Government---the bigger the better !!!!

Subject: RE: Government---the bigger the better !!!!
From: mousethief
Date: 24 Oct 00 - 05:55 PM

Can't argue with you there, Kim!

Alex
O..O
=o=

Subject: RE: Government---the bigger the better !!!!
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 24 Oct 00 - 07:30 PM

Big government is bad enough, but the real threat to freedom now is big business. Without cutting that down to size and putting it under the control of ordinary people -the peole who work there, and the people who use what it makes, (if it makes anything, which can't be assumed these days), rolling back the state just gives a better killing field for the predators all around us.

There are other choices as well as having a big centralised bureaucracy on the one hand or a capitalist conspiracy against the public on the other. Cooperative federations can do anything that government or big business can do, and do it better. And with the new technology we've got now, the computers and the phones and so forth, that is more true than it has ever been.

"Making a profit" does not just mean covering your costs and paying a decent wage to everyone in the firm, including the people who are paid to manage it. That would be fair and juast. It means making as much as you can when the opportunity arises, regardless of what that does to other people - and it also means holding down the wages of the people working for you to the lowest level that is in keeping with the market. (And in some case that means lots of dosh, in others very little indeed.) Whether you call that greed or not doesn't matter. But it is essentially a form of theft.

As for the assumption that a publicly funded system of health care means waste - that's just not true. The British National Health Service isn't perfect, largely because of interference by the last givernment over 18 years, but the cost of the bureaucracy and administration is far lower than in equivalent private health services. (And the logic of that isn't to take the health service out of the public sector, it's to take the government out of the health service, but keep it public.)

Subject: RE: Government---the bigger the better !!!!
From: Bill D
Date: 24 Oct 00 - 08:13 PM

"and it also means holding down the wages of the people....etc.."

amen, McGrath..and it also means things like laying off people who are near retirement so they don't have to pay pensions, then rehiring them as 'temps' doing the same job at lower wages....and defending it as 'sound business practice'.

and it means things like Microsoft and AOL owning most of the software we use for these chats, and slowly removing any hope of the 'freedom' the internet/WWW was supposed to bring.

Subject: RE: Government---the bigger the better !!!!
From: kendall
Date: 24 Oct 00 - 08:16 PM

Speaking of profits has anyone else heard on the news that the oil companies turned 3 billion dollars in profit this past quarter? I just got a notice from the gas company that the price of natural gas would go up by 29% in January. The same notice says that there is no need to worry because there is plenty to fill demand!
Local control eh? this is an example of local control.. a couple of years ago in NC the principal of a high school threatened to cancel the senior prom if anyone showed up with a partner of a different race. Thats why we need government control...to keep bastards like him in check!

Subject: RE: Government---the bigger the better !!!!
From: Greg F.
Date: 24 Oct 00 - 10:20 PM

If businesses are not profitable, they cannot stay in business sez DougR. Not true. Government subsidies and tax breaks constantly keep unprofitable businesses afloat. Chrysler? Savings & Loan bailout? Rollbacks of pollution regs? Trent Lot's pet boat? And on and on. Welfare is only "bad" if it helps poor people instead of corporations, it seems.

Best, Greg

Subject: RE: Government---the bigger the better !!!!
From: JamesJim
Date: 25 Oct 00 - 02:10 AM

I am tempted to jump into the middle of the "Big Business" debate, but I won't. I will only say that the majority of Americans work for small employers (those with fewer than 100 employees). The big boys got big through mergers, acquistions, etc. They should be allowed to get as big as they want, as long as they do not become either a monopoly or an ologopoly. The wealth created by a few certainly benefits those few, but it also benefits many, many others. Those "workers" become adept at their jobs and that training is often the jumping off point for creating/starting their own business. I WONDER HOW MANY OF US MUDCATTERS OWN OUR OWN BUSINESS? That would be an excellent thread - I'll have to give it a try.

Yours for wealth (and for spreading it around)

Jim

Subject: RE: Government---the bigger the better !!!!
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 25 Oct 00 - 07:53 AM

"They should be allowed to get as big as they want, as long as they do not become either a monopoly or an ologopoly." But they do. First they squeeze out the little businesses, then they jack up the profit margin when they've squashed the competition.

"If businesses are not profitable, they cannot stay in business" - profitable means two thiigs. It can mean not runnig at a losss. And clearly you can't run at a loss, without some kind of subsidy. But it can also mean, and it does mean, maximising profits, and offloading costs (such as environmental costs) on to other people. And it's quite possible to stay in business without maximising profits.

Most of the time in normal life that's how people operate - if a neighbour asked you to do their shopping, because they couldn't get out, you'd expect them to pay for the stuff you buy; you might expect petrol money; or even conceivably something to pay for the time it took you. But you wouldn't find out how much it would cost them to get it done using a cab, and jack what you charged up to fractionally below that, to "the market price".

Subject: RE: Government---the bigger the better !!!!
From: kendall
Date: 25 Oct 00 - 08:40 AM

WAL-MART

Subject: RE: Government---the bigger the better !!!!
From: Whistle Stop
Date: 25 Oct 00 - 08:47 AM

The "free and independent states" thing was fundamentally decided by the Civil War -- what Gary Wills called "the second American Revolution". The "states rights" crowd lost that one. There are still some rights reserved to the states, but they are more limited than the Confederacy thought they should be. But that's old news. Most of us in the USA are comfortable with the way that turned out, and with the progressively greater role the federal government has played in our lives since the 1860s -- some would argue that this had gone too far, but not too many thinking people would seriously advocate going back to the ambiguity we operated under pre-1860.

