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BS: Obama Goes For Broke
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Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Don Firth Date: 11 Mar 09 - 03:50 PM Uh . . . how was that again? Don Firth |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 10 Mar 09 - 08:57 PM Most of the stuff posted here, including mine, has nothing to do with Obama's programs and proposals, or Congressional actions on them. But that's typical of below the line. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: akenaton Date: 10 Mar 09 - 07:23 PM |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Greg F. Date: 10 Mar 09 - 06:25 PM You can't see that it's all within the subject of this thread, Doug? Doug's been legally blind for years. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: bald headed step child Date: 10 Mar 09 - 03:13 PM Two reasons. 1: Many of them are too embarrassed to come out and say they were taken in. 2: They probably intend to take advantage of the system to make their money back and get back at those who "screwed" them. They didn't seem to realise there really is no honor among thieves, until it was too late. Once all the little fish are gone, sharks will start to eat each other. Of course they lost a lot of money, but most did not lose all of it, so they just start over. How many times has Trump filed bankruptcy only to end up back at the top? They don't want the regulation because if the recovery plans work there will be more small fish to eat so they can rebuild their bank accounts easier. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: CarolC Date: 10 Mar 09 - 02:54 PM I've been wondering about that. I've been wondering how it is that rich people aren't themselves at the forefront of calling for strict regulations that ultimately would protect them the most. I've also been wondering why rich people who have been hurt by other rich people aren't calling the loudest for slapping some consequences on the people in the financial industry who have behaved so irresponsibly. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: GUEST,kp Date: 10 Mar 09 - 02:48 PM Interesting article in Slate Magazine here. As a Brit I don't know whether it would be considered left or right wing, but the thesis of the article is that rich people have done worse to each other than ever the president can.... Park Avenue Marauding Through SoHo! KP |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Don Firth Date: 10 Mar 09 - 02:37 PM Oh, wotthehell! As long as I'm here. . . . 200 Don Firth |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Don Firth Date: 10 Mar 09 - 02:29 PM You can't see that it's all within the subject of this thread, Doug? It's just going into a bit of detail. It comes under the heading of putting people to work on such things as updating amd improving infrastructure and the development of energy independence without causing environmental damage. Things that Obama has called for. Forest and trees, Doug, forest and trees. Don Firth |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: DougR Date: 10 Mar 09 - 01:45 PM Nothing like a little thread drift, right? DougR |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Ebbie Date: 09 Mar 09 - 07:48 PM As far as I can see, Don F, trolleys would be a step up for us only because the trolley system doesn't use fossil fuels, instead using electricity which we have plenty of because of our hydropower. (On the other hand, when an avalanche takes out our power lines we go onto diesel which is almost 5 times more expensive, as we discovered last winter, when it happened twice. Our rates went from 9 kwh to 53kwh. Juneau made the national news those 6 weeks or so because we cut our usage by a third, both residences and the city.) We already have half-hour bus service and there is heavy usage of it, often SRO. They are talking of instating short-run routes to the state offices and to the hospital area while leaving the longer runs in place. Having such a smallland mass we don't need many transfers- only a transfer to the island across the bridge and another transfer to an express route to the valley which takes only 15 minutes rather than the stop and go route that takes 45 minutes to get to the same place. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Don Firth Date: 09 Mar 09 - 05:55 PM Q, "overhead lines aesthetically are no longer acceptable" was one of the arguments used by the oil companies in trying to talk cities into gas and diesel powered buses. I don't think most people had paid much attention to it until those in favor of dismantling a perfectly functional and relatively economical system brought it up and made an issue of it. To lots of people, gasoline and diesel fumes are not only aesthetically unacceptable, they are unhealthy and they add to the growing problems of air pollution. Don Firth |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 09 Mar 09 - 04:00 PM Looking at my current city of residence- Calgary elected a light rail transit system (Siemens) over 20 years ago. To date, essentially there is one N-S line and an E to N line connected to the east side of that one. Although daily ridership is approaching 300,000, most of the city is served by buses (service slow and frustrating, with transfers, from many districts). There are plans for light rail expansion but costs are killing. Car transport is necessary in a city that has spread over a very large area, and includes suburban developments outside of city limits. The metro area is roughly 1,970 sq. mi. and the metro population 1,200,000. The roadway and the car will be predominant for the forseeable future. Taxpayers will not authorize the money necessary to move light-rail to a dominant position. The trolley system was dismantled some 50 years ago, and overhead lines aesthetically are no longer acceptable. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Don Firth Date: 09 Mar 09 - 02:55 PM Ebbie, how would a system like THIS work for Juneau (note the poles and overhead wires)? For years, Seattle's public transportation system consisted almost entirely of electric trolley buses, a sort of hybrid. Worked very well. Then, as in Southern California (and probably urban areas all over the country), the manufacturers of gas and diesel buses, along with the oil companies, talked the Metro council into "modernizing." These trolley buses were retired in favor of gasoline and diesel buses, and now the pervading aroma around downtown Seattle is diesel fumes. Thank God for frequent breezes off Puget Sound! However, more and more, the electric trolley buses are coming back (the photo shows one of the new ones going into service). Stringing overhead wires over selected roads and streets that already exist would be nowhere near as costly as putting in light rail, and getting electric trolley buses instead of rail cars should be pretty much of a wash. And any potential increase in traffic congesting caused by the ETBs should be more than compensated for by the number of cars taken off the roads because the drivers of those cars are now riding the ETBs. Just an thought. Don Firth |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Peter T. Date: 09 Mar 09 - 10:16 AM No one disputes that revenues went up, what they dispute is revenues as a percentage of GNP. The economy did well -- which was probably due to the spending going all to hell, but maybe a fraction of it due to tax cuts -- but revenues did not match the growth, and the spending went all to hell, hence the burgeoning deficit. Meanwhile, back in today, I think it is getting clearer that Obama is not remotely going to be radical enough for this economy. Paul Krugman in today's New York Times has it pretty right. It has been getting obvious that in spite of the screaming about socialism, Obama has been caught by the private-sector guys in his midst. On health care and the banking disaster, he's going to go for some other private-sector run scheme, neither of which will do the real job. yours, Peter T. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: bald headed step child Date: 09 Mar 09 - 01:20 AM Ebbie, your "down south expert" is probably going on the theory that a normal town of 300,000 would be needed to get the number of riders needed, but I think the unique situation of Juneau would allow it with much fewer people. This would of course depend on peoples commitment to the system, and the systems commitment to service. A trolley type system might be more effective there, and could easily be powered by electric. There are many difficulties ahead, but if we have the vision to see that things can be made better, the problems have solutions. We just have to remember that solutions aren't always universal, and may require adjustments to different situations. The hardest part is getting enough people to see the problems as they are, as problems that have solutions. BHSC |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: CarolC Date: 09 Mar 09 - 12:51 AM (People who are not students or faculty at the university have to pay, but I don't know what the method of collecting money is.) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: CarolC Date: 09 Mar 09 - 12:49 AM Morgantown's PRT system doesn't really draw from outlying areas. People who come in from outlying areas (with the possible exception of University faculty) just use their own vehicles to get around, as I did when I used to visit there from neighboring Garret County (Maryland). I don't know how it's funded now, but it was built with federal money. My guess is that it is funded by both the municipality and the university. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Ebbie Date: 09 Mar 09 - 12:42 AM Interesting site. However, Morgantown's situation is much different from ours. I only checked its county and three neighboring counties - those four counties (Monongalia, Marion, Preston and Weizel) and they hold about 185,000 in population (I didn't check across the border). In other words, as I said before, Juneau is unique; we have only 30,000 people and don't have outlying areas to draw from. Except for our town proper, the only other populations in the villages within 500 miles number only in the hundreds; if one counts Sitka (about 10 hours by ferry, 20 minutes by jet) that adds about 8,000 people. In reading the Morgantown RT system, I didn't see how it is funded. Do they use a subscriber system or is it with tickets like a subway? But it sure looks good! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Don Firth Date: 08 Mar 09 - 11:45 PM The Seattle monorail actually runs on rubber tires on concrete "rails." The original idea when the mile and a half of monorail was built prior to the Seattle World's Fair in 1962 was to extend the system to cover the entire Puget Sound area. They never did. Since then, the voters have voted to do exactly that, but for some reason the local "Twits in Charge" have ignored the voters and are planning a light rail system that involves boring tunnels all over the city for about ten times the cost of extending the monorail. Bloody morons!! I think someone will probably make more money off the tunnels than they would off the monorail. As the blue alien told Spock on an early episode of Star Trek TOS, "Don't waste time questioning a folly. Just ask what it accomplishes." Don Firth |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: CarolC Date: 08 Mar 09 - 11:30 PM Here's a cool video of the Morgantown PRT... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BMnmyPKYQE Here's a new PRT that's supposed to service Heathrow Airport, starting in April... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7hgipbHBK8 |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: CarolC Date: 08 Mar 09 - 11:12 PM I misspoke. Ever since I lived close enough to Morgantown to visit there a few times a year, I always called the PRT there a "monorail". That's what other people I knew called it, and that's what it looks like when you're not in one of the cars. Turns out, it operates on a heated paved surface and the cars run on rubber tires. But it is powered by electricity. So I guess it's technically not a light rail system, but it is a Personal Rapid Transit system (the only operating one in the world, according to what I've read). |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: CarolC Date: 08 Mar 09 - 10:16 PM Morgantown, West Virginia has fewer than 30,000 people, and it has a very good monorail system. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Don Firth Date: 08 Mar 09 - 10:11 PM Q, the infrastructure is in, but it's the power source that's the problem. It doesn't have to be coal or nuclear. The Pacific Northwest, for example, gets most of its electricity from hydropower. This, however, has problems of its own. Damming rivers, reducing salmon runs, etc. But there are good sources of electrical power that have only been piddled with so far. Solar, wind power, tidal power (several ways of harnessing that), plus a couple of systems that haven't even been experimented with yet. The potential sources of non-polluting, renewable (green) electricity have hardly been plumbed yet. #### Ebbie, I recall the light rail system that was in place in the Los Angeles area when I lived there as a kid. One could travel all over the area on the "streetcars" and the "interurban rail" system. One could zip pretty easily around Pasadena and environs, or the whole Los Angeles area, and it wasn't really necessary to own a car to get places. That all changed when the automobile companies, the oil companies, and the tire manufacturers talked the Powers That Be (Were) into dismantling the perfectly good light-rail system and building a system of "speedways" (now called "freeways"). "Modernizing," they called it. Now, you can't go anywhere around there without a car. I can see a system like the one I remember in Pasadena (before smog) working quite well in an area like Juneau. And I don't think it would cost all that much. For an area with not all that much population, it needn't be elaborate, just functional. Don Firth |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: CarolC Date: 08 Mar 09 - 09:54 PM Obama's not just putting money into infrastructure. He's also giving a leg up to private enterprise that will start building the green economy. The green economy is the future of capitalism in the United States. That's where most of the growth is going to be for several decades. After that, there will be new technologies that will drive the engine of growth. We haven't reached an economic cul-de-sac by any stretch of the imagination. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: CarolC Date: 08 Mar 09 - 09:47 PM But even if it had been the war machine that brought us out of the depression, it's still massive government spending that would have brought us out of it and not the free market or tax cuts. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 08 Mar 09 - 09:19 PM The electricity for the German trains comes from power generated by coal (40%),gas (15%), nuclear (30%), hydro (10%), oil (5%). French trains have a higher percentage of power from nuclear. The uranium that is refined for nuclear fuel also is a fossil fuel, although its dangers are from radioactivity and toxic associates in the ores, thus are different in nature from those of coal and oil. Transportation that doesn't depend on fossil fuels has not been done there or elsewhere. The electricity is mostly from coal, which is a fossil fuel. The statement "It Has been done elsewhere" is false. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Ebbie Date: 08 Mar 09 - 09:07 PM Don, since Juneau, Alaska, is a long, narrow town (nowhere wider than three miles, I believe, but 46 miles long) bringing in light rail has been the passion of several people. A few years back, one devotee brought in a 'down south' expert to study the situation. He said that to make it cost effective a community needs about 300,000 in population, including outlying areas. We have only 30,000 people and we don't have outlying areas to draw on. What I keep espousing is park-and-ride, which is eminently doable. A few miles out of downtown (where most of the state workers and government trek to) is a perfect spot for park and ride. But we haven't done that either, although our land mass is very limited and parking downtown is a big headache. