If you've posted in forums you might remember writing some decent responses. I usually spend a lot of time polishing my discussion forum responses depending on the subject or who I am talking to. Often I want to remember what I said about something, but finding the original post can be difficult. So it makes sense to capture the better responses for later review. Welcome to Clint's Reposts.Monday, June 21, 2004
Democracy and freedom in direct conflict
Think anti-smoking laws. Democracy rules, and now that a majority of citizens are non-smokers, they can vote to make the minority "behave".
Think historic district regulations, the Patriot Act, drivers license databases, and the partisan press.
Think the tyranny of the jackass, and the triumph of tight-assed political correction.
David Warren's website, down for a week or so is back. I especially like this one:
http://www.davidwarrenonline.com/SunSpec/Jun04/index125.shtml
followed closely by the Oil Bomb article:
http://www.davidwarrenonline.com/Comment/Jun04/index220.shtml
-Clint
Think historic district regulations, the Patriot Act, drivers license databases, and the partisan press.
Think the tyranny of the jackass, and the triumph of tight-assed political correction.
David Warren's website, down for a week or so is back. I especially like this one:
http://www.davidwarrenonline.com/SunSpec/Jun04/index125.shtml
followed closely by the Oil Bomb article:
http://www.davidwarrenonline.com/Comment/Jun04/index220.shtml
-Clint
Thursday, June 10, 2004
St. Elmo Colorado - U.S. flag near the end of winter
St. Elmo, Colorado - Chrysolite mountain.
Wednesday, June 09, 2004
On Serving our country--we already have a draft, it's called taxes
Response to this post on the political forum.
So you want a draft, eh. Well why not? At least draftees can recoop some of their tax money paid out and the best part is, it's always for someone's good cause (though maybe not theirs).
We do of course already serve our government (http://www.taxfoundation.org/taxfreedomday.html):
Washington, D.C., April 7, 2004 — According to Tax Foundation calculations using the latest government data on income and taxes, Tax Freedom Day® in 2004 will be celebrated on April 11th, the earliest Tax Freedom Day for 37 years.
April 11th is three days earlier than 2003’s Tax Freedom Day of April 14 and an amazing 21 days earlier than in 2000, when the boom and bubble pushed tax burdens to a record high, and Tax Freedom Day was postponed until May 2.
"Federal tax cuts have made the average American tax burden lighter in 2004," said Tax Foundation President Scott Hodge. "Because the bubble in 1999 and 2000 boosted tax collections to artificially high levels, the drop since then is all the more dramatic. In fact, it is the biggest drop in America's tax burden for at least a century."
Not much to cheer about really. The average American works 1/3 of his/her year supporting the pork spending of career politicians (that we keep electing damit), making war, and my favorite part: entitlements (making love?).
Taken as a whole, we yearly serve the State magnificantly from the perspective of taxes paid--the productive labor of our selves "voluntarily" given under the watchful eye of our wonderful police state.
By the way, what are entitlements? I'm glad you asked that question. (http://research.aarp.org/econ/inb58_spending.html):
"entitlements are spending programs that provide direct benefits automatically to persons or governments without annual appropriations when those persons meet certain requirements established in law. Numerous studies point to spending entitlements (particularly Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid), along with the demographic aging of the population, as the chief sources of the nation's anticipated long-term fiscal problems when boomers retire."
Just for the sake of knowing, in 2000 government spending was as follows - as you can see, mostly for entitlements, though the actual breakdown depends on how you look at it and who's reporting:
Item 1. Social Security 22%.
Item 2. Net Interest 11%.
Item 3. Medicare 11%.
Item 4. Medicaid 6%. (wow Bush blew it on this one!)
Item 5. Other Mandatory 6%.
Item 6. Other Means-tested entitlements 6% (Footnote: Means-tested entitlements are those for which eligibility is based on income. The Medicaid program is also a means-tested entitlement.)
Item 7. Reserve pending Social Security reform 6%.
Item 8. Non-defense discretionary 17%.
Item 9. National defense 15%. (or 41.9% according to FCNL http://www.fcnl.org/issues/item.php?item_id=720&issue_id=18)
While we're rambling, lets talk about Social Security (http://people.howstuffworks.com/question385.htm):
"Many people have become so used to the idea of a 401(k) plan (where your money belongs to you and grows to a large sum over time through investment compounding), that the idea behind the Social Security system becomes hard to swallow. Currently a worker pays 7.65% of his or her gross income into the Social Security system (with a cap at a gross income of around $70,000), and the employer pays another 7.65% for the worker as well. If you could take that 15.30% of gross income and invest it in a 401(k) plan for the same period of time, it would generate an immense sum of money based on historical returns -- far more than a person with average income (or greater) would get from Social Security. A retiree's Social Security benefit is calculated using a complex formula rather than an account balance, because there is no "account" in the traditional sense."