[Interestingly enough, "states rights" became a big problem for the Confederacy during the Civil War. As Jeff Davis discovered, it isn't easy to fight a war if each state gets to make up its own mind about the level and quality of its participation.]

Earl seems to assume that people in government are more petty and self-interested than people in the private sector. I've worked in both, and I sure haven't noticed that. I don't advocate carrying on this discussion based on an idealized view of government, but I also don't think we should adopt an idealized view of business. People are people; some do their jobs very well, some don't. Generally, one hopes that the cream will rise to the top, but it doesn't always work out that way. If you worked in government, you might discover (as I have) that government workers have just as many reasons to be efficient and effective as those in private industry do -- and just as much to lose if they don't do their jobs well. Government is a popular whipping boy, because most people work in the private sector, and it's always more fun to say the problem is "them" rather than "us". Those of us who DO have some direct experience in both the public and the private sectors tend to see things a little bit differently.

Subject: RE: Government---the bigger the better !!!!
From: Kim C
Date: 25 Oct 00 - 09:42 AM

Kendall beat me to the Wal-Mart! I think Wal-Mart is the Anti-Christ! But if you're ever in a small town and need something, you can count on them to be there. Ironic, isn't it?

If state sovereignty is truly a dead issue, then let's just have all 50 states trash their own constitutions since they obviously don't mean anything anymore. ;)

Subject: RE: Government---the bigger the better !!!!
From: Jim the Bart
Date: 25 Oct 00 - 10:14 AM

It seems to me that the real villain in our culture is GREED, along with his running mate, CORRUPTION. Those two killed the mess that was masquerading as Communism in Eastern Europe and the USSR. It very nearly killed our system back in the days leading up to the Great Depression (the best argument against unbridled Capitalism that anyone could offer). It has undermined all attempts to create more equitable solutions here in America now, and has since the Roosevelt days.

My only question to those who advocate "free market Capitalism", which has been a phantasm in America (except for the underground economy), is simply "How can a system that rewards greed (the accumulation of capital is clearly an advantage) be expected to correct the problems caused by greed?

you have to keep in mind something that was raised earlier in the political threads - big government in the US came about to offset the excesses of big business, i.e., the free market capitalists. If you don't accept this, get a hold of the PBS series on the Rockefellers; it's probably at your local library.

One last point to stir things up before I get to work. Marx was trying to describe what he saw as a natural economic progression; he didn't posit Communism as an alternative to Capitalism as much as a possible result of Capitalism. What Lenin imposed on Russia and Eastern Europe was not what Marx suggested would happen. Communism would grow in industrialized nations, not the agrarian backwaters like Russia or China. The fall of the Soviet Union was not the failure of Marx's predictions; as far as I know the only real attempt to thwart what Marx saw as inevitable is the socialism practiced in the US and England. A socialism that the Republican administrations have been furiously trying to dismantle, a piece at a time.

I am not an expert on Marx. Nor am I a communist. I think it's impractical in a country this size. I believe there is an accountability problem that comes into place as people who are used to sneaking by (endemic in our society) are suddenly released from the coercive elements of capitalism. I am a republican socialist, in that I put more trust in the republic than in the states, the market or rule by the masses. Democracy in an indifferent and often ignorant society is meaningless.

Jump right in. Enjoy your day. I'll check in later.

Bart

Subject: RE: Government---the bigger the better !!!!
From: Whistle Stop
Date: 25 Oct 00 - 10:22 AM

Kim, I didn't say state sovereignty/states' rights is a dead issue. But it is clearly diminished. The Civil War was the watershed moment, but there have been others -- notably the civil rights struggles of the 1950s and 60s (another example of racist policies being defended on states' rights grounds). Most historians would agree on this. There are bound to be disagreements about how far we should go with the progressive federalization that has been at work in this country throughout history, but clearly it has happened. Moreover, given the increased mobility of the population, and the increased inter-dependence of the states on trade issues and such, I have a hard time imagining that we could have frozen the states' rights issue in time back in the 1770s.

Subject: RE: Government---the bigger the better !!!!
From: Ringer
Date: 25 Oct 00 - 10:26 AM

If government were perfect, I'd be on Art's side. But it ain't, so I ain't.

Government, by its nature, attracts a certain type of person, and the people it attracts are not always (I hesitate to say "never") the best people to run a government. At the top are the power freaks on ego trips and at the bottom are officious busybodies (my experience is with UK governments, but from what I gather, similar things apply in the US). They've all got two things in common, however:

1) they all want to increase their sphere of influence, so government always tends to expand, and

2) they all love spending (my!) money, so taxes always tend to increase.

While government is imperfect (ie until hell freezes over) and while it limits my freedom and takes my money, the smaller the better. And quis custiodet ipsos custodes?

