President Proposes to Lower Taxes

[PLAYER57832]

Player, why is it the government's role to guarantee a retirement income? Why do you refuse to make people responsible for themselves?

Because its NOT about "being responsible for themselves" its about either depending on set contributions by individuals OR depending on the whims and vagaries of business. Its about either depending on a set system of gaurantees or depending on big business making a profit, and all that entails.

If everyone's retirement is dependent on success of particular businesses, and that IS what investing in 401K's really means, then we suddenly have a lot to lose if those businesses fail. It doesn't matter what harm the company is committing, it becomes far easier to just give a blind eye.. and that is already happening.

If you follow the histories of the markets - it is actually very difficult to lose money in the long term. That's the reality of investing. Individual businesses have whims and vagaries. Collections of hundreds, or thousands in the markets do not.

Well, if you consider 100 years of investment history to be "long term"... sure.

The REAL problem is that our system allows so many to take profits without actually paying their due. I mentioned the Gulf oil spill and chemical companies in my response to NS, but you can basically pick any industry --agriculture, meat processing, etc, etc, and the fact is that companies doe not really pay for the pollution and damage they create. Our whole system depends on damage happening FIRST, then others going in and protesting/suing/changing laws to "correct" problems after they are already proven. When it can take 20-50 years to even show a real link, that means that a lot of damage is done basically for free.. to the producers. Of course, its not really free, we ALL wind up paying. We pay directly for superfund sites, a program that is not bankrupt without having fully cleaned up more than a few messes... etc.

This WILL (IS) come(ing) back to haunt us.

Beyond that, the whole model of which you speak depends on heavy growth. We have enjoyed extreme luxury in that regard. We faced phenomenal technological booms, in the use of oil powered fuels, chemical advancements, and of course the "latest" 'tech booms. Its not that society and change will utterly stagnate, but we simply won't see the kinds of phenomenal change and growth we have seen.

That is even without taking into account the massive change impending with global climate change. Pretending its "not real" just doesn't make it go away. It just means it gets harder and harder to fix or mitigate.

If you're stupid and follow trends, invest too narrowly, or if you're thinking too short term - you deserve what you get (either way up or down).

Uh, why don't you consider that this applies to you. I am the one thinking beyond 20 years, here. You seem to pretend that is all there is.

EDIT> If you contribute to a 401K or an IRA, into 8 sectors across a wide (diversified) spectrum, at 12.5% to each sector, then balance the portfolio every 6 months... Say you made a killing in developing markets and lost your arse in small caps during a 6-month period - so you have maybe 16% total now in the developing markets fund and 9% in small caps... Find your new total portfolio value and balance it back out to 12.5% each - you cannot lose, so long as you can think beyond 5 years.

Not true, but takes too much time to get into the proofs and its actually irrelevant, because those profits are often dragging from society as a whole, not contributing. THAT is the real problem. If you take a huge profit, but kill off the Gulf of Mexico ecosystem, then you have done irreparable damage just for a few years profit.

Or, go back to Love canal.. silkwood, Red mountain, etc., etc.

Why they don't teach this in high school is beyond my understanding.

yeah, would be nice if kids were taught to look at the world around and to consider that life might actually exist more than 50 years from now.. or we hope so, anyway.

[Night Strike]

People, pulling together. The wealth of the US is phenomenal, but SS comes directly from the money we all contribute. Because people are living longer and having fewer kids, the equation does need to change, but your claim that this is about individual responsibility versus relying on some remote entity you think the government entails.. THAT is just false.

People pull together when they invest directly into businesses through stocks, bonds, etc. They pull together through charities and directly helping their neighbors. Government does not have exclusivity when it comes to people pulling together. And yes, it IS about individual responsibility. The government is not responsible for any non-employee's well-being. If a person doesn't want to set aside money for their own retirement, then they either don't get to retire or will have to get money from other people.

No, not necessarily.. at all. Further, what about the real costs. Every profit anyone gets from oil companies came at the expense of millions who live along the Gulf of Mexico. Income you gain from profits for various chemical companies and arms suppliers come similarly only with pain for others.

False. Completely false. Profit does not come at the expense of others. You assume that success is a zero-sum system where someone must be harmed in order for someone else to be successful. That is patently false. Oil companies don't get rich off of harming others.....BP alone has paid billions of dollars due to that spill. People get rich when they provide a marketable product that others buy. When they have a successful product, then they need to hire more people to provide more of that product, meaning they are directly HELPING people, not harming them.

Beyond that, your initial assertion about individual success is just plain wrong. Being successful depends first and foremost upon having health. Then it depends on education. Both of those are being cut widely. We DID have a time when any child could go to school and get a basic physical education program, go to many parks and participate in programs funded by the federal government that kept kids busy and out of trouble, when a poor kid could do well in school and count on scholarships and loans to get them through college and into a decent job. Today, just when more and more jobs depend on college degrees, just when folks like you keep trying to claim that no one even deserves more than $7.50 an hour by right, education funding and aid for scholarships are being cut.

Oh look, we do have free education provided by the government and many government sponsored/promoted programs for physical education for kids. And yet, even THAT is up to the individual and families to take care of themselves. And if you want more scholarships for students, you should stop taxing so much money away from private citizens who have done the donating that funds those scholarships. People have to make cuts somewhere when their taxes are raised. Education funding in most states has never been higher, it's just that too many districts are wasting much of that money on useless positions such as "diversity officers".

By the way, it's not just that no one deserves more than $7.50 an hour by right, it's that NO PERSON deserves ANY MONEY simply by right. You get money based on the goods and services you provide to others. If you refuse to work or to do useful work, then you don't get paid. It's pretty simple. Getting money is not a right.....you must work for it. Getting money can never be a right because that would mandate an infringement on someone else's right to property.

That is even without taking into account the massive change impending with global climate change. Pretending its "not real" just doesn't make it go away. It just means it gets harder and harder to fix or mitigate.

If you really think global warming is true and needs to be stopped, you should stop using the government to enact changes. All the changes they keep mandating are even worse for the environment, using the "environmentalists" own standards. They mandate ethanol in gasoline, which adds more global warming gases to the atmosphere. They're blocking all usage of modern technology such as fracking on government lands, even though that technology is better for the environment AND would make the US energy independent AND provide millions of high paying and union jobs.

[PLAYER57832]

People, pulling together. The wealth of the US is phenomenal, but SS comes directly from the money we all contribute. Because people are living longer and having fewer kids, the equation does need to change, but your claim that this is about individual responsibility versus relying on some remote entity you think the government entails.. THAT is just false.

People pull together when they invest directly into businesses through stocks, bonds, etc. They pull together through charities and directly helping their neighbors. Government does not have exclusivity when it comes to people pulling together. And yes, it IS about individual responsibility. The government is not responsible for any non-employee's well-being. If a person doesn't want to set aside money for their own retirement, then they either don't get to retire or will have to get money from other people.

You utterly missed the point and added a big falsehood (a common misunderstanding, but still false).

Begin with just because people band together to invest doesn't mean its positive, but I will get into that below. Its certainly not guaranteed to yield interest.. Sure, on average people gain through spread out investments, but I can point to more than a few people who lost not just some, but EVERYTHING in recent years, not because they were stupid, failed to do their homework or any other excuse you wish to mount, it was plain and simply that, as your statements clearly say (assuming you invest), no returns are guaranteed, fund managers don't always make the best decisions. I read somewhere that unless you are making at least 75K then standard investments won't yield enough to withstand downturns except in fantastic years. The thing is, people came to expect fantastic returns because the 80's and most of the 90's were periods of phenomenal growth.

