Originally Posted by spence (Post 939657)

...while the majority are good people.

spence

Originally Posted by spence (Post 939657)

With any macro scale plan you're going to get waste. There will always be welfare cheats, Medicare fraud etc...while the majority are good people.

Same goes for business. Less regulation and responsible companies will benefit from the flexibility yet still do the right thing...and others will just pollute more or pass risk onto others to make a buck.

I don't see much difference.

-spence

Originally Posted by spence (Post 939457)

No, he's talking about the uber rich who believe they don't have to play by the same rules as everybody else.

Agree or not it's a strong line of attack against Romney.

-spence

Originally Posted by justplugit (Post 939710)

BTW, how does having $$$ take away from not being qualified for
being a good canidate or President?

Remember Kerry, Kennedy, Roosevelt, George Washington?
I don't remember the fact they were wealthy detracted from them running or being elected.

Just another example by the left to try and divide, playing on jealousey and entitlement thinking.

Originally Posted by RIROCKHOUND (Post 939721)

It isn't about wealth. Or jealousy or entitlement. It remains about opportunity. Case in point re: opportunity.
I heard an interesting take on the Facebook IPO. lots of people made lots of money yesterday, BUT (with the Painter and other exceptions) MOST who made a lot of money already HAD a lot of money to invest in the first place (i.e. Bono). Kudos to them for taking the risk, but unless you had 10's of millions to invest in the first place, the opportunity for, say me, to have invested a few 10's of K in it as a start up and then make a lot of money isn't there. It is tough to feel like the game isn't rigged to those who already have a lot of money to begin with....

This is like saying that existence is rigged. There is nothing you or the government can do about what species you were born into. The game seems to be rigged for humans. There is nothing you or the government can do about Jupiter's unpropitious distance from the sun. There is no way to have less fortunately endowed people be reborn with the genes necessary to play professional sports, or be mathematical wizards, or possess the drive and desire to accumulate wealth, or even to be reborn into a family that had accumulated wealth. So, what should be done? Give everybody 10's of K so they can invest more easily? Not feasible, and even if it were, would most invest it or spend it, and of those that did invest, would they succeed? Or should we just make it more difficult for those that have the 10's of K to invest to make it more fair? If life were "fair," life as we know it would not exist. I can imagine a bland total equality of all things so boring as not to be worth existing. No adventure, no diversity, no wonder, no striving, no reason for anything else except your inconsequential solipsistic self mirrored by the rest of existence. What is so evil about INVITING those that have wealth to invest it? Isn't that a good way to redistribute it, a more creative, diverse way than disincentivising such investment by taxing it at the same rates as income? We keep talking about investing--in education, in health, in opportunity--but somehow investing in wealth, which makes all the other nice investments possible, is not so important?

JFK, Roosevelt etc.. at least had the ability to (or appear to) connect with the middle class, to understand the plight. I don't think Romney appears that way. Even Regan had the ability to connect with blue-collar workers.

I don't think Obama does either. He connects well with the so-called the liberal elite.

I think Biden does connect, very well, which makes him valuable to the election cycle and image of the whitehouse

Originally Posted by buckman (Post 939665)

I couldn't disagree more.

Originally Posted by detbuch (Post 939591)

When the government extends its hand full of cash and goodies, takers will gladly empty what becomes a fist to those who must pay. And the demand will outgrow the supply as the "group" (which the federal gvt. is not constitutionally authorized to "help" beyond what it is granted to do for everybody equally) grows as it naturally will.

Originally Posted by justplugit (Post 939691)

You can do away with most of the freeloading by restricting participants to show proof every 2 weeks where they have looked for a job by listing the companies and telephone #s of where they looked as they go to pick up their checks at a govenmrnt office, not walk down to their mailboxes and collect a check. Then there should be proof of citizenship to vote.
Those would be big steps forward, but what politcian would go along with either of these?

Originally Posted by justplugit (Post 939710)

BTW, how does having $$$ take away from not being qualified for
being a good canidate or President?

Remember Kerry, Kennedy, Roosevelt, George Washington?
I don't remember the fact they were wealthy detracted from them running or being elected.