Subject: RE: Government---the bigger the better !!!!
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 25 Oct 00 - 11:11 AM

"Government, by its nature, attracts a certain type of person" - I think there is a certain sort of people who really want power for its own sake, and they often tend to get into positions of power - but that doesn't seem to be peculiar to Givernment, or to the public sector.

They want to have more power for its own sake, and to expand there influence, and they enjoy exercising that power, for its own sake again. Spending wastefully can be one way that demonstrates itself, and that maybe is more chgaracteristic of public sector. Taking grossly inflated salaries and share options and so forth are another way, and that's more typical of the private sector. Now they've worked out a way of combining the two, and tits called public-private partnership, and is described as "the Third Way".

There are also people who have ambitions to do something useful, and they also can be attracted to positions of power, and sometimes make it. I think these are less likely to waste money, since that means there's less to spend on getting useful stuff done. And maybe they are less obsessed with raking in the cash personally, rather than getting to achieve what they want.

I'd draw a distinction between Government and the public sector. But in any case I don't know any evidence that either is more full of crooks and charlatans and generally reprehensible characters than private business. Along with the good guys. But by and large wherever you go, it seems to me that the stuff that rises to the top is more likely to be scum than cream.

Subject: RE: Government---the bigger the better !!!!
From: Kim C
Date: 25 Oct 00 - 11:53 AM

You are right, Whistle Stop, it is greatly diminished. And in truth, if a state voluntarily joins a union, it does have to adhere to certain things. Kinda like when you buy a house in a subdivision where they tell you what you can & can't put in your window. But I do think that many of our problems with governments, be they local, state, or federal, come from a serious lack of participation by the governed, because the governed are so tired of the same old BS that they think their opinion doesn't matter anyway.

I heard that in the last Presidential election, only 50% of registered voters bothered to go to the polls. That means the President was elected by less than 25% of the voting citizens of the United States. Pretty darn pitiful, if you ask me.

I'm all for government - but we really need to get back to this by the people and for the people business. The government belongs to you and me and all of us, not just the people who go to Washington. So for that reason alone, I think we are all entitled to a turn in the Lincoln bedroom. :D

Subject: RE: Government---the bigger the better !!!!
From: Ringer
Date: 25 Oct 00 - 12:20 PM

My word, McGrath, you really have swallowed the Tony Blair spin, haven't you?

My comments were directed at government; I made no mention of the private sector.

Subject: RE: Government---the bigger the better !!!!
From: DougR
Date: 25 Oct 00 - 12:48 PM

Bald Eagle: I tend to agree with you. I only spent two years as an employee with a federal agency in Washington, D. C., but it didn't take me long to realize that the federal bureaucracy was not for me. Power building was a common occurance among department heads as each program director vied to hire more people and introduce new programs. If the agency's success had been measured the same way as even a small business is, "profit", it would have failed miserably. When I joined the agency there were 45 employees. When I left two years later there were well over three hundred.

I have never worked for a very large employer (G.E., IBM, etc.) and I imagine that the bureaucracy exist there too, but because the company must show a profit in order to continue doing business, I would bet that they are operated much more efficiently than government is (at any level). Just my opinion, of course. DougR

Subject: RE: Government---the bigger the better !!!!
From: Whistle Stop
Date: 25 Oct 00 - 01:07 PM

Kim, at last we agree on something! I also feel that more participation by the electorate will ultimately result in better government.

Doug, you are welcome to place that bet. My experience suggests otherwise; I think that the myth that waste and inefficiency only exist in government is so pervasive because it's always expressed in non-specific tems, which are difficult to refute. Also, I would note that, in the USA of the 20th/21st century, government and private industry are often "blended" when it comes to large industries -- whether they be part of Ike's "military-industrial complex" (so many of our big corporations are), or the energy industries, or many of the other industrial sectors. We don't truly have an independent private sector; the truth is that government and industry these days are virtually inseparable.

Subject: RE: Government---the bigger the better !!!!
From: mousethief
Date: 25 Oct 00 - 01:17 PM

I work in Big Industry, and can tell you that at least here, at the Lazy B, nepotism, absurd empire-building, and horrific slop and waste are no strangers.

I have also worked for government (directly for the county government, but my position was funded by a grant from the feds).

I realize that this is a very limited comparison, but there is a hell of a lot more slop, waste, and empire-building here at Boeing than there was at the Health Department.

Those who think government is inefficient and business is efficient due to the profit requirement are sleepwalking.

From my experience, at least!

Alex
O..O
=o=

Subject: RE: Government---the bigger the better !!!!
From: Jim the Bart
Date: 25 Oct 00 - 01:53 PM

It's kind of funny, in a way - business wastes money and recoups it through various tax write-offs or by raising the price of goods, government wastes money and recoups it by raising their budget and our taxes. The average person gets it from both ends.

Subject: RE: Government---the bigger the better !!!!
From: DougR
Date: 25 Oct 00 - 02:05 PM

True, Bart. Mousethief: I can only report how it was with the federal agency where I worked. When the agency hired a person to stamp the return address on large envelopes with a rubber stamp, rather than have them printed, it offered me a clue. I think I stated that one probably finds the same kind of empire building, etc. with the large companies but I have had no experience with them so I can't comment on that. I'll take your word for it. Whistle Stop: I agree with much you that wrote.