Second, the charity bit. I realize it is a common idea that local donations are more efficient or somehow better. The truth is that they are very, very inefficient and very uneven. When its done individually and privately, you may wind up, say with ten boxes of cheerios and no vegetables or whatever. Also, you may get lots of donations to one location and not to others. Any perishable food is particularly hard to distribute without a well organized network. Private charities, though often well intended, too often don't work well together. Large companies often will offer donations, but it may be in a form that is not storable (frozen, for example) for smaller operations. A large operation can accept large donations, get bulk purchase prices (or reduced prices), etc. Further, when you dig deeper, you find that a lot of "help" is really "food" that is not nutritious and may even have a very insidious backdrop. Get kids to think potato chips are a good meal addition, rather than a snack treat, and you have consumers -- and those kids now on welfare, even if they do stay on welfare for life will buy from local stores that buy from the big suppliers making hefty profits. THAT is why its important to divest aid from big business, because big business ultimately serves big business. As I have said before, corporations are specifically designed to shield themselves from reality -- financial negativity and other forms of negative outcomes, as well as to maximize some benefits.

The part that you have correct is that personal touches make a big difference. They DO, but the money involved here is not coming from individuals, it is coming from the government and big corporations. ALL of the ills you subscribe to government (being remote, removed, etc, etc) apply to the corporations, EXCEPT corporations have their own agenda -- to make a profit from selling products or services. The government has only the agenda that people demand of it. The confusion on your part is that right now, Big Business is heavily dictating the government agenda. When the problem is Big business, saying handing more power to big business would help is antithetical.

No, not necessarily.. at all. Further, what about the real costs. Every profit anyone gets from oil companies came at the expense of millions who live along the Gulf of Mexico. Income you gain from profits for various chemical companies and arms suppliers come similarly only with pain for others.

False. Completely false. Profit does not come at the expense of others. You assume that success is a zero-sum system where someone must be harmed in order for someone else to be successful. That is patently false. Oil companies don't get rich off of harming others.....BP alone has paid billions of dollars due to that spill. People get rich when they provide a marketable product that others buy. When they have a successful product, then they need to hire more people to provide more of that product, meaning they are directly HELPING people, not harming them.

OH, Boy!
I ASSUME nothing, but you certainly want to pretend to have a lot of knowledge about things you have never investigated or studied.

The fact that BP is supposed to pay billions in no way, shape or form means they have truly repaired or paid for the damage they caused just from that one incident, never mind compounded damage from other, smaller incidents all over. I can give you a full rundown of KNOWN damage, but the fact is that because we know so little about even a well-studied and relatively shallow area such as the Gulf of Mexico, we really don't even know, will never know the full extent of the damage. Further, documenting all the health damage done to humans will take years. Getting the evidence to tie it directly to the BP incident is nearly impossible. However, the fact that proving it is so difficult is in no way to say that the damage isn't there.

That is the difference. You want to ASSUME that everything is OK until proven, completely, otherwise. In biology, in medicine, by the time that proof is found, not only does it mean that millions have to get sick and/or die, feel serious injuries of many types, but the best means of correcting, never mind preventing the damage is long past. Playing "catch up" just doesn't work when YOUR child has cancer. Saying "oh, you can go ahead and sue" when YOUR child has cancer doesn't provide a cure. And by no means are we just talking cancer here, there are many, many problems with suspected ties to the compounds released from oil AND the disbursants used. That is why this idea of "mitigation" just doesn't work. Damage has to be PREVENTED, you cannot bring back a child or a parent. No money will restore them. Companies cannot be allowed to just do as they will and then pay penalties, even very big ones, as if that makes everything OK. THAT kind of mindset is exactly what comes from this idea that we all are supposed to just rely on 401Ks and big business to make our money.

Profit DOES move society, at least ours (and, with all respect to the Star Trek ideologue, I don't see us returning to a non-profit system), but most of what you call "profit" really is not. That you fail to understand, cannot be bothered to see the damage doesn't mean its not real.. it just means you have been bought off. It means your education was already heavily controlled by the very industries I am criticizing.

Beyond that, your initial assertion about individual success is just plain wrong. Being successful depends first and foremost upon having health. Then it depends on education. Both of those are being cut widely. We DID have a time when any child could go to school and get a basic physical education program, go to many parks and participate in programs funded by the federal government that kept kids busy and out of trouble, when a poor kid could do well in school and count on scholarships and loans to get them through college and into a decent job. Today, just when more and more jobs depend on college degrees, just when folks like you keep trying to claim that no one even deserves more than $7.50 an hour by right, education funding and aid for scholarships are being cut.

Oh look, we do have free education provided by the government and many government sponsored/promoted programs for physical education for kids.

No, not really. Parks programs are shrunk or non-existant. Physical education, even recess are becoming things of the past. Even when there is recess, there isn't decent equipment, even in the better schools. Its a combination of insurance issues, costs for equipment and time factors, but no.. they are NOT being provided as they were in decades past.

And yet, even THAT is up to the individual and families to take care of themselves. And if you want more scholarships for students, you should stop taxing so much money away from private citizens who have done the donating that funds those scholarships. People have to make cuts somewhere when their taxes are raised. Education funding in most states has never been higher, it's just that too many districts are wasting much of that money on useless positions such as "diversity officers".

Now you lapse into rhetoric bull.

Scholarships turned into loans and are now disappearing. Do you know who REALLY gets the most aid, now? Its the wealthier students! They may be attending more pricey universities, but they are getting aid and not the poorer students. There is no greater investment, no more important an investment for the success of any society than education. Education is the one thing that should not be cut, period! Yet... it is. And BP, Shell, etc continue to receive tax breaks, as does Walmart and GE.

Oh, and I have no idea what a "diversity officer" even is, though kids here could certainly use some real world education, education about other cultures. Some of what I hear could well come from the mouths of KKK members. (and note.. I am not talking figuratively, I have known KKK members!) I DO see parents up in arms that the school dares to teach even very basic sex education (never mind that the lunchroom is full of shouting about "so and so lost her virginity last night" and that, sadly, its not "just talk"), that the sports programs are being combined with another school.

By the way, it's not just that no one deserves more than $7.50 an hour by right, it's that NO PERSON deserves ANY MONEY simply by right. You get money based on the goods and services you provide to others. If you refuse to work or to do useful work, then you don't get paid. It's pretty simple. Getting money is not a right.....you must work for it. Getting money can never be a right because that would mandate an infringement on someone else's right to property.

Nope, sorry, starvation wages are not OK (and YES, $7.50 an hour in this society IS a starvation wage.. people don't starve because they get government and private assistance, but else, they would!). You have it backwards. You START by paying for your goods, then you determine the profit after paying your expenses. I realize Walmart operates otherwise, and that is why so many communities are heading into the tank, directly. When people work fulltime, they don't have time to go out and look for other jobs, not if they have a family.. even if other jobs were available. But, here is the thing. You start to pay people more and they start to spend more. THAT is what drives the economy. You START with good wages, then you build. You don't START with what companies and big investors feel they have a right to gain from plopping down their cash. You START with what it takes for a person who works hard to get a house and eat.

