Third Party & Independents: Archives

Education is a social good, so society has some duty to pay part of it, but the college students should expect to pay for the lion’s share of their education. After all, they get the biggest benefit. College graduates make more money and suffer less unemployment than non-grads and that does not even take into account the intangible benefits of education. If something is worth having, it is worth paying for. When people know they are paying for something, it focuses their minds.

One of the best ways to pay for college is with student loans. That creates the ideal situation where a poor college student gets the loan (you) and an employed college graduate pays it back (also you). If you prefer not to pay the loans, there are good programs in government and the military that forgive part of all of the obligation. Options exist. The duty to share applies to the recipient of the education as well as the providers.

Rather than just give more money, we all should work on ways to keep college costs lower. The big influx of government money has freed universities to let costs get out of hand. Even state universities have wonderful athletic facilities, all sorts of amenities and lots of services unrelated to education. It is good to be a student, as most people realize either while they are at university or soon after when they have to go to work full time.

jack, while it is correct the student gains a lot from a college education, the economy, the society, and corporate and non-profits benefit every bit as much as the students. Where would the economy be without those trained and creative minds to fill the positions? Where would society be without the revenues from those advanced earnings over a lifetime? And where would corporations and non-profits be without highly trained personnel?

Fact is, for every person America hires from overseas who does not become a citizen here, there is a net loss. And we are importing a very lot of highly educated labor these days, both into government as well as private industry.

Our nation would do well to invest as much into education as necessary to avoid immigrating educated labor, at the very least. By today’s benchmarks, we are not investing enough.

Adam -
Bush’s Thanksgiving statements, inasmuch as they are more than pleasant holiday platitudes, are at the core of compassionate conservatism.

Liberals have scoffed at compassionate conservatism since day one, precisely because it is not liberalism. However, those of us who agree with the president see no contradiction in his statement and his practice. Compassionate conservatives believe that we - as individuals - should help those less fortunate. Liberals, on the other hand, believe that we - collectively - should do so. There’s an agreement on ends, but not on means. Bush has lived up to his ideology by easing government restrictions on faith-based initiatives and giving tax cuts - which decreases the amount the government can give in income transfers, and increases citizens’ responsibility to share themselves.

Are all of Bush’s policies compassionate and conservative? By no means. The bait-and-switch on Pell grants is electoral politics at its worst and Bush should be ashamed of himself.

But the fundamental Republican ideology is intact, despite all the mistakes and misjudgements of the Republican leadership.

David

I recognize that education is a social good and that is why I wrote we the state should pay part of it. But the individual also has his/her part to play. Even if I had a source of unlimited funds, I would still make students pay some of the costs of their educations. It is valuable for them and they should be acquainted with the costs.

That said, I don’t object to spending more on education. The U.S. already spends a much larger percentage of it GNP on education than most other countries. My source material for his is at work (I am at home) and I can fill in detail on Monday, but I recall that the U.S. is nearly twice as high as Germany as a percent of GNP and our GNP per capita is greater.

I advocate spending more, but also demanding more from students. For example, university student should study math through calculus and beyond; they should take chemistry and other science, and everyone should take a year of statistics. If I had the power, I would make such courses free as long as the person maintained a B average. There are a lot of classes offered at universities not worth paying for from the state’s point of view, however.

I am not sure I get your point about hiring foreigners. Foreign countries complain that we are stealing their smartest people. We take in many thousands of educated people each year through immigration and H-visas. Many of these guys become citizens and many more would if we made it easier. This seems like a good deal for the U.S. Some other country spends all the money to train the person up to standard, then he moves to the U.S. and gives us the benefit.

Happy Thanksgiving Season to all (a bit late due to spamming of site the other day).

Agree with Jack on this one. Took me a long time to figure out some key factors that screwed up the country and our economy.

Don’t need 70% of the subjects or programs in univs. What a fraud and con job of past 25 years; self-serving full employment and looting by people who don’t know how to do anything while screwing up the country. [besides, if you can read a book, you don’t need some expensive univ program in it,but only a separate place for adult type seminars in whatever around a community].

If I had ruled, univs would be all part-time and long-term apprenticeships with about five classes yr. while working. People wouldn’t be able to get degrees until @28 (for several reasons).
Further, would require 3 years National Guard type training and service for all [m and fem] as requirement for our citizens (for guarding our borders, facilities, ports, possibly emergencyy assistance)

And, I would pay any of our men and women under fire in a war zone premium salaries.
As a citizen, really resent that the paper professionals and their offspring [who have been screwing up the country and hemorrhaging it for years]are not at risk and able to send others of so easily.

The people that feel the sting of reduced gov’t spending in education are the working poor. Students shouldn’t be saddled with tens of thousands of debt when they get out of school. At the rate they can pay them back, it would take a lifetime to get out of debt. These debts leave little room for savings or buying investments that help the overall economy, like a house.