DougR

Subject: RE: Government---the bigger the better !!!!
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 25 Oct 00 - 02:40 PM

"My word, McGrath, you really have swallowed the Tony Blair spin, haven't you?"

You really must have been seriously overdoing the speed reading Eagle.

Or maybe I should have spelt it out more fully. I sometimes tend towards the gnomic. So I'll spell it out now: I was suggesting that, with traditional big givernment, you can get the power freaks going for wasting money by spending it foolishly; with private enterprise, they tend to go in for diverting it into hyper-inflated salaries and so forth. Either way the public gets ripped off.

And when you combine the two in Tony's "Third Way" we can end up with the hyper-inflated salaries and perks of the private sector and the waste that sometimes (by no means always) characterises the public sector.

I somehow don't think that's what Tony Blair's spin-doctors are trying to persuade us is the case.

And for an example of how private companies can screw up seriously when they are handed a public enterprise )at a knockdown price), look no further than what has happened to the British Railway system since it was privatised. Massive subsidies, shoddy services, fragmentation, accidents because the whole thing has been run down to give maximum dividends to shareholders...

Subject: RE: Government---the bigger the better !!!!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 25 Oct 00 - 02:42 PM

A lot of good comments here. I mainly agree with Art's original position, and yes, we ARE all part of a social contract...unless we decide to be thieves, lawbreakers, rapists, or whatever....in which case we have violated a part of the social contract which all of us take for granted most of the time.

Of the 5 main political parties in Canada, 4 of them offer people a tax cut every time they run for office. This is nothing more than cynical political opportunism, appealling to people's selfishness and short-sightedness.

A friend of mine is presently running for city Council in Orillia, Ontario. We're having municipal elections right now. (And a federal one too, which really adds to the confusion and hoopla).

He sarcastically remarked that a national party should launch a platform saying this: "WE PROMISE TO CUT ALL TAXES TO ABSOLUTE ZERO! NEVER AGAIN PAY A SINGLE CENT OF TAX TO THE GOVERNMENT! ZERO TAXES NOW!!!"

And then in very, very tiny print down below...*(of course you will not have any roads to drive on, any schools, any hospitals, any police, any civil defense, any 911 to call, any fire department, any national monetary system, any courts to regulate the laws and secure justice, any government to represent you in any way whatsoever, any national identity, any diplomats, any...got the picture? If you're rich you will hire a small private army from the desperate starving masses around you, and when you run short of vital necessities (or just get bored) you can loot, pillage and rape the general region in which you live...but watch out for your rich neighbour who may have a bigger army than you do.)

The Dark Ages, in other words.

There are a whole bunch of areas of human life that the private sector has neither the will, the morality, or the ability to deal with. Those are the areas that naturally fall under government jurisdiction.

Where private enterprise is tremendously valuable is in all the other areas...farming, small business, restaurants and other service industries, manufacturing, entertainment, and so on.

I believe the finest system possible at this juncture is one that combines an equal measure of socialism and goverment on various levels with an equal measure of capitalism.

Thank God that in Canada we have a government-funded national radio station, for example. It provides an alternative to commercial radio that is a breath of fresh air. This in no way has imperilled the healthy growth of privately owned commercial radio in Canada...there's just as much of it, and it's just as obnoxious and riddled with commercial advertising as it is in the USA. I would gladly pay MORE taxes to continue having the CBC, which has no ads and plays folk music, ethnic music, and all kinds of music you will virtually NEVER hear on commercial radio.

Thank God that we have a universal medical plan. What the hell is private enterprise doing playing games with people's lives by denying them medical care, because they're poor, and driving them into bankruptcy when they get sick? It's so corrupt what you have in the States in this respect that people from western Europe or Canada can hardly believe it!

If you combine equal measures of socialism, capitalism, and human rights with a democraticly elected system...you can hardly do better than that.

Small government, by the way, is more responsive than big government to a local problem, so I would encourage more funding to LOCAL governments very much. Save the BIG government for the areas that small government can't really handle too well...like a national currency, a justice system, and so on...

As for huge corporate capitalism...it ends up being just as oppressive and monolithic as Communism, just as centralized, and for even more ignoble motives. Your Communist bureaucrat is replaced by a group of CEO's, and like the Communist bureacrat they are in it strictly to feather their own nests.

Corporatism (which presently rules America) IS centralized Communism under another name, falsely posing as free enterprise, without benefit of a specific political party or philosophy...or indeed of any moral position whatsoever...all that matters to the corporation is money, money, money.

"Money doesn't talk, it swears" - Dylan

Subject: RE: Government---the bigger the better !!!!
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 25 Oct 00 - 07:03 PM

There's "private" and there's "corporate". Corporatism bears the same relationship to free enterprise as Stalinism did to socialism.

Socialism could be a great system. Real free enterprise could probably be a pretty good system. A good mix of the two could work well also.

I always like the expression State Capitalism to describe what happend in Russia.

Never mind, one monster overthrown; one monster getting ready to fall some day not so far away.

Subject: RE: Government---the bigger the better !!!!
From: Art Thieme
Date: 25 Oct 00 - 07:31 PM

Someone here said that you can't stay in business without making a profit.

