What's new
By:
USCHO Fan Forum

This is a sample guest message. Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

  • The USCHO Fan Forum has migrated to a new plaform, xenForo. Most of the function of the forum should work in familiar ways. Please note that you can switch between light and dark modes by clicking on the gear icon in the upper right of the main menu bar. We are hoping that this new platform will prove to be faster and more reliable. Please feel free to explore its features.

Obama XVI: Muslin curtains in the White House!!!

Status
Not open for further replies.
Re: Obama XVI: Muslin curtains in the White House!!!

Tundra said:
I think it was fairly (un) common in war, people get used to death and killings. I remember watching a documentary about WWII and several guys in that interview were talking about killing japs and cutting off their head and other body parts. because they did it to their comrades 1st.

Fear not. For you are all heroes. Honored In death and here after.
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure I get your specific point. Not really sure if I know what your main point is with this series of posts.

IMO the day war is declared the die is cast...the president/govt who declares that war carries mammoth and nearly entire responsibility. Responsibilities far greater than they can possibly fathom.
 
Re: Obama XVI: Muslin curtains in the White House!!!

dxmnkd316 said:
I think this is the first time I'm voting independent. I can't stand Dayton or Emmer. Both disgust me on so many different levels.

I think I'm probably going to end up throwing my vote behind Horner. Unless someone can tell me why I shouldn't.
Click to expand...

You shouldnt because he is the best candidate! :p

Or...you shouldnt because I am and you dont want to align with me ;)
 
Re: Obama XVI: Muslin curtains in the White House!!!

Bakunin said:
http://universityandstate.wordpress...-of-us-federal-government-civilian-employees/

That guy's upper bound estimate is roughly $260 billion for the federal workforce. Given that to be true, exactly how much would you cut and where?
Click to expand...
Well, I'm a pretty simple guy - if I were king, I'd start on day 1 by slashing every single line item by whatever % the overall budget needed to become deficit neutral. The current fraction of spending for each item is a reasonable proxy for how important the various items are in relation to each other, so we'll just go with that - no sacred cows, no favors for special interests.

Then and only then, I'd start to consider the relative importance of the various programs and start cutting back on programs that were not pulling their weight and diverting that money back into programs <s>with the hottest lobbyists</s> that were doing the most good.
 
  • Like
Reactions: XYZ
Re: Obama XVI: Muslin curtains in the White House!!!

Substantial cuts to agency budgets would almost certainly lead to reductions in force - and instead of letting go the highest-paid people who have been there forever and who aren't likely all that productive, this would result in sending the youngest workers packing (I'm assuming most people anywhere near retirement wouldn't accept whatever modest buyouts the gov't offered them and would force their agencies to lay off the newest employees instead).

Unless the budget cut came with an attached requirement to increase efficiency (and shrink management down to size), I think it'd probably do more harm than good.
 
Re: Obama XVI: Muslin curtains in the White House!!!

Bakunin said:
Substantial cuts to agency budgets would almost certainly lead to reductions in force - and instead of letting go the highest-paid people who have been there forever and who aren't likely all that productive, this would result in sending the youngest workers packing (I'm assuming most people anywhere near retirement wouldn't accept whatever modest buyouts the gov't offered them and would force their agencies to lay off the newest employees instead).
Click to expand...
And that's exactly the problem today - the workers are in charge of management, rather than the other way around. When the workers can "force" their bosses to lay off only one particular group of people, you don't have to look very hard to see how budgets can get out of whack.

Unless the budget cut came with an attached requirement to increase efficiency (and shrink management down to size), I think it'd probably do more harm than good.
Click to expand...
I don't really care about those details. If the Postmaster General wanted to lay off all the workers, award himself the entire budget as salary, and sort every letter himself - fine by me, so long as he gets the job done. I'm a firm believer that any organization - including government - can figure out how to get lean when it needs to. The trick is making it NEED to.

Bottoms-up budget cutting is fiddling while Rome burns - starting commissions to study the problems and identify potential cuts while money is pouring out the door is the wrong approach, IMHO. Go to every department in the government and ask the managers if their budgets are too large or too small. Everybody already knows the answers you'd get. Asking if they CAN get away with less is futile, in the same way that asking a child if he wants to eat his lima beans is futile. Just cut the funding first, and those who are left will figure out how best to do more with less. In some departments, it may make sense to lay people off, while in others across-the-board pay and benefit cuts could be the right answer.
 
Re: Obama XVI: Muslin curtains in the White House!!!

LynahFan said:
Well, I'm a pretty simple guy - if I were king, I'd start on day 1 by slashing every single line item by whatever % the overall budget needed to become deficit neutral. The current fraction of spending for each item is a reasonable proxy for how important the various items are in relation to each other, so we'll just go with that - no sacred cows, no favors for special interests.

Then and only then, I'd start to consider the relative importance of the various programs and start cutting back on programs that were not pulling their weight and diverting that money back into programs <s>with the hottest lobbyists</s> that were doing the most good.
Click to expand...

