Elections 2012 -- Carrion My Wayward Son!

[mookie1995]

Re: Elections 2012 -- Carrion My Wayward Son!

We are on the cusp of total energey independence. So that we won't be "hostage" to oil prices anymore. All we need is a President of the United States who will move forward with the Keystone Pipeline (and other projects) and permit drilling off shore and in Anwar. Instead, we have a President who takes credit for increased domestic production, even though that drilling was approved by his despised predecessor...

if world oil prices dictate that gas is $4.00/gallon, do you think the 'independent' US will sell domestically for ... $2.00/gallon? really?

 

[Old Pio]

Re: Elections 2012 -- Carrion My Wayward Son!

if world oil prices dictate that gas is $4.00/gallon, do you think the 'independent' US will sell domestically for ... $2.00/gallon? really?

So pricing is your principal concern, not availability. And you've decided those grasping American oil men would screw the American public, unlike the oil sheiks? Really? This is the model of the oil industry where some dude wearing a cowboy hat with his hand on a spigot, announces in a thick Texas accent: "Y'all gonna have to pay more for gas." So we'll just suspend the supply part of supply and demand.

When the US was totally energy independent did those oil men screw the American public? John D. Rockefeller owned Standard Oil and Uncle Sam broke it up. The important thing here is to make sure the wealth and jobs and prosperity go somewhere else, not to America and Americans.

 

[unofan]

Re: Elections 2012 -- Carrion My Wayward Son!

So pricing is your principal concern, not availability. And you've decided those grasping American oil men would screw the American public, unlike the oil sheiks?

No, I think he's saying those grasping American oil men would screw the American public exactly like the oil shieks.

 

[Old Pio]

Re: Elections 2012 -- Carrion My Wayward Son!

No, I think he's saying those grasping American oil men would screw the American public exactly like the oil shieks.

Apart from a well developed prejudice, what evidence do either of you have on that score? No committees of the congress can investigate OPEC, but they dang sure can investigate domestic producers.

 

[mookie1995]

Apart from a well developed prejudice, what evidence do either of you have on that score? No committees of the congress can investigate OPEC, but they dang sure can investigate domestic producers.

What the hell are you trying to say? Mkt dictates price you pay. Us demand is falling, but other countries are filling that to keep demand up and encourage spec pricing.

 

[Old Pio]

Re: Elections 2012 -- Carrion My Wayward Son!

What the hell are you trying to say? Mkt dictates price you pay. Us demand is falling, but other countries are filling that to keep demand up and encourage spec pricing.

You object to US being an oil exporter? Much better we dump hundreds of millions into one of His Wonderfulness' crony "green" projects. If the supply goes up, the price goes down, especially if its domestic supply. Much better that we transfer that wealth somewhere else, eh? You, like most libstains, including His Transcriptlessness evidently want us to be paying 6 or 7 bucks a gallon. We'd thank you in the morning, right?

 

[BassAle]

Re: Elections 2012 -- Carrion My Wayward Son!

I don't see how any budget cut can happen without cutting from defense. There is a lot of wasteful spending in that area and defense spending is killing our budget when some of these funds can be used elsewhere to develop new industries and create jobs. We need to get away from oil dependence and we are hostage to it and our economy will be destroyed when oil prices hit the roof again when we realize supply is limited and other countries like China and India are using up more of it too. Why are oil companies still getting huge tax breaks when they're making record profits? Some economists predict another bubble in 2013 and I'm afraid that is very possible with the way we print money and countries stocking up on gold with a prediction towards currency wars devaluing our dollar badly.

The military is a giant federal jobs program. And a way for people to feel good about 'merica cause it is something we can be #1 at. Too bad we couldn't spend all that money on roads and bridges here in America instead -- we'd get jobs and have something to show for it at the end.

Seriously, we spend almost as much on defense as the rest of the world put together. It's bull ****.

 

[unofan]

Re: Elections 2012 -- Carrion My Wayward Son!

You object to US being an oil exporter?

No, but it does mean that merely building the keystone pipeline or drilling in ANWAR won't magically make us energy independent overnight, because most of that oil will be exported given foreign demand and market prices.

 

[FreshFish]

Re: Elections 2012 -- Carrion My Wayward Son!

It isn't easy being the intellectual frontmen for President Obama's re-election campaign, as the boys at the Brookings-Urban Institute Tax Policy Center are discovering. Their ballyhooed study of Mitt Romney's tax plan looks worse with each new examination.

Mr. Romney's tax plan would cut income tax rates across the board by 20%, while cutting loopholes that mostly benefit those in the highest income classes. The Tax Policy Center claims it is "mathematically impossible" to finance the rate cut without jacking up taxes by $86 billion on the middle class and poor. Mr. Obama has jumped on the study to support his claims that Mr. Romney would raise taxes, though the Republican has proposed no such thing. (See "The Romney Hood Fairy Tale," August 8.)

