The end is in sight

[Jim Yanik]

Jim Thompson <To-Email-Use-The-Envelope-Icon@My-Web-Site.com> wrote in
news:100nv4lp81dig9iqovulihov1lksdsk762@4ax.com:

On Fri, 01 May 2009 22:56:59 GMT, Charlie E. <edmondson@ieee.org
wrote:

[snip]

This is all part of the "No Risk" society that we presently have.
There shoulld be no risk, no matter what behavior or action that you
perform, and if something bad SHOULD happen, then someone else is
obviously to blame, and should pay for it.

Rich smokes for 50 years, and suddenly has a stroke due to circulatory
failure. He sues the tobacco companies for them evilly inticing him
to smoke...

A guy breaks into your house, cuts himself on the window he broke to
get in, gets an infection, and sues you for the dangerous window glass
you have...

[snip]

Not in AZ. You shoot his ass, making sure the body falls inside your
house. No liability, no charges ;-)

...Jim Thompson

you don't even have to "make sure his body falls inside";if he's broken the
window in an entry attempt,that's good enough to shoot him.

and tampering with a crime scene is a felony in itself.

--
Jim Yanik
jyanik
at
kua.net

 

[Eeyore]

James Arthur wrote:

Bob Larter wrote:
James Arthur wrote:
Bob Larter wrote:
James Arthur wrote:
Eeyore wrote:
James Arthur wrote:

I favor Bastiat's formulation: if one man steals from another, even
though he uses the government to do it for him, it's still theft.

Who builds the roads and bridges etc in this world ?

Graham

There's a difference between a common good, and taking one man's
money to give to another.

When a government builds a road, it's taking the taxpayers' money &
giving to the guy who own the construction company. Either way,
somebody is having their money taken away from them & given to
someone else.

But one way a road was built, for all to use.

Absolutely. That's the upside to taxation. But either way, the money
ends up in the economy, benefiting someone.

Are you saying that giving booze money to winos or gambling money to
gamblers would be equally good to society because "the money ends up
in the economy, benefiting someone"?

I don't recall anyone suggesting that subsidising boozing or gambling was a
sensible use of money.

I submit the one is good, the other isn't. The difference matters.

It does. The 'safety net' should be there though.

Graham

 

[Eeyore]

James Arthur wrote:

d) After WWII--the ultimate Keynesian exercise--the
economy immediately fell into a doldrums that lasted
years.

Look at the numbers and you'll see that's very wrong.

Graham

 

[Eeyore]

Richard the Dreaded Libertarian wrote:

On Fri, 01 May 2009 16:47:27 +1000, Bob Larter wrote:

free universal health care that excludes nobody.

But it does confiscate the wages of the productive.

Do you know how small 'National Insurance' contributions can be for the lower
paid ? Self-employed contributions on low wages amount to about the equivalent
of $5 a week.

Even for the wealthy, it takes ~ 10% out of their pay packet ( with a cap I
think ) and the employer contributes a similar amount.

That pays for the Health Service and a basic Pension. Good deal I reckon. We
don't have many people living on the streets.

Graham

 

[Eeyore]

Richard the Dreaded Libertarian wrote:

On Fri, 01 May 2009 08:16:01 -0700, Bob Eld wrote:
"Bob Larter" <bobbylarter@gmail.com> wrote in message
bill.sloman@ieee.org wrote:
On Apr 29, 12:43 am, James Arthur <bogusabd...@verizon.net> wrote:

"Progressive" Great Society programs drove the financial bubble,
which frankly pales compared to the Social Security and Medicare
fiascoes.

The US social security and medicare systems are fiascos - not because
the ideas are impracticable, since they work fine in other countries -
because American politicians don't understand the social contract
underlying the ideas, and won't implement them in a way that benefits
society as a whole.

Well said. That's exactly the problem. In the real world, it actually
costs more to make sure that the 'undeserving' are excluded than it does
to just pay out & accept that there's going to be some wastage. Per
capita, the USA spends more money on health care than countries with
free universal health care that excludes nobody. I suspect that the same
is also true of the Social Security system.

The US spends 14% of GDP on health care while most countries with universal
care spend about 10% of GNP. The US system is inefficient and very wasteful
plus insurance companies rake profit right off of the top without actually
doing any of the health care.

The whole problem was initiated by the Income Tax <Spit!>.

I guess it's time for a little history lesson:

Instead of offering incentive payments to their employees, which would
essentially end up being confiscated by Da Gubmint, they offered medical
insurance (which wasn't taxed). IOW, employee-provided medical insurance
was self-defense against the income tax.

Over the years, it evolved into an "entitlement".

There was no control on the price of care - you'd just turn the bill over
to the insurance company, who'd rubber-stamp it and pay the bill, without
it affecting you at all.

So the medical industry came up with more and more expensive crap, a
billion tests for the sniffles and so on, and the insurance company
would pick up the tab and raise the cost to your employer.

This lack of Free Market medical care caused prices to skyrocket, since
nobody knew or cared how much it was actually cost them. "Oh, the
insurance will cover it!"

If, when Latisha took little Mobutu to the ER for a skinned knee or so,
If they billed her the three grand or so, she might be motivated to invest
in a first-aid kit and learn how to use it.

As usual, the problem is socialism.

Sorry Rich, you've got Socialism mixed up with Capitalism.

In the last year I haven't had to pay a penny for health care, despite using it
regularly.

Graham

 

[Jim Thompson]

On 1 May 2009 23:44:26 GMT, Jim Yanik <jyanik@abuse.gov> wrote:

Jim Thompson <To-Email-Use-The-Envelope-Icon@My-Web-Site.com> wrote in
news:100nv4lp81dig9iqovulihov1lksdsk762@4ax.com:

On Fri, 01 May 2009 22:56:59 GMT, Charlie E. <edmondson@ieee.org
wrote:

[snip]

This is all part of the "No Risk" society that we presently have.
There shoulld be no risk, no matter what behavior or action that you
perform, and if something bad SHOULD happen, then someone else is
obviously to blame, and should pay for it.

Rich smokes for 50 years, and suddenly has a stroke due to circulatory
failure. He sues the tobacco companies for them evilly inticing him
to smoke...

A guy breaks into your house, cuts himself on the window he broke to
get in, gets an infection, and sues you for the dangerous window glass
you have...

[snip]

Not in AZ. You shoot his ass, making sure the body falls inside your
house. No liability, no charges ;-)

...Jim Thompson

you don't even have to "make sure his body falls inside";if he's broken the
window in an entry attempt,that's good enough to shoot him.

Not in AZ, and I don't think that's so in most other states either.
Inside makes him a threat.

and tampering with a crime scene is a felony in itself.

That's a standing joke in AZ ;-)

...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona 85048 Skype: Contacts Only | |
| Voice480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |

I love to cook with wine Sometimes I even put it in the food

 

[Eeyore]

Richard the Dreaded Libertarian wrote:

On Fri, 01 May 2009 23:00:39 +1000, Bob Larter wrote:

This is where they'd be better off in France, Britain, Australia, or Cuba.

Yeah, the "Americans" who love socialism so much _SHOULD_ Get the Hell
out of the Land of the Free.

Why don't you pay us a visit ?

Graham

 

[Eeyore]

Rich Grise wrote:

I have relatives in Minnesota who are farmers, and none of them have EVER
taken a subsidy of any kind. I guess that's just pride in having integrity.

I've sort of been there too. I only exercise my right to benefits when I can't
manage alone.