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Don Firth Date: 08 Mar 09 - 09:03 PM One must be a bit careful in judging what we call "earmarks." A lot of them are pure pork, but at the same time, there are ones that may look like pork, but they can mean a lot to the target area. Louisiana governor "Bobby" Jindal's mocking of money spent on volcano monitoring would possibly have him laughing on the other side of his face if one were to cut funds for weather forecasting and hurricane monitoring. Years ago, Senator Proxmire gave out his annual "Golden Fleece" awards to what he considered government funds spent on stupid projects. One year his "Golden Fleece" award went to the massive sum of $150,000 earmarked for setting up a program to study the dangers of earth orbit crossing asteroids. He thought it was the stupidest waste of money he'd ever heard of. We have since learned that this is a real danger. There are earth orbit crossing asteroids that wiped out most life on this planet in the past–several times, in fact–and those rocks are still out there. As more than one astronomer has said, "It's not a matter of 'if,' it's a matter of 'when.' And how big. With enough advanced warning, and if the technology is on line, it's possible to divert a planet killer. But we have to know about it far enough in advance. $150,000 isn't much to invest in a project like that. Like I say above, before you start honking about what appears to be a stupid or pork-barrel "earmark," put your brain in gear and take another look. Don Firth |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Don Firth Date: 08 Mar 09 - 08:31 PM Infrastructure can (should) include light rail systems in municipal areas and nationwide rapid rail systems like those in some European countries. I've talked to travelers who say with some delight and admiration that one can travel swiftly and easily around most of Europe on public transportation alone. Repair and update existing roads, but build transportation systems that don't depend on fossil fuels. It can be done. It HAS been done elsewhere. Get people out of their cars and into public transportation. Don Firth |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: akenaton Date: 08 Mar 09 - 05:30 PM Bingo! Peter.....can't be done within the present system. Is it possible that the leaders of Capitalism will walk off into the sunset like their Eastern European counterparts....I dont think so, there are many horrors yet to be exhausted. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Peter T. Date: 08 Mar 09 - 04:10 PM Beyond all this is the historic problem of how to move from a system based on growth from pillaging the natural world to one that lives within the planetary means. My feeling is that Obama gets this (a bit), but it complicates things (or simplifies them). An infrastructure programme that builds more roads is not exactly the future. yours, Peter T. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Don Firth Date: 08 Mar 09 - 03:15 PM The reason that tax cuts for the rich and for the corporations will not solve the country's economic woes is that "trickle down" simply doesn't work (which, by now, we should have figured out). The idea is that with less taxes to pay, businesses can create more jobs and hire more workers to fill them. But–even with the workers they have now, production is down. This is not the fault of the workers. In this "consumer society," people are not consuming. There is no point in making more super-duper widgets if the widgets are not selling and are just sitting on the showroom floor or being stacked up in warehouses. So factories are making few widgets. So, to save money, the company lays off employees who, through no fault of their own, have little or nothing to do. The result of this is that there are fewer people out there who have enough money to buy widgets. So they lay off more people, and– You get the picture. Read up a bit on the New Deal and the programs that FDR initiated to get money into the hands of people will buy widgets if they have money to buy them with. The WPA and the CCC and a number of other "alphabet soup" agencies put people to work on needed infrastructure (roads, bridges, various construction projects). This put money directly into the hands of people who needed it and would spend it right away. In addition to this, Roosevelt instituted regulatory agencies such as the Securities and Exchange Commission (and others) to put the brakes on runaway speculation and other excesses that brought the Depression about. Those who say that it wasn't Roosevelt's New Deal that ended the Depression, it was World War II, don't know from Shinola about what was really going on back then. The U. S. didn't get into the war until 1941. The Depression was not over, but it was well on the wane by the mid-1930s as a result of Roosevelt's common sense programs. When Obama talks about putting people to work on needed infrastructure and renewable energy projects, this sound kind of familiar. The Repubs chafed and snarled under the regulations that FDR started because they put curbs on what amounted to rampant greed (not unlike today). Along comes Reagan and his creeping de-regulation. It took a few decades to do things like replace the regulators on the SEC with financial industry flaks and the Food and Drug Administration with pharmaceutical company executives, but look where the lack of regulation got us. Right back in the same sink-hole. Yet the Repubs want more de-regulation and more tax cuts for the wealthy. But the way out is clear. When you find yourself in a hole, the first thing you need to do is stop digging. Don Firth |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: CarolC Date: 08 Mar 09 - 12:23 PM The main problem with the idea that the solution to the problem is to cut taxes is that even with Bush's large tax cuts for the rich (the ones who are supposedly going to create more jobs making it possible for the government to collect more taxes), we still ended up with a rapidly shrinking economy. In a shrinking economy, tax revenues also shrink. If the existing tax cuts didn't prevent the economy from shrinking, there is no reason to expect that more tax cuts would prevent it from shrinking further, or cause it to grow. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Peter T. Date: 08 Mar 09 - 10:30 AM The real problem is having to deal with an adult in charge after the children have run amok for so long. Adultism is something new in contemporary life. yours, Peter T. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Amos Date: 07 Mar 09 - 06:04 PM A true bold statement, and a double-edged porposition, pal... A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Don Firth Date: 07 Mar 09 - 04:56 PM How true!! Don Firth |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: pdq Date: 07 Mar 09 - 04:52 PM People are not going to find the Truth when they are not looking for it. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Amos Date: 07 Mar 09 - 04:19 PM Sawz: Cut it out, would you? The revenue increase you cite is not matched by balanced fiscally responsible management; it is accompanied by record-breaking deficit spending and national debt galloping towards the quadrillion mark. If revenue were the only criterion of success it would be a different story. But it would not be a story of "tax cuts increase taxes". That doesn't work. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Sawzaw Date: 07 Mar 09 - 03:18 PM "Is it any wonder that revenues dropped after the Bush tax cuts to the wealthy???"
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Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: CarolC Date: 07 Mar 09 - 12:57 PM Why is it that budget deficits are only an issue when Democrats are responsible for them but never when Republican are responsible for them? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 07 Mar 09 - 12:44 PM The authorized debt limit was increased to $12.1 trillion in the stimulus plan. Another increase next year? Information on Gene Simmons? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: pdq Date: 07 Mar 09 - 10:54 AM Assuming that the question asked a couple of days back really needs an answer... --- "Budget Deficit" vs. "National Debt"--- "Suppose you want to spend more money this month than your income. This situation is called a "budget deficit". So you borrow. The amount you borrowed (and now owe) is called your debt. You have to pay interest on your debt. If next month you don't have enough money to cover your spending (another deficit), you must borrow some more, and you'll still have to pay the interest on the loan. If you have a deficit every month, you keep borrowing and your debt grows. Soon the interest payment on your loan is bigger than any other item in your budget. Eventually, all you can do is pay the interest payment, and you don't have any money left over for anything else. This situation is known as bankruptcy. Each year since 1969, Congress has spent more money than its income. The Treasury Department has to borrow money to meet Congress's appropriations. The total borrowed is more than $10,000,000,000,000 and growing. Even when government officials claim to have a surplus, they still spend more than they get in. We pay interest on that huge debt." ...from a great website...HERE |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Amos Date: 07 Mar 09 - 12:21 AM Revenues Outlays Budget Security Service Total PublicDebt |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Sawzaw Date: 07 Mar 09 - 12:00 AM "Is it any wonder that revenues dropped after the Bush tax cuts to the wealthy???" As per the CBO Historical Data
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Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Ebbie Date: 06 Mar 09 - 08:43 PM It certainly has not - yet - been established legally that they broke the law but ethically they're right down there. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Peter T. Date: 06 Mar 09 - 05:32 PM have they done anything illegal? I thought making money was the American way. yours, Peter T. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: number 6 Date: 06 Mar 09 - 03:47 PM "Why are the CEOs walking around free and not in jail?" maybe it has something to do with him having Jeffrey Immelt as one of his advisers. biLL |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: Stringsinger Date: 06 Mar 09 - 03:34 PM How beholden is Obama to the financial sector and the health insurance industry? How beholden is he to the Pentagon? Why are the CEOs walking around free and not in jail? Why are the criminal pundits on MSM? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke From: number 6 Date: 06 Mar 09 - 01:55 PM Great quotes! As I was reading them the peeple in congress and the Senate, the bankers on wall street where munchin down their free lunches while the stock market continues to fall, the national debt continues to spiral upward, the unemployment figrues keep edging upward, the war continues to war .. And the snow continues to fall outside. HELP !! biLL |
