The 2012 Presidential Election Part I - The guns of August

[mookie1995]

Re: The 2012 Presidential Election Part I - The guns of August

It's not an indefensible position, so long as you include abstractions. National defense arguably provides a bigger benefit to the wealthy than the poor, since they have more to lose. Yes, the salaries nominally go to poor/middle class Americans making up the rank and file soldiers, but the overall benefit goes more to the wealthy than the poor. A garbageman is going to be a garbageman whether the Russians invade us ala Red Dawn (sorry, North Koreans now, according to the remake), but the wealthy business man could lose his entire livelihood when the commies nationalize everything.
.

no. advanced current military spending stressed the hi-tech vs the grunt. today's military is saving more poor people from foxholes.

 

[5mn_Major]

Re: The 2012 Presidential Election Part I - The guns of August

So you have no problem with the current generation running up trillions and trillions of debt to be paid for by future generations? And I see you are resorting to a hypertechnical definition of stealing.

I never claimed that I did. I made no statement and in fact, this and your other post are I've heard of this new tangent...we're suddenly not talking about stealing from the rich...but rather future generations. FWIW, I have a problem with it. But remember, we are handing off the country as well as debt and if we crater our society and position in the world...it won't really matter if we hand off zero debt. (Even this statement will probably result in several 'your wrongs!' accompanied by half a dozen tangents from folks).

And of course, I'm sticking to the legal definition of stealing...all else is opinion.

 

[5mn_Major]

Re: The 2012 Presidential Election Part I - The guns of August

so where's the analysis?

roads:
rich don't live farther? they live in back bay, beacon hill. or close suburbs like newton and weston and wellsley. plus there are many less of them than poor. why just today i stopped at the country club and on the way home made a side trip to walmart to count the cars in the lot. 25 cars at the club. 225 at walmart. and those poor people drove farther to get to walmart. POOR use more (and i am not even scratching PUBLIC transportation - priceless moment recap... "high speed rail from portland to boston!! $15/rt!"). (I WIN)
fly (FAA):
i only count 12 seats in first class. 100+ in coach. ( I WIN AGAIN) my mom flies up from pittsburgh almost every month. she has become friends with folks from PA and WV she sees every time who fly to boston to enroll in MA unemployment because the benefits here are better here. (ME AGAIN)
cars:
All U.S. households that rent the home (34.7%) and own one or more vehicles -- 72.3%
All U.S. households that own the home (65.3%) and own one or more vehicles -- 93.8%

Households with leased vehicles, household income $100,000 and under -19%
Households with leased vehicles, household income $100,000 and up -13% (I'M NOT SEEING THE RICH RUNNING AWAY WITH THIS. I THINK I WIN!)

state dept (foreign missions):
budget request 16.4b
total us budget request 3,550,0b
(0.0046%)
(I WIN)

boats:
c'mon!!!!

internet:
really? who votes online for american idol? really?
plus everyone is on the innernet. poor = 99% rich = 1$. (I WIN AGAIN!!)

Drew mookie out. Don't have time to address this now...but I'm interested. Perhaps later tonight.

 

[FlagDUDE08]

Re: The 2012 Presidential Election Part I - The guns of August

I never claimed that I did. I made no statement and in fact, this and your other post are I've heard of this new tangent...we're suddenly not talking about stealing from the rich...but rather future generations. FWIW, I have a problem with it. But remember, we are handing off the country as well as debt and if we crater our society and position in the world...it won't really matter if we hand off zero debt. (Even this statement will probably result in several 'your wrongs!' accompanied by half a dozen tangents from folks).

And of course, I'm sticking to the legal definition of stealing...all else is opinion.

Of course you'd stick with the legal definition, because it doesn't apply to the growing monopoly you support. Of course, that's the golden rule. He who has the gold makes the rules.

 

[mookie1995]

Re: The 2012 Presidential Election Part I - The guns of August

You don't have to get far to find that position is wrong. With a populous that lives pretty much 100% in its own county and that have a vastly reduced need for petroleum (many don't have cars)...national security issues have been reduced by several magnitudes. The poor just need protection at the borders...this international control is unnecessary. Its a country full of fry cooks and store sales people...not international travellers and multinational execs. Do we lose the ability to become more rich? Sure, but that's the point...they're poor and don't have those needs. That easily cuts both DOD and Dept of State to a fraction of its current state. And that's spending two minutes with your post...

DOD and navy right now keeps shipping open, which benefits poor because they get cheap china crap now to better their lifestyle.