Graham

 

[Jim Yanik]

Jim Thompson <To-Email-Use-The-Envelope-Icon@My-Web-Site.com> wrote in
news:803nv4hc7ac6rmfoa0ie27vdp19n9rvcln@4ax.com:

On 1 May 2009 23:44:26 GMT, Jim Yanik <jyanik@abuse.gov> wrote:

Jim Thompson <To-Email-Use-The-Envelope-Icon@My-Web-Site.com> wrote in
news:100nv4lp81dig9iqovulihov1lksdsk762@4ax.com:

On Fri, 01 May 2009 22:56:59 GMT, Charlie E. <edmondson@ieee.org
wrote:

[snip]

This is all part of the "No Risk" society that we presently have.
There shoulld be no risk, no matter what behavior or action that you
perform, and if something bad SHOULD happen, then someone else is
obviously to blame, and should pay for it.

Rich smokes for 50 years, and suddenly has a stroke due to
circulatory failure. He sues the tobacco companies for them evilly
inticing him to smoke...

A guy breaks into your house, cuts himself on the window he broke to
get in, gets an infection, and sues you for the dangerous window
glass you have...

[snip]

Not in AZ. You shoot his ass, making sure the body falls inside
your house. No liability, no charges ;-)

...Jim Thompson

you don't even have to "make sure his body falls inside";if he's
broken the window in an entry attempt,that's good enough to shoot him.

Not in AZ, and I don't think that's so in most other states either.
Inside makes him a threat.


and tampering with a crime scene is a felony in itself.

That's a standing joke in AZ ;-)

...Jim Thompson

Basic Castle Doctrine;if someone is forcing entry into an occupied
home,it's considered that the person is a threat to those inside.
It doesn't matter if the perp doesn't know someone is inside.

--
Jim Yanik
jyanik
at
kua.net

 

[Eeyore]

Richard the Dreaded Libertarian wrote:

And the empire-building doesn't help any.

USAans should confine themselves to their own part of the world, their borders
and not get mixed up in fucked up ARAB ( or other Asian etc ) bollocks. Leave
them to themselves, the seeds of their own destruction are already planted.

Does the Voice of America still exist ? Did you know the BBC broadcasts in many
languages worldwide just giving accurate news ? AFAIK VoA only ever broadcast in
English. Simple and straightforward thoughts presented over radio can have a
remarkable effect.

Unfortunately US TV doesn't present you in such a good light. 'World's most
insane car chases', 'soaps' about infantile rich people etc etc.

Graham

 

[Eeyore]

Richard the Dreaded Libertarian wrote:

Bob Larter wrote:
James Arthur wrote:
Eeyore wrote:
Bob Larter wrote:
It'll be interesting to see if all the wingnut paranoia about Obama ends
up being justified.

It will indeed. He's been left a heck of a mess to sort out.

Some, but not much different from what Bush inherited from Clinton.

I thought that the Budget was in surplus at the end of Clinton's final term?

I wonder if these numbers are accurate, and verifiable:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_debt_by_U.S._presidential_terms

Someone posted another one earlier today / yesterday which was more graphical.
Wonderful as to HOW you present the data affects your interpretation.

Graham

 

[Eeyore]

Richard the Dreaded Libertarian wrote:

On Fri, 01 May 2009 16:25:04 +1000, Bob Larter wrote:
James Arthur wrote:

Obama wants to go a-conquering in Afghanistan--I'm not sure why.

You don't want to go after Bin Laden, et al?

If we hadn't been mercilessly bullying the mideast for hundreds of
years, there wouldn't even have _been_ a Bin Laden.

Remember the Crusades?

And the Zionists didn't help much - bunch of ungrateful louts! We bothered
to rescue them from the death camps, and Palestine graciously offered up
a piece of their own terriory to give them a home, and the first thing the
child-mutilating bastards do is bite the hand that feeds them, attacking
their neighbors on the American taxpayers' dime.

The history of Palestine is VERY complex. You should read more about it from
various sources. Us Brits, administering it after WWI with our best will found
the Jews to be a serious problem ( such as illegal immigration ). The ultimate
Arab response was hardly surprising. They were made homeless and few people
acknowledge this to this day, esp the USA.