That is even without taking into account the massive change impending with global climate change. Pretending its "not real" just doesn't make it go away. It just means it gets harder and harder to fix or mitigate.

If you really think global warming is true and needs to be stopped

Almost forgot you were scientifically illiterate there. NO, not a matter of belief. Climate change is established fact. It just is. How to fix it, that is the ONLY realm of debate.

, you should stop using the government to enact changes. All the changes they keep mandating are even worse for the environment, using the "environmentalists" own standards.

Yes.... and no. Obama is actually doing some things, like his setting new air quality standards, that should help. (Wish he would do more!) However, it takes congress to do most of what needs to be done and Congress, right now, is too full of folks who want to pretend its just not happening, never mind go home and convince people to take steps to change it. Per the "don't rely on the government". That is like saying "don't rely on the government to build roads and big bridges". It will actually take not just our government, but ALL the world governments working together to solve this. No set of individuals or companies can, alone, do it. Only governments have the resources necessary.

They mandate ethanol in gasoline, which adds more global warming gases to the atmosphere. They're blocking all usage of modern technology such as fracking on government lands, even though that technology is better for the environment AND would make the US energy independent AND provide millions of high paying and union jobs.

OH PLEEAASE.. "fracking" is "better" ???? You DO realize I live in Western PA, the heart of deep hydraulic fracking country?
In fact, fracking probably increases global warming because, among other issues, there is a heavy release of methane in the operations. But there are far more serious issues involved with fracking, things like permanently polluting water systems and even sometimes causing small earthquakes.

There are no real, immediate and "ready to go" technologies to easily transpose our energy system into an environmentally friendly system. There are quite a few potential, interesting ideas that may someday lead to better solutions. Hydrofuel, for example has not quite panned out as hoped, but could still become viable. Algae products show a LOT of potential as biofuels, but are a long way off from fruition. Right now, the best bet is to cut and conserve. One of the first things I did when I bought my house was to insulate it. The next thing was to turn most of the lawn into vegetables. Both go a long way toward reducing my fuel consumption. (along with, of course, getting the most energy efficient appliances available when I have bought them). I am not going into the litany because that strays from the topic even more, but am more than happy to do a "head to head" in another thread if you wish. Also, I never claim to be an icon of sustainability. I have friends who are, know what it takes, and don't measure up myself.

[Nobunaga]

Player, the day you grow all your own food, make all your own clothes, walk everywhere you go and shun all electrical devices is the day you'll have an argument.

Corporations, in pursuit of profit, have made all these things available to you. Cursing them while you enjoy the comforts they offer is hypocrisy, plain and simple.

[Night Strike]

Player, the day you grow all your own food, make all your own clothes, walk everywhere you go and shun all electrical devices is the day you'll have an argument.

Corporations, in pursuit of profit, have made all these things available to you. Cursing them while you enjoy the comforts they offer is hypocrisy, plain and simple.

Player demands that every person lives in a pre-technology world with the government handing them every single thing they may ever want or need. She feels that corporations are being our masters currently, yet her ONLY solution is to make the government our masters. And it can be seen in her completely false-world diatribe reply to me. Nothing she posted is based in reality. Take her insistence on demonizing fracking....even though the US government (who she glorifies) has never found fracking to be dangerous or contaminating. Fracking takes place way below any water tables, and the chemicals used have never been found in water supplies, even though fracking has been going on for several decades (even it's not a new technology). By the way player, more oil seeps into oceans, etc. through natural causes than through man-made wells. Businesses have an incentive to avoid leaks.....they lose profit if it all leaks away. And if global warming is so true, why does EVERY prediction never come to pass, and data points are repeatedly being shown to be false (such as shutting down hundreds of temperature sites because they were next to heat sinks, leading to false data)?

And player, you do NOT deserve any money simply because you exist. If any person wants to get money, they have to work for it. And the work they do must be worth the amount they get paid. If you want everyone to have a "living wage", then open your own business and pay everyone $20+ an hour. We'll see how long you stay in business. Meanwhile, those of us who live in the real world realize that we get paid based on our work and value added, not on our dreams.

[jay_a2j]

He's been president for almost 5 years, why start doing it right, now?

[jay_a2j]

Speaking of the 2 term failure, he just passed through my town today and had the highway shut down for like 2+ hours!!!!! I yelled, "Impeach him!" and "Remember Benghazi!" as he went by.

[PLAYER57832]

Player, the day you grow all your own food, make all your own clothes, walk everywhere you go and shun all electrical devices is the day you'll have an argument.

Corporations, in pursuit of profit, have made all these things available to you. Cursing them while you enjoy the comforts they offer is hypocrisy, plain and simple.

No dice. Saying that we need a government-based, guaranteed retirement system and that business should be sustainable, pay for the real damage it causes, is in no way a blanket criticism of profit or the markets.

ALSO, the people who truly brought you all that are the scientists and engineers... self same that this country is no longer producing many of, because we "have" to fund tax cuts for big business instead of education.

If you folks who have bastardized and negated the market. I am saying we need to get back to it, with integrity, not fictional profits.

[PLAYER57832]

Player, the day you grow all your own food, make all your own clothes, walk everywhere you go and shun all electrical devices is the day you'll have an argument.

Corporations, in pursuit of profit, have made all these things available to you. Cursing them while you enjoy the comforts they offer is hypocrisy, plain and simple.

Player demands that every person lives in a pre-technology world with the government handing them every single thing they may ever want or need. She feels that corporations are being our masters currently, yet her ONLY solution is to make the government our masters.

Hmm... and you keep saying you are truly and idependent thinker? Then why do you find it so necessary to claim I am saying things I am not. If you can actually think, then address what I actually say, instead of what some website has told you 'all liberals must think".

And it can be seen in her completely false-world diatribe reply to me. Nothing she posted is based in reality. Take her insistence on demonizing fracking....even though the US government (who she glorifies) has never found fracking to be dangerous or contaminating.

LOL

Fracking takes place way below any water tables, and the chemicals used have never been found in water supplies, even though fracking has been going on for several decades (even it's not a new technology).

Nope... no such thing as "below any water table", not really. Whether chemicals have been found in existing and used water supplies is debated. However, your last statement is a blatant industry misdirection. Fracking has gone of for a long time. DEEP HYDRAULIC FRACKING, however, has not. It is the deep hydraulic fracking that is most in contention. Also, the safety record of even the shallower wells is heavily in dispute.

Both sides claim evidence. The truth is that mere production of these chemicals that currently cannot be removed is itself risky.... and by-the-way, if they "never touch any water supply", then what on Earth do you seem to think those fracking fluids are made of? These pools of water sit, much like other pools of water have sat. We HOPE they stay for essentially forever, but broken mines, shink holes, etc..... all these things show how unlikely that is. Today's technology means many past errors won't be exactly repeated, but if it were your house and your city's water supply would YOU gamble? And is it right that any company can gamble away YOUR property, YOUR water system without your even having a say... Becuase that IS what is happening

By the way player, more oil seeps into oceans, etc. through natural causes than through man-made wells.

LOL -- seriously! A lot seeps out off of the coast of California, to name just one location. The oil put out by companies causes far more harm because it happens where organisms are not adapted to it.

Businesses have an incentive to avoid leaks.....they lose profit if it all leaks away.

