Atlas Shrugged

[jeffls]

For those who have read Ayn Rand's magnum opus...let's discuss...how about those 90% taxes? I'm glas I don't pay them!!!!! (deployed tax free to combat). Where are we along the slippery slope? The UN will vote next week to replace the us dollar as the international reserve currency...china being begged for buy more bonds...another 1.2 trillion in stimulus...yes taxpayers that is now roughly 40k per person per citizen of this country for stimulus...that hasn't worked. I'd rather have the 40k and use it on something I value more than aig.

[noreault]

I believe that is $4k per citizen. Maybe you would still like the $4K but still a lot less. The UN does not set the international reserve currency. I believe you are thinking about the Brenton Woods agreement, post WWII with countries, not UN, decided to place US dollar at center of monetary trading. It has not been operative in the last 30 years. The de facto reserve currency is decided by what currency or currencies they decide to hold. Both the dollar and euro are popular.

[jrd22]

I don't have the actual numbers, but if you add the initial stimulus package of 730 billion and the recent 900 billion and now 1.2 trillion in cash (and wasn't there another 400 or so billion too?) and don't forget the trillion or so in healthcare, and then divide all this by the number of TAXPAYERS I think it's substantially over 4 thousand each. It's enough that our children, and their children will be paying for it for the rest of their lives. The point is that the government (us) doesn't have enough to bail everyone out, a free market is just that, free to prosper, free to fail. If you step in and mess with it you have something else, socialism?

[noreault]

Adding all your numbers it comes to about $12K per citizen. Probably not a 3 generation payoff. But who know where the economy goes.

Unfortunately the world is complicated and its not a simple free economy or socialism. The truth is in between. The argument not to regulate derivatives, the much discussed CDOs, was that the free market would take care of it. Unfortunately it allow the focus of the profits, to obscene levels, to the few and spread the risk to to the rest of us. The trick is to recognize that moderation is the key. Neither over or under regulate. It would be so nice if simple binary decisions work.

So yes, many of the companies should fail, but IMHO having so many fail at the same time is a disaster. I believe we must hold our nose and get the banking system back on track.

By the way, I think the executives at AIG should be taxed at a 100% of those bonuses, they didn't earn them. It is an irresponsible Board of Directors that allows a compensation plan to be crafted that pays bonuses when the company is failing.

[ccam]

Vote Socialist, Vote Democrat, Vote Often!!!
It's not the US your dad voted for friend!!!.

[jeffls]

Here is my citation from reuters about the UN convening a panel that will recommend to ditch the dollar as the worls reserve currency. Theory and practice are two seperate entities much like ideals and what you do behind closed doors.

U.N. panel says world should ditch dollar | U.S. | Reuters

I think AIG should keep their bonuses. They have contracts that guarentee them. I find it interesting how as soon as gov't start interfering each step they take creates more and more ripples that they then need to interfere with. Eventually we will just work for the sake of them telling us how to work. As it stand today...we work Jan-June for that purpose as rougjly 50% of everything you make will be taken in some sort of tax, to include inflation.

I find it so interesting in this country that we value the law so little, or at least pick and choose which parts we agree with. For tax issues apparently the higher ranking you are the less you feel obligated to pay your taxes. "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi recently told a group of both legal and illegal immigrants and their families that enforcement of existing immigration laws, as currently practiced, is "un-American." citation here: Pelosi Tells Illegal Immigrants That Work Site Raids are Un-American - Presidential Politics | Political News - FOXNews.com

I believe in democracy and I think Obama is correct in doing what he is doing though I do not agree with it. He was voted in not on substance but on the precept of change and that is exactly what is happening...for better or worse. The beauty of it is that four years from now if it is what I think it is we vote someone new in. Unlike Venezuela, our country won't give obama unlimited terms to accomplish a truly socialist agenda.

I am however sick of the constitution, amendments, and bylaws being disregarded by politicians without changing them. I am also sick of the great extent this countries powerful goes through to change the course of public opinion and the great ease at which they accomplish it.

