Runyan99

By the way, we can afford some of this social spending. I admit, debt ratios were under control for decades after things like unemployment insurance and social security were put in place. What we are seeing now however in places like California and some of the European states is a tipping point where the social spending can no longer be paid for. Eventually, the tendency is clearly to vote for more services pensions and safety nets than can ever be made good. What are the unfunded social security liabilities? Five trillion? Where will that come from?

There was a crash and a bad business cycle for sure. Of course today we don't stand for that. People go on unemployment, industries get bailouts, and it all goes on the Federal tab. That is until one day, when the government can no longer borrow, and then prints money until we take our wheelbarrows to market, and at that point the whole shell game is over. Yes I do advocate economic lassez faire over interventionism, debt and monetary meltdown. Sure North Korea has no stock market crashes and no recessions. How are they doing?

I admit I am surprised at the high level of those top tax rates for many years. More important to look at debt to GDP I think. Those bounced between 20 to 40 percent except for the WW2 years. Since the 1980s however, the story has been nothing but a steady climb, as we know approach the Greek or Italy like 100 percent ratio.

Well in my fantasy Presidency I'd like to roll back American government to about the 1920s. That was before FDR tried to repeal the business cycle through legislation and government work projects, and the socialist ideas of one V.I. Lenin began to creep into the politics of Europe and America. At that time, there was certainly inequality, but there was also unprecedented opportunity. I don't have the numbers at hand. What do you suppose the federal debt to GDP ratio was in the 20s and 30s? How about for the state of California? What about the tax rates? I'm guessing all were lower than today.

Hey the people need food. The government already owns General Motors and will soon control the hospitals, might as well get the State Farms up and running too.

Of course, the government is already involved in most life sustaining business. FDA, FHA, Fannie and Freddie. All we lack is a Federal Clothing Authority. And by the way, it has nothing to do with California, but I'll mention it because it was part of Gunner's rant against capital and fits in well at this point. Government money and policy fueled the housing boom and bust here in America. Fannie and Freddie borrowed money with an implicit government guarantee, and then used the money to buy up mortgages, which thereby begat more lending in the industry for housing. Sure the "evil" bankers went along for the ride, but low rates from the Fed and these government agencies were the prime movers in the boom and bust. Now that we know the loans are bad, and FNM and FRE are nationalized, the taxpayer is now on the hook for practically every bad mortgage in America. One more example of the dangers of getting politicians involved with a large segment of the economy in the name of egalitarianism.

Since the Founding Fathers didn't immediately enact a Federal Healthcare system, I rather think they meant you are entitled to Life, in the strictest sense that the state cannot deprive you of life without due process. If being entitled to Life is to mean the citizen is entitled to every good or service required to sustain life, then there is no aspect of our physical existence the state cannot be involved in or providing. You think that's the way to go?

You guys are wearing me down, I don't know if I can spit into the wind much longer, but consider this - I'm sure the Greeks thought their social spending was "reasonable" right up until the prevent day, when nobody would lend to them anymore and they needed a bailout.

Regardless, I find it terrible that your school wants to take a nation founded on principles of individual liberty, and collectivize it. If freedom fosters inequality, your schemes will give birth to other suppressive evils.

By that reasoning, any minority voting group is wholly at the mercy of the government. Assuming C has a say, that still shouldn't mean anything goes. Even in abstract you are quick to deny C his right to liberty and property, which I find ugly.

Yes. That's the Forgotten Man, the man who pays. A and B empower themselves, but only at the expense of C. That's what's onerous about all this redistribution. Further, from an economic perspective, C becomes increasingly disincentivized to produce resources that he knows will be given to D, and so production declines in proportion. Eventually, there may be nothing to give to D.

To answer your above question, the strictest role of government as laid out in the US Constitution, is to provide law and enforce said law, and to provide for the defense of the citizens. There isn't anything I see in the Constitution about providing anything beyond that to the citizens. Of course the creep of services provided, from the Post Office and now healthcare, are in increasing source of both burden and power to the state and federal governments. When to stop? California, for it's part, has already taken on more services than it can manage or pay for.