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100...7581570978359112.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

Must be fun to just make stuff up.

I guess that's why some of us can't have a reasonable conversation. The Brookings-Urban Institute Tax Policy Center has also said that it is "mathematically impossible" to reduce income tax rates and increase government tax revenues, yet the 1961 Kennedy tax cut did just that....as did the 1986 Reagan - Rostenkowski tax cut.....

So something that has actually happened three times, based on data provided by the IRS (yeah, who'd ever believe anything that rabid partisan Republican entity would say, right?), is nevertheless called "mathematically impossible."

For years, aerospace engineers had claimed that it was impossible for bumblebees to fly. Then, using high-speed photography, they learned that when the bumblebee flaps its wings, they change their shape and it is this change in shape that allows them to fly after all.

Similar with changes in tax rates that also restrict deductions: it is cheaper to pay the tax than to hire accountants and chase after deductions that have no economic purpose other than to reduce taxes. Lower rate / fewer deductions allow people to make spending and investment decisions based purely on their underlying economics, which means more productive spending and investment decisions, which means more economic growth.

"Bumblebees can't fly" : high tax rates + lots of deductions :: bumblebees do fly : lower tax rates + fewer deductions


For me personally, I'd gladly give up the mortgage interest deduction and pay income tax on health insurance premiums above a threshhold in return for lower rates. For me politically, the only deductions I'd like to see maintained are charitable deductions (they serve the same social function as many income taxes yet deliver better value for the money) and income-tax free life insurance proceeds (if a person has provided for his family already, why tax that money under the guise of helping the family??? "you don't take food out of the mouths of widows and orphans")

 

[FreshFish]

Re: Elections 2012 -- Carrion My Wayward Son!

See Fishy, like yourself, I'm also all about shared responsibility.

Yes. that part is certainly true, once it is edited for honesty and accuracy. We are both about shared responsibility; we'd just go about doing it differently.

You have some government commission decide who is responsible for what and enforce its decrees by force. I have social engines in which people take care of each other through various overlapping interlocking organizations to see that everyone is taken care of as well.

Where we differ the most is in the responsibiliites of those who receive care. I maintain that if you receive care from someone else, you have a reciprocal responsibility to use that care wisely and well. You seem to think (though I could be wrong) that people have no responsibility to use this care well; that if they waste it or squander it, they should just keep on receiving it anyway.

 

[FreshFish]

Re: Elections 2012 -- Carrion My Wayward Son!

We are on the cusp of total energey independence. .... , solar ... technolog[y is a] pie in the sky nostrums, which show no promise of being reliable, cost effective long term solutions whose benefits outweigh their shortcomings.

Here I would quibble with you slightly. I think solar has promise of being reliable and cost-effective, but only if used properly. The projects we have now for solar, I agree with you totally, will not work. You cannot run a large-scale solar energy producer, like covering the desert with solar panels, and try to feed that into the grid.

For solar to work well, it would be de-centralized and local; but outfitting the roofs of buildings to supplement the power grid does appear to have promise. If we can learn to embed solar fibers into roofing shingles, for example, we could have a real breakthrough on that score.


Another local energy source that might have promise is tidal. You use airfoils on conveyer belts to power generators. Again, it would be local, and merely ease demands on the central grid, and it certainly would have unintended environmental consequences....I guess we need to toss tidal into the wind / geothermal bucket too. Never mind.

 

[unofan]

Re: Elections 2012 -- Carrion My Wayward Son!

You seem to think (though I could be wrong) that people have no responsibility to use this care well; that if they waste it or squander it, they should just keep on receiving it anyway.

No one is saying that's "right," but it is inevitable that it will happen at some level. And you still haven't explained what to do when people inevitably do waste it or squander it. Are they cut off from health care and left to die in the streets? Or do we keep treating them anyway?

 

[FreshFish]

Re: Elections 2012 -- Carrion My Wayward Son!

Here is the crux of the problem with the current Medicare program, and here is where Ryan's proposed reforms would make the biggest difference:

Today, Medicare's arbitrary fee-for-service price controls pay the best hospitals and the worst hospitals equally, regardless of quality or value. Innovators who deliver better care at a lower cost are rarely rewarded, as they would be in any other industry. Under premium support, networks of providers would be competing for consumers and become more efficient over time, instead of billing taxpayers for their current negative rate of productivity.
....
Premium support was first proposed by Stanford economist Alain Enthoven in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1978. He observed that the pervasive methods of direct economic regulation of health care did not contain costs and suggested that "managed competition" would do a better job.

