May We Assist You?

[ivor]

Hope you don't think I'm flaming you here 'cause I'm not.  I'm not arguing, I'm discussing.  I want to get to the bottom of this so I can understand it better myself.

His base beliefs, the rock solid bottom of his libertarianism.

NO governmental ANYTHING.

No government anything is Anarchism not Libertarianism.  Ron Paul is for de-centralized goverment where the "United States are" not the "United States is" as designed by the founding fathers of the constitution.

this is the guy that though Ronni Reagan didn't do enough when he fired the air traffic controllers. He SHOULD have shut down the FAA. The FAA is a waste of money.

The ATC portion of the FAA could be privatized as has been done in Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, India, South Africa, Turkey, Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland.  That's the part Ron Paul says he wants to privatize, not get rid of.  The air safety portion of the FAA is inherently governmental.

The budget for the FAA for 2007 was $13,724,000,000.  It'll be $14,077,349,000 for 2008.  Throw in a billion dollars a year for the next 18-20 years for the FAA system upgrade.  Certainly we can do better as other countries have.

NASA?? Not just no, but HELL no. Federal government waste.

Ron Paul on NASA (1988):

Time after time NASA has developed capabilities at great expense then discarded them: a space station larger than the Soviet MIR, a heavy lift vehicle competitive with the new Soviet Energia, a nuclear engine twice as efficient as the space shuttle main engine and a well tested Earth-Moon transport.

The fate of the Saturn V heavy lift launch vehicle is one of the saddest examples of this folly. Production was intentionally halted and portions of its tooling were "lost". This bridge burning ensured support for the next aerospace welfare program: the space shuttle. Now we have a grounded government shuttle that can lift a third as much as the Saturn V for the same cost per pound. That's progress, government style.

Even worse, this failed state monopoly is now wrecking businesses to avoid well deserved embarrassment. American companies desperately need to get their satellites into space. They have been blocked from using the cheapest, most reliable launcher in the world which unfortunately happens to be the Soviet Proton.

NASA has cost our nation a full twenty years in space development, twenty years that has seen the Soviet Union surpass us to an extent that may well be irreparable. It is inconceivable that a private firm could have committed such follies and survived. NASA deserves no better.

Our only hope now lies in the power of free individuals risking their own resources for their own dreams. We must recognize the government led space program is dead and the corpse must be buried as soon as possible. Any defense functions should be put under the military, and the rest of NASA should be sold to private operators. The receipts would be applied to the national debt. Then, all government roadblocks to commercial development of space must be removed.

It is not the business of the defense department of a free society to veto business decisions of remote sensing or launch companies. The interests of liberty would be well served by a bevy of mediasats that will put any future Iran-Contra affair under the full glare of live television coverage. Maybe, besides competition, that's what our government is afraid of.

There is really only one proper role for the military in space or on Earth: the protection of America. Otherwise, the new frontier of Space should be opened to all. Space pioneers will generate knowledge and wealth that will improve the lot of all people on earth. We should not let government get in their way.

Again he's talking privatization.  I'm right with him on the space shuttle it's over complicated, dangerous and expensive just like the government that created it.  The Saturn V was and probably still is the greatest rocket ever made.  The Russians are making rockets on par with the Saturn V and they cost $20,000,000 a launch.  You'd have to fly a space shuttle 50 times to get that much bang for your buck.

Interstate highways?? ROBBERY.

Ron Paul on Highway Infrastructure:

Infrastructure, in a capitalist model, is an asset worthy of maintaining to ensure continuity of revenue. In a government controlled model infrastructure is nothing but a cumbersome liability. This should be taken into consideration when developing plans to keep our current infrastructure safe. Privatization should be used to encourage maintenance and safety, and where private companies truly invest and bear the upfront costs in return for ability to collect tolls or usage fees in some form. But public/private partnerships that look more like corporate welfare must be avoided.

FBI?? No. Don't NEED it.  CIA?? Should be a part of the VERY LIMITED armed forces, which would be controlled by the individual states.