Alex, not educating the population is about the best thing you could do to ensure that our country keeps lagging behind in technological advances. We need educated individuals to help rebuild the tech sector, not foreign imports.

But the fundamental Republican ideology is intact, despite all the mistakes and misjudgements of the Republican leadership.

I once worked with a Canadian Communist who used the same argument: Communism is a viable system, the Soviets just did it wrong.

It would be interesting to see the dollar ratio of charitable giving for social works (donating your Van Gogh collection to the Guggenheim doesn’t count) versus the amount the government spends on social programs.

A lot of ex-compassionate conservatives (Arianna Huffington being one) argue that it’s impossible for private donations to match the power and effectiveness of the federal government in social work.

As for higher education, one of the first things Governor Schwarzenegger did in my home state was raise tuition fees to help cover our busted budget caused by the energy scam that Bush’s FEC knew about but did nothing to stop. It didn’t just affect the old grannies.

Perhaps is would be best if the Federal
government stopped trying to meddle in
everything (and doing it badly as usual),
and perhaps it would be best if the people
stopped expecting the Federal government
to give them things.

To expect the Federal government to take care
our every whim is to ask the Federal government
to put their hands into the cookie jar first.
And when they are finished, there’s only
crumbs left for you. Redistribution of wealth
is NEVER fair. So why do we keep doing it?
Because Americans still have not discovered
that they have been defrauded. Governments just
love to create huge beauracratic programs of
nightmare proportions, because they know that
they can easily plunder them (like Social
Security, Medicare, welfare, HUD, etc.).

Also, it you take a moment to analyze many
of the inequities and problems in the
Federal government, you find that much of
the squabbling is how Federal government
should spend money. Why is that ?
Because it will NEVER be fair.

Also, you may find it interesting that the
$1 billion that Adam Ducker spoke of above
for Pell Grants is almost as much as the
$INTEREST (only) on the $8 trillion dollar
National Debt for ONE day !

So, you’re wondering where your $1 billion for
Pell Grants went to? It went to INTEREST on
the National Debt ( for only ONE day ). It went
into some one else’s pocket. Someone who is
collecting interest for investing into the National
Debt (an increasingly risky investment).

If you really want change you need a way to
FORCE the Federal government to pay attention.
To get the attention of the Federal government,
there’s one way left (short of revolution) within
the power of the Voters:
HowToMakeYourVoteEffective

It is always useful to have some comparisons.

Since we are talking about higher education. The U.S. spends a greater percentage of its GNP on PUBLIC education than most other countries and it is much higher when you include private education. http://nces.ed.gov/surveys/international/IntlIndicators/index.asp?SectionNumber=4&SubSectionNumber=2&IndicatorNumber=35

To address your question about public and private expenditures, the private expenditures are slightly larger than public ones in higher education.

This number understates the U.S. commitment. Comparing expenditures are percentage of GNP are useful, but incomplete, since the U.S. has a much bigger GNP than most other countries. At some point size matters. The Harvard endowment of about $20 billion is more than all of France spends on higher education most years. The other problem with stating things as a percentage of GNP is that economic growth can make the figures look worse. If America spends twice as much as France in year X and that ratio continues, but the American economy grows faster, the American percentage will drop.

To sum up:

In higher education the U.S. spends both a larger percentage of its GNP and a much larger absolute amount, since the U.S. GNP is so much larger than any other. Alone private U.S. expenditure on education is greater than public expenditures in the U.S. larger than the public expenditures in any other country and in most other countries private expenditures are negligible.

We should hold down college costs, but students should pay part of their education. Cost estimates for attending college tend to be inflated because they include room and board. Presumably you need a place to stay and something to eat whether or not you go to college. Tuition at good state colleges is between $3000 and 6000 a year. This is about the same as the yearly costs to own and maintain a car. If you can afford a car, you can afford a college education. We should make it possible to get an education; it doesn’t have to be easy.

Interesting discussion about the economics of education.

There’s one other point about hypocrisy that should be addressed. If the president feels that higher education costs should be borne by students, fine. Say that. It’s something else entirely to propose compassionate conservatism, no child left behind, then act entirely differently.

Very thought provoking comments from Jack about America’s poor bang for the educational buck. We’ve got the same problem with health care. I suspect America’s inefficiency in these areas stems from the mish-mosh of public and private administration of both areas of society.

I bet publicly administered health and educational systems are far more efficient than private or particularly private/public systems. Look at pensions. Bitch about social security all you want but it is FAR more efficient than any privatley run pension effort.

I advocate spending more, but also demanding more from students. For example, university student should study math through calculus and beyond; they should take chemistry and other science, and everyone should take a year of statistics.