Example...the pentagon spent over 4 billion dollars last year in tax payer money telling us what to think ie advertising (less volatile than using word propaganda, though if it was in any other country that is what we would call it) for their cause...the wars and 80 worldwide operations that are currently ongoing.

And I personally have lost a handful of friends while serving in Iraq, one who was a childhood friend that was killed not during his 12 month tour but during the arbitrary extension his unit received as they were preparing to go home. So it is not just theory and abstraction it is real the choices that we have to make for our future on what we are to be as a country.

Me personally, I believe in protecting america and it's people but not by forcing other nations to give us their accomplishments and values at the point of a gun. That is what free trade is for. If we merit it, it will happen anyways.

[noreault]

A panel of UN experts makes a recommendation that national banks should act differently is different than your claim that UN votes to drop US dollar as international currency. The panel mostly suggested that a basket of currencies would be appropriate.

Is is alright to tell the auto workers, who have a multi-year contract, that it is unaffordable so they will have to accept changes? Contracts are agreements that specify the intended relationship between two parties. When extraordinary events occur, things that neither party anticipated, the courts reinterpret the meaning to find fairness. In this case it is unfair for a company that is failing to be forced to pay out a bonus. A bonus, not the base pay. By the way that bonus is your and my money.

[jeffls]

A panel of recommendations is a euphamism for a group of people had their collective ideas counted and came to this conclusion and will now publish that conclusion. In other words, their ideas were counted as votes, in one form or another, and a decision was made based on that result to recommend. If it wasn't a vote, it wouldn't be a panel decision it would be a dictated decision by a dictator.

So I assume you then believe the UN carries little weight in political discourse....

No one forced the companies to pay them out they did so willingly to keep their talent. What is being forced is the collection of those bonuses by the govt. And no, extraordinary circumstances don't give the gov't the right to renegotiate contracts between private citizens. Extraordinary circumstances is as broad a definition as "for matters of national security" that can esaily be classified and concealed. Just look at the patriot act. And I am sure there are a million reasons why it would be a good idea and in someones interest to renegotiate fairer terms for one side of the party but for everything you take away from one you give to another and apparently we have decided that the gov't has full authority to pick and choose who wins and loses...

[noreault]

In fact that what democracy is about. It is the will of the majority. It is not about what you and I want it is about what we want. So you have to discuss whether the action is good, not that government has no right inherent right. Madison realized governments were all powerful and built checks and balances that make some changes difficult. It does have rules it must follow, but even they can change by amendment.

I do believe the UN actually carries little weight in decisions. But this wasn't a UN vote by the delegates. You are suggesting that a panel created by the UN represents its policies. This panel does not have authority, it is studying a problem and suggesting solutions.

[jeffls]

So would you consider the greatest good for the greatest amount of people is best? If so that is the fundamental argument for socialism which is not a permanent structure but the bridge between democratic capitalism and communism. And government decides what is that greatest good? Or would you say individual freedom and rights at all costs? As for our past leaders and creators of the constitution here is what they would have to day today regarding what was best.

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. – Benjamin Franklin

Government is not reason; it is not eloquence; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. – George Washington

A wise and frugal government which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government. – Thomas Jefferson (1801)

It is not the responsibility of the government or the legal system to protect a citizen from himself. – Justice Casey Percell

The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government – lest it come to dominate our lives and interests. – Patrick Henry

If we were directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap, we would soon want for bread. – Thomas Jefferson

I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them. – Thomas Jefferson

As for socialist policies and increasing welfare....

The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not. – Thomas Jefferson

So...democracy is not taking from the brightest to hold up the weakest. It is not for the whim of a majority to decide on what the policy of the day will be if it is fundamentally contrary to the purpose of our existence as a nation. The constitution protects us against the govt from telling us what is in our best interets in production and trade and our daily lives and from the majority telling us what is in our best interests to the same. Sonewhere along the line we lost that meaning.