Graham

 

[Eeyore]

Richard the Dreaded Libertarian wrote:

On Fri, 01 May 2009 07:55:29 +0000, James Arthur wrote:

Bush inherited a catastrophic economic collapse, declining revenues,
a stripped military, and then he was attacked.

We'd be better off if he'd been personally attacked, but he ignored
the 9/11 disaster

German intelligence IIRC in particular warned the US about it it. As usual
you lot thought you knew better. A bit like British 'Ultra' intelligence
about U-boat activity on your East Coast during WW" but before you got
attacked by the Japs when many US merchant ships were sunk through a false
sense of security and nationalistic pride that ANY country could know
better than you did.

Graham

 

[Eeyore]

Richard the Dreaded Libertarian wrote:

Eeyore wrote:
Richard the Dreaded Libertarian wrote:
On Thu, 30 Apr 2009 05:17:34 +0100, Eeyore wrote:

Caps on salaries,

So, now you show your true stripe as a dyed-in-the-wool Communist.

The caps we need are on government spending, but unfortunately, it
seems that none of the sheeple have the balls to even try.

Well .... if we take your recent cite http://zfacts.com/p/318.html And
follow some of the advice "Of course there's also the problem of the
banks. Obama should stop saving the bankers, and just take over the bad
banks.

Shades of the Communist Manifesto.

Silly comment. Is an Insolvency Practicioner a Communist ?

He should have let the bad banks tank; maybe then they'd have got a clue.

I have some sympathy for that view but what would have happened to ordinary
everday account holders who lost ALL their money. You'd have a FAR worse
situation on your hands.

After all, it was only the ones who wrote impossible loans to people whom
everyone _knew_ they couldn't pay off - they were all betting on the
bubble.

It's done. It can't be undone. Punishing the innocent for the 'crimes' of the
guilty makes no sense.

When someone goes to Monte Carlo and loses the family's life savings at
the baccrat table, do you use tax money to reimburse their gambling
losses?

That wasn't the overall scenario. Bad comparison ?

If the Gov't 'nationalised' the banks in distress in return for their
hand-outs, they could cut the fat and sell them back into the private sector
when they were in better shape. That's the kind of intervention that
governments NEED to do. It might even benefit the shareholders, which may be
your pension fund.

Graham

 

[Eeyore]

Richard the Dreaded Libertarian wrote:

mrdarrett wrote:
On Apr 28, 7:02 pm, bill.slo...@ieee.org wrote:
...
Jim's logic is as weak as his general knowledge.

Slowman, You still looking for work? I guess no one is hiring
janitors, huh ?

Wouldn't know. I don't check the jobs ads for janitor jobs. Jobs ads
with "electronics" in the job description have vanished fom the Dutch
web sites - there used to be a couple a week, but not any longer.

Well, you have to admit, five bucks an hour as a janitor beats zero
dollars an hour as a freeloader.

A freeloader doesn't have to work !

Five bucks an hour ? Are you serious. Min wage here is more like $8.

Graham

 

[Eeyore]

Richard the Dreaded Libertarian wrote:

On Fri, 01 May 2009 02:35:23 +0100, Eeyore wrote:
Richard the Dreaded Libertarian wrote:
On Wed, 29 Apr 2009 19:59:17 -0700, Bob Eld wrote:

What you're not admitting is that the US would have decayed into a
massive deep depression worst than the 30's had the government not
intervened.

So, since your crystal ball is so accurate, what are this week's winning
lottery numbers? For crissakes, are you really incapable of grasping the
fact that it was government intervention that turned the crash of 1929
into the Great Depressinon?

I always thought the crash of '29 caused the Great Depression.

If there hadn't been massive government intervention, we would have
recovered in less than a year, like we did in 1987's "Black Monday".

Free People are surprisingly resourceful, you know.

Can you elaborate how that might have been achieved ? Large financial turmoil
rarely lasts as little as a year.