Jack: I assume you mean all college degrees? For my computer science degree I’ve taken College Algebra, Trig, Derivative Calculus, Integral Calculus, Linear Algebra, Discrete Math, and Statistics. I’ve also taken a general science, and a year of physics. Of course, not every degree requires this much. Just the technical ones. Studio Art, Art History, History, and English for example at my college require just general math and general science. It’s all give and take I suppose.

Anyway, this is a nice conversation about education. I feel like if Bush is going to encourage high-tech jobs so he can outsource the other jobs overseas, he needs to do a lot better to help the working class pay for it, as Daniel Waldman mentioned. I think education is equal with healthcare for the most important thing to American survival. If we aren’t healthy we won’t compete economically. If we aren’t educated we won’t either. This should be important to an “ownership society.”

I believe these two things are done terribly wrong in this nation, and I find that sad.

The only true measure of a society’s committment to general education for all of its people is its spending per capita across equally weighted currencies, as well as a percentage of GNP. India, the largest democracy in the world, spends far less percentage of GNP on education, but, for that limited number of the Brahman class eligible for higher education, their spending per capita may well be higher than in the U.S.

There are no simple comparisons. One relatively simple measure of educational success however, is a nation’s capacity to fulfill it work force requirements and entrepreneurial capacity from its own educational system. By this measure, the U.S. has tremendous room for improvement.

I’ve been paying into Social Security for over
32 years, and have little hope of ever receiving
anything from it. In fact, I would gladly
forfeit all I’ve paid-in thus far, if only I did not
have to continue to pay any more into it.

An Historical View On Social Security’s Current Woes
In the beginning, Social Security was like a
separate savings account that Congress could
not touch. But, that was too much temptation
for the politicians. They shortly created a way
to plunder those savings in 1939.

Social Security is now “pay as you go”,
and nearing the brink of insolvency.
http://www.cato.org/pubs/ssps/ssp-21es.html

The CATO Institute: ….In short, Social Security’s crisis is real and may be even larger than commonly thought. While debate may continue over the proper course of action, doing nothing in hopes that the economy will come to the rescue is wishful thinking, at best.

When 77 million baby boomers attempt to
collect benefits, Social Security benefits will
have to be cut drastically and taxes may also
have to be increased drastically. It’s simple math.
There will simply NOT be enough money.

Politicians don’t want to address the problem,
because they already know what citizens will
ultimately learn. Politicians will NEVER have
the discipline (much less honesty) to fix it.
There is little incentive to try to fix something
if you believe it is most likely doomed. Especially,
when NO one is going to like ANY of the choices.

Thus, Social Security is most likely doomed.
And, perhaps that is for the best, because
it will be ONE less way for politicians to abuse
tax payers.

What doomed Social Security ?
Tax payers entrusted their savings to
lazy, greedy, master-cheater-parasitic politicians.

It is the nature of humans to be lazy,
but immoral to surrender to it.
Politicians are masters at living off
of others hard work.

And, you, the Voters will
never change that until you realize that
FORCE is required.

The Voters have the power of FORCE,
but simply do not realize how to use it.
The FORCE is your one vote, and
all Voters’ single vote to do ONE
simple thing every until things improve drastically.

Vote out the incumbents every election.
No exceptions,
Over and over,
until things improve drastically.

Vote randomly for anyone but an incumbent.
And always make sure there are many
candidates running for all offices.

Thus, there will be
No more career politicians (parasites),
No more petty partisan politics and squabbling
to distract voters from the issues,
No more over-complicating everything
for the purpose of abusing tax payers,
No more pork-barrel spending, and an
incentive for would-be-career-politicians
to improve things rather than find ways to
abuse them.

There are a lot of independent and 3rd party
organizations, but their messages are NOT
resonating with Voters.

Part of the problem has been that the
independent and 3rd party (and main
parties too) campaign messages and
solutions are too complicated.

What is needed is a ONE SIMPLE
and EFFECTIVE campaign issue.
That ONE SIMPLE idea is for all
voters toFORCE government to be
accountable and responsible,
by simply voting OUT all incumbents every election.

Independent and 3rd party organizations should
consider this ONE simple campaign strategy that
gives true power to the Voters,
and NOT to any arrogant politicians.

NineStepPlan

Adam

With all those impressive math and science course, you really have little to worry about. Since you can also write well (something not always common among the quantitatively gifted) you should have no trouble getting a good job. You provide an excellent example of why individuals can finance their own educations with student loans. The poor college student (you) gets the money, and the well-employed college graduate (also you) pays it back. I love the symetry. It is what I did.

Still agree with Jack’s view… but think even again state the univ model is outdated and has devastated the country…and the rest of what stated previously.

Maybe,I am just may be too smart.

Most of you sound out of touch, ultraliberal or socialistic.

I don’t have to waste my time and brain proving what is happened to your country…and that the univ helped devastate this country…or that the college age are too young, too inexperienced, and too clueless. Sounds like you all too were too propagandized by the univ fraud and con job, so nmay never get it and just perpetuate the fraud on this society.

