RE: Sailing the Seas of Ideology

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CrappyDom -> RE: Sailing the Seas of Ideology (8/26/2006 2:29:28 PM)
Rich, I think the first step is one you have clearly taken and I certainly hope I have. Admitting that our current system may not be perfect and has flaws. We need a tax code that rewards long term economic decisions that benefit the American worker. We need laws that do not reward CEOs from reaping massive benefits at the expense of the workers, if the company tanks, pensions should be funded before golden parachutes. Tax laws should not benefit companies that make profit here but export that profit offshore Health care, at least preventative medicine should be paid for through taxes. This makes all medical costs cheaper for everyone in the long run because people are healthier in general. Public utilities have long been cheaper and better run than private ones like PG&E.

Archer -> RE: Sailing the Seas of Ideology (8/26/2006 2:49:14 PM)
Welllets see Hunters and Fishermen were one of the first groups to go with volentary liscenecing systems as well as bag limits, long before any of the "greens" complained about sustainability, they did it, including a self imposed tax on thier goods to ensure the land was bought for public use including hunting and fishing. Back then conservation started, as a result of them wanting susatainability. (Ducks Unlimited, Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, etc). Oh yes Oil so cheap to get, except you have to find it thousands of feet under the surface sight unseen, exploratory drilling is far from cheap. BTW going buy reported (profits X profit margins) The 10 billion profits that Exxon/Mobil had last quarter cost them 200 billion in operating costs to get. And it's a hell of alot harder to do that drilling and moving to market of oil that just sucking it out of the ground, safety costs, labor, scientists, construction, governmental costs, environmental costs, laboratories to figure out how to get out the tough oil, the stuff that is a thick sludge rather than a thin oil. Maybe some don't know it but the quality of oil varies greatly from one field to the next. That's one reason we tend to stay with the oil from Iraq/ Kuwait/ Saudi Arabia, when refined it gives a higher percentage of light products, Heating oil, Deisel, Gasoline Etc, if I recall about 75% of the barrel, when compared to West Texas Oil that may produce 60% light products, That 15% makes a big difference, which is why if you look at the commodity market you see crude oil sold with name locations.

Archer -> RE: Sailing the Seas of Ideology (8/26/2006 3:12:22 PM)
Government controled utilities only do well in places where competition is limited or non existant, markets of that nature are the only place where they survive. If they had to compete heads up level field with private utilities companies without the subsidies from anything but thier product, but utilities are a captive market. Want to make healthcare affordable and responsive, get the company out of the insurance equation, the benifit should be gotten rid of shifted to cash equivolent and let the employee buy insurance from whoever they wish. That way the insurace company is no longer trying to make the deal with the head of HR and keeping an eye on the company's business when making decissions on what healthcare their employees need. Want to ensure that it gets used for insurance instead of spent on a bass boat, make Health Insurance tax deductable with a reciept for insurance coverage. Not just when the company pays for it but when the individual buys it as well. The whole make policy benifit the workers instead of the CEO's is just class warfare CEO's answer to the stock holders not the workers, the stock holders make that decission based on who makes them the most money in the long run. Pensions before Golden parachutes OK I'll buy that any compensation for work done directly as an employee should have first standing in a bankrupcy. Personally I'm supporting the Fair Tax hopeing beyond hope in a deluded pipe dream that the Republicans will send it to the floor for a vote. Solves SS, gets rid of a huge ammount of impetus for lobbies and PACs to be involved in taxation process, and would draw companies from around the world here to open factories and facilties. Also the idea that companies pay taxes at all is crap, only individual people pay taxes, Companies pass the cost along to their consumers or their share holders pay for it in lower returns. Corporations may be where it is collected but it comes out of someone elses pocket in the long run.

seeksfemslave -> RE: Sailing the Seas of Ideology (8/26/2006 3:22:43 PM)
I think this thread is very interesting but all this angst being expressed in trying to find "isms" that are the solution to the difficulties that face many is doomed to failure. Some form of pragmatic cooperation, it seems to me is required, but this will flounder on what that really means. Its just a debate that has run for many years in the past and no doubt will run long into the future. No harm in trying I suppose. Best not to try to kill one another if you cant agree though.

CrappyDom -> RE: Sailing the Seas of Ideology (8/26/2006 10:11:33 PM)
Archer, I hate to break into your freshman college econ 1A class but public utilites are often cheaper than private ones. In my area, they are even going after another PG&E market and not only do they offer cheaper rates, they do so by being green, using alternative energies, and aggressive support for energy efficient appliances. As for healthcare, when this nation puts as much priority on keeping people healthy as it does on keeping old men's dicks hard, we might get somewhere. As for class warfare and CEO's, I take it you don't know about the attempts to keep large pension funds from exercising control of CEO's salaries through various legal manuverings. Funny how some people LOVE the market unless it interferes with THEM then it is BAD...Just look at how many stockholders have sued to little avail over various sweetheart deals for CEO who FUCKED the stockholders. How many executives lost their asses at Enron, WorldCom, or any of the other scandals? As for your grasp of how companies pay taxes, you might try reading a little book called "Perfectly Legal", it was a best seller by a writer for the NYT who won a Pullitzer for his writing. Shocking and infuriating is the only way to describe it.