 

[mookie1995]

Re: The 2012 Presidential Election Part I - The guns of August

Of course you'd stick with the legal definition, because it doesn't apply to the growing monopoly you support. Of course, that's the golden rule. He who has the gold makes the rules.

i could see a point made that stealing is 'taking by force' and then fall back to this being what taxation is. however i also think that to a degree the government needs to create structure to support 'all' of us.
remember -- there is no I in team, but there is a U in kunt

 

[FlagDUDE08]

Re: The 2012 Presidential Election Part I - The guns of August

i could see a point made that stealing is 'taking by force' and then fall back to this being what taxation is. however i also think that to a degree the government needs to create structure to support 'all' of us.
remember -- there is no I in team, but there is a U in kunt

There may not be an I, but there is an M-E.

 

[dxmnkd316]

Re: The 2012 Presidential Election Part I - The guns of August

I'm not buying it - only about 23% of the defense budget goes to procurement and construction (Wiki). If the firms that provide those services are generating 10% profit (probably generous), then 2.3% of the military budget ends up in the pockets of the business owners. The other 97.7% goes to average Joes.

I'm not buying the Red Dawn scenario, either - sure, a rich man might lose more in terms of raw dollars, but the garbage man would suffer much, much more during the conflict and until the new government is up and running. The poor have much less margin, so any perturbation to their income drastically impacts their standard of living - the rich, not so much.

Fantastic analysis.

 

[pirate]

It doesn't matter if that was true or what your opinion is on the topic. You have yet to prove that the government is stealing from anyone:

- the rich are getting services for their taxes...no stealing
- the rich are paying more and getting more services than the poor...no stealing
- the rich have an agreement with the government and are willingly paying taxes...no stealing

Its time for you to bring the bacon here.



Why do you think that?

If you're referring to me...couldn't be my position that the rich are extremely valuable and although they need to pay taxes, deserve to earn the income for the work they do whether it be six or seven figures (which I've stated countless times). And it couldn't be my own resume.

Evidence? Or is this where you stop posting.

I post when time allows, don't flatter yourself, pointless arguments with people who only believe what a political party tells them rarely makes my list of things to do.

You haven't provided any evidence the rich get more services. More to lose isn't a service.

 

[Slap Shot]

Re: The 2012 Presidential Election Part I - The guns of August

You're under the impression, though, that society is inherently not lazy.

And you're under the impression that only those of the upper echelon are the ones that are not lazy. There are plenty of hard-working folks that don't make it to the country club or hell even the three-bedroom with 20% down. You are Mitt Romney in a nutshell.

 

[mookie1995]

Re: The 2012 Presidential Election Part I - The guns of August

And you're under the impression that only those of the upper echelon are the ones that are not lazy. There are plenty of hard-working folks that don't make it to the country club or hell even the three-bedroom with 20% down. You are Mitt Romney in a nutshell.

the world needs ditch diggers too

 

[5mn_Major]

Re: The 2012 Presidential Election Part I - The guns of August

so where's the analysis?

plus everyone is on the innernet. poor = 99% rich = 1$. (I WIN AGAIN!!)

I like you steppin up! If only other posters did likewise.

The rich own more cars - table 1
The rich have more car trips - table 2
The rich drive longer on each trip - table 2

http://www.bts.gov/publications/spe...iefs/special_report/2007_10_03/pdf/entire.pdf

The rich take more long range (read: air travel) trips

http://www.bts.gov/publications/tra...report/2004/html/chapter_02/figure_05_08.html

The rich use many more travel services: entertainment, lodging (ie hotels), food/beverage and transportation (third chart)

http://www.bls.gov/spotlight/2010/travel/

The rich use more technology infrastructure

http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2010/Better-off-households/Overview.aspx

DOD? The poor don't care about who they flip burgers for...the rich are reliant on local business management/ownership for higher salaries and in the US military for international operations, etc. Evidence by average income of the international traveler being about $106k...I guess somebody needs international security. (international traveler profile on pg 3).

http://tinet.ita.doc.gov/outreachpages/download_data_table/2011_Outbound_Analysis.pdf

Rich participate in activities across the board...including boating

http://www.srs.fs.usda.gov/trends/Nsre/ORRRC/Ch8.pdf

mookster, your facts are all wrong though.

 

[5mn_Major]

Re: The 2012 Presidential Election Part I - The guns of August

I'm not buying it - only about 23% of the defense budget goes to procurement and construction (Wiki). If the firms that provide those services are generating 10% profit (probably generous), then 2.3% of the military budget ends up in the pockets of the business owners. The other 97.7% goes to average Joes.

The poor have much less margin, so any perturbation to their income drastically impacts their standard of living - the rich, not so much.

You don't have to buy it. Its very simple. The rich directly benefit from our international control and security as well as local control and security...which requires a large overseas DOD commitment. The poor only from local control and security...which requires minimal domestic DOD commitment.

 

[Slap Shot]

Re: The 2012 Presidential Election Part I - The guns of August

the world needs ditch diggers too

Yup. Doesn't mean they're lazy though.