Exc. the few typos.

jack, your extrapolation from the specific to the general by saying because you did it, everyone else attending college should be able to as well, is a fallacy of logic.

There are different kinds of intelligence, and different talents. Society rarely values all of them equally or at the same time. Just a few years ago, there was a mushroom of MBA students in colleges because history had shown, prior to the tech bubble explosion, that there were great careers to be had in that area.

Boom, tech bubble bursts, and half a million a few hundred thousand MBA’s enter the job market over the next 5 years unable to find a job warranting an MBA let alone paying the same salary and benefits of previous MBA jobs.

How are these MBA’s working as assistant managers and managers of Wal-Mar and Toys-R-Us going to be able to afford their education loans? The default rate is skyrocketing you know. It is not because all those MBA’s are lazy good for nothings, you know. Most are probably not even liberals. :-)

David

Nothing works all the time. It can happen that people take out too much in loans and can’t pay them. But I still would put the responsibility on the individual benefiting from the education with the extensive help the state delivers. University education just does not cost that much, even today. Few people pay the full sticker price for their educations. Even at state universities, more than half the students are usually getting some kind of aid. There is also the role of families. Parents should help pay for their kids’ educations and most can. I stipulate that there are some people so poor that they can’t pay anything, but for each one of them, there are several who just don’t want to be bothered. University students and graduates are a privileged group. We already subsidize them and I agree we should. But I want to be sure that we are subsidizing education, not lifestyle.

I understand that going from the specific to the general is a logical fallacy, but I do it to illustrate the point and to show that I do understand the situation personally. The logic, however, works for larger groups. It is not quite a syllogism, but it is as close as we can come sociologically. Most people can expect to be employed after graduation at jobs paying better than average. They will have the ability to pay back their loans. Some will want to pursue “public service”. Many government jobs and military careers offer partial or complete loan payoff. There just is no excuse not to get an education if you want one.

The biggest impediment to a college education probably comes from being “cognitively or motivationally challenged” but there is little we can – or should – do to address that problem.

I don’t have to waste my time and brain proving what is happened to your country…and that the univ helped devastate this country…or that the college age are too young, too inexperienced, and too clueless. Sounds like you all too were too propagandized by the univ fraud and con job, so nmay never get it and just perpetuate the fraud on this society.

Alex, your poor grammar and spelling prove your own point.

You personally might find no need for an education, but there are millions of people living in or near poverty who see it as a means to building a better life.

I have a Bachelors & a Masters and I am extremely thankful for being able to spend time in grad school (despite the $50k debt hanging over my head). It introduced me to amazing people I never would have met otherwise (some of my best friends) and introduced me to great works of literature, art, intellectual thought, etc.

Put simply: They were good experiences that have helped me succeed in life. I earn more money now than I would have without those degrees. Despite the debt, I’m in very good financial situation. And I am paying for it all on my own. It’s pathetic that some people don’t want to help people move beyond their life circumstances. It’s a way of keeping the poor poor, IMO.

Also, you may find it interesting that the $1 billion that Adam Ducker spoke of above for Pell Grants is almost as much as the $INTEREST (only) on the $8 trillion dollar National Debt for ONE day !

So, you’re wondering where your $1 billion for
Pell Grants went to? It went to INTEREST on
the National Debt ( for only ONE day ). It went
into some one else’s pocket. Someone who is
collecting interest for investing into the National
Debt (an increasingly risky investment).

Daniel,
I hear your plea and agree. The federal debt is intolerable, but I believe the government’s problem is a huge military that is not needed anymore. What country out there in there right minds woul invade the US conventionally while we have the best airforce and Navy in the world. Our military should be streamlined into an anti-terrorism force and a homeland protection force. The anti-terrorism force would mostly be special forces and secret counterterrorism agents who protect our country from terrorism. The homeland protection force would be just the air force and navy who would bomb any invading force or attack any enemy ships. Also, we do not need to involve ourselves in frivolus wars like Iraq, which kill Americans, Iraqis and the budget. The military takes more money from the budget than any other department. Here is my proof

Jack, we seem to agree on the fundamental positions regarding societal funding of education. The only place we may differ is on the ratio of public funding. I believe tax dollars should subsidize student education from K-12. And college or university education should be subsidized on an as needed merit basis. That is to say, the students aptitude and grades should establish merit, their family size, assets, and income should dictate the amount the family is obligated to contribute for the student’s education, then private grants and scholarships should be applied for, and after all that, the society should pick up the remainder of the cost IF the student agrees to 1) pay the amount back over a period of time after graduation, or 2) provide social service for a period of 2 or 3 years after graduation at nominal maintenance salary.

We agree on most of this.