Sure, they have incentives --- but the measures needed to prevent leaks are expensive and so they also have incentives to not take them.

Anyway, are you SERIOUSLY trying to claim that the Gulf spill, the Exon Valdez, etc, etc, never happened? Try again.....

And if global warming is so true, why does EVERY prediction never come to pass, and data points are repeatedly being shown to be false (such as shutting down hundreds of temperature sites because they were next to heat sinks, leading to false data)?

You are wrong.

And player, you do NOT deserve any money simply because you exist. If any person wants to get money, they have to work for it.

I believe that is what we were talking about.. wages for WORK?

And the work they do must be worth the amount they get paid.

Who decides "worth"? See, employers have long "decided" that employees are worthless. They have "decided" that its OK to have someone work 60-80 hours a week under hazardous conditions for pay that doesn't feed their family.

If someone works fulltime, they deserve to make enough to eat, have decent shelter, medical care and a bit beyond.

If you want everyone to have a "living wage", then open your own business and pay everyone $20+ an hour. We'll see how long you stay in business. Meanwhile, those of us who live in the real world realize that we get paid based on our work and value added, not on our dreams.

LOL... The living wage is well below $20 an hour in most areas. Anyway, if people get paid more, they spend more and the economy flourishes. The PROBLEM is that it only takes 1-2 idiot jerks who decide that its perfectly OK to hire someone for $2.00 an hour and make them live 20 to a single wide, unairconditioned or heated trailer -- and sell their product for less than the guy paying decent wages. Without a reasonable minimum wage, then it is the irresponsible and greedy who get to set the pace. The honest business people cannot compete.

THAT is what has happened to construction companies in Texas, California and Arizona. That is what happened in the meat packing industry..and in many other industries. These industries are dominated by illegal workers willing to work for less than citizens, willing to endure horrible conditions, because anyone not willing to cut those corners, not willing to abuse their workers in that way winds up going out of business.

You are not building up business, you are driving it, and our entire economy down when you make claims such as you have above. And yes, Nightstrike, I DO have the facts to back up what I am saying. You can pretend you have never seen the data, but that doesn't make it go away.

[Nobunaga]

...

ALSO, the people who truly brought you all that are the scientists and engineers... self same that this country is no longer producing many of, because we "have" to fund tax cuts for big business instead of education.

So let me get this straight... scientists and engineers got together and said, "Hey! This is a good idea! Let's sell our homes and take out massive loans to create companies so we can offer this great stuff to the general population"! ... Uh, no.

And as to that last bit..

Federal elementary and secondary education spending has risen mightily since the early 1970s, when Washington first started immersing itself in education. In 1970, according to the federal Digest of Education Statistics, Uncle Sam spent an inflation-adjusted $31.5 billion on public K-12 education. By 2009 that had ballooned to $82.9 billion.

On a per-pupil basis, in 1970 the feds spent $435 per student. By 2006 — the latest year with available data — it was $1,015, a 133 percent increase. And it’s not like state and local spending was dropping: Real, overall, per-pupil spending rose from $5,593 in 1970 to $12,463 in 2006, and today we beat almost every other industrialized nation in education funding.

And the reason we're not producing more scientists and engineers is tax cuts to corporations? Really?

(Like talking to a brick wall)

[PLAYER57832]

And player, you do NOT deserve any money simply because you exist. If any person wants to get money, they have to work for it. And the work they do must be worth the amount they get paid. If you want everyone to have a "living wage", then open your own business and pay everyone $20+ an hour. We'll see how long you stay in business. Meanwhile, those of us who live in the real world realize that we get paid based on our work and value added, not on our dreams.

You keep saying this, so let's look at the alternative.

YOU want to claim that the "legitimate" way to get money is to earn it by selling goods and products. What does that REALLY mean?

I agree that selling things like food, refrigerators, bicycles, etc, etc... all those things are beneficial and people deserve to earn profits. BUT... when you start talking about someone making millions for creating Beavis and Buthead or selling the "latest" new T-shirt, then is it REALLY more beneficial than building parks, roads, sewer systems and the like?

When producing those products creates real and true harm, harm that the producer is allowed to ignore because its convenient.. then it broaches something not just unhelpful or not quite good, but truly nefarious. Someone made a profit off the Love Canal bit. Many people made a good deal of profit off selling lead paint. Many people made and are making a good deal of profit from producing all kinds of things that cause harm to the rest of us.

SO, the real truth is that so much of what you tout as being "responsible" is anything but. It really and truly IS about ignoring costs, pretending they don't exist and then leaving everyone else to pay.

You and Nobunga, etc each want to argue that this is about being "pro business" and "pro economy" versus depending on the government. That is utterly untrue. Business exists within whatever real constraints exist. It is the nature of business to make profits. It is not the profits themselves that are bad, it is HOW the people use business to make a profit that can be very, very bad.

What you are REALLY doing when you reject the proofs and evidence of harm is giving those businesses that are not responsible a bonus. You are putting them ahead of responsible, sustainable businesses. These business models you tout are not sustainable. They may grow for a time, even very quickly -- temptingly quickly, but not being sustainable means they are like houses built on sand. The profits will go away, and the rest of us will be left to not just rebuild business in sustainable ways, but also to clean up the damage left us. AND... in many cases, that damage is well beyond difficult to correct, perhaps even impossible. Whether it is soils that have acidified or become alkaline, soils and water that have chemicals we cannot remove, or lost species, none of that can be returned the way it was with current technology... and pretending that some new fix will just happen along is as foolish as saying your retirement plan is to win the lottery. Maybe... IF you are one of the one in how many billion that luck out. Else... you get a small piece of paper to live upon.

Just because you CAN create a product and sell it doesn't mean you are somehow doing better, helping the world or even yourself better than if you simply paid a straight tax to deal with necessities.

Your further claim that all these things would be better off being privatized is just plain wrong, in ways I have talked about before. Most government operations are natural monopolies and areas of extreme complex technical needs, things like going to the moon or curing major diseases. Letting the market "decide" monopolies is disaster. Attempting to let for profit entities coordinate in the long term way necessary to solve very big issues is also a mistake. I can get into that bit again, if you wish.

[PLAYER57832]

...

ALSO, the people who truly brought you all that are the scientists and engineers... self same that this country is no longer producing many of, because we "have" to fund tax cuts for big business instead of education.

So let me get this straight... scientists and engineers got together and said, "Hey! This is a good idea! Let's sell our homes and take out massive loans to create companies so we can offer this great stuff to the general population"! ... Uh, no.

No, bankers and investors did that.

Those same people happened to get their education because a generation decided that investing in their children was worthwhile. But once they got their education, suddenly decided that paying back was just "too expensive" and "not worthwhile".

Oh, yeah, and its pretty hard to do much research when you have to spend your ENTIRE paycheck just renting a house, buying food and gas. The idea of just setting up a business or working for a large firm and getting a far larger paycheck is pretty tempting.

Put it another way. Stephen Hildenberg is a smart guy who actually DOES know a lot about the natural world, but he became a millionaire not because he was an expert in fish systems, but because he drew a character that made a lot of people laugh. Laughter is important, don't get me wrong about that.. we all need entertainment to survive. BUT, his professors were nationally recognized in their fields, very, very well respected ... and yet... they were lucky to make enough to pay mortgages in Northern California.