 

[mookie1995]

Re: The 2012 Presidential Election Part I - The guns of August

Yup. Doesn't mean they're lazy though.

you're right about that!

 

[Old Pio]

Re: The 2012 Presidential Election Part I - The guns of August

You don't have to buy it. Its very simple. The rich directly benefit from our international control and security as well as local control and security...which requires a large overseas DOD commitment. The poor only from local control and security...which requires minimal domestic DOD commitment.

Besides, as we all know: THEY DIDN'T BUILD THAT And only the poor join the military, because "the rich" are too smart, too insulated to care (despite gatting all those additional benefits). While the poor, discriminated against and manipulated by the ruling class, frequently have no option other that joining up, which means they'll be fighting and maybe dying to protect His Feldmarchallness' g.d. tee time.

 

[mookie1995]

Re: The 2012 Presidential Election Part I - The guns of August

I like you steppin up! If only other posters did likewise....

1st part - no allowance here for public transportation on your part. this is a gov'ment expense just like road building.
misleading ranges here. $100,000 is NOT rich. (prime example right here ) but even so, this is not much different than the next bucket down, or the next even. plus the numbers in each are higher (i would guess, you failed to provide ). so i could opine that 50 people making 4.1 trips at 9.5mi/per is more wear&tear than 5 people making 4.6 trips at 11.8 miles/trip.

2nd part - longer air travel trips? what does this have to do with gov't supplied resources? FAA is watching a dot on a screen that goes X the same as a dot that goes 2 x (.5X). right? airport proper is going to be manned regardless as well.

3rd part - rich use more hotels. of course. but are these gov't hotels? i thought we were talking about gov't services used by the rich?

4th part - yup. more money you make means more toys. but again, everyone has a cell phone. everyone logs into the innertubes. so 99% of the population is much more volume at almost any level of usage vs 1%. (unless they log in 99x the po'folk average)

5th part - germans in france let the frenchies continue to run their stuff. even commie china has capitalism. and i've been overseas and don't see 'international security' in bangkok airport per se in the form of us marines

6th part - boats. yes, the rich will have bigger boats. small potatoes though in the grand scale of the budget. and the infrastructure is needed anyways for items that the poor rely on regardless (usgc locks and dams for example on riverways).

 

[LynahFan]

Re: The 2012 Presidential Election Part I - The guns of August

You don't have to buy it. Its very simple. The rich directly benefit from our international control and security as well as local control and security...which requires a large overseas DOD commitment. The poor only from local control and security...which requires minimal domestic DOD commitment.

I'm not sure what you mean by "international control and security." Just riffing a little, though, it seems like people always complain that our overseas DOD commitments are to a large extent about oil, and making sure that our supply of oil remains cheap and available. Then, on the other hand, every time gasoline prices rise, the first thing we hear about is how that really hurts the poor people who spend a significant fraction of their income driving to their jobs. Do the rich care whether we're paying $4 or $6 for gas? Not really. So who does all that overseas involvement benefit the most?

 

[pirate]

You don't have to buy it. Its very simple. The rich directly benefit from our international control and security as well as local control and security...which requires a large overseas DOD commitment. The poor only from local control and security...which requires minimal domestic DOD commitment.

Boats? You think the government spends more to provide for boating, which requires taxes on the boat, licenses, fuel tax etc for 1% of the people than they do to provide $668b a year in food stamps? Really?

The government recently voted to reduce the interest rate on student loans to 3.4%. While lamenting that 20% of the kids can't find jobs. The rate otherwise? 6.8%. Now, since rich is annual income it is conceivable a rich person could have 3 kids in college and qualify for federal loans but the 1% don't qualify. So that is $900b in loans being made at a rate that won't even cover losses much less cost to source and service. And the money is lent for 20 years. 20 years of lending hundreds of billions at those rates might cost the government more than keeping track of yachts. I would argue that we need a coast guard anyway, we need to protect commercial fishermen and marinas are private so I don't concede the rich boaters add disproportionate cost nor receive benefit that shouldn't be covered by aforementioned taxes.

Government housing? Land, building, servicing, cost of capital... Wild guess is it costs more than ensuring international travelers, paying taxes on the travel.

You've demonstrated the rich get benefit from govt spending but I don't see anyplace you've been able to explain how it is that our government has managed to organize itself to the point they provide more services for 10% of the population than it does for the other 90.

 

[LynahFan]

Re: The 2012 Presidential Election Part I - The guns of August

You've demonstrated the rich get benefit from govt spending but I don't see anyplace you've been able to explain how it is that our government has managed to organize itself to the point they provide more services for 10% of the population than it does for the other 90.

5MM can't get past the difference between per capita benefits for the 10% vs. more benefits overall for the 90%.