Say Anything Blog

Amtrak subsidies are nada compared to airline subsidies and road subsisidies.

It’s a start.  All subsidies are destructive to our economy.

Let’s start by stopping welfare for corporations rather than cutting public services.

Woof:  Welfare is for the unproductive, who can’t survive otherwise.  What is given to corporations is subsidy, which is also wrong.  It’s not a question of one or the other, we need to cut all unproductive spending of taxpayer money.  There are only a few exceptions to that, one of which is defense spending.  We need to maintain and expand the interstate highway system, and to take care of the truly needy, like disabled vets and other truly disabled citizens.  We need very extensive means testing.
The reality is that won’t happen.  What we could do realistically is a spending freeze at the current level for 5-10 years.  It would be a tremendous boost to the economy, coupled with real tax cuts, say a maximum rate of 20%.  The drug addicts in govt would scream and cry, but so what?  We need it more than they do.

stock is imaginary toilet paper that people take turns using.

So if I get you right Robert.

It is Ok to subsidize defense spending.....

Gee are those not companies that are supplying services?

Subsidy is welfare for stockholders.

Woof and KIS:  Nope.  It is wrong to subsidize anything with our money, but stockholders contribute to the economy through investing their capital.  Subsidy, then, is not welfare, it’s an unearned bonus. 

richard:  Defense is one of the few legitimate ways the govt should spend our money.  For one thing, it keeps the most advanced weapons for our own country. But I thought using taxpayer money for national defense would be obvious.  It’s not OK; it is vitally necessary.

Stocks don’t allow poor people to contribute. The dollar becomes their only voice in a system where stock is worth more. Subsidies are payed for by taxes, to which everybody contributes. Subsidies are decided upon by officials elected by everybody...in a perfect world where everybody plays by the rules and nobody’s out to grab as much as they can for themselves...hahaha, barf...but the same can be said for the corporate perspective.

* what I’m also trying to say is, my above argument about stocks simply plays devil’s advocate to your own. Just food for thought, assuming you haven’t written off everything I say before I’ve said it. My points could be just as moot as yours if everybody really did care about everybody else, not just themlseves. Better put, if everybody understood their own wants vs. needs. Whad’we gonna do? Learn how to see through the bullshit for ourselves is a start, then be a living example of what you know is right. Not a week goes by when I’m not humbled by my own oversights, but it makes me happy because I know I’ve just learned one more thing about navigating through the bullshit.

So, as a self-appointed devil’s advocate, you just take the opposite position of someone else?  I take that to mean that you aren’t speaking from a well-reasoned position.
My point is that everything works best if everyone is looking out for themselves and their families.  What we want is enlightened self-interest; the more the better.

All systems require capital.

sure, if you’re thinking systematically. One could also ponder the hierarchies of capital forever. I know what you’re saying, but I believe ANY system can work if the right people are in the right places within it. I don’t think ghandi would have been out to rip anybody off no matter what government he was working for...if that makes sense. Likewise, imagine charles manson and his buddies in the white house. I think the divide between people isn’t government, it’s the sick (greedy powermongers, victims of their individual circumstances) and pretty much everybody else. The REALLY sick will stop at nothing to get what they want. They’ll figure out how to make everybody else believe their best interest are one and the same. This doesn’t stop at (cartoon simplification) putting on a suit and kissing babies for the cameras, or having a PR team literally disect internet statistics to figure out which way they should part their hair for a particular television interview.

KIS:  Got a big surprise for you!  All systems require capital.  It’s really a matter of who owns, controls and benefits from the capital.  In the US, it’s individuals.  Everyone has the opportunity to invest, either through working or through contributing their money to capital formation.  “Poor people” get richer all the time in our system, as “rich people” get less rich, even poor in some cases.  We are not stratified into economic classes like the Europeans.  Both upward and downward mobility are possible here. If you want to own stock, save your money.  If you don’t have enough to save, make more; do what is necessary to do that, and you will be a stockholder before you know it.  Money is all about priorities. Not everyone pays taxes, btw.

KIS:  How does what you say address my statement?  It takes capital to build, equip, provision and stock a factory, for instance.  You know, a place where workers can work.  My focus is not on criminal consciousness.  There will always be people who will live off of other people, whether by criminal enterprise, politics, phony marketing or generating self-serving propaganda.  The vast majority of people are honest and hard working.  It should be they who get the benefits of capital, not the others.  The solution:  get as many people involved in the capital market as possible.  It’s the ownership society, isn’t it?

Perhaps I should have amended it to: It is self-evident to all rational men. Collectivists like Marx are irrational.