I never figured out strikethrough before this, which is ironic given the topic.

I'm sure there are line items that are "all of nothing," so you might have to put them in their own category, prioritize them, and then start cutting full items until you reach the correct net percentage. Likewise, there are probably dependencies A --> B, where if you cut B you may as well cut A since it isn't happening anyway.

A lot of federal spending is legal commitments that can't just be cut, so it is much more likely that you would need to apply dramatic restrictions to future spending while waiting for current contracts to run their course.
 
Last edited:
Re: Obama XVI: Muslin curtains in the White House!!!

Kepler said:
I never figured out strikethrough before this, which is ironic given the topic.

I'm sure there are line items that are "all of nothing," so you might have to put them in their own category, prioritize them, and then start cutting full items until you reach the correct net percentage. Likewise, there are probably dependencies A --> B, where if you cut B you may as well cut A since it isn't happening anyway.

A lot of federal spending is legal commitments that can't just be cut, so it is much more likely that you would need to apply dramatic restrictions to future spending while waiting for current contracts to run their course.
Click to expand...

I get the feeling that's why he said "king" ;)
 
Re: Obama XVI: Muslin curtains in the White House!!!

dxmnkd316 said:
I get the feeling that's why he said "king" ;)
Click to expand...
Kings can kill subjects, start wars, and rape women -- that's all fun and games. But abrogating contracts gets you this:
71316_Louis-beheaded.jpg
 
Re: Obama XVI: Muslin curtains in the White House!!!

dxmnkd316 said:
I get the feeling that's why he said "king" ;)
Click to expand...

Exactly. :)

Even if you want to leave contracts off the table (actual contracts - not implied estimates of future benefits), I'd still be in favor of across-the-board cuts for the non-contractual items.

(I just figured out strikethrough last week, so I'm on a bit of a spree myself. I'm sure I'll calm down soon)
 
Re: Obama XVI: Muslin curtains in the White House!!!

LynahFan said:
(actual contracts - not implied estimates of future benefits)
Click to expand...
Those are referred to as "future commitments" but I don't think they have that same legal contractual status. For instance, if the current rules say you get your social security check at 65 I don't think there is anything to stop Congress from raising it to 70 (or lowering it to 60).

If compromise were possible (which of course it isn't) I would think a good place to have mutual cuts would be to raise the age to 70 and means test the **** out of benefits, cutting everybody in the top decile to zero. They won life's lottery, congratulations. The combination of both could result in massive savings and also improve the tone of the debate (which is why it won't happen, since the vested interests benefit from a mystical prohibition on either cutting entitlements or turning them back into the welfare programs they were intended to be).
 
Re: Obama XVI: Muslin curtains in the White House!!!

Kepler said:
Those are referred to as "future commitments" but I don't think they have that same legal contractual status. For instance, if the current rules say you get your social security check at 65 I don't think there is anything to stop Congress from raising it to 70 (or lowering it to 60).

If compromise were possible (which of course it isn't) I would think a good place to have mutual cuts would be to raise the age to 70 and means test the **** out of benefits, cutting everybody in the top decile to zero. They won life's lottery, congratulations. The combination of both could result in massive savings and also improve the tone of the debate (which is why it won't happen, since the vested interests benefit from a mystical prohibition on either cutting entitlements or turning them back into the welfare programs they were intended to be).
Click to expand...

I agree with means testing but I wouldn't say those folks won a lottery. This past weekend there was an editorial in which the writer spoke of those in the higher income brackets as America's luckiest people.

So that is what it is, luck? I don't have the time to go through the number of times I've seen this angle put forth...but I do know that only 8% of the people with income over $150k and assets >$500k got there from inheriting the money. I'll grant you that could be the luck of birth or genes. The rest of those folks earned the money.

Is there some luck that one person's company is forced to layoff people while another's is flush? I suppose so.

But let's not kid ourselves that luck is the primary reason why some people earn more income or have more assets than others any more than luck is what got people good grades or a good job.

The retired guy living next to me, who owned his own business and can tell plenty of stories of the lean days and risking everything he owned to buy the company would have a thing or two to say about people saying he won a lottery...it wasn't random.
 
Re: Obama XVI: Muslin curtains in the White House!!!

pirate said:
I agree with means testing but I wouldn't say those folks won a lottery. This past weekend there was an editorial in which the writer spoke of those in the higher income brackets as America's luckiest people.

So that is what it is, luck? I don't have the time to go through the number of times I've seen this angle put forth...but I do know that only 8% of the people with income over $150k and assets >$500k got there from inheriting the money. I'll grant you that could be the luck of birth or genes. The rest of those folks earned the money.

Is there some luck that one person's company is forced to layoff people while another's is flush? I suppose so.

But let's not kid ourselves that luck is the primary reason why some people earn more income or have more assets than others any more than luck is what got people good grades or a good job.