Your thinking, that this is just about paying money to schools versus business, is part of the problem. That we give big business (note, "BIG" business, not just all business) tax breaks instead of helping schools is very much a symptom of the attitude that no one owes anyone else anything anymore.

And as to that last bit..

Federal elementary and secondary education spending has risen mightily since the early 1970s, when Washington first started immersing itself in education. In 1970, according to the federal Digest of Education Statistics, Uncle Sam spent an inflation-adjusted $31.5 billion on public K-12 education. By 2009 that had ballooned to $82.9 billion.

On a per-pupil basis, in 1970 the feds spent $435 per student. By 2006 — the latest year with available data — it was $1,015, a 133 percent increase. And it’s not like state and local spending was dropping: Real, overall, per-pupil spending rose from $5,593 in 1970 to $12,463 in 2006, and today we beat almost every other industrialized nation in education funding.

The biggest reason we seem to spend so much more is that much of OUR education budget goes to special education services that are covered by national health systems in other countries.
Beyond that, inflation happens. Inflation happens particularly when you need to bring new technology and advanced science into schools. Pretending that costs should be the same in 2006 as they were in 1970 is beyond silly. You would never make such a real claim for any other industry.

And the reason we're not producing more scientists and engineers is tax cuts to corporations? Really?

Its failure to invest in education, build up the knowledge kids really need to understand the world. Its spending money on lawsuits--both for injuries and fighting idiocies like creationism, and people not wanting kids to learn about sex.

(Like talking to a brick wall)

Yes, talking to you IS like that, because unlike myself, you persist in thinking you have all the information you need already and refuse to even consider any other possibilities.

[Night Strike]

Player, nothing you posted had anything to do with explaining your position that people have a right to an income. You just go on this diatribe that businesses only exist to harm and kill people. We have specific laws that make it illegal to harm others, which is a proper role of government. Other than that, it's not the government's role to determine what product the private sector makes. You see, the only time the economy actually goes is when wealth is created, which is why only the private sector can make an economy grow. The government does not create wealth, but they definitely can hinder it. That's why this government is doing massive harm to the economy (including great paying manufacturing and union jobs) by refusing to open up federal lands for drilling. The US sits on oil fields more than 3 times the size of the oil fields in Saudi Arabia, yet this administration refuses to use it. We could have an economic boom, but this administration opposes economic growth by falsely believing the government creates jobs.

[AndyDufresne]

The government does not create wealth, but they definitely can hinder it. That's why this government is doing massive harm to the economy (including great paying manufacturing and union jobs) by refusing to open up federal lands for drilling. The US sits on oil fields more than 3 times the size of the oil fields in Saudi Arabia, yet this administration refuses to use it. We could have an economic boom, but this administration opposes economic growth by falsely believing the government creates jobs.

Sci Show sort of talks about tangentially related items, like what oil is "available" and the varying levels of difficulty in extraction, etc. I encourage you to watch it.


--Andy

[BigBallinStalin]

And player, you do NOT deserve any money simply because you exist. If any person wants to get money, they have to work for it. And the work they do must be worth the amount they get paid. If you want everyone to have a "living wage", then open your own business and pay everyone $20+ an hour. We'll see how long you stay in business. Meanwhile, those of us who live in the real world realize that we get paid based on our work and value added, not on our dreams.

You keep saying this, so let's look at the alternative.

YOU want to claim that the "legitimate" way to get money is to earn it by selling goods and products. What does that REALLY mean?

I agree that selling things like food, refrigerators, bicycles, etc, etc... all those things are beneficial and people deserve to earn profits. BUT... when you start talking about someone making millions for creating Beavis and Buthead or selling the "latest" new T-shirt, then is it REALLY more beneficial than building parks, roads, sewer systems and the like?

When producing those products creates real and true harm, harm that the producer is allowed to ignore because its convenient.. then it broaches something not just unhelpful or not quite good, but truly nefarious. Someone made a profit off the Love Canal bit. Many people made a good deal of profit off selling lead paint. Many people made and are making a good deal of profit from producing all kinds of things that cause harm to the rest of us.

SO, the real truth is that so much of what you tout as being "responsible" is anything but. It really and truly IS about ignoring costs, pretending they don't exist and then leaving everyone else to pay.

You and Nobunga, etc each want to argue that this is about being "pro business" and "pro economy" versus depending on the government. That is utterly untrue. Business exists within whatever real constraints exist. It is the nature of business to make profits. It is not the profits themselves that are bad, it is HOW the people use business to make a profit that can be very, very bad.

What you are REALLY doing when you reject the proofs and evidence of harm is giving those businesses that are not responsible a bonus. You are putting them ahead of responsible, sustainable businesses. These business models you tout are not sustainable. They may grow for a time, even very quickly -- temptingly quickly, but not being sustainable means they are like houses built on sand. The profits will go away, and the rest of us will be left to not just rebuild business in sustainable ways, but also to clean up the damage left us. AND... in many cases, that damage is well beyond difficult to correct, perhaps even impossible. Whether it is soils that have acidified or become alkaline, soils and water that have chemicals we cannot remove, or lost species, none of that can be returned the way it was with current technology... and pretending that some new fix will just happen along is as foolish as saying your retirement plan is to win the lottery. Maybe... IF you are one of the one in how many billion that luck out. Else... you get a small piece of paper to live upon.

Just because you CAN create a product and sell it doesn't mean you are somehow doing better, helping the world or even yourself better than if you simply paid a straight tax to deal with necessities.

Your further claim that all these things would be better off being privatized is just plain wrong, in ways I have talked about before. Most government operations are natural monopolies and areas of extreme complex technical needs, things like going to the moon or curing major diseases. Letting the market "decide" monopolies is disaster. Attempting to let for profit entities coordinate in the long term way necessary to solve very big issues is also a mistake. I can get into that bit again, if you wish.

Numerous slogans, but no details.

[GreecePwns]

i don't expect much good out of our current president. especially if he's not concerned about re-election.

To be honest, that was my little tiny bit of hope in Obama...that since he didn't need to be concerned about re-election, perhaps he MIGHT do the right thing. Sadly, that does not seem to have been the case.

HAH! This is his last chance to impress his masters in the private sector before he begins looking for his next job.

[Lootifer]

The government does not create wealth, but they definitely can hinder it. That's why this government is doing massive harm to the economy (including great paying manufacturing and union jobs) by refusing to open up federal lands for drilling. The US sits on oil fields more than 3 times the size of the oil fields in Saudi Arabia, yet this administration refuses to use it. We could have an economic boom, but this administration opposes economic growth by falsely believing the government creates jobs.

FIrstly the government can create wealth just like any private entity. The main reason people like BBS et al dont like it creating wealth is they arent very good at it.

Secondly: HAH. Your EIA is actually surprisingly good; not sure if its because the engineers have taken over or what, but generally the analysis and information that comes out of them is pretty sound. So therefore I invite you to peruse their wealth of information and please back up your argument with one iota of evidence to say that federally owned lands have cost competitive stockpiles of oil (I am genuinely interested from both a personal and professional pov here). As far as I am aware what you are saying is completely untrue.

[PLAYER57832]

Player, nothing you posted had anything to do with explaining your position that people have a right to an income.

Not a right to an income, a right to be paid reasonably for work done. And that is a basic human right, basic morality.

In your world, animals have more rights than humans, because humans ARE required to feed and shelter animals, but according to you a human who works full-time has no such rights.