Just another example by the left to try and divide, playing on jealousey and entitlement thinking.

Originally Posted by spence (Post 939755)

You could say the same about manufacturing or power generation. Nobody should have the right to pollute, but if given the opportunity history has proven that they will...and a lot.

What's that got to do with your saying that freeloaders don't have the ability to rig the game? What is their freeloading a product of if not some rigging? And if they don't have that ability, then somebody is rigging for them. And "history has proven" that politicians promise and give goodies for votes, so "groups" of voters have the power to rig by holding their vote as ransome for goodies. Besides, the "right" to pollute, as far as I know, was not considered an unalienable one by the founders, so could only be a right if it was granted by government. Unalienable rights, such as life, liberty and pursuit of happiness were considered unalienable if they did not impinge on others right to the same. Government can giveth or taketh away the "right," to pollute, and it does. Nor is freeloading an unalienable "right." But government can provide legislation that provides it.

The people subsidize the business behavior with their health.

People do not subsidize business with their health. That's the type of "interpretation" of words and language that progressives have used to neutralize constitutional limitations on government and transform rights from being unalienable to being granted by government. People don't directly subsidize business, and only do so (when it's done) indirectly through government which uses their confiscated taxes. Or, more commonly, by lowering taxes on business, either as corrupt crony capitalism, or to motivate business. The people's health can be a benefit to business only if the people are healthy enough to earn an income and spend it on business products ,or if sick, gain a government subsidy (at the expense of business or other tax payers) to spend it on business products. But either is commerce, not a subsidy.

I think the difference is that the elite seek to rig for profit while the non-elite seek to maintain a minimum threshold. The freeloaders are a bi-product of both systems...

Nobody will dispute the obvious. By definition, there is a difference between elite and non-elite. BTW, the non-elite are comprised of the largest segment of our population, and the largest portion of that segment does not merely seek to maintain a minimum threshhold, but strives for and enjoys a much higher standard of comforts. And a difference between elites seeking profit and non-elites seeking to maintain a minimum threshold, is that profit seeking promotes business and the wealth that makes possible assistence to the poor. The poor don't contribute to the formation of wealth, but can only profit from wealth created by others. Which is not to excuse the collusion between powerful businesses and government, but that also doesn't mean that there is not a collusion between non-elites and other special interests and government via distribution and legislation for votes

It is an election.

-spence

Originally Posted by RIROCKHOUND (Post 939721)

It isn't about wealth. Or jealousy or entitlement. It remains about opportunity. Case in point re: opportunity.
I heard an interesting take on the Facebook IPO. lots of people made lots of money yesterday, BUT (with the Painter and other exceptions) MOST who made a lot of money already HAD a lot of money to invest in the first place (i.e. Bono). Kudos to them for taking the risk, but unless you had 10's of millions to invest in the first place, the opportunity for, say me, to have invested a few 10's of K in it as a start up and then make a lot of money isn't there. It is tough to feel like the game isn't rigged to those who already have a lot of money to begin with....

Originally Posted by detbuch (Post 939729)

The problem with perception being reality is that it often is not. This business of image that is fostered by media spin is a pernicious method of giving us leaders who appear to "connect" with us, but neither do they really, nor does it matter if they do. The job of running the Federal Government is not to connect with a sector of the population, but to allow all sectors to function as freely as possible from the coercion of government. That is, if we truly believe in freedom.

Originally Posted by spence (Post 939754)

Were you talking about businesses?

-spence

Originally Posted by spence (Post 939757)

But that's exactly Biden's point. The elite can use their incredible leverage to trump the public interest.



-spence

Originally Posted by spence (Post 939760)

It's a targeted attack because Romney's own personality portrays him as an elite and out of touch.

-spence

Originally Posted by spence (Post 939760)

If anything it's a much less nasty version of the effort to portray Obama as a Kenyan and out of touch with American values.

-spence

Originally Posted by scottw (Post 940063)

probably just an "oversight"...for 16 years...I mean...who checks their own bio for accuracy anyways? :uhuh: