Say Anything Blog

Awesome post Gene.  But to hear about it the poor widdle government is starved for money.

What’s going to happen to US industry when the global warming extremists like John McCain double the price of electricity?  I would think all these factories will close and set up in countries where they aren’t scared of technology.

The fact that social costs keep going up is the sign that social programs don’t do what they promise to do.  If they worked, the need for them would be decreasing, and the costs would be going down.

If you don’t know by now, don’t mess with it.

I thought the promise behind them was to better the life of bureaucrats.  Of course they’re a miserable lot no matter what.

What’s going to happen to US industry when the global warming extremists like John McCain double the price of electricity?  I would think all these factories will close and set up in countries where they aren’t scared of technology.

TW: Of course, that’s the reality.  I meant all the promises that those programs will “improve” society, like the War on Poverty, for instance.  Five trillion and counting, and no change in poverty.

If you don’t know by now, don’t mess with it.

I meant all the promises that those programs will “improve” society, like the War on Poverty, for instance.

You didn’t believe them did you?

What’s going to happen to US industry when the global warming extremists like John McCain double the price of electricity?  I would think all these factories will close and set up in countries where they aren’t scared of technology.

Five trillion and counting, and no change in poverty.

Well, I think there has been a change in poverty.  The problem is the way we measure poverty.  We always talk about the “bottom 25% of Americans” or whatever, but the thing is that there’s always going to be a bottom 25% of Americans.  Always.

But if you actually look at that bottom 25%, they’re doing better than the bottom 25% from previous generations. They have more stuff (tv’s, cell phones, satellite tv, etc.), they live longer…

Granted, their live could be better, but thinking that we’re going to eliminate poverty is just nonsense.  It isn’t the war on poverty that has put these better in a better position but rather America’s booming economy.

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’d like to think that we shouldn’t have anyone that can’t get the basic (basic food, clothing and shelter) through no fault of their own.

I think we exceed that by far.

Rob, the one crucial thing is that in the US people can and do rise from the bottom tier.

What’s going to happen to US industry when the global warming extremists like John McCain double the price of electricity?  I would think all these factories will close and set up in countries where they aren’t scared of technology.

Those on the Left like to invoke the habits and opinions of other people around the world, usually as a way of demeaning and belittling the policies of the Bush administration in particular and conservatives in general.  So…

Is there another country where the bottom 25%, or bottom 10% or 5% for that matter, enjoy as good a standard of living as they do here, with the same level of freedom and opportunity?  Is there another country where the economy is so dynamic and there is such a marked turnover in who sits at the tope and who rrests at the bottom?

And before we answer those questions too rashly, let’s be sure to include welfare, housing assistance, food stamps, Social Security and Medi-care (while they are still solvent) in the calculations.

Finally, let’s consider whether there is another country on the face of the planet that has an immigation problem of the enormity that we do here in the US, and ask ourselves just why it is that so many people are so desperate to come here.  I don’t think its to join an american labor union or see Nancy Pelosi become Speaker of the House.

Bat1:

In a word, no.

What’s going to happen to US industry when the global warming extremists like John McCain double the price of electricity?  I would think all these factories will close and set up in countries where they aren’t scared of technology.

Rob: I should have sharpened that up a bit.  It’s quite true that the standard of poverty has risen considerably in this country since LBJ started the profligate spending program known as “The War on Poverty”, but that improvement in the standard of poverty isn’t due to any govt giveaway program, it’s due to the vitality of our economic system, which didn’t need the program in the first place.  An argument can be made that, if the five trillion had remained in private hands, things would have been much better economically than they are today, and I would accept that argument.
Because the govt is structurally unable to deliver what it promises, social spending is simply income redistribution of money from the private sector to the public sector, where it is far less productive, and in most cases, not economically productive at all.  Govt employment used to be based on political patronage, which meant that when the administration changed, we got all new govt employees.  Not so today.  With the creation of the Civil Service System(and its unions), govt employees are entrenched power, and answerable to no one, while being loyal to bureaucracy itself, and not the people who pay their inflated salaries.

If you don’t know by now, don’t mess with it.