This is how compassionate Kerry government makes sure you serve "less than average income" folks in your lifetime while you get to kiss your "immense sum" goodbye. But wait, there's more:
"You might have heard that the Social Security system currently takes in more money than it pays out in order to try to handle the baby boomer problem. What happens with the excess money the system collects? The Social Security system buys U.S. Treasury bonds with the surplus. Essentially, the government (in the form of the Social Security Administration) loans the surplus to itself.
In future decades, when it comes time to start drawing on the collected surplus, the government will pay itself back through tax revenue (or additional borrowing). The Social Security system will start cashing in the bonds, and the government will have to make good on them with tax revenue. That sounds weird because it is weird -- Whether or not it will work is a source of significant debate right now. The effect it will have is that it will shift the payment of Social Security benefits over to the government as a whole. The government as a whole, rather than the Social Security system, will have to repay the treasury bonds that the Social Security system will be cashing in. It will certainly be interesting to see what happens!"
Hmmm. Interesting factoids worth a review now and then.
-C
So you want a draft, eh. Well why not? At least draftees can recoop some of their tax money paid out and the best part is, it's always for someone's good cause (though maybe not theirs).
We do of course already serve our government (http://www.taxfoundation.org/taxfreedomday.html):
Washington, D.C., April 7, 2004 — According to Tax Foundation calculations using the latest government data on income and taxes, Tax Freedom Day® in 2004 will be celebrated on April 11th, the earliest Tax Freedom Day for 37 years.
April 11th is three days earlier than 2003’s Tax Freedom Day of April 14 and an amazing 21 days earlier than in 2000, when the boom and bubble pushed tax burdens to a record high, and Tax Freedom Day was postponed until May 2.
"Federal tax cuts have made the average American tax burden lighter in 2004," said Tax Foundation President Scott Hodge. "Because the bubble in 1999 and 2000 boosted tax collections to artificially high levels, the drop since then is all the more dramatic. In fact, it is the biggest drop in America's tax burden for at least a century."
Not much to cheer about really. The average American works 1/3 of his/her year supporting the pork spending of career politicians (that we keep electing damit), making war, and my favorite part: entitlements (making love?).
Taken as a whole, we yearly serve the State magnificantly from the perspective of taxes paid--the productive labor of our selves "voluntarily" given under the watchful eye of our wonderful police state.
By the way, what are entitlements? I'm glad you asked that question. (http://research.aarp.org/econ/inb58_spending.html):
"entitlements are spending programs that provide direct benefits automatically to persons or governments without annual appropriations when those persons meet certain requirements established in law. Numerous studies point to spending entitlements (particularly Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid), along with the demographic aging of the population, as the chief sources of the nation's anticipated long-term fiscal problems when boomers retire."
Just for the sake of knowing, in 2000 government spending was as follows - as you can see, mostly for entitlements, though the actual breakdown depends on how you look at it and who's reporting:
Item 1. Social Security 22%.
Item 2. Net Interest 11%.
Item 3. Medicare 11%.
Item 4. Medicaid 6%. (wow Bush blew it on this one!)
Item 5. Other Mandatory 6%.
Item 6. Other Means-tested entitlements 6% (Footnote: Means-tested entitlements are those for which eligibility is based on income. The Medicaid program is also a means-tested entitlement.)
Item 7. Reserve pending Social Security reform 6%.
Item 8. Non-defense discretionary 17%.
Item 9. National defense 15%. (or 41.9% according to FCNL http://www.fcnl.org/issues/item.php?item_id=720&issue_id=18)
While we're rambling, lets talk about Social Security (http://people.howstuffworks.com/question385.htm):
"Many people have become so used to the idea of a 401(k) plan (where your money belongs to you and grows to a large sum over time through investment compounding), that the idea behind the Social Security system becomes hard to swallow. Currently a worker pays 7.65% of his or her gross income into the Social Security system (with a cap at a gross income of around $70,000), and the employer pays another 7.65% for the worker as well. If you could take that 15.30% of gross income and invest it in a 401(k) plan for the same period of time, it would generate an immense sum of money based on historical returns -- far more than a person with average income (or greater) would get from Social Security. A retiree's Social Security benefit is calculated using a complex formula rather than an account balance, because there is no "account" in the traditional sense."
This is how compassionate Kerry government makes sure you serve "less than average income" folks in your lifetime while you get to kiss your "immense sum" goodbye. But wait, there's more:
"You might have heard that the Social Security system currently takes in more money than it pays out in order to try to handle the baby boomer problem. What happens with the excess money the system collects? The Social Security system buys U.S. Treasury bonds with the surplus. Essentially, the government (in the form of the Social Security Administration) loans the surplus to itself.
In future decades, when it comes time to start drawing on the collected surplus, the government will pay itself back through tax revenue (or additional borrowing). The Social Security system will start cashing in the bonds, and the government will have to make good on them with tax revenue. That sounds weird because it is weird -- Whether or not it will work is a source of significant debate right now. The effect it will have is that it will shift the payment of Social Security benefits over to the government as a whole. The government as a whole, rather than the Social Security system, will have to repay the treasury bonds that the Social Security system will be cashing in. It will certainly be interesting to see what happens!"
Hmmm. Interesting factoids worth a review now and then.
-C