Dave:  It wasn’t self-evident to Karl Marx, nor is it to anyone today with leftist values.  They want to mess with my individual independence.  I’m glad it is self-evident to you.

What we want is enlightened self-interest; the more the better.

what WE want is enlightened SELF interest. Think about that, not so much about whether or not it’s true but that you rightfully chose to speak for everybody because it is bare bones common sense. You are correct...what people want, then, is for everybody to care about everybody else. No greedy powermongers. They would (and have) put themselves in positions of extreme power in our government. That screws it up for everybody. Suddenly the only way to keep up is to play the same game they are, because their rules for us do not apply to them.

what WE want is enlightened SELF interest. Think about that, not so much about whether or not it’s true but that you rightfully chose to speak for everybody because it is bare bones common sense.

That a philosophy based on rational self-interest yields the greatest results for everyone is self-evident.

We need to (...) take care of the truly needy, like disabled vets and other truly disabled citizens. We need very extensive means testing.

Or we can use the only system with 100% effective “means testing”: voluntary individual charitable donations. What more, that system involves no robbery! Everyone wins!

Dave:  I can find no fault with your post. I’m all for everyone winning.

KIS:  I don’t know you, I don’t know what you want and need, and so it’s not my business to make that determination for you.  You know all that, so you are the most qualified to do it for yourself. By the same token, I prefer to make the decisions about my own wants and needs, thank you very much.  I trust greed much more than I do envy(the guiding emotion of the socialists).  I can work with a greedy guy, but someone who envies my success is just looking to rip me off or stab me in the back, just for meanness.  The greedy guy will work with me if he can make money doing it, which is what I want as well.  It’s up to me to cover my own ass.  I don’t need any caretakers trying to “look out for me”.

Woof said:

Amtrak subsidies are nada compared to airline subsidies and road subsisidies.

What airline subsidies.  Airport money comes from the excise tax on aviation fuel.  There were some immediately after 9/11 but that seemed ok to me to reimburse the airlines for what they lost due to the terrorist attacks.

So you would consider gasoline tax money that is paid for by motorists to be a subsidy when the money is used to build and repair roads.

Woof:  Building and maintaining highways and roads is one of the few legitimate uses of taxpayer money.

The costs of roads is not met thru fuel taxes.

highway user fees such as gas taxes and tolls account for only 55-60 percent of the money spent on highways; the rest comes from local property and sales taxes, bonds, and general fund sources, amounting to a $29 billion subsidy; additional money is spent on local roads and streets.

http://www.endgame.org/energy.html
Same for airlines.

Boy I thought I was radical.  I guess now we’ll have to fire the army too.

Comeon she’s nice. I read her two novels I didn’t see her saying that there was never a reason for government action.

Oh, I’m not meaning to denigrate Rand.  She’s great.  It’s just that some of her thinking wasn’t exactly grounded in reality.  It’s all well and good to write about libertarian utopias on paper, it’s a much different thing to create such a place in reality.

Which is why I brought up Teddy.  I think he was the perfect blend of government power and open market freedoms.

When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.

-- Thomas Jefferson

Rob’s recently listened-to songs:

I was talking about the federal program.  So let’s talk local.

I want a road to my house.  I should get together with my neighbors and pay.  Seems fair to me.

I want a road to my business, I should help pay for it, right?  The business not paying for it through property taxes would be a subsidy.

In some cases a community will get decide to spend money on a road.  I guess as long as they’re paying for it it’s ok.

I looked at your link about airline subsidies.  I didn’t see anything to show that general tax revenue funds go to subsidize airlines.

Woof: Building and maintaining highways and roads is one of the few legitimate uses of taxpayer money.

Wrong. There are no legitimate uses of taxpayer money.

I actually wrote a long-winded explanation for Dave about why the expenditure of some tax dollars is neccessary.

Thought I’d link to it again as an example of fact that sometimes government regulation and/or intervention is neccessary.  The key, of course, is timing and scope.

As I said in that previous comment, Dave, when you’re done humping Ayn Rand’s leg you really should read up on Teddy Roosevelt.

When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.

-- Thomas Jefferson

Rob’s recently listened-to songs:

Re:  Ayn Rand

Comeon she’s nice.  I read her two novels I didn’t see her saying that there was never a reason for government action.