Well, it IS possible to stay in business without making a profit. I did it for a long, long, long time -- singing folksongs. It was amazing to head East and do a tour up and down the East Coast and get home a month and a half later, if I was lucky that trip, fifty bucks ahead. ;-)

Art

Subject: RE: Government---the bigger the better !!!!
From: DougR
Date: 25 Oct 00 - 08:38 PM

Yeah, Art, I said that. You didn't make enough to start a 401k maybe, but you still showed a $50 profit! :>) DougR

Subject: RE: Government---the bigger the better !!!!
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 25 Oct 00 - 08:50 PM

Fair profit. "Take what you need and leave the rest."

Subject: RE: Government---the bigger the better !!!!
From: DougR
Date: 26 Oct 00 - 01:28 AM

Yeah, I agree with McGrath. Keep at least 25% for yourself and give the rest to the government. Takes a lot to support big government! :>) DougR.

Subject: RE: Government---the bigger the better !!!!
From: Ringer
Date: 26 Oct 00 - 04:23 AM

You're quite right, McGrath. Sorry.

Subject: RE: Government---the bigger the better !!!!
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 26 Oct 00 - 05:31 AM

I was thinking more don't rob your custiners and employees and fellow citizens.

Subject: RE: Government---the bigger the better !!!!
From: Art Thieme
Date: 26 Oct 00 - 09:30 PM

I WASN'T COMPLAINING. That is for sure.

And the many times I came out ahead was because the Paton's and so many others opened their homes and their refrigerators to me for all the down time between gigs.

But what is a 401K anyway?? Is that a new model of Martin guitar?

Art

Subject: RE: Government---the bigger the better !!!!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 26 Oct 00 - 10:21 PM

You can run any number of enormously valuable programs without turning a profit, if you mean a MONEY profit. Like raising your children properly for example.

The trouble with the prevailing free enterprise system is that they think the word "profit" means money profit alone. How about emotional profit, experiential profit, educational profit, spiritual profit, etc...

I have seen a whole society where decisions were made to "profit" everyone in the community by having a place where everyone had a decent life and could afford the basics, like medical care.

If you think that profit is a matter of money alone...you are mistaken. We could have no money at all, and run everything just fine, according to actual human need, and genuine overall profit in quality of life, instead of cleverly marketing cancer-causing substances, for example. This society provides daily proof that "the love of money is the root of all evil".

Subject: RE: Government---the bigger the better !!!!
From: Carlin
Date: 27 Oct 00 - 11:23 AM

Wow! Take a couple of days off and you get behind!

First to clear up a few things....

McCartyism was a very bi-partisan affair. He had pretty broad support throughout the country and no politician from either party really wanted to challenge him. He lost his ass when he went after Ike's administration and the Army. But in the meantime the episode provided a clear example of the government overreaching and challenging the rights of the citizens.

To say that segregation was not the result of 'Big Government' because it mostly (but not exclusively....Washington DC was a segregated city) went on at the state level is a bit dishonest. The states are part of the government too.

There are many things that the government (at all levels) can and should do, providing police protection, fire departments, building and maintaining roads and schools, and guarding the coast and toting the mail. The government can and should foster economic developement in depressed areas.

But then we come to the question of direct transfer payments by the government....redistribution of wealth. If I decide that I have more money than I need and I decide to give some of it to the poor, that is charity and it is a wonderful thing.....if a self appointed activist for the poor decides I have more than I need and puts a gun to my head, in the form of the IRS, and takes what he feels is my over abundance and redistributes it....that is theft.

I see a lot of talk about soaking the rich, and making the corporations pay and so forth....let me clue you in on a secret of the universe--"Shit flows downhill".

The rich don't get hurt by high tax rates....the middle class does. The rich can hide their money, they can afford huge numbers of accountants and lawyers to protect their assets. Failing all else, they can afford to purchase whatever government functionaries they need, to escape burdensome regulation.

The people that really get screwed are the working middle class....the guy that spends 60 hrs a week swinging a hammer or running a saw and then discovers he is suddenly in that 28% tax bracket.

Corporations do not pay taxes. No corporation has a printing press to make money. Taxes and expenses that corporations are required to pay, are paid by the consumer....and the corporate employee. When you make it expensive to do business, the corporation starts looking for ways to save money. They start by cutting employee benefits (like health insurance and pensions), then they start laying off employees.

They also have the option of packing their toys and moving their operation to some third world shit hole where they can get a hard day's work for 25 cents and a bowl of rice. The people in the US that made 14 or fifteen dollars an hour working at the factory are now making minimum wage flipping burgers.

And you will note that the price of the product never goes down when a corporation moves overseas. The money saved on labor costs and so forth is now available for advertising. The best example of this I can think of is Nike.

"Well, it IS possible to stay in business without making a profit. I did it for a long, long, long time -- singing folksongs. It was amazing to head East and do a tour up and down the East Coast and get home a month and a half later, if I was lucky that trip, fifty bucks ahead. ;-)"

No wonder you can't afford to go to the doctor and can't provide a pension for yourself. If you aren't willing to take the responsibility of providing for your future I will be damned if I will.

Subject: RE: Government---the bigger the better !!!!
From: mousethief
Date: 27 Oct 00 - 11:48 AM

> If you aren't willing to take the responsibility of providing for your future I will be damned if I will.

Now THERE is compassion.

