Iraq and MONEY!

[diarrhea_splatter]

In the famous voice of Chef: "Children, Children."

 

[Legion]

You're spouting off about that too?

Must you become so emotional? The only person here who is ranting is yourself.

Good god that was a criminal event, not the failings of a politician.

ANd being over charged by Haliburton is a failure of a politician?

I'd say the failure of the politicians were their complete ignorance and lack of common sense in investigating the companies reports of shortages.

Enron, Dynegy, and others gouged the state of california, especially since those companies created the energy shortage themselves to pump up the prices and make a profit. Why do you think they're under investigation?

Why do you think Haliburton was also....

God please read about the situations you comment on.

Funny, i can imagine saying the same thing about you and the episodes with genetic homosexuality.

 

[Fred]

I'd just like to point out, that Reagan increased government collection with the tax cuts, not vice versa.

The deficit soared in his administration, for the same reason they do in Bush's. Military spending. While in Reagans time, the goal was ending the cold war, Bush's goal is the curtailing of militant Islam. Certainly it was his fault ultimately for not reeling in the spending spree that the democratic congress imposed on him.

I wish 9/11 hadn't happened, and we had instituted tax cuts. It would be the first time in recent history (since Kennedy) that we wouldn't have needed big government.

But anyway, Natoma you are forgetting the reverse effect.

If we raise taxes, that will lower the rate of growth of the economy in principle, and the government might have less to add to their coffers in proportion.

A priori, there should be a few critical points where the budget is balanced for any given spending number. The fiscal conservative idea is then to pick the lowest such point, with the lowest tax burden.

Balancing the budget is a sensitive equation, all the rhetoric here needs numbers to back and really should only be argued by qualified economists. Personally, I trust Greenspan and his economic panel full of PhDs, they were *for* the tax cuts, but against furthered tax cuts.

 

[Natoma]

Good god that was a criminal event, not the failings of a politician.

ANd being over charged by Haliburton is a failure of a politician?

I'd say the failure of the politicians were their complete ignorance and lack of common sense in investigating the companies reports of shortages.

By giving the contract at the prices Haliburton sets instead of opening the bidding to other companies? Yes, that is a failure. The california crisis was an industry wide conspiracy to artificially inflate prices against california tax payers. That's why multiple companies are being charged, and not just one.

Enron, Dynegy, and others gouged the state of california, especially since those companies created the energy shortage themselves to pump up the prices and make a profit. Why do you think they're under investigation?

Why do you think Haliburton was also....

What exactly is your point? Enron, Dynegy, Mirant, and others were not given no-bid contracts. They all conspired to artificially inflate the prices, just as other companies in other fields do, by creating an artificial energy shortage. The recent RIAA settlements come to mind wrt artificial inflation of prices. Haliburton was given their contracts in a no-bid situation.

God please read about the situations you comment on.

Funny, i can imagine saying the same thing about you and the episodes with genetic homosexuality.

Yea I remember you had a hard time wrapping your head around basic expressionary genetic principles in that thread too.

 

[Legion]

By giving the contract at the prices Haliburton sets instead of opening the bidding to other companies?

actually there was reference to an investigation in over charging.

Yes, that is a failure. The california crisis was an industry wide conspiracy to artificially inflate prices against california tax payers. That's why multiple companies are being charged, and not just one.

The lack of involvment was the failure here. I personally would like to see what the investigation turns up.

What exactly is your point? Enron, Dynegy, Mirant, and others were not given no-bid contracts. They all conspired to artificially inflate the prices, just as other companies in other fields do, by creating an artificial energy shortage. The recent RIAA settlements come to mind wrt artificial inflation of prices. Haliburton was given their contracts in a no-bid situation.

Haliburton was still under investigation for over charging. Bid or no bid the involvment of the governments seems to have been rather underpar.

Yea I remember you had a hard time wrapping your head around basic expressionary genetic principles in that thread too.

Actually you failed miserably explaining priniciples no psychologist would ever agree with. There isn't a reputable psychologist alive who would agree with your ludicrous animal comparison of instinct to human behavior. You arguments were completely void of reason falling back on themselves in a circular fashion. You also failed to name me of a single psychologist/psychiatrist who agrees with your rather warped perception of reality.


Do you still believe you'd defend your love because of instinct ?

 

[Natoma]

I'd just like to point out, that Reagan increased government collection with the tax cuts, not vice versa.

Yes it created the low income tax bracket. However you would find many people who would argue that government collection increased not because of the tax cuts, but because of the disproportionately high military budget that revved the economy in the mid to late 80s.

The deficit soared in his administration, for the same reason they do in Bush's. Military spending. While in Reagans time, the goal was ending the cold war, Bush's goal is the curtailing of militant Islam. Certainly it was his fault ultimately for not reeling in the spending spree that the democratic congress imposed on him.

