Thanks. I have a feeling we'll disagree, but you ask great questions.....
"Dianelos Georgoudis" <
[email protected]> wrote in message
news:
[email protected]...
> Your post is interesting -
>
> "David J. Allen" <dallen03NO_SPAM@sanNO_SPAM.rr.com> wrote in message
news:
> > Fascism and Socialism have one thing in common... they view government
as
> > able to give and take away rights according to their respective value
> > systems.
>
> OK, but would you then agree that a government that tries to take away
> women's right to choose is being fascist? After all, it does take away
> a right according to its value system. Please let us not start a
> discussion here about such a emotionally charged question as abortion;
> I am only trying to point out that in the real world governments do
> try and do succeed in imposing laws according to the prevalent value
> system and not only according to the welfare of the people, as they
> probably should.
>
You're right. Having security over your own self and body is pretty
fundamental and government should be very reluctant in this area. However,
the problem with abortion is with the life of the unborn child. Where do
it's rights to life and self begin? This is what makes abortion a difficult
issue when it comes to government.
> > Democrats are in a constant dance on the edge of socialism. Their
values
> > include rejecting the unfairness of their being a large disparity
between
> > rich and poor, which isn't a bad value....
>
> I agree. Income disparity is one of the worse signs about the health
> of a society. A perfectly fair society is an utopia, but the current
> situation is clearly unfair and getting worse. Over the last decades
> the real income of the poorest Americans has gotten worse, middle
> class is stuck (actually it is earning a little less - in 1973,
> private-sector workers in the US were paid on average $9.08 an hour,
> today, in real terms, they are paid $8.33). The rich are only slightly
> better off, and only the very rich are doing significantly better.
>
> Inequality in America is mind-boggling. It is fair to say that 95% of
> the American public is not getting a fair deal; after all the richest
> 1% owns more than the poorest 95%! The top 400 families made in 2002
> on average 174 million each, way up from "only" 47 million each in
> 1992 - even so their tax burden has gone down from 26.4% to 22.3%, and
> this before Bush's huge tax cuts skewed towards the very rich; if Bush
> tax cut were in effect their tax burden in 2002 would be only 17.5%.
> (See: http://www.xent.com/pipermail/fork/2003-June/022679.html)
>
Income disparity by itself isn't bad. I don't mind that someone makes
millions and I don't. I just want the opportunity to succeed according to
my desires. Many, many people who make millions are very gifted people and
have "created" wealth and jobs for others by innovation and risk taking.
Without people like that, there wouldn't be a thriving economy. I
appreciate these vital people.
What's bad is wealth for a few in the face of massive poverty. This isn't
the problem in America.
In America, poverty mostly derives from a lack of education and a breakdown
of the family, including divorce and lowered expectations from children.
It's more a social problem than one of economics where there are classes of
people that exploit others.
It's not the governments job to guaruntee equity among the masses (it
shouldn't be). Equity is what communism strives for, but all it really
achieves is the killing off of entrepreneurialism and innovation (wealth
building) making everyone equally poor. Government should do all it can to
get out of the way of those who can succeed and only intervene reluctantly
to prevent abuses.
> > but their answer is to use government to compel "charity" or the
"transfer of wealth" through taxes.
>
> You may be right, but then again what would you suggest government
> should do in order to "reject the unfairness of there being a large
> disparity between rich and poor"? What would you do if you were
> President?
>
Like I said before, it isn't the disparity that is bad... it isn't unfair
that someone is rich and I'm not. It is a sign that something is wrong when
there's a lot of poverty in the face of a few rich. I'd look at Mexico and
cringe, not the United States.
The answer is education and jobs. Real jobs (not government jobs or "make
work" jobs). Government can help by allowing business to thrive and not
being to much of a burden (taxes and regulations) and by encouraging
education. Public education has it's flaws, but at least it gets most
people into a position of being able to contribute to society instead of
drain from it.
> > The effort includes finding "rights" to justify this, like rights to
> > employment,
>
> I think this is a very good right: we all lose if people just sit
> around doing nothing. After all unproductive people will not really
> wither away, they will turn to crime or will survive by consuming
> social services your tax dollar will pay. A good government should
> make it possible for almost everybody to be employed. Surely this is a
> no-brainer.
>
No it's not!!!!! If one could demand a job from the government, that would
put the government in charge of jobs! Not private enterprises! Government
does not create wealth and jobs, private enterprise does. Government should
only exist (financed) as a byproduct of a societies economic output. It's
the result of jobs, not the source of jobs.
You have to trust that people with free will and opportunity will be
responsible for getting their own jobs.
> > rights to minimum wages
>
> I do think it is right that people should get a fair minimum wage for
> their honest day's work. Surely you wouldn't like employers to be able
> to exploit desperate people by paying them, say, 50 cents an hour. So
> the only question is how high the minimum wage should be. If too high,
> then it would end up hurting the very people it meant to help.
>
There's a cost when government establishes a minimum wage. That cost is
jobs. Low paying jobs are important for people in transition (like
students) and important for businesses that need unskilled labor to succeed.
The more uneducated people a country has the more downward pressure there is
on wages. Again, the answer is education.
