying moeny to service a blackhole, called interest...
My personal favorite is the Big Mac index.
I don't know if that was being sarcastic but the BigMacIndex is another one of those idiocies only capitalistic economists can invent. Don't these guys realize that marketing has a bigger impact on prices across countries than anything else?
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Yeah.. I don't know what any of this has to do with socialism. If it were a progressive tax vs regressive or something like that then maybe it is an issue. But not taxing the internet is totally irrelvant. I don't think anyone really wants to see the internet being taxed...
This is really a corporate matter. I'll bet that the decision was won after battles between one corporate sector vs another.
Sivaram Velauthapillai