The thing about the Cold War is that we didn't win because of all of the spending directly. We won because we forced the USSR into bankruptcy when they tried to keep up. We were able to create massive deficits. They weren't. I don't know if that was the intent of the policy and more of a "Woohoo!" realization afterward.

Also, while the congress at the time was democratic, this president bush has had a republican controlled congress (for the majority of the time) at his disposal and has seen spending increase 26% in the past 3 years, yet spending was not curtailed.

As I said in an earlier thread, it seems the party in charge becomes the fiscal pigs while the minority party all of a sudden becomes the fiscal conservatives.

I wish 9/11 hadn't happened, and we had instituted tax cuts. It would be the first time in recent history (since Kennedy) that we wouldn't have needed big government.

There are a lot of factors that could easily be debated wrt that statement, but that could fill its own thread.

But anyway, Natoma you are forgetting the reverse effect.

If we raise taxes, that will lower the rate of growth of the economy in principle, and the government might have less to add to their coffers in proportion.

In the same way that Clinton raised taxes in the 90s and the economy boomed? That was a supply side argument that was used by nearly every republican and it didn't come to fruition.

A priori, there should be a few critical points where the budget is balanced for any given spending number. The fiscal conservative idea is then to pick the lowest such point, with the lowest tax burden.

Balancing the budget is a sensitive equation, all the rhetoric here needs numbers to back and really should only be argued by qualified economists. Personally, I trust Greenspan and his economic panel full of PhDs, they were *for* the tax cuts, but against furthered tax cuts.

Actually Greenspan was rather vague wrt his comments on the tax cuts.

Should current economic weakness spread beyond what now appears likely, having a tax cut in place may, in fact, do noticeable good.

Fiscal policy is too blunt a tool to use as an anti-cyclical device. If you're going to do it in any event - you can't expect tax cuts to do all that much.

The changes in the budget outlook over the past several years are truly remarkable. With debt reduction in check, tax cuts appear possible because the sequence of upward revisions to the budget surplus projections for several years now has reshaped the choices and opportunities before us.

Considering the climate in early 2001, that was merely a statement of fact that tax cuts could help because the economy was still really good and we were paying down the deficit. What I interpreted is that tax cuts can help under certain conditions, but only if they don't cause long term structural deficits. If they are temporary and short term, they can do a lot of good.

But the Bush Tax Cuts are certainly not short term, and they may end up not being very temporary at all if politicians do the expected and make them permanent when they are set to expire.

 

[Natoma]

Legion,

No-Bid contracts create an environment in which abuses are by default set in the system due to a lack of market forces. The energy crisis in California was an entirely different situation, in which crooked corporations first created the energy crisis, then went in and reaped the benefits of the desperation of the California government. They are not comparable in that regard. The only similarity is that both situations were not representative of normal market forces at work.

As for the bit about love and instinct, if you want to comment on that, I suggest you bring that thread up again. However your last statement on the subject, i.e. defending love because of instinct, shows that you didn't understand the principles at all. I wasn't stating that at all. I also stated quite a few physchologists and their studies as well. You may have left the thread by then however. Feel free to go back and read up on it. There was also lengthy discussion in that 21 page behemoth, i.e. the infamous "natural" debate. You can check the last page on that thread for one of the psychoanalysts I cited. His name is Bruce Baghamil (sp?).

[EDIT]
This is what I wrote:

There are a few socio-scientists such as Bruce Bagemihl (I had a chance to read his book on homosexuality and it's possible evolutionary advantages a little while ago. dusted it off last night.) who believe that one reason homosexuality was evolutionarily advantageous is because of socio-sexual interactions between animals in which these homosexual interactions helped strengthen the social bonds between the males in the societies.

It is argued that homosexuality may have been one of the prerequisites of the stabilization of male-dominated societies, be they human or otherwise. So instead of being roaming loners who only interacted with others when mating was required, social nets were created, and homosexual interactions were used as a glue. Apparently homosexuality existed before the creation of societies. They were merely a different expression of every animals innate sexuality.

This enabled the further expansion of territory protection and overall security due to the proliferation of peaceful male co-existance within a society. Again, this has been shown in all social species, human and animal alike.

But this is just a theory. Frankly it is too early to tell what advantages homosexuality would play in today's world. But then, caucasian features play no evolutionary advantages in today's world either due to the proliferation of vitamin D substitutes. Not to mention that the vast majority of the world, by breeding within its own "race" by and large, would make having caucasian features an evolutionary disadvantage as well. But this is simply conjecture.