'The point," Mr. Enthoven wrote, "is that government has certain limitations that are deeply rooted, if not inherent. Government is good at some things, such as taking money from taxpayers and paying it to social-security beneficiaries, and maintaining competition in many industries; it performs badly at other things." Premium support's "cumulative effect is intended to alter the system radically, but gradually and voluntarily, in the long run."

Mr. Enthoven's reform models were the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, created in 1959, and Calpers, the California health-insurance program for public employees. He used premium support when he designed the Stanford faculty health plan.[emphasis added]

So Mr. Ryan's plan works perfectly well for existing federal government employees, and has for the past 52 years, yet somehow would be a disaster for Medicare?

Sorry, folks, I'm hoping that logic and reason trump demagogery and scare tactics here. One side has 52 years of experience and is also used in the state of California for its employees, and somehow there is something heinously wrong with it?

 

[FreshFish]

Re: Elections 2012 -- Carrion My Wayward Son!

you still haven't explained what to do when people inevitably do waste it or squander it. Are they cut off from health care and left to die in the streets? Or do we keep treating them anyway?

You present yourself as an intelligent person and a competent thinker. Are those really the only two alternatives you can think of?

How about, instead of this being an argument, it's a collaborative venture. Let me ask you the same question: what do you propose we do about that situation? Is there some creative third way that you can devise that helps people get the care they need while also helping to ensure they don't squander it or waste it?


Hint: "incentives matter."

 

[unofan]

Re: Elections 2012 -- Carrion My Wayward Son!

You present yourself as an intelligent person and a competent thinker. Are those really the only two alternatives you can think of?

How about, instead of this being an argument, it's a collaborative venture. Let me ask you the same question: what do you propose we do about that situation? Is there some creative third way that you can devise that helps people get the care they need while also helping to ensure they don't squander it or waste it?

How about you answer the **** question. I've only asked it like 4 times in the last day. What do you do to the people who inevitably will waste or squander their health care?

Incentives is not an answer. There are always those who miss the cues or ignore the incentives for any number of reasons. Besides, if you make them pay more, what about those who can't afford to pay more?

There are lots of people out there who are dumb, unlucky, or simply bad planners. How does your mythical system treat them?

 

[FlagDUDE08]

Re: Elections 2012 -- Carrion My Wayward Son!

Another "success story" of the green energy market and hybrid vehicles: http://www.theblaze.com/stories/rea...ortedly-bursts-into-flames-in-ca-parking-lot/

 

[FreshFish]

Re: Elections 2012 -- Carrion My Wayward Son!

How about you answer the **** question. I've only asked it like 4 times in the last day. What do you do to the people who inevitably will waste or squander their health care?

Incentives is not an answer. There are always those who miss the cues or ignore the incentives for any number of reasons. Besides, if you make them pay more, what about those who can't afford to pay more?

There are lots of people out there who are dumb, unlucky, or simply bad planners. How does your mythical system treat them?

if I thought you were genuinely interested in learning, I might reply more thoughtfully. Your tone comes across as so pugnacious, I'm tempted merely to ignore you and walk away....though I am flattered that you consider my opinion worth soliciting.


So, despite my reluctance, I'll give a partial answer.

Suppose you have a teen-ager, son or daughter, and you give them a credit card to use in emergencies, but only for emergencies. then they run the card up to the limit. what do you do with them?

What I would do with my teens in that situation is how I'd handle the problem you present.

 

[FlagDUDE08]

Re: Elections 2012 -- Carrion My Wayward Son!

How about you answer the **** question. I've only asked it like 4 times in the last day. What do you do to the people who inevitably will waste or squander their health care?

Still rewarding and encouraging bad behaviour, I see...

If we were under your idea, it'd behoove me to not be healthy!

 

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: Elections 2012 -- Carrion My Wayward Son!

Still rewarding and encouraging bad behaviour, I see...

If we were under your idea, it'd behoove me to not be healthy!

So, you want to punish bad behavior? Cause I'm all for that. First thing we can do is take health insurance away from everyone who smokes, drinks, or does any illegal drugs. That will save us billions, maybe trillions right there.

 

[FreshFish]

Re: Elections 2012 -- Carrion My Wayward Son!

So, you want to punish bad behavior? Cause I'm all for that. First thing we can do is take health insurance away from everyone who smokes, drinks, or does any illegal drugs. That will save us billions, maybe trillions right there.

I'm not sure about "taking it away." At one time, people who smoked tobacco did pay higher health insurance rates, and I think that's a good idea. I also think overweight people should pay higher health insurance rates. Our healthplan does it through a backdoor: if you go to the gym twice a week for six months, our health insurance plan sends you $100.