Alex
O..O
=o=

Subject: RE: Government---the bigger the better !!!!
From: Jim the Bart
Date: 27 Oct 00 - 11:57 AM

DougR - About that 25%

If I make a million a year my 25% is $250,000 on which I can live pretty well. If I'm making $30,000, my 25% is $7,500 on which I can live not well at all. That's why when George W. talks about equal tax cuts across the board and calls it "fairness", I can only laugh.

Carlin, about your last line - spoken like a true capitalist. Pay as little as possible to your indentured workers throughout their productive years, contribute to pension funds and social security begrudgingly (kicking and screaming all the way) and castigate an independent working man for "not providing for his future". Capitalist self-justification is sickening.

One more thing: someone in a past post stated that capitalists created jobs. That is only partly true. Capitalists create wealth - for themselves. As a bi-product of that act jobs are created, goods are created, and services are created. When a point is reached where more wealth can be kept by eliminating jobs, creating a narrower range of goods, or providing less services, jobs will be eliminated, etc.

How this will work under George W. (if, God help us, he is elected): George's oil buddies will move to drill for oil on publicly held lands. they will promise that this will ease our dependence on foreign oil and create jobs. George and the Republican congress will allow this over the objection of environmentalists and just about anyone who doesn't stand to make some money on the deal. They will cut access roads, clear timber, create pipelines, and drill, drill, drill. For a short period of time there will be some oil. The sale of SUV's will go on, alternative power research will be slowed, people in the oil biz will have jobs and Bush will crow over the "great deal he made for all Americans". Then the oil will run out. The jobs will be gone. The publicly held lands will be left to be cleaned up at our expense. Oil imports (which, like oil prices, never really went down)will go up again. And the oil barons will be that much richer. And it will all begin again.

Johnny Paycheck said it - "Take this job and shove it".

have a nice day.
Bart, who is not amused.

Subject: RE: Government---the bigger the better !!!!
From: Jim the Bart
Date: 27 Oct 00 - 12:29 PM

Another bit about jobs, the government and the "free market". A few years ago, I read an article that said that the big layoffs that occurred in the mid-seventies in the music business (mostly in artist development) were the result of a slowing in the rate of growth of the profit margins for the big record companies. Take a moment to look at that statement: it wasn't that record labels weren't showing a profit. The problem was that the amount of additional profits that they anticipated was levelling off. And the odd thing was that this happened at all labels across the board.

Anyone who worked in the music biz at that time, or who (like me) was trying to get a band recorded, remembers the slashing of jobs as devastating to the development of acts and diversity of what was being recorded. Coincidently, this all took place after the government closed "blue sky" tax loopholes that allowed labels to write-off development costs and essentially pay for their mistakes in reduced taxes, rather than take losses.

All of this laid the groundwork and set the stage for the "corporate rock" of today.

Subject: RE: Government---the bigger the better !!!!
From: Frankham
Date: 27 Oct 00 - 02:25 PM

I think we need Big Government to help protect us against the tyranny of Libertarians. :)

There are many ways of paying the price for ignoring the plight of the poor who can't afford medical insurance.

Robbery is in the eye of the beholder. When there are have-nots in our society, we all pay the price.

Although McCarthyism was a bi-partisan effort, it took the right wing longer to wake up. Some Republican stalwarts still defend what McCarthy did. Of course, they weren't hurt by it like some of the people I knew.

Here's a little ditty-in-progress as part of the folk process to the tune of Yellow Rose of Texas. Please feel free to add to it if called upon by the folk muse.

"There is Jesus Day in Texas As part of the faithful crowd, All sorts of Christians welcome, But no Jews are allowed.

You may talk about your holidays That you may like to push, But Jesus Day in Texas Doesn't beat around the Bush.

It's the sweetest little faux pas That you have ever seen It would make some folks in Congress Turn a darker shade of green.

You may talk about the principle Of separate Church and State Takes Jesus Day in Texas To keep Bush on the slate.

Frank

Subject: RE: Government---the bigger the better !!!!
From: GUEST,Stackley
Date: 27 Oct 00 - 06:33 PM

Come on, K-K-Karlin, you didn't GET behind, you ARE one! Did you have to repeat Kindergarten & still never learned how to share? Pretty sad.

Blaming 'big government' for racism & segregation would be amusing if you were just joking- but seems that you actually believe this garbage.

The tax man puts a gun to everyone's head, not just yours, boyo.Your persecution complex stem from mom stopping breast-feeding too soon, or what? You think its so damn hard living on a middle class income, try being poor; halve that salary of yours, or quarter it, & find out what tough really is.

If the middle class is getting screwed over so badly with taxes & the rich getting off scot free, how is it that y'all support the tax cut proposals for the rich including the so-called 'death tax' BS ? Are you just stupid, or is there something to the concept of "False Class Consciousness" after all?

Many of the businessess excesses you whine about were at one time restrained by the very "Big Government" you piss and moan about, before the 'deregulation' and pro-corporate crud of the Reagan/Bush era.

That's the spirit Karlin- me first, and screw everyone else; the Amerikan Way.
Cheers.