If you want to discuss this further, start another thread, or we can take this to pm.
[/EDIT]

 

[Legion]

As for the bit about love and instinct, if you want to comment on that, I suggest you bring that thread up again. However your last statement on the subject, i.e. defending love because of instinct, shows that you didn't understand the principles at all.

You are correct, i do not understand. Please explain to me how love as an emotion is influenced by instinct.

I wasn't stating that at all.

I meant to state "lover" in the instead of love. You did stated you would defend him out of instinct.

I also stated quite a few physchologists and their studies as well.

You didn't state a single psychologist you agree with your twisted view that humanity is more governed by instinct then reason.

WHat you did give were psychologist who did studies on the genetic predisposition of homosexuality. The bulk of their work was fruitless, meaningless, or inclonclusive. You yourself admitted this. Those which could be considered useful didn't refute the possibility enviroment played a part as the motivating factor rather than genetics.

You may have left the thread by then however.

I didn't leave the thread at all Natoma. You did. Others gave up but I took you through principle by principle why these psychologist work today isn't considered in the bulk of real research as valid or representative of fact. You seem to have a very selective memory. Unless you revived the thread long after it was dead during a time i wasn't around i consider you to be deliberating avoiding avoiding discussion.

I am quite aware that you mentioned psychologist Natoma. Not a single one though to support your views on instinct.

THe bulk of those you mentioned supporting genetic homosexuality were refuted right off the bat (Levay, Gary/Pillard, etc).

 

[Natoma]

I mispelled his name. It's Bruce Bagemihl. Have fun. And as I said, if you want to discuss this further, open up a new thread or pm me. There's no need to take this thread further off topic to something not even related.

 

[Legion]

I mispelled his name. It's Bruce Bagemihl. Have fun. And as I said, if you want to discuss this further, open up a new thread or pm me. There's no need to take this thread further off topic to something not even related.

So i noticed. What exactly are you hoping we'd discuss in the new thread? ANother kook's version of the homosexual gene? I can tell you right off the bat his is just as much apart of the lunatic fringe of psychologist as Simon Levay was. Levay's work isn't even mentioned in college level classes today as anything but a side note to the multitude of hapless failures who tampered with their own results to taint their findings.

 

[Natoma]

I mispelled his name. It's Bruce Bagemihl. Have fun. And as I said, if you want to discuss this further, open up a new thread or pm me. There's no need to take this thread further off topic to something not even related.

So i noticed. What exactly are you hoping we'd discuss in the new thread? ANother kook's version of the homosexual gene?

I've pm'd you. As I said I don't want to discuss this in this thread. And btw, no one argued for a homosexual gene. Ever. I went into detail in the pm.

 

[Sabastian]

Legion and Sabastian,

You two really do have a snobbish attitude of someone who's never been dirt poor and needed a helping hand. Accepting government assistance does not equal laziness or lack of character. Things happen in life.

If I lose my job tomorrow because my company goes out of business and work my ass off trying to find a new one but can't for whatever reason, am I lazy for accepting government assistance for as long as possible until I can get a new job, whatever it is? Is that some reflection on my character? Cripes.

You don't have the slightest clue about me or my f***ing life. You don't know that I was kicked out of my home when I was 18 for robbing the liquor store and that I finished my last year of high school working part time, going to school part time and doing community service the rest of the time. You don't know that after high school I was basically a drifter for about 8 years with not an extra dime in my pocket hitch hiking my way which ever way it was. You don't know that I broke my back in a car accident. You don't know that I could claim disability right now if I wanted too and lay around collecting welfare. You don't know that I spent time in Fredericton's shelter for the homeless. You don't know that half of the people in that shelter are just as lucid thinkers as you or I. I don't need someone lecturing me about how tuff life can be, try living on the streets in the middle of winter in Canada with nothing but a knapsack of dirty laundry over your shoulder as a result of choosing to live a certain lifestyle. You don't fucking know me and what I have been through, the above isn't even the half of it. You don't know that indeed I did soak the system for some period of time just like a great many others do as well. It took me years to dig myself out of the hole I was in mentally and I didn't get out of it by making a fucking victim of myself, like I did when I learned about socialization theories. No I dug myself out the old fashioned way through hard work, shear effort, belief in the bonus system and belief in my own ability to effect my environment as opposed to being made a victim of it. In other words, I learned to believe in myself in the most genuine sort of way. So you take your snobbish liberal attitude about how others don't know how difficult life can be and you can shove it.

 

[Natoma]

You say that you didn't make yourself a victim. Uhm, neither do many other people who have their complete faculties. As I said, my good friend James is building his own work out business right now and is on government assistance until he can get his feet under him after being laid off. My mom certainly didn't make herself a victim and worked her way to a solid middle class life, just as you did apparently. But "the system" did help her for a time, and by proxy me. "The system" is helping my friend James as well while he builds up his business. Yes some people become institutionalized, but many do not and use it well when they fall on hard times. As I told Legion, every system has abuses. But to brand everyone on the system as lazy or making themselves out to be victims is insulting.