> > rights of healthcare,
>
> Health is the single greatest good. People in almost all civilized
> countries, including Canada, Europe, Australia, etc., enjoy universal
> health care. Sure Americans living in the richest country of all can
> afford it too.
>
The problem with universal health care is it is a financial black hole. My
own personal experience with social medicine is that there's such a huge
demand for services that it can bankrupt a nation. So the government
rations care. They minimize, delay or shorten treatment. They resist
paying healthcare workes well. Cost cutting becomes the driving factor in
such a system and while healthcare widens to more people it's quality is
severely compromised.
My experience was that it was great if all you needed was a simple bandage
or aspirin or antibiotics. When you had a serious condition though, you
better run to the private doctor and pay.
> > rights to shelter,
>
> Well, I too get mad sometimes when people who are not really trying
> get subsidized housing. On the other hand I would not like to be in a
> country with poor people living in the streets. So here too, the
> question is how to strike the right balance. Maybe the weakest members
> of society, the ones who really cannot look after themselves, should
> get shelter for free.
>
Not bad! I think we agree here.
> right to education,
>
> Here I disagree completely. There is nothing as important for the
> future of society as a good education. Everybody wins when people are
> better educated. Even candidate Bush proclaimed he was going to be the
> "Education President".
>
We shouldn't because there's a difference between having a "right" to an
education and it being in the best interest of a country to provide a public
education. Education is so vital as to be the answer to many of societies
ills, so I support public education for the primary and secondary grades
like we have here. But I don't support making education a "right", rather a
public "choice".
> > ad infinitum, which rights have to be "found" in the constitution via
"activist", "progressive" judges.
>
> In a way I do agree with your sentiment. I hate it when people just
> exclaim "this is my right". People should earn whatever they get -
> unless they suffer of some infirmity. But in order to earn it they do
> require education and employment and health, they require a fair
> chance. Unfortunately the current administration prefers to blow
> hundreds of billions of tax dollars on Iraq, and also to make sure
> that the super-rich pay hundreds of billions less taxes in the future.
> I don't see how these policies help the average American.
You started out pretty well. What Bush is doing in Iraq has everything to
do with the survival of our nation. Iraq is only murky in the sense that we
have imperfect intelligence on WMD. The overarching purpose though is to
tranform the middle east from dicatorships to democracies. To allow
terrorism to proceed after 9/11, having shown their intent and desire to
acquire nukes and bio/chem weapons would be suicidal on our part. Hardly a
waste of 100's of billions... that would be true only if we cut and run.
As for "tax cuts for the super rich". It's another canard. It's important
to include the rich when cutting taxes. These are the people who create
jobs. Money in the hands of private individuals creates jobs, rich or poor.
Rich people will benefit, dollar-wise, more than people like me. That's ok
with me. They pay way more than I do. The goal is for government not to
take any more money out of the economic engine than they have to to create a
secure environment for business to thrive.
>
> BTW the mega-billions spent on Iraq do not really go to Iraq or to the
> American soldiers who risk their lives there, but mostly go to the
> military industrial complex. Let us not forget that before 9/11 what
> Rumsfield was trying to do was to spend mega-billions on the "missile
> shield" in order to counter that other supposedly major security risk
> to America. I can't help but think that what the current
> administration is about is to shift more wealth to the already
> wealthiest Americans using bogus threats to deceive the population at
> large. This may sound simplistic, it may sound extremist, President
> Bush might honestly be unaware of it, still I think this is basically
> what is happening: a huge social engineering in inverse distribution
> of wealth.
>
Oh please. This is pure poppycock. There's no conspiracy to shift wealth
to the military industrial complex. The terrorist threat to the west is
real. We can't fight these people with sticks and stones! Conservatives
believe that tax dollar priority should go to defense because our economy
would be nothing without security. Four measley airplanes created an
economic tsunami that will affect our economy for years.
> One last point - and I promise I am about to finish this post.
> Precisely because I believe that "people should earn whatever they
> get" I am in favor of estate taxes (what conservatives rather stupidly
> have recently called "death taxes": it is not the dead who pay these
> taxes but rather their offspring who get the dough). Why should the
> ones who were born with a silver spoon in their mouth, who grew up in
> comfort, got the best possible education and the best connections, why
> should they not have to pay taxes for daddy's (or mommy's) fortune
> they are about to get? Small estates have always been tax free, but,
> as far as I am concerned rich offspring should pay 80% on estates
> larger than 10 million dollars and 90% on estates larger than 50
> million; this would still give them several million dollars of
> unearned money. Also nobody should get more than 10 million dollars
> out of the fruits of his or her parents work - even Bill Gates claims
> he will give his children no more than that.
Because it's private property and it's already been taxed. People will
always find a way to prevent the government from taking their property to
distribute to someone else.
The point of this whole discussion has gotten lost in all these issues.
Limited government works. Big government doesn't. All these bleeding heart
issues lead to placing demands of non-producers on producers. They place
drags on the economic engine and disincentivise those who whould otherwise
be willing to risk capital on business ventures.
Being rich is no vice. Not being rich is no calamity. Poverty is, but the
solution to poverty doesn't require "rights".