I don't know how one would privatize the FBI and the CIA but this is what we get for our money:

Sibel Edmonds

Edmonds says that to her amazement, from the day she started the job, she was told repeatedly by one of her supervisors that there was no urgency,- that she should take longer to translate documents so that the department would appear overworked and understaffed. That way, it would receive a larger budget for the next year.

Could we have avoided 9/11 had the FBI been interested in doing there jobs?

NO student loan programs. No medical coverage provided for the elderly, the poor, the indigent. No financial support, either. STOP all 'social services' and let private charities do it.

Lots of students work as waiters and waitresses.  The IRS estimates their tips and makes them pay taxes on the estimate, then the government turns around and loans them money to pay for school.  That's ridiculous!  Ron Paul is proposing a bill to eliminate the tax on tips.  When we tip we shouldn't have to "tip" the government too.

Ron Paul on Social Security:

Since Social Security benefits are financed with tax dollars, taxing these benefits is yet another example of double taxation. Furthermore, "taxing" benefits paid by the government is merely an accounting trick, a shell game which allows members of Congress to reduce benefits by subterfuge. This allows Congress to continue using the Social Security trust fund as a means of financing other government programs, and masks the true size of the federal deficit.

It's no wonder the other Republicans don't like him, he won't play their "reindeer games." 

Ron Paul on the cost of prescription drugs:

The House of Representatives concluded its summer session by passing legislation that would allow Americans to buy prescription drugs from Canada and several other nations. This practice is known as "reimportation," because the drugs originally were manufactured in the U.S. and exported. Federal law currently prohibits Americans from buying pharmaceuticals from other countries, even though identical drugs often cost one-third to one-half less in foreign pharmacies. So while Americans ostensibly enjoy a freer economy than the rest of the world, they perversely pay more for their prescriptions than residents of any other nation.

The pharmaceutical industry obviously likes this, and it worked overtime lobbying against the reimportation measure- paying off some strange bedfellows in the process. Several supposedly free-market groups came out against reimportation, making tortured attempts to argue that the free-market principles they normally promote somehow just don't apply to imported prescription drugs. Some even made the outrageous argument that reimportation will threaten the pharmaceutical industry's profits, as though it is the job of government to ensure the profitability of any industry!

The truth is that many of the organizations opposing reimportation either directly represent the pharmaceutical industry, or receive funding from it. They are transparently willing to abandon their free-market "principles" when necessary to protect their bottom line.

The arguments against reimportation amount to simple protectionism. Opponents of reimportation want to preserve artificially high drug prices in America at the expense of drug consumers. They rely on two tired and demonstrably false claims: namely, that the free market does not work when it comes to health care, and that there is no "level playing field" because other countries impose price controls on drugs. These protectionist arguments are used as justification for imposing higher costs on Americans by limiting their consumer choices.

It does not matter if the Canadians or Germans employ price controls. Their drug prices may be artificially low, while ours may be artificially high. This simply shows that both the U.S. and other countries interfere in the market. It is not a justification for further intervention in the market by prohibiting reimportation. American consumers should not be punished simply because other governments have foolish economic policies.

Pharmaceutical companies certainly own the drugs they produce, and they have every right to sell them at any price they choose. They also have the right not to sell their products to foreign pharmacies, or to condition sales on an agreement that such pharmacies will not reimport into the U.S. They do not have a right, however, to use government to prevent Americans from buying drugs from any willing seller they choose, regardless of where that seller may be located. To quote Sheldon Richman, a scholar at the Future of Freedom Foundation, "The U.S. government has no business telling the American people what they may and may not buy from people living outside the country. That's called freedom, something earlier Americans actually understood and valued."

Reimportation is hardly a solution to our health care woes, of course, and the bill faces a highly uncertain future in the Senate. Reimportation would, however, inject a tiny measure of freedom into our increasingly regulated health care system. No American should ever enjoy less freedom by virtue of living in the U.S., and no American should be forced to pay higher prices for drugs that are available more cheaply overseas. The ban on reimportation is unconscionable, and most Americans know it despite the best efforts of the pharmaceutical companies and their mouthpieces.

