BlackPhx
Posts: 3432
Joined: 11/8/2006
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Thank you Cory for your response and I will address all your points in turn. You are right I am a strong Centrist and an American first above political parties. I seriously thought about voting for McCain mainly because of the things he said in 2000 which shows just how far to the center he really is and I appreciate his work on alternative energy aspects of the last 3 Energy bills which I will say is impressive. I fully acknowledge McCain is probably if you strip away the pandering to his strong right supporters would be a great moderate candidate. But, I am really not impressed with his campaign, his fund raising or his ability to inspire unity and strength of his party let alone his ability to inspire a unified America we truly need right now.
Now, lets be clear on taxes. A tax is a burden imposed on the citizenry to finance the running of the state. There are direct taxes like income taxes, excise taxes, sales taxes, tariffs, etc. There are deferred taxes much as levied by current administration by creating debt for future generations to pay that is stifling when you add interest. Then there is indirect taxes that is a burden caused by government on it's citizens by printing money to finance the government's activities. This is the most dangerous as it leads to hyper inflation this creates a tax burden by cutting the buying power of the citizens and destroys the capitalist banking system by making loans and other debt instruments devalued in effect a negative incentive to lending and borrowing. The Republican party has spent like a drunken sailor for the last 7 years with GW espousing that "deficits do not matter" a base and total betrayal of the fiscal responsibility the Republican party is supposed to have. In fact Regan, Bush Sr, and Bush Jr all have raised deficits and increased government in size and scope. They regularly endorse in imposing future tax burdens, and through a strong Republican lead FED printing money like it was going out of style all this inflicting a "tax" burden indirectly on the American people especially those on the bottom rung of the ladder.
Next point the Stock Market is not the life blood of the capitalist system. The banks are the institutions who's very purpose is to concentrate capital for investment. It is also not true that companies have to be involved in a stock market to raise capital. In fact you have to be a successful business for at least 2 year before you can even list on the market (1 year for the NASDAQ). This means You could eliminate the stock market and still raise capital to start business through the three stages of capitalization used in our country including FFF(Friends and Families Funds) Angel Investors, Venture Capital Investment and then and only then an Initial Public offering could raise capital on the open stock market. The stock market is for it's vaunted esteem is a really elaborate speculation (gambling) setup.
Next point, yes it is the government responsibility to ensure justice in society and go after bad guys. The problem is defining who the bad guys are. The former CEO of Countrywide sold huge amounts of financial securities based on what was obviously bad loans other wise know as bad assets. He took in 1/6th of the companies profits as bonus on top of his huge $125 million dollar six year salary. When I write bad monetary instruments (checks) backed with no assets or false assets in masses I would go to jail for writing bad checks, when he does it he gets filthy rich. If the government is supposed to deliver social justice by irresponsible individuals it needs to be broad reaching and encompass all of it's citizens and corporate entities, not just the poor or disadvantaged. If it does not engage in this equality then "social justice" becomes an illusion catch phrase for social repression, much like modern China.
The hardest part is drawing the line about what is "responsible" behavior in the economic arena. For instance today a business owner called in on a local radio show who raked in a 7 digit income in a successful real estate business, yes he worked 60 hours a week and took a big risk in starting the business, and is responsible for the business. But, does he deserve the 7 figure salary? Would he hire someone to run the business and pay that person the same 7 figure salary, probably not. Does he have people who also work the 60+ hours a week in his business. More then likely but they do not get a 7 figure salary. Who is likely to go first in bad economic times, the owner of the business or some of his employees, most likely the employee. Also the Corporate shield limits the owners and operators liability under the law. All in all the employees are more in risk of having their income vanish then the owner. So why does he earn a factor of 100 more then his employees? He is not more skilled, not taking more risk, not working any harder then his hardest working employees. Well it is because he owns the business and can set the compensation as low as the market will allow. Is he a bad guy, not really. Did he earn that level of compensation, well no. Other wise each of his employee who worked just as hard as he would get the same compensation. Ownership has it's privileges, is it fair, no, but is how the world operates.