I just cannot comprehend your position Gunnergoz. More important, the California legislature more or less seems to share your view of business, which is to say, it is a source of inequality and evil, which needs to me saddled to government. As I see it, demonizing and crippling business, wealth, and wealth creators isn't likely to improve our lives going forward. California is broke, more than 80 billion in debt. Taxes are high, about the highest in the nation, excepting possibly NY. At the same time, the economy is stagnant and unemployment is relatively high. And your only solutions are more of the same? Break business and get the government more involved in people's lives? Make sure the government is providing for people? I can't understand that. Putting resources in the hands of the government will not lead to a more prosperous state. I'm not a big Glenn Beck watcher, but I am sure he and I would agree that sort of philosopy wasn't what this nation was founded on. The government was never designed to provide for its citizens. That's a 20th century idea, tried many times in many places, but it has always led to debt and failure, and in extreme cases poverty. California is one battleground, but the future of entire nation is at stake in this war of ideas. I'm sure the socialists will win in the long run, because promising voters 'stuff' is a winning electoral strategy, but I'm not optimistic for the outcomes.

Alrighty, Comrade Commissar. You are truly representative of the intellectual avant guard that is leading the People's Republic of California into the 21st Century.

It says Los Angeles right next to my post count. Don't ignore some demographic realities in your narrative of class struggle. You can confiscate all the property of the rich and pay every LAUSD teacher a million dollars a year, and the children of illegal immigrant Mexican peasants will still drop out of high school at a high rate. There are social and cultural issues at play that your philosophy doesn't comprehend.

That's crazy, the whole paragraph. The good news is, if you want more taxes and more state spending, you will almost certainly get it.

The "What about us" handout mentality, the ever increasing taxation, and the unchecked unskilled immigration are what ails California. You know California has a hugely disproportionate number of the entire nation's welfare recipients? Prop 13 Gunner G? Wasn't that the property tax bill? Oh yeah, I'm sure more property taxes would really ignite the economy in this state. Just more burden on business and homeowners, in order to patronize the teachers and the welfare recipients: cash for votes. And soon, it's coming to a state near you. It's Greece Redux with a two or three decade lag.

North Korea threatens war about once a month.

Ostfront will be available promptly. Scheduled release is for the year 2024.

The answer is obvious, but it's impolitic to say. Arabs and Persians, or at least a plurality of them, are terribly intolerant of Jews, which is why there are a handful of synogogues in Iran, and zero in Saudi Arabia. Of course, that's why the Israeli state was created in the first place.

The enemy of your enemy is your friend. My view is that Israel is an island of Western culture and values in a land filled with, to be blunt, rather backward bedouins, who violently oppose Western secularism and liberal government. As such, it deserves Western support, partucularly as it was created after WW2 by the mandate of the victorious Western Allied powers. In that light, I think to abandon Israel to the fates, as many in the American left would seem to prefer, would be an ugly and counter-productive thing to do. The same leftists who give lip service to secular government and liberal lawmaking seem strangely disinterested in promoting those values abroad, and most especially in the case of Israel.

June 6th? You mean the day HBO premiered Sex in the City? Why would that be significant? http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/sex-and-the-city-premieres-on-hbo

Wow. Soon I'll have 49 idle cores. How sexy.

Hope all you like, but human nature dictates that is never going to happen. In a world of limited land and resources there will be fights once some group ends up on the short end of the stick. Once that happens, the laws go out the window. Always have, always will. The only international law is jungle law. It's the Wild West, and if there is a sheriff in town, he works with his own agenda too. It seems clear to me you cannot have international law without real World Government that can enforce such law in the way that police and courts enforce civilian law. But certainly such World Government does not exist, and indeed is something that many would fear and oppose.

International law is nonsense. Sovereign nations are not subject to any agreement they choose not to be a party to. That's where the guns come in.