It's no wonder the cost of health care is going through the roof.  I don't think any of the candidates have been questioned about this.  I wonder what their positions are on reimportation.

Not to mention that he's a racist SOB that DOES (or used to) donate his OB services to those that need them, but he's STILL a racist SOB.

Austin NAACP President Nelson Linder, who has known Ron Paul for 20 years, unequivocally dismissed charges that the Congressman was a racist in light of recent smear attempts, and said the reason for him being attacked was that he was a threat to the establishment.

Name a federal program. He wants to end it. ALL of it.

Yeah, he'd have to work against Congress. Well, so did Ronnie Reagan, and the fucking Reagan Revolution pulled the "center" way over to the right, and NOW look at us. When a right-wing Democratic "moderate/conservative", triangulator/consensus builder/sell-out like Clinton was in office, giving in to ever more pressure from the right--what happened?? The more they got the more they screamed. And PNAC and the Bushies have moved us to the brink. The brink of collapse (See!! We TOLD you government doesn't work!) as a country, the brink of financial devastation, the brink of insanity as they try to redefine the world to fit their bizarre coalition's desires. Wanna see science suffer even more? Let somebody like Ron Paul loose and let him demolish every federally supported scientific institution. Not that he'd target them, but you KNOW the hold-over Theocrats from the Bushistas would.

This country can't afford Ron Paul. Out of the war is good. It's wonderful. It's the very tiniest tip of a big and dangerous iceberg.

Once again, we have a case of "I have met this man." I have dined with this one, several times--years ago, but he's not a man to change. He is, deep inside, just enough nutburger batshit insane and self-satisfied that HE ALONE is right that he's dangerous.

I think he's a threat all right.  I think he's a threat to fat cat bureaucrats that just want to kick back and rake in the cash from lobbyist.  We are $9,000,000,000,000 (yes that's trillion) dollars in debt.  What we can't afford to do is send another batch fat cats to Washington.

Sorry for the long post.

MB

[Aphos]

Ok, I missed the nifty graph display, but here are my results for the Nerd Test...

For Science/Math:  98

For Computers/Technology:  56

For Sci-Fi/Comic:  64

For History/Literature:  93

For Dumb/Dork/Awkwardness:  71


From this time forward, you'll hold the title:
Cool Nerd God

[Sibling Chatty]

MB, he can talk it from any angle. He HAS talked it all, from many angles. I've heard more than a few of them.

Yes, the government is wasteful. So is any other big enterprise where there's no oversight. Why is there no oversight? Because there are too many hands in the pot, too much protected waste, because THE ONLY PEOPLE that can get elected are the already-wealthy, and they're protecting their own.

The Austin NAACP? I'll reserve my comments.

As to the roads...fine, make then all privately run tollroads. the poor don't travel anyway, and looking at the tollroads that already exist, it's a damn good thing.

Sorry, I have seen him deal with people over the years. I have heard him over the years. No, I cannot in good conscience say that I would trust Ron Paul with even one tiny part of the power of the Presidency.

Privatization. Taking something that belongs to the public and 'selling' it to a private entity that will run it, make a profit on it, make CEO profits on it AND skirt as many laws and legalities as possible while doing so. Then, when the asset is depleted or in dire need of remediation, they turn it back to the public entity to fix.

==================

We both agree we don't need more lobbyist-influenced fat cats. We disagree on what to do about it.

You need some Jim Hightower in your head, not Ron Paul.

And, Mr. Paul's 1988 statement was probably made during the time he was thinking about investing in a private space company. I remember the guy, but I don't remember his name.

About the FAA?? Direct statement to my dinner partner. "That old coot Reagan needed to offload the entire FAA on somebody else. 80% of it is useless." My dinner partner "What about safety issues?" Paul "The airlines will self-regulate. Eventually."