Graham

 

[Eeyore]

Richard the Dreaded Libertarian wrote:

Bob Larter wrote:
James Arthur wrote:
Eeyore wrote:
James Arthur wrote:

I favor Bastiat's formulation: if one man steals from another, even
though he uses the government to do it for him, it's still theft.

Who builds the roads and bridges etc in this world ?

There's a difference between a common good, and taking one man's
money to give to another.

When a government builds a road, it's taking the taxpayers' money &
giving to the guy who own the construction company. Either way,
somebody is having their money taken away from them & given to someone else.

When "government" builds a road, it's paid for by the people who use it,
via gas taxes or tolls. Plus the fact that this is the sort of
government that rises from the grassroots. (well, that's the way it's
supposed to be.)

Yup.

When BIG government gets its tentacles into the pie, they rip off
EVERYBODY, skimming the lion's share off the top for their junkets and
pork first, and building bridges to nowhere and shit. IOW, it's wrong
to rob the people in Kansas to pay for some pork-barrel project in Alaska.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravina_Island_Bridge

Graham

 

[Eeyore]

Richard the Dreaded Libertarian wrote:

Eeyore wrote:
James Arthur wrote:
Bob Larter wrote:
James Arthur wrote:
Eeyore wrote:
James Arthur wrote:

I favor Bastiat's formulation: if one man steals from another, even
though he uses the government to do it for him, it's still theft.

Who builds the roads and bridges etc in this world ?

There's a difference between a common good, and taking one man's
money to give to another.

When a government builds a road, it's taking the taxpayers' money &
giving to the guy who own the construction company. Either way,
somebody is having their money taken away from them & given to someone
else.

But one way a road was built, for all to use.

By pooling resources which is what councils and government can do.

Which is supposed to arise from the will of the people, and be nothing
but a common point, like a network hub; then when the jobe is done,
they're supposed to go home and back to their real jobs.

But, yes, I know, I fantasize.

This is why I have mentioned the Swiss system of government. Seems to have
worked OK for them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_democracy

Graham

 

[Eeyore]

Richard the Dreaded Libertarian wrote:

Bob Larter wrote:
Eeyore wrote:
James Arthur wrote:
Bob Larter wrote:
James Arthur wrote:
Eeyore wrote:
James Arthur wrote:

I favor Bastiat's formulation: if one man steals from another, even
though he uses the government to do it for him, it's still theft.
Who builds the roads and bridges etc in this world ?

There's a difference between a common good, and taking one man's
money to give to another.
When a government builds a road, it's taking the taxpayers' money &
giving to the guy who own the construction company. Either way,
somebody is having their money taken away from them & given to someone
else.
But one way a road was built, for all to use.

By pooling resources which is what councils and government can do.

Exactly. Universal healthcare works in much the same way.

That's so far from the truth that it's beyond wrong.

How would you know, since you've never experienced it.

Didn't you learn anything in school, other than the Communist Manifesto?

You need to wake up to some alternative ideas Rich.

Graham

 

[Eeyore]

Richard the Dreaded Libertarian wrote:

Martin Brown wrote:
Richard the Dreaded Libertarian wrote:
Eeyore wrote:
Richard the Dreaded Libertarian wrote:
James Arthur wrote:
Might that help catch criminals and prevent crime?
The only thing the state can do is respond to crime scenes and clean
up the mess, and hope they'll catch the perp sometime.
CCTV in UK town centres has already shown that to be false. At last the
police here can and do now act proactively.

So, when you're being mugged, do you ask the mugger to wait a sec while
you call the cops? Or turn over your cash, while you're waiting for
somebody to observe the crime remotely and dispatch your "protector"?

It happens so rarely that I wouldn't know. Unless you are sure you can
win the advice is generally to give the attacker what they ask for.
Insurance can replace material goods - life is more important.

Yeah! Then when he's walking away, shoot him in the back! >;-

Martin lives in a civilised country where carrying firearms is almost unknown
and certainly not by any ordinary citizen.

Graham