My opinion also has an emotional or ideological component. I think that it is a good thing for students to be poor and I would try to impose at least some poverty on those rich kids who make up a disproportionate part of the student population. My daughter was unhappy to learn that freshmen at the University of Virginia were not allowed to own cars (or at least have them on campus). I thought this was a great idea. I only wish they would extend it to the other three years and expand it to cover things like televisions in their rooms. I find it a disturbing trend that students are such consumers of material things. This goes for the rich and the “poor” students, by the way. They should concentrate on their minds and sprits. The time for crass consumerism will come only too soon.

I also think that students should pay for a part of their education and that it should be enough that it creates some hardship. This has less to do with social justice than with character building.

I have a son who just graduated from college,
and landed a good paying job a few weeks later.

He had to work to pay for part of his college.
He also had to pay for part of his first car.

He always knew we were there to help if he
truly needed help.

It is not that my wife and I (both engineers)
could not afford to pay more, but it was for
his benefit that we not make it too easy,
because he sometimes had a tendency to get a
bit lazy and take things for granted when they
were gained too easily. This is normal with
most children.

But, parents have a duty to prepare their
children to be strong and ready to face the
world. Giving them too much can sometimes
spoil them (depending on the child) and rob
them of lessons that would be better to learn
sooner than later. Parents need to help
their children build accomplishments, work
through problems, and create skills,
which builds ability and confidence, and
a strong value system.
And when they misbehave, there should
be consistent consequences and incentives
to discourage unacceptable behavior.
The parent(s) must always be consistent,
fair, and always present a united front.

It also depends on the child.
You can see when some children start becoming
spoiled and others that do not, because some
recognize and appreciate the uncommon
privileges and opportunities, and try to make
the most of it, without becoming spoiled.

My father helped me and my 3 siblings through
college. We also had to contribute. It was not
easy, but that was best for us. As with most
(not all) children, it is usually better that it is
not too easy.

Some children’s families can not or choose
not to fund their college educations.
While difficult, it is not impossible to put one’s
self through college. My father (an engineer) did.
I know some others that have college loans,
but loan debt of $20K to $30K
is not a terrible investment. Most of these
graduates will gross more than that in their
first year out of college and it is possible to
pay off those loans in only a few years.

I don’t mind paying taxes for welfare
to help the truly needy,
for a strong national defense, for law
enforcement, for fire fighters, for safety,
and for security.

However, while it would be nice for all
Americans to be better educated, it is
unfair that many of the college loans
government makes are never paid back.
Therefore, once again, I would prefer that
the Federal government not even get
involved with funding college educations.

The meddling of the Federal government has
already caused considerable grief, is usually
unfair, inefficient, and abused; like most
attempts of the Federal government to
redistribute wealth.

The Federal government should try to do better
the basic things it is supposed to do, and should
stop creating, and inserting itself into money
streams of huge entitlement systems that are
ultimately abused, and continuously attempting
to redistribute wealth, which is merely another
form of legal plunder.

Warren,
Regarding the amount of defense spending:
FederalSpending
Of course, if you exclude Social Security, defense spending
becomes a larger percentage of government spending.
And, it’s questionable that Social Security
could be called a trust fund?
Social Security is probably already doomed.

A strong national defense is imperitive,
but there’s a whole lot of pork-barrel
spending and waste in those defense budgets.
So, it would be better to address the pork-barrel
spending, rather than gutting defense.

But, this is all academic until voters learn
it is better to limit governments’ role and
meddling in everything, and learn to use
their vote effectively to force
government to reform. HowToForceReform

Federal Spending and Revenues 2003,2004

Revenues (in billions of U.S. dollars) FederalRevenues2003-2004

Spending (in billions of U.S. dollars) FederalSpending2003-2004

Gosh, Adam, if you think like this now, what are you going to do when you have a real job, rent to pay, and no Pell Grants to fall back on? Don’t be bitter because the government can’t provide you with the same security Mom and Dad did. It’s time to be on your own. Be grateful you have the Pell Grants for right now, but don’t expect handouts like that to be there for you in the real world.

Remember, when you start earning a real paycheck, the government will be TAKING money FROM you to pay for those Pell Grants.

Daniel, one of your premises is patently false. Namely that wealth redistribution is bad.

The fact is, we saw hundreds of years go by when wealth had accumulated into too few hands and did not get adequately redistributed. It was called the Medeival period or Dark ages, the system was called feudalism. It just did not offer the human species any progress, thus periods after that became known as progressive, where redistribution of wealth through a number of means, not the least of which was known as noblesse oblige, allowed for the growth of consumerism and thus a growing cycle wealth redistribution through mercantilism, and on to relatively free markets and entrepreneurial activity that could not be monopolized away, not yet, anyway.

The same is true of America today. If the wealthy pass on their wealth to their heirs without further redistribution, and middle and lower classes continue to lose consumer capacity as they have since the 1960’s, then the consumer base that shores up our economy, will collapse. Since the 1960’s the middle and lower classes have been able to compensate for loss of earnings buying power by putting both parents into the workplace instead of just one. However, that trend is reaching its stretch limit with most two parent households already participating in the work force.