Chaingang -> RE: Sailing the Seas of Ideology (8/26/2006 10:25:05 PM)
Ah, an American youth... Libertarianism is fun when you are 15-20 years of age. Ayn Rand's Objectivism seems to also make sense. Then you realize what the world is really like and that you are standing on the shoulders of giants and that there is a whole social network that lifts you to a highly affluent level as opposed to people elsewhere in the world. Then you realize that Ayn Rand was full of shit and wildly reactionary to the peculiar circumstances of her own youth. At the same time you realize that there are hundreds of things you get for free and that Libertarianism carried to an extreme would mean you'd have to pay for them ALL THE FUCKING TIME instead. Then it all falls apart and you realize you are 25 and still an ignorant doofus that doesn't know his own ass from a hole in the ground. How well I remember it...

NorthernGent -> RE: Sailing the Seas of Ideology (8/27/2006 5:26:17 AM)
Unless of course you have swallowed a line hook, line and sinker it would be hard to put yourself into a category. Values are far more important than an ideology or label. My values probably puts me on the border of Socialist/Liberal but doesn't really mean anything as it's just a term. What I like about Socialism is that those I have spoken with who consider themselves Socialists are concerned with humanitarianism, social justice and internationalism. What I don't like about Socialism is that in some areas of economic policy they are not as international as they are on social issues. I absolutely detest Conservative politics and all it stands for (I have British Conservatives in mind here) and would rather stick pins in my eyes than entertain these people as their values are at their core dictated by self-interest. Regards

CrappyDom -> RE: Sailing the Seas of Ideology (8/27/2006 7:39:54 AM)
Chain, I came into the middle of an NPR show where they were discussing a study of the stockbrokers called "rainmakers" the kind that just make tons of money. The study tracked them as they left their original firm and went to another. Almost invariably they tanked and the study found that they had built their success on the backs of many from their original firm and when they lost those connections, they tanked. The studies being done on animal sentience have also started finding some interesting things. There is some support out there pointing to humans having only a marginal higher intelligence than animals but that we have the ability to pass more knowledge on to the next generation so that what makes us smart isn't "us" but the accumulated knowledge developed over thousands of years. I loved Ryand when I read here as a kid too but her books rank up there with GOR novels in my views as an adult.

popeye1250 -> RE: Sailing the Seas of Ideology (8/27/2006 10:59:23 AM)
I don't know what I can be classified as. I think the govt should be doing things that they're not- total border security, much more law enforcement regarding illegal aliens. But I think they're doing things that they shouldn't be doing like having our Troops in more than 130 countries and giving our money to foreign countries in the form of "foreign aid." One thing I am not is a "Globalist". I don't believe in NAFTA, GATT or most other "trade" deals. I think "Globalism" is starting not to work very well and is comming back to bite BOTH the worker and consumer in the ass! I think that all lobbyists should be outlawed! They can sit down at their kitchen table and write a letter to their congressman or senator just like the rest of us can. They don't need any "special access." I believe in the second amendment and ALL the Bill of Rights for that matter. I think there should be a seperation of church and state and big business and state. I believe in capitalism but not what is happening in the country today. I don't like Republicans or Democrats. I REALLY do think it is time for more than two partys in this country. I think the Democrat Party will no longer exist in 10 years. I think the Republican Party will be much smaller than it is today in 10 years. So what does all of that make me?

WyrdRich -> RE: Sailing the Seas of Ideology (8/27/2006 11:21:41 AM)
It makes you the target of much propaganda when we approach a general election Popeye.

Chaingang -> RE: Sailing the Seas of Ideology (8/27/2006 11:44:48 AM)
CD: Or course! You know where this "collective brain" really shows up? In the arts and sciences...nothing is done except that something very like it was done before it. And if you look closely at the various fields of science you quickly discover that everything is built in increments - but I guess everyone wants to be known as the "discoverer" or "inventor" of something and reap the exclusive benefit of that even when their work is based upon research done by others going back perhaps hundreds of years. Hubris? Greed? Huge testicles?

Termyn8or -> RE: Sailing the Seas of Ideology (8/28/2006 4:25:55 AM)
"How do we balance these things to get something better? " Very good question. 1. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. 2. See #1 And friends, as far as I know that is NOT in the bible. Kinda belongs there though. T

Level -> RE: Sailing the Seas of Ideology (8/28/2006 4:34:36 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Termyn8or "How do we balance these things to get something better? " Very good question. 1. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. 2. See #1 And friends, as far as I know that is NOT in the bible. Kinda belongs there though. T Yes, that's in the Bible. And most other religious books have their version, and Confuscious said it before Christ.

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