For someone who spent years as a drifter and in homeless shelters, living off "the system", you sure don't seem to remember how difficult it was to get a job and support yourself when you talk about "those people" on "the system" who think of themselves as victims only.

 

[Sabastian]

For someone who spent years as a drifter and in homeless shelters, living off "the system", you sure don't seem to remember how difficult it was to get a job and support yourself when you talk about "those people" on "the system" who think of themselves as victims only.

A large portion of the people on the "system" don't see themselves as victims at all, it is the social workers and everyone else who do. I do bloody well remmember how hard it was to get a job especially when I wasn't looking for one. I am "working poor".

 

[Natoma]

I'm glad you have made that statement regarding people on "the system". Now talk to Legion.

 

[Sabastian]

I'm glad you have made that statement regarding people on "the system". Now talk to Legion.

I think you missed the point, somehow. A great many of the people on "the system" are using it even though they don't have too. "The system" however sees these people as victims of sorts. A large portion as a result also begin to see themselves as victims as a result, thus a victim creation.

 

[Natoma]

I'm glad you have made that statement regarding people on "the system". Now talk to Legion.

I think you missed the point, somehow. A great many of the people on "the system" are using it even though they don't have too. "The system" however sees these people as victims of sorts. A large portion as a result also begin to see themselves as victims as a result, thus a victim creation.

Well then there you go with generalizations about people on "the system" seeing themselves as victims. Whether they start off that way or they get that way eventually doesn't really matter in your description does it....

 

[Sabastian]

I'm glad you have made that statement regarding people on "the system". Now talk to Legion.

I think you missed the point, somehow. A great many of the people on "the system" are using it even though they don't have too. "The system" however sees these people as victims of sorts. A large portion as a result also begin to see themselves as victims as a result, thus a victim creation.

Well then there you go with generalizations about people on "the system" seeing themselves as victims. Whether they start off that way or they get that way eventually doesn't really matter in your description does it....

Your the one with the generalizations about how life is.

 

[Ty]

While in Reagans time, the goal was ending the cold war,

Do you have proof that his goal was the end the cold war? What was the make-up of congress at the time? How much did the then current congress have to do with the budget?

 

[Humus]

So in effect your liberals are "conservative" comparatively speaking with your left wing? In North America there is more ... of a disparity between the philosophies, err I think. Left wing is associated with being Liberal and right wing is associated with being conservative. I think the disparity is derived from the slippery slope argument I presented once before. After the government begins to grow in organic ways indicative of socialistic models it is difficult to reduce the amount of government. Imagine the government as an organism with tentacles the larger the thing grows the larger its tentacles get. I see the government as a parasite on the market economy. Move intervention means more government organic growth and sub-sequentially more taxation. Once the government becomes so encompassing as it is in Sweden for example it becomes very painful to cut back and reduce the size of the organization particularly in a democratic situation where people have become dependent on that mechanism to get through day to day life. Consequentially it forces the policies in a certain direction where by the government is forced to play an increased role more and more. While it is possible to reverse the logic no doubt it would be a painful job and unlikely the electorate would be happy unless of course they are well aware of the difficulties involved. Most people seem to think that governments have their own money but in reality it doesn't. That is why people see Medicare and other state run services as "free" rather then something that we all pay dearly for. I think maybe I went away from the point a bit but it helps to make a point. Because the left wing is so much more influential in the policy making in Europe you see liberals as conservative from a left of center mentality.

North America
(Collectivist)Left-------------------center----------------right(Individualism)
Liberal(Democrat)>>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<Conservative(Republican)

Europe from a North American perspective
(Extreme left wing)Left---------Liberal----------center

North America from a European perspective
center--------Liberal--------Conservative(extreme right wing.)

Some may have difficulties with the above perspective but I think it helps me to understand why it is that Europeans associate Liberal with Conservative. I might be wrong but it does make sense and is my own theory. The Democratic Party policies in the US would look right wing to most in Europe. The ride left is a slippery slope.

Well, liberal and conservative are two very different ideologies over here too, but they can easily be combined. I don't think it's that what we call liberals over here just seams more right-wing, rather that they actually are pretty right-wing in general since they've preserved the original meaning of the word liberal, while on the other side of the pond it has developed over time to mean something more left-wing. I don't think an american liberal would have a whole lot in common with a liberal in europe.

I don't believe the slippery slope argument is far left only either. The same thing would happend if the far right dominates too long, which isn't healthy either. In fact, I think the US has been too much right-wing controlled, which is probably also why the US trails the rest of the developed world in social development.