Any society that does not redistribute wealth sufficiently to maintain its consumer base, will either have to radically and tumultuously change its systems, or collapse, or both.

A simple example. Society H (hypothetical) has 10 citizens, each of whom has $1000. They exchange the products of their labor with each other since each produces a different product to sustain life. One for example builds homes, another makes shoes and clothes, and another grows food, etc. Now, if overtime, the homebuilder gets wealthier and wealthier accumulating the let’s say 60% of the original society’s wealth of $100,000, that leaves $40 thousand for the other 9 members of society. Now, these others can no longer afford housing. If this trend continues, the homebuilder will buy out the other 9 members businesses, hire them to work for him, and because the homebuilder can, he will pay them only what he has to in order to insure the society continues to buy his products.

Now the other nine have had kids along the way, and they can now work for the homebuilder and insure a continued demand for his products, and the homebuilder no longer needs the original other 9 members of the society, so he fires them for their kids to take care of. Unfortunately, the kids are not making enough to support themselves, their kids, and their parents, and their parents suffer for lack of affordable medicine, medical care, decent living accomodations, and some even commit suicide to end the misery. The seeds for social revolution have been sowed, and the day will come, when the workers will unite and kill the homebuilder, take his accumulated wealth, and start society all over again.

To avoid revolution, wealth must be redistributed to the extent that a large class of society does not become motivated to revolt as its only means of securing a reasonable and decent livelihood. If social security fails, and their families have little or no choice but to watch their parents suffer and die in misery, the seeds of revolution will be sown. Redistributing wealth to prevent this scenario, either by finding a way to save social security or replacing it with some other mechanism that insures that workers have adequate and decent means to sustain their families, is the only way to prevent sowing the seeds of revolution.

Marcy:

If I wasn’t in college trying to get a “high-tech job” I would not expect the government to give me a pell grant. Don’t give me any of that “real world” stuff. All I’m saying is Bush encourages job growth in the high-tech sector, and what does he do? He cuts aid to low income Americans trying to make it into that job field. When and where does that ever make sense? And furthermore, I’ll pay my taxes gladly when I work a “real job”. Gosh.

David R. Remer wrote (see responses below),

Daniel, one of your premises is patently false _____I strongly disagree with the belief that anyone has the right to take the property of one and give it someone else._____. Namely that wealth redistribution is bad. _____It IS bad because it is THEFT. To redistribute wealth is legal plunder, and it is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else._____
The fact is, we saw hundreds of years go by when wealth had accumulated into too few hands and did not get adequately redistributed. _____That was then. When democracies began to spread, and taxes were reasonable, everyone finally obtained the right and opportunity to flourish and profit from their own hard work and efforts. Dictators and oppression breed poverty and ignorance. _____ It was called the Medeival period or Dark ages, the system was called feudalism. _____That analogy and argument doesn’t hold water. Those countries way back then were NOT democracies. _____ It just did not offer the human species any progress, thus periods after that became known as progressive, where redistribution of wealth through a number of means, not the least of which was known as noblesse oblige, allowed for the growth of consumerism and thus a growing cycle wealth redistribution through mercantilism, _____Now, THAT is on the right track: freedoms, free markets, reasonable taxation, entrepreneurship, democracy._____ and on to relatively free markets and entrepreneurial activity that could not be monopolized away, not yet, anyway.

The same is true of America today. If the wealthy pass on their wealth to their heirs without further redistribution, and middle and lower classes continue to lose consumer capacity as they have since the 1960’s, then the consumer base that shores up our economy, will collapse. _____Once again, I strongly disagree with your conclusion that society would collapse without legal plunder. Redistribution of wealth is to take from one and give it to someone else. It is legal plunder. To take the property of one to give to another is the complete perversion of the law and those that enforce the law, for false philanthropy or greed. Legal plunder is the conversion of plunder into a right. It is the conversion of of those that lawfully oppose it into criminals. _____ Since the 1960’s the middle and lower classes have been able to compensate for loss of earnings buying power by putting both parents into the workplace instead of just one. However, that trend is reaching its stretch limit with most two parent households already participating in the work force. _____In this country, that is primarily because (1)workers in the U.S. are highly paid compared to the growing work forces emerging in India, China, Russia, and other parts of Europe; (2)there are a lot more people now in the U.S.; (3)the world is transforming into a global economy with increased competition; (4) and people in the U.S. live and spend way beyond their needs. Not because wealth is not being distributed to them quickly enough. _____

Any society that does not redistribute wealth sufficiently to maintain its consumer base, will either have to radically and tumultuously change its systems, or collapse, or both. _____I can think of no prescedent to support that theory. What people need is freedoms, free markets, reasonable and fair taxation, and to realize that they must reject the myth that we (everyone) can live at the expense of everyone else. _____