The retired guy living next to me, who owned his own business and can tell plenty of stories of the lean days and risking everything he owned to buy the company would have a thing or two to say about people saying he won a lottery...it wasn't random.
Click to expand...
It's very tempting to agree with you, but even for those who earned their own money, there's definitely luck involved.

My parents haven't given me anything beyond typical birthday and Christmas presents since I was in college, and I left college literally with about $300 in my pocket. I've never worked for a family business, or really even an industry that anyone else from my family has been in. So it would be easy for me to claim that I deserve everything I have because I "earned" it.

However, that doesn't take into account how lucky I was to have been born with the genes that I was, and beyond that to be born into a family who valued hard work, education and doing your best. My father has a PhD and my mother a Masters, so there was always someone around who was willing and able to help me with homework. My parents that made sure I got to go to debate camps, music camps, nature camps, and Boy Scout camps, and a pre-college program after my junior year of high school. I played on a travelling sports team, had a combined 23 years of private music lessons, etc, etc.

Whatever I've saved by the time I retire, I will be able to truthfully say that I worked hard and earned it, but I think it will be every bit as correct to say that I won life's lottery.
 
Re: Obama XVI: Muslin curtains in the White House!!!

LynahFan said:
It's very tempting to agree with you, but even for those who earned their own money, there's definitely luck involved.

My parents haven't given me anything beyond typical birthday and Christmas presents since I was in college, and I left college literally with about $300 in my pocket. I've never worked for a family business, or really even an industry that anyone else from my family has been in. So it would be easy for me to claim that I deserve everything I have because I "earned" it.

However, that doesn't take into account how lucky I was to have been born with the genes that I was, and beyond that to be born into a family who valued hard work, education and doing your best. My father has a PhD and my mother a Masters, so there was always someone around who was willing and able to help me with homework. My parents that made sure I got to go to debate camps, music camps, nature camps, and Boy Scout camps, and a pre-college program after my junior year of high school. I played on a travelling sports team, had a combined 23 years of private music lessons, etc, etc.

Whatever I've saved by the time I retire, I will be able to truthfully say that I worked hard and earned it, but I think it will be every bit as correct to say that I won life's lottery.
Click to expand...
I would say that phrase is very different than saying you got where you were by luck. Is where I get to in life any less lucky than you because my parents couldn't help me on my math homework by the time I was in middle school? Or should I say I was lucky because I could still do it with ease even though I couldn't get help at home?
 
Re: Obama XVI: Muslin curtains in the White House!!!

By "won life's lottery" I wasn't actually trying to say anything about luck, or deservingness. I was saying social security could become like insurance -- you hope you'll never need it, but it's there if you do. The people who "finish" in the top decile (probably many if not most of the people reading this thread) will "lose" in that we will have paid into the system but do not see the rewards directly ourselves, but the "win" -- that we are in the top decile -- swamps that. Plus there's a social win in living in a society that doesn't ef its elderly, and a psychological win that we know our annoying grandparents won't have to move into our house.
 
Last edited:
Re: Obama XVI: Muslin curtains in the White House!!!

LynahFan said:
It's very tempting to agree with you, but even for those who earned their own money, there's definitely luck involved.

My parents haven't given me anything beyond typical birthday and Christmas presents since I was in college, and I left college literally with about $300 in my pocket. I've never worked for a family business, or really even an industry that anyone else from my family has been in. So it would be easy for me to claim that I deserve everything I have because I "earned" it.

However, that doesn't take into account how lucky I was to have been born with the genes that I was, and beyond that to be born into a family who valued hard work, education and doing your best. My father has a PhD and my mother a Masters, so there was always someone around who was willing and able to help me with homework. My parents that made sure I got to go to debate camps, music camps, nature camps, and Boy Scout camps, and a pre-college program after my junior year of high school. I played on a travelling sports team, had a combined 23 years of private music lessons, etc, etc.

Whatever I've saved by the time I retire, I will be able to truthfully say that I worked hard and earned it, but I think it will be every bit as correct to say that I won life's lottery.
Click to expand...


I understand what you are saying...but, in your defense, you were the one studying, taking the tests, deciding to focus on school, practicing music etc. There may be a lot of kids with intelligent, supportive parents...but that isn't a guarantee of success (however it could be defined). So, when I read your paragraph I see "lot of work done" and think of Armand Hammer's quote about 'every time I work 14 hours in a day, I get lucky'. So, you were lucky in some ways but your success wasn't random, as implied in a lottery.

I graduated from college with only a pile of loans. Is there some luck involved in where it's gone from there? Sure. But there has been bad luck and good luck...I would say I'm fortunate to have done the work and made the decisions to get where I am but it wasn't just luck.

edit: Kepler, sorry, I knew I was taking your words and expanding beyond what I could read on the screen..I will try to find the editorial from the weekend - I connected your comment to that and probably din't need to quote you in my post as it made it look like i was only addressing you
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top