He can do a great job of sounding reasonable for long periods of time. He's also still the same guy underneath. HE will tell you what you need and don't need, because HE knows, because HE's a rich doctor.

http://www.jimhightower.com/

Send me a mailing address. I will send you my copy of "Theives in High Places: They've Stolen Our Country and It's Time to Take It Back", if you promise to send it back.

[Scriblerus the Philosophe]

I'd love to get rid of the tip tax.
::Buys asbestos undies as well::
Grey = libertarian

I like Paul, can't lie. Not as much as I used to, of course, but I'll still vote for him.
I think that he won't stop states from running their own welfare system, and frankly I think they're the better group to run it.

Chatty, why would you not trust Paul? Would you explain it to me, please? I've not seen a reason to distrust him, or one that's any worse than the majority of the candidates out there.

[Sibling Chatty]

Because I hear what he says NOW, and it's NOT what I have heard him say before.

I have personal knowledge of some of his business dealings. I have personal knowledge of some of his attitudes. I, me, personally, do not trust that what he's saying to get elected (which he won't, if the Rethugs have to off him) or to get the attention that he wants to shape the platform.

Were he a more middle of the road libertarian, or even a moderately right-wing one, no problem. He's not.

============

The tip tax.

OK, so we go back to no tip tax, but to get to that , we have to allow restaurateurs to go back to not paying minimum wage to servers?? Because that's what it was before. Minimum was 3.something, and I got 85 cents an hour and my tips. When the tip tax came in, restaurants had to meet a minimum.

Tips are income, folks. If I want the wealthy to pay taxes on their interest dividends, I would like to see, at least above a certain amount, taxes on tips.

That bullshit about students waiting tables and jacking with student loans because of the tip tax?? Total bullshit. when you look at waitstaff demographics, the MAJORITY are women working to earn a living, NOT students. The assumption that the tip/wage structure needs to be messed with to 'work things out' for students is both delusional and elitist.

[ivor]

People change over time.  I have changed.  I used to be a staunch Democrat.  I'm not saying I'm turning Republican, not at all.  I'm feed up with the inability of either side to do anything but spend money.

Here in Sarasota there's lot's of students with wait staff jobs.  Sarasota has a USF campus.  I'm not saying they are the number one demographic for wait staff.

That's a good point about minimum wage. That would have to be addressed.  I'm not sure here in Florida if they actually make minimum wage.  I'll have to find out.

Shouldn't students be tax exempt any way?  Even for tip tax?

So having a government funded agency to "estimate" your tip for you and tax you "appropriately" is not "delusional and elitist?"  LOL!  Sounds like a place to cut spending to me!  I'm not worried that wait staff are going to make millions on tips like I would investors.

On the privatization of highways there's other ways for them to make money to pay for maintenance other than toll booths.  A corporate entity could charge for rights to advertise along the route or for cell tower rights.

Corporate entities in a free market competing with each other are always going to be more efficient than any government monopoly where possible.  Student loans are no exception.  Institutions should be responsible for their own risk and if they aren't they should go out of business not depend on the tax payer to bail them out over and over and over.

[anthrobabe]

I don't know anything about R. Paul-- but I'm learning from all of you-- very interesting.....


I've worked for tips in my life--- got paid $1.50 an hour then tips. I have mixed feelings about a tip tax. Currently in AR they tip wage is $2.35 an hour and if an employee does not make enough in tips to make it minimum wage per hour for the day then they claim it and the employer 'makes up the difference' and that is all taxed. So I believe in honesty- if a person makes 20, 000 a year in tips then claim it- but a couple hundred a month--- not so sure. Just my opinion.

[Scriblerus the Philosophe]

I make about $8.15-ish/hour. And I work about 14 hours a week, usually. I'm the average barista all over the country.
The thing is is that tips are a voluntary donation from the customer to the staff as a thank you for good service. If I made more than about $5 a hour, I'd be ok with a tip tax, but the busiest store around here makes about $2/hour. For some people, that's the difference between being able to buy groceries or not.

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

Corporate entities in a free market competing with each other are always going to be more efficient than any government monopoly where possible.  Student loans are no exception.  Institutions should be responsible for their own risk and if they aren't they should go out of business not depend on the tax payer to bail them out over and over and over.

