The Financial 9/11

Good comments, DLS. As I said in another thread, I don't think you're an idiot. In fact, I'm rather impressed. When you calm down and put away the darts, you're articulate and write well. When you say "one of my books" do you mean you wrote it or read it?

I do think you have an irrational fear of the weak, the poor, the old, the young and minorities getting a crust of bread they don't "deserve" and you disparage helping them as "nanny state" "welfare state" etc. Think about it though, the image of a welfare mom on food stamps or an aging retiree squeaking by on Social Security isn't a very frightening image of a threat to our republic. While big corporados pilfer trillions from the treasury, how can you be enraged about poor people getting a piddling handout so they can survive? These people don't have the lives we do, and we're not offering to "give" it to them. For that, they have to work really hard and earn it, as you and I have. I don't have a problem with assuring a safety net of food, shelter and medical care for those who can't afford it. We can afford it and it's not "childish" for our great nation to offer it. One of those food-stamp fed children in public school might just become a great Republican who helps rebuild your party.

Giving a voice (ie a vote) to those whose voices have been silent is a good thing IMO, and GOP efforts to disenfranchise them is anti-democratic.

I agree with your points about states' rights, but again, the GOP has shown contempt for the concept. The shrinking of distance probably means a bigger federal role, while states are probably best able to allocate resources locally. We don't need a loose confederation of sovereign states with minimal federal government. We need a strong nation that thinks like one.

Frankly, I'm not sure what the impact of a flat tax would be, minus the deductions and special treatment that wealthy people with tax lawyers routinely claim. But I do support a true democracy (well, a democratic republic) in which most people vote, become knowledgeable about the issues and decide on those, not on the fear and smear tactics that parade as electoral races today.

"I'm actually quite open-minded and at the forefront of what I could envision for this country, that outdoes any reasonable thing wanted by any of the lefties on here, in fact." and "legality and morality are on _my_ side"

Well those are pretty arrogant statements, but we could probably agree on some of your points about a multi-party system and more direct assistance below the poverty line. The devil is in the details, though, as the food stamp concept (for example) encourages poor people to buy food, and the purchase helps American farmers, which is why the GOP itself joins the Dems in killing big reductions in that program. Public education, as you suggest, keeps us from having a permanent educated aristocracy and masses of ignorant peasants. We need a *much* better educated populace to compete in a globalized world.

"There's absolutely nothing wrong with us forming a society to provide defense and disaster relief."

Or if instead you mean _having_ "society" do these things, I have to concede things have been that way since the 1930s. Goldwater ran against the New Deal and lost, in 1964, on this issue. There is no justification for the inanities as well as the sick contempt we see expressed routinely for constitutional federalism, and the facts do constitute a trump card I and others hold. But we know what the people long have wanted -- just look at how they view Social Security, and a more quiet issue, how they view public education. The teachers' unions' political activities, and some of the worst acts by some teachers ("nuclear education" in the 1980s, condomania nowadays, or idiocy about US shame over global warming and carbon footprints and other things that should get teachers fired) are one thing; but if you observe the reaction when abolition of public schools is voiced -- it's usually wariness to deep concern. Why? Most would not be able to afford private education and it would be soon mainly the privilege of the wealthy and well-connected. (As we're concerned may be the case someday with health care, correct?)

More to the point related to this thread -- though we're far from another Great Depression, as the hypesters shriek already -- one of my books, "Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace" by Morgenthau, mentions a topic related to this and the modern welfare state, which is that if enough members of the tribe (to use your construction) want something, someone (some government) is going to do it, and leave the sovereignty or propriety issue to others "to be argued away." (Just as those in Washington didn't really waste time arguing in 1861.)

"DLS, I assume you have been successful. Now you don't seem to want to share the burden of defending, educating or caring for the rest of the tribe."

Actually, the problem is and has been the exaggerated and debased nature of what is claimed to be the rightful burden (and related to that, what everyone's "needs" are), and the demands for a burden that greatly exceeds that which is in order. "Fairness" is a lie, as well as the euphemistic (and childish) nature of the use of the word "sharing" when discussing taxation (as well as income redistribution).

I'd rather just see honesty, have a revision of the poverty level, tax everything at a single rate above that level or above an exemption set above that level, then as part of spending, give to every individual the poverty level -- pure redistribution at its most effective. That would be "sharing" [sic] of the highest, most practical order and better than what we have now by multiple orders of magnitude. "Plainly effective."

It is demeaning to see the "evolution" of the modern welfare state with entitlements to cause widespread middle-class dependency and childish expectations, Green Dreams. That's in fact what we have here. All the high-minded rhetoric about "what it means to form a society," etc., (or equating entitlements with "civilization" paid for by taxes), doesn't change that.

I'm actually quite open-minded and at the forefront of what I could envision for this country, that outdoes any reasonable thing wanted by any of the lefties on here, in fact. I'm the most familiar with and accepting of the "destruction of distance" that has come about with modern transportation and communications, and at the forefront of rethinking what role the states should play in our federal system, which is the object mainly of defiance and violation rather than adherence and fidelity (the trump card I hold over my opponents -- legality and morality are on _my_ side). I wouldn't mind at this point making what lefties have long wanted and often got made legal and legitimate -- abolish the Tenth Amendment, grant general and unlimited powers to the federal government, and then the arguments move directly to what kind of government we want in Washington and what it should or should not do, on principle alone rather than also on legality and legitimacy complications. It is I, not any of the radicals on here, who most strongly advocates for fracture of the two major parties and a multi-party system likely to require coalition-building under a system of proportional representation in all bodies having more than four seats (and the approval vote for single-seat offices). Altering the role of states (making them regionally as well as physically and politically based, and centered around major metro areas with consequent effective metro area proto-unification), making other tweaks such as lengths of terms in office -- I've enjoyed those issues for years as well, but they come second to the main issue, first choosing what we want in Washington, a federal government (we have _never_ given constitutional federalism a faithful effort since the 1930s, so _nobody_ can honestly claim it has never worked in modern times) or our decades-long de facto national government of a de facto unitary state (with the role of states relegated to districts or provinces, little more than super-counties on which lesser tasks like driver licensing get dumped).