Subject: RE: Government---the bigger the better !!!!
From: Troll
Date: 27 Oct 00 - 09:44 PM

Hang in there Carlin. You are not alone. There are plenty of people who believe that they should get to keep what they make and most of them are in the "working class", something that I doubt most of the posters on this thread would recognize if it walked up and spit in their latte.
Sharing is fine and I'll share some of what I have but ONLY after I've taken care of MY family. Sharing toys is NOT the same as being forced to give over part of that which you've sweated for to support someone who doesn't work and doesn't want to. And if you don't think they are out there, your mommy needs to put you to bed. You shouldn't be up so late.
Socialism is a nice theory and it's fun to discuss it but don't get carried away. For those people who don't have medical insurance or who can't afford it (NOT always one and the same) there is medicaid, indigent care at emergency rooms and the like. So Bart and Stackley and Frank and the rest of you, when you have to make that paycheck stretch to cover the house payment and the groceries and you buy your clothes at goodwill and drive a fifteen-year-old car and have to hit your retirement savings to have a new roof put on, you come and talk to me about how I owe the bums and the welfare cheats and the ne'er-do-wells.
Until then I'd strongly suggest that you temper your words.

troll

Subject: RE: Government---the bigger the better !!!!
From: kimmers
Date: 27 Oct 00 - 10:32 PM

Well, I'm joining this one rather late,but I'll see what I can do.

I've been on both sides of this issue, economically speaking. I grew up poor... not dirt poor, just working-class poor with a single mom. No health insurance, old beater cars to ride in, clothes from K-Mart, and bad memories of the low-cost county dental clinic. Because of caring grandparents and a creative mother, we did pretty well; I was in high school before I realized we were poor. While we were never on welfare, we did get free government cheese and other foods and I qualified for programs such as Headstart.

Now, I'm a physician and I pull in a pretty decent income (which my husband is exceptionally good at spending). Every year I see an awfully big chunk go off to the Feds and to the State. Do I grumble about this? Not really. Oh, I'd like to see less spent on the military, but overall I have no big complaints. Why?

I could not be the person I am today, without the public benefits I received as a child and young adult. I was helped, therefore I owe help in return. What gifts did I receive from society growing up? (and mom never made enough to pay much taxes, so they *were* gifts)

Free preschool (which I credit for the fact that I learned to read at age 4) and a free k-12 education, for starters. The reduced cost of dental care. PUBLIC LIBRARIES!!! I spent half my childhood at the library, it seems. Safe streets to drive/ride down. Parks to play in. Cheap swimming lessons. Protection by the police and the fire department, especially the time Mom almost set fire to the kitchen with oven cleaner. A jobs-training program for youth that landed me my first part-time job in high school, when the economy was so bad (this was the Reagan years) that a respectable 16-year-old with a 4.00 GPA couldn't get a job flipping burgers. And many other things that I can't think of now.

Oh... mustn't forget low-interest student loans and grants, that enabled me to complete my education. And the grant from FEMA four years ago when a flood took out our basement (after our idiot insurance agent advised us that we didn't need flood insurance!) I don't begrudge the tax money, even though the equation doesn't always balance.

My in-laws are extremely right-wing, and I find them very very scary. My father-in-law believes that the public sector really shouldn't be providing libraries, that people should just buy books if they want to read them. And he believes that if the city or county IS going to fund libraries, that the old graceful marble libraries should get the boot in favor of lots of mini-libraries in shopping malls, full of the latest John Grisham novels and to hell with the classics. He doesn't believe in public transportation ("if they can't scrape up the money to buy a car they should stay home") and absolutely despises public schools. Yet this same man (he's seventy-two) insists on milking every last cent out of his Medicare and takes advantage of a Jobs Plus employee (that he doesn't have to pay) for his small business as often as he's allowed to do so. What a hypocrite.

So many people want the benefits of both local government and federal government without the responsibilities. They don't want a lot of rules and regulations to hem them in, but what's the first thing out of my father-in-law's mouth when something distasteful happens to him? "There oughta be a law!"

Subject: RE: Government---the bigger the better !!!!
From: Troll
Date: 27 Oct 00 - 10:43 PM

Kimmer, You are one of the ones that the government programs helped. But how many of the people that were in the same programs you were in opted to stay on the dole and let you support them. They had the same problems and the same chances you did. What happened to them? Why didn't they take advantage of the opportunities that they were given?

troll

Subject: RE: Government---the bigger the better !!!!
From: kimmers
Date: 27 Oct 00 - 11:01 PM

Heck if I know. And I see people like that all of the time... yes, they annoy me too. Especially in our robust economy, everyone ought to be able to find some work. BUT... I can't look at the kids and not want to help. The adults may often be messed up beyond redemption, but the kids constitute that point at which the cycle can be interrupted.

Subject: RE: Government---the bigger the better !!!!
From: Troll
Date: 27 Oct 00 - 11:17 PM

You can't POSSIBLY be a doctor. I mean they're right up there with the lawyers and businessmen as the heartless money-grubbing authors of our misery! ***BG***
Sounds like you're one of the good'uns. Whats your specialty, if you don't mind my asking?

troll

Subject: RE: Government---the bigger the better !!!!
From: kimmers
Date: 27 Oct 00 - 11:21 PM

Pediatrics. We're generally a soft-hearted, impractical lot. But you're right... as in any profession, there are some real rat bastards out there.