When the inequity of this compensation gets too much and begins to border on abuse that harms or even kills the workers, then it becomes "irresponsible" behavior, and that falls in the duty of the government "to maintain justice" and rectify it. Otherwise it would threaten to unravel the social fabric and domestic harmony of our union. Unfortunately, coming close to a second revolution during the Great Depression our government found it wiser to head off the conflict those inequities created by reducing those inequities through a wealth redistribution long before it gets to the stage of abuse. This answer seems to have worked but in recent years a flood of wealth to the upper levels of our society again threatens that balance and send us into turmoil again.
Frankly, I believe that wealth redistribution downward is a band-aide solution at best. Yes it works, but a more elegant solution is the make more people at the bottom owner's. We need to redistribute the ownership of the means of production, not by entitlement through the government but through work and compensation. I have always tried to own stock in the companies I worked for in essence when I buy a part of the company I am working for myself then. But, far far too many of my fellow Americans can not put aside a small portion of their income, either because they never have enough to cover the bills, never learned the skills of investing, or never been educated (i.e. Rich Dad/ Poor Dad book) I loved my IRA (despite the markets down turn, what a wonderful buying opportunity!!!) and think it is the one right thing the administration has done. I am hoping that no matter who gets elected expounds on the idea. If there is to be a tax cut to 90% of Americans it should be funneled into personal IRA's of our Citizenship. I also see problems with Unions in that they are a good concept but lousy execution of an idea. I think a union instead of making workers pay dues should have every member in a corporation buy 5% of their income in stock and collectively pooled their voting power. No need for strikes, no need inequity in compensation, plenty of incentive for both the workers and management to see the business succeed.
Next point, Energy policy. Man where to begin. Currently I am working for a company that does fuel management. In the four years in the job I have learned a lot about the petroleum business as the owner/CEO worked for Citgo for 17 years before starting the business. So lets get rid of a few myths.
You can not use oil as a intermediary step to alternative fuels. What? why not? you ask. Ok First things first the main exploratory company for off shore drilling is Trans Oceanic and if you read their annual report you will find there is a 5 year back log on their ships so even opening the coast of Florida to drilling the exploratory drilling will not happen for another 5 to 7 years. Ok what about a new company starting up and drilling the exploration wells. Hmmm, well if you read the dry bulk shipper and oil shipping annual reports you will find they do not have enough ships and there is a world wide backlog of 10 years in new ship construction. Ok, how about the oil wells capped off California that have already been drilled. Better, now you are thinking, but wait all the oil shippers are already contracted out to 2015 contracts and with the back log in ship construction well that will not change for many years. Ok how about a pipeline? Well nice idea but there are few refineries in California you would have to create a pipeline to Oregon halfway across the US to Texas or Louisiana. The Alaskan pipeline ran around 900 miles and took 4 years to accomplish. Oh wait the refineries in the US are at capacity and we import 17% of our gas from abroad, and refineries take 10 years from inception, capitalization, to construction. This is why oil companies have to plan 7 years in advance to exploit new finds.
Natural Gas is a much better idea no need for a refinery and there are still a lot of natural gas reserves on land and accessible. But what you make up in ease of drilling and processing you have problems with distribution and consumption. You have to create a transport, new cars that run on it, new storage facilities, all the problems we have for the use of ethanol and would have with hydrogen.
Wind and Solar due to recent innovations are now cost in line with oil when it was around $150 a barrel (see above rant to see it is going back there in less then 6 months) Wind actually cost less per watt if you remove subsidies for both oil and wind. Plus a wind farm can be up and running in less then a year from capitalization to production, mainly because all the components have far less bottleneck for roll out. But, currently our national electric grid can not handle peak production of the wind farms we have and often have to be shut down when the wind blows too strongly. Wind and solar is also not a constant source, when it is dark and the wind is not blowing you have to get energy from somewhere to fill in the holes. With an electric grid that is regional in regulation with 500 local utilities, municipalities and regulation agencies in charge. This makes modernization and upgrades a nightmare to enact as the grid is interconnected.
Nuclear, great energy source but it is expensive once you add in the processing and disposal of nuclear material. Also again 10 year delay between inception and production. Good news is a new process involving high speed centrifuges that will allow old fuel rods to be reprocess and recycled to provide more useful fuel is in the works.
Coal, again great power source we have in abundance, but there is no real way to burn coal cleanly. Clean coal technology reprocess coal to remove sulfur and other impurities that create ash and poisonous by products and the new double furnace power plants are highly efficient at burning all the other impurities out before going up the smokestack. This is great new coal plants that throw out a fraction of the soot, sulphur dioxide, and cyanide that plants of old used to. But the plants still chug out a ton of CO2.