A simple example. Society H (hypothetical) has 10 citizens, each of whom has $1000. They exchange the products of their labor with each other since each produces a different product to sustain life. One for example builds homes, another makes shoes and clothes, and another grows food, etc. Now, if overtime, the homebuilder gets wealthier and wealthier accumulating the let’s say 60% of the original society’s wealth of $100,000, that leaves $40 thousand for the other 9 members of society. Now, these others can no longer afford housing. If this trend continues, the homebuilder will buy out the other 9 members businesses, hire them to work for him, and because the homebuilder can, he will pay them only what he has to in order to insure the society continues to buy his products. _____There is a huge flaw in your logic. You are ignoring competition, inovation, invention, regulation, and the laws of supply & demand. You are also ignoring the unions. Unions have served useful purposes when greedy corporations were allowed to operate unregulated. When people are free to invent, and produce, and trade (as in democracies), they can not be oppressed, and nothing can keep them from flourishing. So, I still strongly reject the any reason that tries to justify legal plunder._____

Now the other nine have had kids along the way, and they can now work for the homebuilder and insure a continued demand for his products, and the homebuilder no longer needs the original other 9 members of the society, so he fires them for their kids to take care of. Unfortunately, the kids are not making enough to support themselves, their kids, and their parents, and their parents suffer for lack of affordable medicine, medical care, decent living accomodations, and some even commit suicide to end the misery. The seeds for social revolution have been sowed, and the day will come, when the workers will unite and kill the homebuilder, take his accumulated wealth, and start society all over again. _____That will only happen if the people are oppressed. Many laws and regulations must be broken for that to occur. And if the government has broken such those laws, and a democracy no longer exists, then the people should revolt. But people should never be tricked into thanked that legal plunder is justified for any reason. _____

To avoid revolution, wealth must be redistributed to the extent that a large class of society does not become motivated to revolt as its only means of securing a reasonable and decent livelihood. If social security fails, and their families have little or no choice but to watch their parents suffer and die in misery, the seeds of revolution will be sown. Redistributing wealth to prevent this scenario, either by finding a way to save social security or replacing it with some other mechanism that insures that workers have adequate and decent means to sustain their families, is the only way to prevent sowing the seeds of revolution. _____That’s not the only way. Nothing will ever convince me that legal plunder is justified. I believe you confuse the need for “law enforcement” with the need for “wealth redistribution”. If the laws of democracy are justly enforced, there is nothing that hold people down. Wealth redistribution should NEVER be necessary, because that is to say legal plunder is necessary. To attempt justify the crime of legal plunder against anyone is altruistic and false philanthropy. It is part of the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else — by Frederick Bastiat 1848 _____

Democracy is not perfect, but it’s better than other forms of government. The only thing commonly wrong with demoacracies is the ability of people to unite to make their vote effective.
OneSimpleIdea

Daniel, your response ignores reality. Wealth in this country is consolidating into fewer and fewer hands. The discretionary dollar from a weeks wage is shrinking. Those are the facts and easily demonstrated over the last 40 years in pure economic measures.

We don’t live in an ideal democracy where the interest of the people dictates laws and government action. We live in a republic where the representatives are constantly placing other values above the general welfare of society as a whole.

That is reality. And reality will not conform to your ideal of how it should be. If good intentions and plans were all that were needed, Ancient Rome and Greece and Egypt would still thrive today. Do not forget we got our democracy from and republic from Ancient Greece and Rome. And now, we are making a reality that is no longer conforming to the well laid plans for society.

You can call it legalized plunder, socialism, or whatever you will, but, if some mechanism is not put in place to save or replace social security or otherwise provide for dignified end of life experience for the baby boom generation who worked and sacrificed in this nation, revolution becomes a very real concern. Family comes before law or government. If enough children are forced to watch their parents suffer dearly after having paid their share into the safety net all their lives, if they have to watch them go without medical care to ease the burdens of end of life, this nation could easily regret having not saved the legalized plunder you so strongly oppose.

Hard choices have to be made. Forcing the baby boom generation that won WWII, sacrificed in Korea and Viet Nam, civil rights and riots in American streets, whose work lives passed wealth into the hands of the few, into undignified living and dying conditions is unacceptable in America and will not be tolerated by large numbers of their children. But for the sake of argument, if the children will tolerate their parents suffering through old age and dying, then this country’s heart and soul will be gone, and not worth saving in the first place.

David

As a baby boomer, I thank you for the undeserved compliment. Baby boomers didn’t fight in World War II or Korea and most of us were nowhere near Vietnam. We baby boomers have generally had easy lives paid for by our parents’ sacrifices. I don’t think we can seize the moral high ground for the sacrifices our generation made smoking dope at Berkeley or laying on the beach in Fort Lauderdale.