The only problem with that, is that corporations by law, are based on greed and nothing else.

This is okay, as long as that is recognized, and limits to the greed are in place.

These limits can come in many forms, from limits on dumping toxic waste to limits on spending.

But a totally "free" economy rapidly declines into a waste-pit of greed.  For a fine example of a totally "free" economy, I offer our highly profitable illegal drug trade-- no limits on _that_.   And look how it's run, and who suffers and who does not.

[Sibling Chatty]

Students tax exempt??

Talk about your can of worms.

Where are the limits? There have to be limits, or every trust fund baby in the country can claim student exemption and "go to school" forever, still raking in millions in tax-free income and "part-time" work for Daddy's company.

If there is a way to turn things to an advantage, the wealthy will find it.

And MB, I understand. At the income level where your tax burden hits that point, it's expected that you reform your political outlook. That's the norm. You're at a place where you've got something to protect.

Look at this wiki article, check some of the sources.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States

We had an interesting discussion this morning on our block. There are 5 houses, averaging 3 residents per household. The 'average' income per household on our block is $19,000 a year. (Dan's part time job brought it up precipitously.) If we get an assessment from the county to help remediate Koopers Industries (Burlington Northern/Santa Fe's) industrial site, we on our block will be having to pay in an amount equal to almost 1/3 our average household income per year.

See the difference? An assessment of $6,280 would be a big pain for your average area's resident. We'd have to sell the car and quit eating and using electricity and water, Beth across the street would have to die.
==============

Sorry, man, but the Republican answer to EVERYTHING is to make sure that the responsibility somehow is "equitably shared", meaning that Beth pays the same as you and your wife. Equal responsibility, right? So her $1.10 an hour plus tips (which, in a small town like this might be NOTHING) for a part-time waitress job makes her responsible for the same as your household.

(Beth is trying to work her way off disability. Beth was almost killed in a car accident 9 years ago, has some brain damage, lots of physical damage, and lives in a 23 year old mobile home that belonged to her grandmother. She NEEDS to stay on disability, but her check is just over $500 a month, and she can't live on it. Dan and I help where we can. Dan does her repairs and mows her yard. I take her to the store--all the way, 13 miles, to Brenham to WalMart, where the prices are about 25% lower that the local store that she can reach on her bicycle. Beth is 'lucky'. The driver that ran her down had insurance, so she was covered on most of the initial medical bills. Then, he vanished, and the insurance company's lawyers made sure they weren't responsible anymore.)
=================

Look through the scenario, all the way, and ask lots of questions before you buy into anything. because there's an awful lot of 'blue-sky' attitude that turns out to be non-reality related, especially when it comes to certain libertarian positions. I have very definite LEFT-libertarian positions. I also know enough of human nature to know that libertarianism, without a steering philosophy that redresses inequities (from either direction) is inherently flawed, BECAUSE OF HUMAN NATURE.

Too many people are NOT good, are NOT kind, are NOT just or honorable. And those ore the ones that also go for power.

[ivor]

The only problem with that, is that corporations by law, are based on greed and nothing else.

This is okay, as long as that is recognized, and limits to the greed are in place.

These limits can come in many forms, from limits on dumping toxic waste to limits on spending.

But a totally "free" economy rapidly declines into a waste-pit of greed.  For a fine example of a totally "free" economy, I offer our highly profitable illegal drug trade-- no limits on _that_.   And look how it's run, and who suffers and who does not.

Companies would have to compete with other companies to be able to get money.  If they don't provide good service for the money they won't make any money.  Simple capitalism.

Of course there would have to be limits.  I'm not talking about anarchism here.  I'm not really talking about libertarianism.  I'm just talking about getting the best government for our money.

I'm not really understanding what your saying about "free" economy and drugs.  Are you saying that things will get worse if drugs were decriminalized?