I have to chuckle at your angry "new rules for the tribe" stuff. Two wolves and a sheep "agreeing" on the next meal, indeed.

Back to basics here. Let's not demean the legitimate function of societies by disparaging each other as babies. We band together and form tribes, including complex societies such as ours, for specific reasons. First and fundamental is security. Someone stays up all night to keep away the tigers or alert those sleeping of an imminent threat. If I have something valuable, I can trade it to someone who will give up some sleep for it, while I trade it for some sleep. If there's a fire or flood, the tribe helps those most affected to stay alive first, and to rebuild later.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with us forming a society to provide defense and disaster relief. As things get more complicated, we need more specialized skills. If we think it is vital to the tribe's survival and growth for lotusflwr to get a specialized education, we chip in and pay for it, or help with it. If we think it is important for our tribe to be healthy, we chip in to help the sick and injured. If we form a society for these purposes, there is nothing childish or outrageous about expecting our society to work as we have chosen.

Now there may be bullies in the tribe who make us afraid in order to defraud us of extra payment to keep us safe. Or to help us build a hut (keepin it primitive here), they demand we sacrifice our freedom (I'll help, but you have to be my slave) or whatever. These potential abuses we have to prevent with societal rules, ie. regulations and laws.

Let's cool it with the inflammatory rhetoric. It's our culture and we just disagree. DLS, I assume you have been successful. Now you don't seem to want to share the burden of defending, educating or caring for the rest of the tribe. They're on their own. But that doesn't work for the tribe. The tribe says to its richest members, hey, you're living large while we scrape by. New rules. You share more of your wealth because you have more. Don't like that? Find a different tribe. That's our rule now.

By the way, before our tribe got bamboozled into changing the rules to favor the rich disproportionately, we weren't losing our most successful tribe members. Indeed, more wanted to join our tribe than wanted to leave it.

"The average American wants the President to pick them up off the ground, dust them off, kiss their booboos, call the other kids on the playground big bullies and say everything is going to be okay."

They want risk-and-responsibility-free living, and ideally Euro-style cradle-to-grave security (which will fail more badly than our own entitlements in the years to come from demographic change and economic reality).

Meanwhile, the situation with their being often underwater on their mortgages (which is hardly anything new; we saw that in hot real estate markets before, such as in California and New England several years ago, as well as in the Oil Patch when oil got cheap several years ago) features many of the same people who had thought there would be growth forever in stocks; I joked to a friend in Atlanta ten years ago that I should start the Icarus Fund, "The Sky's the Limit," and nobody would appreciate the _real_ meaning and joke behind the fund's name, and when prior to that I was in Phoenix, I saw people like the guy dragging his wife into the Schwab center with him: "Look at this past quarter! FIFTY-FOUR PER CENT, Erma!" (Guess what he wanted to do with a lot of their household savings.)

That many people are childish has long been known. That's not to say that this should be lauded, or even accepted necessarily. I, for one, disparage the fact.

I disagree. The average person has come to think of the federal government as their parents, trading over their rights, income and liberties for a feeling of security and safety.

If I want to go to school, I hope the federal government qualifies me for financial aid. If I want to buy a house, I hope I qualify for a cheaper FHA backed loan. If I want to take out a home equity loan to build a deck, I hope the Fed lowers the interest rate. If I want to go on vacation, I hope my stimulus check gets here soon. Oh crap, here comes a hurricane -- I hope FEMA will show up with trailers and some fresh water.

The average American wants the President to pick them up off the ground, dust them off, kiss their booboos, call the other kids on the playground big bullies and say everything is going to be okay.

SMART Americans want a President is who is going to build a bigger, better playground where we all can play and there are some basic common sense rules about big kids pushing around little kids, and someone regularly cleaning up sharp rusty pieces of metal so we don't impale ourselves and die from tetanus on should we fall off the jungle gym.

As Benjamin Franklin said at the start of our little experiment in democracy, "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."

Note that grown-ups don't see Washington or the President as their parent and don't need anyone to Feel Their Pain (and make it go away or tell them everything will be okay, which Bush already has done, whether you believe him or you don't).

It's hard to ascertain what is _really_ happening given the hype, which may feed the overreaction of some (not only on this site but elsewhere, such as those committing suicide or even murder-suicide, as has already happened).

It's not a catastrophe at this time. People are still driving as they always have been (meaning circumstances have not constrained their driving habits), and using their credit cards.

It's possible that we may face deflation for a while now that the real estate bubble has burst, particularly if a lot of foolish, greedy people are anticipating being what is called "underwater" on their home loans (they owe more than their homes currently are worth). This has happened before, and there will be a slump until things change. But what's more interesting (not that it is a positive thing, just that it attracts the interest of minds) is that there may be a slump and even deflation if people later reduce their expenditures, prices begin not to rise or stay stable but to _fall_, and people not only want to save any windfalls coming their way but also learn to wait for prices to fall _more_ before buying. (Why not? It's both logical and sensible when prices are _falling_.)

What remains to be seen is what happens if credit card misspending ends, there is default on credit-card debt, or if general prices _and_ wages fall, not limited to unusual cases like unionized Detroit automakers or the airlines (who for years have been facing wage reductions and other concessions to the 2000s in place of pre-1980).