You just go on this diatribe that businesses only exist to harm and kill people.

No, but I did explain that just because a business can generate a profit doesn't mean they are somehow "good" or even better than those who depend on assistance to get by.

There is nothing at all wrong with profit (and you need to stop saying that is my assertion if you wish to be anything other than a flat liar.) There IS something wrong with pretending that just because a harm or cost is not immediate and direct it doesn't exist. What I am arguing is not against real profit, its that most of what many companies call "profit" includes a lot of expenses pushed onto others -- be it everyone having to pay more taxes, everyone having to pay more for resources like water (to compensate for the huge amounts used by private companies, often given discounts even though there is no inherent reduction in cost for these resources), or having to actually clean up messes (ranging from direct and indirect pollution to dealing with things like excess truck traffic near their homes and schools, etc.).

We have specific laws that make it illegal to harm others, which is a proper role of government.

Except... when I assert such you trot out your "she just loves government" garbage!

Yes, protecting people IS very much the role of government. Except when ALL of the burden of proof is placed on the people being harmed, it means that entities have an essentially free reign to cause harm, even very serious harm, as long as it is not directly and immediately proven. It means that those harmed have to THEMSELVES do the research and provide the firm and indisputable proof of harm. In most cases, for individuals to go up against even a relatively small business, never mind a huge corporation is just impossible. Further, if the harm is chemical harm to cause illness in humans, the length of time needed to prove harm is decades. That means not only is the toxin spread far and wide, not only have thousands or millions, even billions (if product is widespread) have been harmed, but there is a very good chance that the responsible parties are no longer in business and therefore will not even be held responsible for the damage caused at all! This is not, as you and BS try to clai some kind of imaginary and "fake"scenario.

Many benefitted from selling lead paint and using mercury despite the fact that those 2 toxins have been known to be extremely toxic for millenia. (The Romans suffered lead poisoning, to give just one example). When you get into all the complex aromatics out there, and further, what happens when those chemicals are altered by sun/air/time and combined with other chemicals, you have a chemical stew that is infecting essentially every species on Earth today, right now.

Maybe you like to pretend the whole "Silent Spring" scenario is imaginary, but we face the very real likelihood of a world either without bees or with a bee population too low to produce the food we need well. Chemical pollution is almost certainly a big part of that problem. Similarly, we face the loss of most amphibians (frogs in particular, but also newts, Salamanders, etc). It might be easy for someone like yourself to dismiss that as unimportant, but that requires an intensive level of non-knowledge about the natural world and how it works. The REAL truth is if we lose the frogs, we are not far behind. We may (only "may") be able to survive without frogs, but whatever is killing the frogs, at least if not stopped, is very likely to harm human beings. THAT is why pretending most of those stuff is not happening is so dangerous. Pretending doesn't stop the damage, but it does shut out our best windows for solution.

Think business can just get by without the animals and plants around us, without clean water and good, arable soils.. if you think that, then you are not just ignorant you are plain outright harmfully stupid.

Other than that, it's not the government's role to determine what product the private sector makes

To a point, but as you just said, it IS the government's role to keep people from harm and that includes limiting (note, I did NOT say "eliminate") the damage businesses are allowed to commit. In addition, government is the only entity that is large enough to take on some of the very, very biggest problems. Again, that falls under the heading of "protecting the population".

In fact, many of the biggest achievements of "private business" today were only so because of very definite and specific research produced by government funded researchers. In particular, almost all of the "private" tech boom owes its thanks to the government researches that were their predecessors, but the same is true for many industries. You fail to acknowledge that, in part because government scientists are almost entirely prohibited from taking most credit, even to the point where any patents generated from government research are offered, for FREE to the private industry doing the closest match of research. Notice how big a bonus that can provide companies doing the right kinds of research.. and if you think they are not fully aware of that, you are mistaken! YOU might well remain ignorant, many people are, but you can bet the real movers and shakers know fully how to play the dance.

That process does seem dumb, but it was created because people demanded it that way. Government is not supposed to compete with private industry, so in almost ALL cases, laws are put in place to ensure that they don't. THAT is why government jobs must pay union wages or "prevailing wages". THAT is why so many government entities don't make a profit as you see it.. because they are not supposed to make a profit, not supposed to compete with private industry. However, most entities run by the government are those already not suited to private industry competition. They are either natural monopolies, things like roads and sewer systems (you cannot just pick up and move your house to a better system), phone lines, power lines, etc. Sure, we have cell towers now and satellites that can transmit a lot of data, but we still depend heavily on a basic, on-the-ground practical electric grid to power our lights and computers.

In fact what YOU want to do is to MAKE GOVERNMENT give businesses that are not sustainable, not naturally profitable, an advantage so they can stay in business. What you are proposing is not freedom of the market, not really and truly, you are proposing just keeping businesses already in existance, with minor changes, going. Challenges create innovation. Challenges involve a good deal of failure, which is why government traditionally funds the early base line researches necessary to move society forward. Business only comes in long after, when there is real fruition that can be clearly developed into practical products and services for sale. Business cannot exist without the basis of a good, solid and successful government. Pretending it must be antagonistic is what is killing our economy, not asking businesses to be responsible.

You see, the only time the economy actually goes is when wealth is created, which is why only the private sector can make an economy grow.

Even by old school models you are wrong. Economies grow when there is access to needed resources, something that has traditionally happened through wars and conquest. Today, it happens in "back door" deals that to many are not far removed from conquest. In fact, more than a few point to minerals and assets for why we have gotten involved in the conflicts where we have.

Beyond that, economies need innovation and experimentation. THAT requires education AND it requires people who can and are willing to take risks.. very, very big risks at times. That kind of risk taking is only possible in a relatively stable environment. We USED to have such an environment. It was not government placing legitimate restrictions on business operations that changed the situation, it was too many people wanting to make a profit off of others without regard to long term consequences.. and a reduction of regulations that allowed them to do so. Mortgages with nothing down should never have happened, would not have happened had regulations not been eased. Playgrounds are being plowed under and things people used to enjoy, like natural swimming holes are being fenced in an posted "no tresspassing" because of the fear of lawsuits. Small operations cannot produce and sell many products because if there is any kind of contamination, they risk losing it all. Only the largest corporations can produce most of our food. (farmers markets are a bit of an exception, but facing a lot of serious challenges). These things happen precisely because the big corporations want their profit, see the smaller entities as threats.

The government does not create wealth, but they definitely can hinder it.

Yes.... but more often than not, the hindering is big corporations wanting to exert their power and gain benefit from the rest of us, without paying us for that benefit.

That's why this government is doing massive harm to the economy (including great paying manufacturing and union jobs) by refusing to open up federal lands for drilling. The US sits on oil fields more than 3 times the size of the oil fields in Saudi Arabia, yet this administration refuses to use it. We could have an economic boom, but this administration opposes economic growth by falsely believing the government creates jobs.

LOL LOL LOL at least you can read company advertisements, now how about doing a bit more research and looking into WHY so many are opposed to this "free use" of resources.

To begin, once those reserves are used, they are GONE. We have no alternative. To use them up blithely without any plan for the future, when they are gone is irresponsible. Our society depends far, far too heavily on a few non-renewable and not recyclable resources. Using these products is literally taking from our children.. and leaving them with vague and probably empty ideas that some "future technological fix" will somehow solve it all. You keep talking about not leaving our kids with debt, but taking all their resources is far, far worse.