Both candidates have wisely revised their plans as they became more and more informed about the realities of the energy economy. Now both hold to using nuclear, coal, oil, wind, solar as part of their energy plans but emphasize sound bites that play to their party base.
On the energy rant one point I would like to make. I am a conservationalist not an environmentalist. While CO2 is a green house gas it is not the most prevalent or fastest accumulating of the green house gases. That would be water vapor. CO2 can be redirected to underground natural gas or oil deposits for disposal or filtered through algae tanks that can be used to make biodiesel or ethanol. That makes CO2 accumulation a problem that can be "solved", water vapor on the other hand you can't because it is being released in large part by respiration and evaporation. Global Warming has a multitude of causes as well, following American scientific and popular science I am well aware of increased sun activity, lowering of refractory aspect of the ice sheet, water retention from particulates in the atmosphere, etc. Industrial dumping of CO2 in the atmosphere is certainly not helping and is already making a bad situation worse but it is not going to be the apocalypse people keep spouting. Worse it could reverse in the blink of the eye and we could be throw into an ice age, take in example the "Year of Poverty" of 1816 where the previous 4 years there was three major volcanic eruptions ending with the eruption of Mount Tambora that culminated in a drastic reduction of global temperatures for decades. It is worth finding solutions for the problems of global climate change but it should be placed in perspective and understand nature can upset the apple cart and render all our work moot as it has done from time to time.
Ok sorry for going off topic, but what it boils down to it both candidates are big spend and tax candidates with no real plans for cutting government spending. McCain talks a good game but there is no details aside from cutting the 18 billion in pork barrel projects (btw those pork projects create jobs and boost local economies) With a 400 billion deficit in the regular budget, 125 billion in extra funds for the war operations, now add the 85 billion to AIG (plus 35 billion later), 700 billion in bailouts (add another 200 billion in riders), and the car companies wants billions too. McCain's 18 billion is a good start but where is he going to cut out almost the 2 trillion from the next budget to balance it, plus uphold the Bush taxes cuts (he never promised to cut taxes, just not let the cuts expire) with out increasing tax burdens today or forcing it upon our children. Both are socialists, clear from McCain comments in 2000 and Sarah Palin's massive income redistribution efforts in Alaska, and that if you ignore the income redistribution efforts of the past 8 years to the top 1% of our wealthiest citizens. It is clear untargeted tax cuts to corporation do help small business create and maintain jobs. But does a lousy job of providing an incentive for big industry to do the same, in fact it provides an incentive to cut jobs and ship wealth overseas and provide jobs to foreign countries. Since the big industries make the lion share of total profits in the US our government has effectively rewarded those big business for cutting jobs in America out sourcing them to India, and China and shipping investment capital overseas, while slitting the budgetary throats of the government. Also, the IRS estimates that the wealthiest companies and citizens hide at least 11% of their income from the evidence they collect and admits that the estimates is probably very low because the companies and citizens have the resources to confound their investigative efforts. Warren Buffet a man that is notorious about paying his taxes was on CNBC several months ago and pointed out legally he was paying less then 17% on his income and the next best of his employees was at 32%. Clearly, if the ideology of cut taxes on the investment class would encourage business, create jobs, and was the most effect method to do so then why did the US lag China, India, Brazil, and all of Europe in economic growth during those last 8 years? The reality is the economy is worse off with out a doubt from this philosophy, if you exclude the false economy of housing for the last 8 years caused by the raping of pension funds in the 80's then the economy has actually been in decline for all 8 of those years. I am not saying I agree with all of Obama's policies, and in fact since both of the candidates are identically bad in this regard of going after failed policies of the past (raised minimum wages, tax cuts for the middle class, etc). In my opinion we are screwed economically because Obama and McCain are both bad for the economy period and the Democratic practical model is no better than the Republican practical model because they are identical with the only difference being which political bottoms they repay for getting them into the position of power. But, at least with Obama I will be a direct recipient of the political pay off and I will have a more vital, more steady, more intelligent, and more charismatic man who shows some impressive leadership skills at the helm.
Respectively,
BlackPhx
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RE: On What Basis Will You Choose? - 
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