[...] From the Fargo Forum:WASHINGTON (AP) - Amtrak’s board of directors on Wednesday fired President David Gunn, saying the debt-laden rail carrier needs “a leader with vision and experience.” ...Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., called the firing of Gunn a “horrible mistake."Gunn has ridden Amtrak’s Empire Builder through North Dakota. “He has run Amtrak like a true champion, in my judgment,” Dorgan said.So that’s the kind of business and manager that Senator Dorgan wants for our economy. A business that has never turned a profit. A business that requires over a billion dollars a year in subsidies. A business that despite the subsidies has shrunk further into debt. A business that frankly is obsolete. If there was a need for Amtrak service there would be enough paying riders to operate without subsidies.Senator Dorgan seems to have a huge problem with business’s that make money. He seems to just love business’s that lose money. This is just plain failed socialism Senator.thanks to Say Anything! [...]

General tax revenues go to airport building grants,FAA, and airplane builder subsidies (we and the europeans may come to some agreement to end these).

Rob:

I actually wrote a long-winded explanation for Dave about why the expenditure of some tax dollars is neccessary.

Nice comment, Rob. It fits into a long-winded series of comments that R108 & I made in another thread as well.

General tax revenues go to airport building grants,FAA, and airplane builder subsidies.

I wouldn’t be shocked to find out that some general tax revenues go to airports.  (although we do have the airline fuel excise tax to fund those things)

If Congress decides to fund the FAA out of general revenues that’s actually ok with me.  It’s not that they actually serve the airline industry.  (ask a pilot).

But I’m afraid I’m going to have to call you on subsidies to aircraft manufactures.  Who gets the money and how much?

I actually wrote a long-winded explanation for Dave about why the expenditure of some tax dollars is neccessary.

Your explanation attempted to justify government intervention of a perfectly free market; it said nothing about the morality or legality of taxation.

Nice comment, Rob. It fits into a long-winded series of comments that R108 & I made in another thread as well.

I saw that you and 108 were having a back-and-forth, but I haven’t read it yet.  I have 267 unread comments sitting in my inbox.  But I’ll get there eventually.

Your explanation attempted to justify government intervention of a perfectly free market; it said nothing about the morality or legality of taxation.

Well, you’re sorta right.  But what is the executive branch if not a tax-funded government power?  If “There are no legitimate uses of taxpayer money” then what was Teddy’s action to avert economic disaster and widespread suffering?

Seems like a legitimate use of taxpayer money to me.

When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.

-- Thomas Jefferson

Rob’s recently listened-to songs:

Dave:  A perfectly free market would require perfect knowledge, perfect mobility and an enlightened population.  We are not quite there yet.  There are also things we need to do in a large group; Defense, national highway system, maintaining a stable currency.  There could be a few more, but those are at the top.

Boeing’s 7E7 will have up to $6 billion of ‘subsidies’ from Japan, Italy and the United States (Washington State),”

But there are two major differences between an Airbus A380 ‘subsidy’ and Boeing 7E7 ‘subsidy,’” Pritchard points out.

The Airbus subsidy is in the form of repayable loans with interest for aircraft development, which is legal according to the World Trade Organization, Pritchard says. The Boeing subsidy, on the other hand, is for aircraft production, which is prohibited by the WTO and which never will be paid back, he says.

http://www.buffalo.edu/reporter/vol35/vol35n40/articles/Boeing.html

’subsidies’ from Japan, Italy and the United States (Washington State)

Why exactly would Japan and Italy subsidize an American company?  I really have a hard time believing it.

If the fine people in Washington wish to give money to Boeing than it’s really none of my business.

Why exactly would Japan and Italy subsidize an American company?

Cause

Boeing outsourced entire subassemblies on the 787. For example, Mitsubishi, Kawasaki and Fuji Heavy Industries, all of Japan, have underwritten billions of dollars in research—and will in return reap fixed portions of the profits. Despite 90 years of history together, the citizens—and taxpayers—of Washington will have to get used to a new reality: Boeing is a transnational corporation and is not demonstrating much allegiance to its old home-state. It’s hard to see how Washington will ever recoup its $3+ billion investment.

http://www.yeald.com/Yeald/a/34031/boeing_s_subsidized_787__and_its_new_japanese_wings.html

I would say that if the US were to match the export subsidies that Airbus gives I’d be ok with that. 

Why let a consortium of foreign governments declare war on a US corp?

OK I wasn’t aware off the fact that the Japanese were doing that.  Still I have to ask the question, how does that affect me?

I think it’s up to the Japanese to figure out how they want to spend their money.

I just don’t see allowing Airbus with the help of their governments to run Boeing out of the commercial airline business.

I feel the same way about farm subsidies.  If they’re doing it, we have to to. 

Of course we’ll bankrupt the losers and then drop the subsidies.  (hopefully)

Everybody’s doing it.  Two wrongs make a right.

Actually, subsidies weaken the industry in question.  Study the history of the US steel industry if you want an example.