Unfortunately, they're the ones who get all the press and give the rest of us a bad name.

Subject: RE: Government---the bigger the better !!!!
From: JamesJim
Date: 27 Oct 00 - 11:46 PM

Somehow, somewhere, I hear a soft whisper....far off....it says...."Everything in moderation." Might have come from my sweet mom. Words of wisdom, I'd say (include government in that).

Jim

Subject: RE: Government---the bigger the better !!!!
From: Frankham
Date: 28 Oct 00 - 10:35 AM

Troll,

I know about stretching a paycheck. I've worked at manual labor and never made much money in my life compared to some others. But I consider myself a king because I live in this country. I have had the advantages of the Government who has helped me sustain myself through rough times. I was on welfare for about a week when I was in high school after my mother was institutionalized for mental problems. Thank God for welfare. As to the rejection of the bums, remember that they were prevalent during the Reagan years which saw the rise of homelessness in this country. Some of those bums were not much different than you and I. A turn of fate and you and I could be there tomorrow.

Remember too that money allocated for welfare over the years has been a drop in the bucket compared to the money you pay from your taxes to support the Pentagon, Social Security (which I take it you don't complain about, or am I wrong there?) as well as the measley amount spent on education or the arts. Remember also that some of the bums you talk about were the very people who gave us some of the best folk music. Many were considered to be bums because they needed help through aid by the Government.

I hope that if our children ever get into hard times that they will have a compassionate Government to help them when they need it.

The welfare cheats are saints compared to the corporate junk bond raiders who destroy companies and send working people into poverty.

I'll temper my words through experience.

Frank

Subject: RE: Government---the bigger the better !!!!
From: Greg F.
Date: 28 Oct 00 - 12:23 PM

Frank, you beat me to it; right on the money (oops! as it were) regarding the insignificant sums involved in welfare fraud/bums compared to the sums wasted elsewhere- timely note would be the current Republican Pork-A-Thon in Congress (yes, BOTH parties are involved, tho the Dems. are a bit less hypocritical.

Also, the tax burden in the U.S. is the lowest of any of the first-world (and possibly some second-world)countries, and the proportion of the GNP spent on education in the U.S. compared to other countries should make us ashamed.

Troll & Co.'s anger about may be justified- but its directed at the wrong segment of society!- its not the poor who are preventing them from "keeping what they make".

Best, Greg

Subject: RE: Government---the bigger the better !!!!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 Oct 00 - 12:31 PM

Gee, guys, let's go easy on the vitriol here...

The fact is, right wingers have high ideals when it comes to personal freedom and individual responsiblity to take care of oneself...and left wingers have high ideals when it comes to societal protection of people's wellbeing and human rights, and individual responsibility to assist others who are in need.

One is focused on the individual view of life, the other on the community view of life.

Either one of those views is valuable, and both of them have to be integrated in pretty equal measure to have a successful and healthy society.

Communists went overboard on the collective view of society, and extended state ownership over things they should have stayed out of...like agriculture and retail stores and small manufacturing, and so on.

Capitalist have gone overboard and created a society that worships money above all other considerations, and creates giant profit-seeking corporations that are effectively unaccountable to anyone for the damage they do, since they are multinational and can move money all over the world. The giant corporation is very much like a Communist regime in its nature, only it has a longer reach (beyond the borders of any one country). It is impersonal, vast, and out of touch with the people it affects. It has long range objectives which are to the general detriment of the whole community. Its inner workings are hidden from public view. It is effectively above the law in any one country, because it can just move the jobs to some other country where the labour is cheaper, and the workers' rights less stringent.

Communists exploited people in one country for power and control. Corporations exploit people in the whole world for power, control, and MONEY. The only country where a corporation cannot reach is a "pariah" regime like the Taliban in Afghanistan, or Iran and Iraq or North Korea(at certain times) or some such wretched place. Those countries are made pariahs partly because of their own errors, but more because they have been shut out of the game...the BIG MONEY game...by those who control it.

Right wingers and left wingers need to work together, using their higher ideals and integrating them in a coalition. Otherwise, the BIG MONEY system will continue to just gobble you both up, while using you against each other to keep you distracted. Divide and conquer.

Oh yes, and any society these days that does not provide free and complete medical care to all its citizens, rich or poor, at exactly the same level and availability...is a society living in a partial state of barbarism.

As a Canadian, I declare both Canada and the USA guilty of that....the USA much more so, however. Countries such as Cuba and Sweden have got it right in this respect. We do not.

Subject: RE: Government---the bigger the better !!!!
From: RWilhelm
Date: 28 Oct 00 - 12:54 PM

Ironically, we need government to protect us from the the type of people that government attracts; arrogant, power-hungry bullies. Government gives them a set of rules and an arena for their mud wrestling, in return they protect us from independent power-hungry bullies.

I'm not saying the private sector is that much better. I have worked for a lot of corporation, big and small, and each one is like a huge dysfunctional family. The difference is at the end of the day they have to produce something.

Subject: RE: Government---the bigger the better !!!!
From: Art Thieme
Date: 28 Oct 00 - 05:41 PM

REDUCED TO A BUMPER STICKER:

Under Capitalism, man expoits man.
Under communism, it's just the reverse.

Art