Nobody from the WWII generation or the Korean conflict will see there SS benefits cuts. Us baby boomers might have to wait until we are 67 to collect benefits, but that seems more than fair, especially to the young people who will be paying for us. Older people today control more wealth than every before. Despite all the cries of doom and gloom, their situation is not bad. Just take a look at the parking lots at Denny’s of IHOP on a Sunday morning. There are poor old people, but not as many as in any other group or time.

By the way, don’t worry so much about income. The more important measure is wealth, which shelters people (especially) older people from the vicissitudes of fortune. People have a duty to save when they can so that government pensions are a supplement, not a living. Besides, President Bush is working to reform the SS system, so we expect it to be around as long as we are.

David

As a baby boomer, I thank you for the undeserved compliment. Baby boomers didn’t fight in World War II or Korea and most of us were nowhere near Vietnam. We baby boomers have generally had easy lives paid for by our parents’ sacrifices. I don’t think we can seize the moral high ground for the sacrifices our generation made smoking dope at Berkeley or laying on the beach in Fort Lauderdale.

Nobody from the WWII generation or the Korean conflict will see there SS benefits cuts. Us baby boomers might have to wait until we are 67 to collect benefits, but that seems more than fair, especially to the young people who will be paying for us. Older people today control more wealth than every before. Despite all the cries of doom and gloom, their situation is not bad. Just take a look at the parking lots at Denny’s of IHOP on a Sunday morning. There are poor old people, but not as many as in any other group or time.

By the way, don’t worry so much about income. The more important measure is wealth, which shelters people (especially) older people from the vicissitudes of fortune. People have a duty to save when they can so that government pensions are a supplement, not a living. Besides, President Bush is working to reform the SS system, so we expect it to be around as long as we are.

David R. Remer,

Still, I think “law enforcement” is the issue,
NOT “wealth redistribution”, which is a nice
name for “theft”. The “ends” do not “justify”
the “means”.

And I would prefer “revolution” to perversion of
the law to legalize institutionalized “theft”.

To violate ONE is to violate ALL.

The wealthy can not hold down and can not
oppress people WITHOUT violating existing
laws and regulations.

And if government allows the wealthy to
violate these laws to oppress people,
then those people should revolt.

And that could happen.
But the possibility of revolt STILL does not
justify theft, wealth redistribution, legal
plunder (whatever you want to call it).

Social Security should be either:
(1) completely protected from the greedy politicians that mismanaged it, or
(2) phased out (finalizing those that paid into it), until we are able to enforce the laws to
protect the funds from the greedy politicians
that continue to plunder those funds.

Creation of such entitlement systems should
carefully take into consideration the
irresistible temptation of politicians to gain
access to those funds.

Social Security was a good idea (on paper),
but in reality, it was too much temptation for
greedy parasitic politicians.

That is reality.

To ignore the natural tendency of humans to be
lazy, which leads to greed and corruption,
is to ignore reality.

And the very thing that is destroying
Social Security is the very idea of
“wealth redistribution” that you promote.

Politicians legally plundered Social Security
funds using the very principles that you promote.

Politicians perverted the laws to steal from those
that paid into the Social Security system their
entire lives.

And still you defend “wealth redistribution”?
That’s exactly what they want you to believe.

Once you start down the slippery slope of
justifying theft for any purpose, you have
perverted the law to do the very thing it
was supposed to prevent.

Don’t you see how politicians have institutionalized “theft”
to steal from the Social Security funds.
It is no wonder corporations and wealthy people
want to move their operations to other countries.

And, the standard of living in this country is
still one of the highest in the world, so I have
a hard time believing the lack of “wealth-redistribution” is making us poorer.

If anything, I would say that the 15.3% that
tax payers currently pay into a doomed
Social Security is what is making people poorer.

And what do you think was the “cause of”
and will be the “result of” an
$8 trillion dollar National Debt ?

You claim that I “ignore reality”.

No, it is you that “ignore reality”.

You confuse the need for “wealth redistribution”
with the need for “law enforcement”.

You promote the very thing that is destroying
Social Security and the fabric of a democratic
society, which is the idea of “wealth redistribution”,
which is perversion of the law to legalize theft.

You perpetuate the “great fiction through which
everybody endeavors to live at the expense
of everybody else”.

While our democracy is not perfect, it is better than many other systems.
And no matter how bad it is in reality, it still does NOT justify “theft” cleverly
disguised as “wealth redistribution”.

What should be evident to people is that their
government is not accountable. Politicians have
gradually learned how to be immune from it.
All political parties are missing that much needed
ingredient. Accountability. While we squabble
over thousands of other issues (which is what politicians
want), the politicians continue to be unaccountable.
What is desperately needed is one simple idea
to FORCE politicians to be accountable,
because nothing else seems to be working.
OneSimpleIdea