Chatty, you're for taxing students that are just getting by and then loaning them money from a government bureaucracy?  I'm sorry, I don't want to pay for that.  Trust fund babies have financial expertise available to them and they probably aren't paying much anyway.

It's not about me protecting mine.  I'd rather be in a position were I can help people I want to help, not fund George "Moron" Bush's corporate give away.  Half that money is for households making less than $89,000.  The other half is just another never ending series of corporate welfare payments.  Companies that are doing well do not need welfare.  If they are not doing well they need to be out of business.  It's all natural and government free!  Tax people so you can give it away?  Don't you see how broken our government is?  The people that need the money the most, like the homeless ,won't get a nickel 'cause they don't have an address!

Another thing, I'm a registered Democrat not a Republican.  I don't really like either party because neither one of them are fiscally conservative.  I don't like Ron Paul cause he's a Republican, I like him because he's the only fiscally conservative politician out there.  We'll Mitt Romney says he is but I don't trust him at all.

The Republicans don't want anything to be shared fairly (as they are not really Republicans).  Warren Buffet was complaining a while back that billionaires are taxed at half the rate of their secretaries.  I agree with him, it totally ludicrous!  The middle class is taxed entirely too much.  On top of my 31% percent tax rate I'm paying a hidden tax also.  It's called inflation and it's running probably eight or nine percent.  You're paying it too!  You can't avoid it.  Every time the Fed prints money it's coming straight out of your pocket.  They do this on purpose and they know it.

Any form of Government is necessarily flawed because of human nature.  At least if government was more focused on simple economics and smaller there'd be less economic problems.  That's all I'm saying.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Ron Paul on NASA (1988):

Even worse, this failed state monopoly is now wrecking businesses to avoid well deserved embarrassment. American companies desperately need to get their satellites into space. They have been blocked from using the cheapest, most reliable launcher in the world which unfortunately happens to be the Soviet Proton.

May I invoke the gods of irony? The Proton (as Soyuz, and Progress) were designed by RKK Energiya while the Soviet Union was still in charge (how is that for a state monopoly?). Currently according to a NASA page:

Energiya, a private company, is owned jointly by the Russian central government and Energiya officials, with each group retaining 50-percent ownership. Accordingly, half of Energiya's funding comes from Moscow, and half is raised privately.

The shuttle OTOH while designed by NASA was implemented by Lockheed Martin, Rockwell (what now is Boing) and others, which are privately owned.
-----------
As Bob IAQSOF, I disagree with the main premise of 'private is always better than public'. The efficiency in the private sector is driven by competition and regulation, but many services are by nature monopolies (can you buy energy from a company different from FPL? Or get your water from a different company from the one owned by your county?) When you are dealing with certain kinds of infrastructure it doesn't make sense to have competition therefore you deal with a de facto monopoly. That in itself is a warning with the distinction of the intent: public service or profit. IMO while in theory a private company can be efficient, fair and profitable at the same time, it is quite rare to find one that is, and while the same can be argued about a public company real life examples tend to show that public companies try to be fair but are mostly inefficient, and a private companies move toward profits (1st) and efficiency* (2nd) but are rarely fair.

In the end the main argument is one of transparency in both cases (private or public).

* and efficiency is relative to competition and profits, the bigger the margin and/or less competition the less efficient a company is; I've seen incredible amounts of waste (of resources) in the private sector only that those are limited by the profits of the company (and if you are dealing with something very profitable -ie: oil- the waste and bureaucracy can rival or surpass the government).

[ivor]

Yea, the Russians didn't screw it up because they didn't have enough money. 

We've got enough money to keep screwing up over and over and over.  Heck we can just print it. 

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Yea, the Russians didn't screw it up because they didn't have enough money. 

May I invoke the gods of irony again? Wasn't the whole premise of the cold war to outspend the Russians?

Now you can rightfully blame the (bad) state of the union to Reagan...

[Aphos]

 

Geez.

I just came across this article.

http://www.katu.com/news/national/13896792.html

Bush has already run our national debt up to astounding levels, and now he wants another $145 billion in tax cuts.

What a maroon!