Second, public lands are just that PUBLIC lands. They are there for ALL of us to enjoy and use, not just for a few companies to get rich and destroy. As for the "destroy" bit... I believe you said you live in New York. Travel down to the Allegheny... except, without having seen what was here before, you won't have a reference. Also, unlike most public lands, the Allegheny forest is almost entirely second or third growth. It was already cut, burned and generally "abused" (and that is NOT an "anti-logging" statement, logging and forestry have evolved today, but in the past abuses very much did happen, and very much in the Allegheny). Anyway, each platform takes a minimum of 20 acres of land. Note that many units in the forest were only 50 acres. (very different from western forests!) Any other operation has to do a complete environmental impact assessment before they can build, do most anything anywhere in the forest. These frackers don't have to do that. They don't have to because they already own the gas. (a lot of people don't realize this). In that way, the Allegheny is very different from other forests. The Forest Service, the US government CANNOT prevent them from coming in here. No local town can, either. They can , have, will build their towers around and even under municipal water supplies without even posting a bond to cover any damage. When dealing with private land owners they offer promises of trucking in water should wells be contaminated.. but for how long? Once those frackers are out of business or retired, who will pay then? A well casing might be "gauranteed" to last 200 years. That sounds like a long time.. until you talk to the folks who bought houses in the 100 year lease territory of Salmanca. Its quite likely, given lifespans, that our grandchildren, almost certainly great grandchildren will be around in 200 years. What then? Just because the damage is a long way off doesn't mean its OK to ignore. Again... this is a debt we owe our children, to pass on a reasonable world, not a more heavily polluted one.

AND, generally, those agreements only go toward the few people who actually sign the lease agreements, the people who are gaining the money from the leases. I won't even get into the lawsuits because many people suffer the damage and irritation of having the frackers on their land only to get no money or very, very little money. (in other words, some of the companies are outright cheating people).

The companies like to make many, many claims. You recited a few, but think on this... A company that claims it has been "using the same technology for decades", despite the fact that there is a very, very clear and distinct difference between these new deep hydrofracking operations and the shallower operations that have been used for decades, if they cannot even be honest about something so basic, how trustworthy is all of their data. Company after company and even some PA government agencies keep claiming that Frack water is not dumped in municipal sewage systems. Its not supposed to be because those systems are not equipped to deal with the chemicals or radiation levels. Yet, it is. Most landfills cannot take the high levels of radiation found in sludge from fracking operations. If this is all so "OK", then why flat lie about it? (and make no mistake, they ARE lying!!)

Then we get into the medical issues. Granted, a lot of stuff has been overstated by those opposed to fracking, BUT the biggest real issue is that no one really knows and in some cases, doctors are not even allowed to collect information to find conclusions about potential harm from fracking. Its not just that they cannot get funding to do epidemiological studies, its that in some areas they are actually prohibited from doing them. Still, data is being collected in some areas and is coming up with conclusions that show real harm.. harm that frackers deny, deny, deny.

This doesn't stick to fracking, it goes for many, many industries. In many cases, companies can come into a community and destroy much of what attracted people -- people who may have lived in an area for generations or migrated specifically to enjoy specific benefits -- without giving any compensation, without people having any say in the matter, simply because they don't have the resources to prove direct harm and fight a HUGE corporations

You pretend to be about freedom and rights, but in truth you are about one thing.. big corporations controlling us, the government and not respecting anyone's individual rights at all!

The worst part? Some corporations ARE quite decent, but how can they stay in business when these other corporations are allowed to abuse and cheat. A few very high tech companies, other isolated companies with high profit margins have bucked the status quo and succeeded, but it is a very uphill battle. The enemy is not government, it is irresponsible companies and individuals.

[PLAYER57832]

Secondly: HAH. Your EIA is actually surprisingly good; not sure if its because the engineers have taken over or what, but generally the analysis and information that comes out of them is pretty sound. So therefore I invite you to peruse their wealth of information and please back up your argument with one iota of evidence to say that federally owned lands have cost competitive stockpiles of oil (I am genuinely interested from both a personal and professional pov here). As far as I am aware what you are saying is completely untrue.

Actually, he is confusing a couple of things. Not sure how much you already know this (and were just seeing if Nightstrike does) and how much you genuinely do not know.

First, fracking has nothing to do with oil.. its natural gas that is fracked. The Marsellas shale reserves (part of which lies under the Allegheny Forest) have been compared to Saudi Oil reserves. The oil mostly lies offshore and up in Alaska. A lot of that has already been tapped, and it is a big pool, though how big is disputed somewhat. Some people want to open up drilling in the Arctic Refuge, but it is a bad idea for a lot of very practical reasons as well as environmental reasons. Maybe in time we will have better technology, and it will be worth tapping it, but not right now.

Its a similar story with the Tar Sands pipeline from Canada, though far more nuanced. The pipeline might be a bad idea, but its probably not as terrible (on a national or world scale) as drilling in the Arctic would be. It looks as though that might happen, so time will tell if it was a good or bad decision.

[Night Strike]

Not a right to an income, a right to be paid reasonably for work done. And that is a basic human right, basic morality.

What do you think the free market does? If you provide a job that is worth a lot of money, you get paid a lot of money. If you do a job that anybody off the street could pick up and do, then you do not get paid a lot of money. You can't get any more reasonable than that.

In fact what YOU want to do is to MAKE GOVERNMENT give businesses that are not sustainable, not naturally profitable, an advantage so they can stay in business.

I'm not that one throwing hundreds of millions of dollars at failed businesses like Solyndra.

Maybe you like to pretend the whole "Silent Spring" scenario is imaginary, but we face the very real likelihood of a world either without bees or with a bee population too low to produce the food we need well.

"Silent Spring" directly led to the death of thousands of more people than any number of wildlife that may have been harmed. The environmentalists have thousands of deaths on their hands for refusing to eradicate malaria when it was already nearly accomplished. Birds were more valuable than people.

To begin, once those reserves are used, they are GONE. We have no alternative. To use them up blithely without any plan for the future, when they are gone is irresponsible.

We have hundreds of years of shale oil available within our borders. So not only will our techniques at extracting it become even more effective and efficient than it is today, we will also be developing profitable alternatives when they are necessary as well (and the technology actually exists to make them efficient). You see, that's how the free market system works....private businesses develop the new cutting-edge products that society will be able to use. It's the government that is trying to force us into using antiquated and inefficient technologies such as wind turbines when we have ample amounts of reliable and safe energy sources already available to us.

Its a similar story with the Tar Sands pipeline from Canada, though far more nuanced. The pipeline might be a bad idea, but its probably not as terrible (on a national or world scale) as drilling in the Arctic would be. It looks as though that might happen, so time will tell if it was a good or bad decision.

That pipeline is being built regardless of what Obama does. It's either going to be built toward western Canada to be shipped to China for refinement, or it's going to be built to go through the US to refineries in Texas. I'd much rather have the thousands of high paying jobs come to the US rather than go to China. But jobs be damned when the "environmentalists" get involved.

[PLAYER57832]

Not a right to an income, a right to be paid reasonably for work done. And that is a basic human right, basic morality.

What do you think the free market does? If you provide a job that is worth a lot of money, you get paid a lot of money. If you do a job that anybody off the street could pick up and do, then you do not get paid a lot of money. You can't get any more reasonable than that.

The free market establishes prices for salable, marketable goods. It does not set a price for human beings.

You are thinking of this exactly backwards. I am not saying you have to hire anyone. I am not saying that people are gauranteed employment. You are trying to claim that people have an inherent right to collect profit just because they come up with some idea/service or product to sell. I say they can collect profit only AFTER paying expenses. It doesn't matter if the inherent expense is gas to fuel a machine or food for people. You cannot cut the basic costs simply because you wish it so.

Lootifer as well as many others besides myself have repeatedly pointed out that people in very desperate straits will work for less than it really takes them to live, even without subsidies. Some food is better than no food. Food without shelter is at least something to fill your belly. If the situation is generally dire... aka wartime, etc, then its even reasonable. BUT, its not OK when the person paying the wage takes his/her profit, passes on profit to every investor and considers all of them have to get paid BEFORE wages are valued. That leads to no economy.

Ford paid his workers well so they could BUY model T's.... and thus built a company. Your premise is that there is no such bottom and that those at the top can dictate what trickles down. Might as well be a monarchy in that system.

IN OUR society, that bottom is close to non-existent (NOT non-existent any longer.. it was in the late 70's, but came back under ?Reagan), but not because everyone is paying reasonable wages, its because we have tax payer supported childcare/food subsidies/rent subsidies, etc. When those are given to people working fulltime or nearly fulltime, INCLUDING several people working part-time jobs, so the employer can dodge paying whatever benefits, then it amounts to taxpayer subsidies for that companies profits. THAT is why even though the overall income of the country has gone up since the 70's, 70% of the population has seen wages stagnate. its because more at the top feel they have a right to take more and more... and are required to pass down less and less for honest work done.

In fact what YOU want to do is to MAKE GOVERNMENT give businesses that are not sustainable, not naturally profitable, an advantage so they can stay in business.

I'm not that one throwing hundreds of millions of dollars at failed businesses like Solyndra.

No, just supporting abusive companies like Walmart, BP Oil, etc. Far worse, in fact. Solyndra was a mistake. Mistakes happen... and, the reason it failed had more to do with our hefty supports of oil and China's better support of solar technology than a real failure of the model. Those others knowingly cause direct harm to society. They take in the guise of giving, and pretend they are doing us a favor.

Maybe you like to pretend the whole "Silent Spring" scenario is imaginary, but we face the very real likelihood of a world either without bees or with a bee population too low to produce the food we need well.

"Silent Spring" directly led to the death of thousands of more people than any number of wildlife that may have been harmed. The environmentalists have thousands of deaths on their hands for refusing to eradicate malaria when it was already nearly accomplished. Birds were more valuable than people.

Data, please.

If you think that Rachael Carson was some kind of anti-chemical/anti-pesticide wacko, then you know little of her. She was against the ABUSE of highly toxic substances and pretending that pesticides were safe when they were not. That is a far cry from how the chemical industry painted her.

And no, because birds are just the FIRST warning of inherent harm to humans. Its not "birds versus humans" as many anti-naturalists try to claim, its birds because we want people. Also, there are many ways that birds directly help humans... pest control being a hefty primary reason.

One bat does a very good job of killing mosquitoes.... and without killing all the innocuous and needful wildlife, harming humans. (or didn't you know that DDT was harmful to humans as well??)

In fact, if certain entities were not so heavily vested in selling chemicals, we long since would have promoted better, real long-term solutions. Chemicals might be/can be a part of that mix, but not blind usage. And yes.. blind usage is pretty much what we have had.

Frogs and bees ARE declining, may be wiped out, and that absolutely would harm people in extremely serious ways.

To begin, once those reserves are used, they are GONE. We have no alternative. To use them up blithely without any plan for the future, when they are gone is irresponsible.

We have hundreds of years of shale oil available within our borders. So not only will our techniques at extracting it become even more effective and efficient than it is today, we will also be developing profitable alternatives when they are necessary as well (and the technology actually exists to make them efficient).

Care to step beyond the most blatant industry rhetoric and find some real data? I HAVE.

Besides, that comment was in reference to the Arctic Wildlife refuge.. nice try at twisting issues. You want to claim that hoping for better technology in the future is OK. I don't think so. I think we deal with what we have today and don't lay plans that depend on our future coming out exactly perfect. I believe it makes far more sense to expect failures and problems.. and to make plans that will persist despite that.

Despite all your claims about responsibility, when it comes to business you want to give them an utterly blank check with no verification at all!

You see, that's how the free market system works....private businesses develop the new cutting-edge products that society will be able to use. It's the government that is trying to force us into using antiquated and inefficient technologies such as wind turbines when we have ample amounts of reliable and safe energy sources already available to us.

No, its not... and you pointed out a few very nice examples of things that are NOT fully from the free market, but instead came from government research.

Also, nothing about Marsallas shale is free market. It is more like colonialism with some outright fraud mixed in. The gas rights were given away long before anyone even knew anything about natural gas. Old laws dictate that if you own minerals, you have the right to attain them.. no matter if you acquired those minerals for free, inherited them years prior, and never mind how much people on the surface have paid, invested or depend on the resources on the surface. Underground mineral ownership supersedes all other ownership rights.

In this case, they don't even have to account for any kind of damage.. no environmental impact statements, no real oversight. The DEP is supposed to have some control, but Corbett has pretty much nuetralized any in-government criticism of the industry, and the industry doesn't have to listen to anyone else short of lawsuits. Plenty of lawsuits are pending, but it takes a LOT of money and these frackers have it, the communities do not.

Its a similar story with the Tar Sands pipeline from Canada, though far more nuanced. The pipeline might be a bad idea, but its probably not as terrible (on a national or world scale) as drilling in the Arctic would be. It looks as though that might happen, so time will tell if it was a good or bad decision.

That pipeline is being built regardless of what Obama does.

Why is it that you want to blame Obama for everything you dislike and deny any credit for anything positive he does.

This pipeline predates Obama, and the fight is outside of Obama.

It's either going to be built toward western Canada to be shipped to China for refinement, or it's going to be built to go through the US to refineries in Texas. I'd much rather have the thousands of high paying jobs come to the US rather than go to China. But jobs be damned when the "environmentalists" get involved.

There is a lot more to it than that, but I already said it likely is going to go through. Time will tell if that was good or bad.

[PLAYER57832]

Numerous slogans, but no details.

Not going to write your thesis for you, sorry. I already did that once.. doesn't pay.

[BigBallinStalin]

Numerous slogans, but no details.

Not going to write your thesis for you, sorry. I already did that once.. doesn't pay.

Do you do anything other than spout rhetoric?

[Night Strike]

The free market establishes prices for salable, marketable goods. It does not set a price for human beings.

How can the free market establish prices for good when their largest cost is dictated by the government?

Care to step beyond the most blatant industry rhetoric and find some real data? I HAVE.

http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/23191/shale_oil_boom.html

Why is it that you want to blame Obama for everything you dislike and deny any credit for anything positive he does.

This pipeline predates Obama, and the fight is outside of Obama

Because Obama has illegally held up any decision on whether the pipeline can be built on US federal lands. In fact, just earlier this month a DC court ruled that Obama is breaking the law by refusing to rule on Keystone Pipeline actions. So yes, he is to blame.