america wakens?

American way of thinking is one wild thing!

The question is not whether (public) services are produced publicly or privately. The question is whether services are produced efficiently (economically) per service user. In my mind, good public services belong to everyone and in long term benefit the whole society (safety, helthiness). For instance, social welfare and crime statistics correlate extremely well (compare e.g. USA and Nordic countries).

Private companies, as a rule of thumb, are slightly more efficient in producing services. However, more than often the advantage gained by "buyers" goes down the sink in a form of profit margins. There isn't enough competition (between companies) in the market to ensure public services being produced efficiently for everyone.

Economies of scale rule in cases where majority of population use a ("public") service, like health care, police (versus private safety firms and walled areas for the rich), fire department (how well it worked when they were private ), sewage, parks (even stadiums.. to some extend), roads and railroads.

Jim, you can't kill all the trolls at once. Leave them to the backwater villages they emerged from in the first place.

Donald Rumsfeld after resigning.


This is admitting that they never had a solid plan, even by their own standards, and still today do not know how to deal with the situation.
This also was one of the main points of the countries that opposed the war from the beginning...

The lies and misguidance from this administration are a million times worse in importance and impact, nationally and internationally, than Nixon's Watergate and Clinton's Cigargate put together.

How is the President not taken down from his seat after this?


Ponrauil

You said you want a republican government to assure you don't pay too much taxes. Unless you are filthy rich this republican government will not cater to your wishes of minimizing taxes. No matter what they say to cloud your judgment.

perhaps. Perhaps we should just prioritize and ELECT people who put children before bombs? Let's put our taxes to where it really counts!

Not to be a smart ass, but how do you think YOU will homeschool a couple of kids while working your butt off in a quest to get rich - you being smart and successful will help, but it still will take a lot of sweat equity and hours away from your children. I actually do know some women who homeschool it is very much a full-time job for them. They usually hire someone to do some houswork and no way would they be able to put some 60 hours a week in at that attorneys job. Just saying.....

Though I am not saying homeschooling and/or private schools are bad. Unfortunately, only a minority of the population are financially and mentally able to take advantage of this. In my area, the average private school is around $15,000. You do not get a tax-break on that money, so that means one need to make about $20K to send ONE child to private school. In real life terms, that means a hell of a lot of money on top of your mortgage and nursery home for that old mother and about another $15K for that toddler in daycare and so forth.....

Again, for arguments sake, let's assume YOU will make enough money to have your wife stay home and take care of the household AND homeschool your kids (let's hope she has no ambitions of her own, cause you've already planned out what her job is ). Do you really know how homeschooling works? Most work is indeed taught at home - however, once we get to a middle school and high school level, there are many classes/subjects that are absolutely impossible to teach at home. Chemistry being one. Unless, of course, you are so rich to convert that oversized garage to a chemistry lab and have the time and desire to brush up on advanced physics and math and foreign languages, your home schooled kids will, at times, 'drumroll please' attend PUBLIC SCHOOLS. *gasp*

Now what exactly are our existing public school teachers/administrators/janitors/kitchen people do when we stop funding public schools cause SOME people don't like them? Should they go unemployed cause not all private schools will be able to absorb them since the majority of the population will just stop sending their kids to school or home school them as they don't have that $20K spending money left from their paycheck after paying for mortgages and electric bills and food... Who do you think will pay for those goods you are in the business of selling when we have even less people with a paycheck?

Sure why not be totally ridiculous and proposterous? Seems to be the way Corporate America is run. I attended a meeting put on by the CFO of a Fortune 500 company. The CFO was asked about offshoring more and more jobs to India and China and how that impacted how the customer views the company. The CFOs response was utterly shocking to me. He said that Americans are getting too lazy and too greedy to employ. Well, he kinda phrased it a bit differently but he did say that Americans expect too high a paycheck and too many benefits and, thus, they aren't acting in their own best interest and pretty much force the company to move jobs offshore. I went home and looked up his salary: $400K salary and about $400 in bonus and oodles of stock options. Given that the average employee makes less then a 10th of his annual salary, I'd like to suggest to offshore our executives. I am absolutely certain that there are MANY highly intelligent, highly educated, highly motivated, highly ethical, and highly ambitious Indians willing to take on the jobs at a mere fraction of the CFOs compensation. I say, keep the engineers here and outsource the executive levels since we are talking about expecting high pay....

Anyway, obviously nobody suggests that the minimum wage should be $50, but certainly we can all agree that people should be paid a decent amount for their work. Decent enough to feed, clothe, educate, purchase health care and save for retirment for every single worker. Whatever that is. To propose to **** people economically so that you or I can make more money is simply appalling.

No, I don't think you will get laid off if your company pays a decent amount per hour. Will your products go up in price? Probably. I see nothing wrong with paying a certain price for a product IF that means people don't get raped economically and IF that means that I don't accumulate crap and possessions on the backs of people less 'smart and successful'.

As far as who deserves what pay: who are you to make that decision? Why do you think that the berry picker who works 14 hours a day in the blazing heat and freezing rain, hunched over, ruining his health within a couple of years, deserves less money than the bank teller in her pretty outfit and freshly painted fingernails typing on a computer in a climate controlled building and nice benefits package? Who do you think you are (or anyone else for that matter) and judge peoples worth in dollars?

I make a good salary and my firms charges an embarrassing hourly rate for my services. I've worked hard and have degrees - made sacrafices on personal level to get where I am at. Yet, not even in my dreams, would I envy a lucky entrepreneur with no education who got lucky in the stock market or had this great idea of opening a restaurant and now is filthy rich. Nor would I ever tell the migrant workers they don't deserve my salary, while I sit in my suit in my office looking out at the Puget Sound. I am not worried about losing my job (though I've survived many rounds of lay-offs - none due to a raise in minimum wage, by the way) simply because somebody is finally getting paid enough to buy shoes for their children.

Unless you go and fight poverty in Africa, do not put yourself and your skills above anybody else. You simply got lucky having been born in the right corner of the world and to the right parents with opportunities to make a comfortable living. Plenty of smart people are living in poverty.

Apparently you don't know this: most illegal immigrants work AND pay taxes. There is no reason to come here illegally and NOT work as the illegal immigrants CANNOT take advantage/use most of the services provided by their own and your tax dollars. Illegal immigrants will never get social security. Illegal immigrants will never be able to get medicare or medicaid. Children of illegal immigrants will not be able to get a job they deserve with their college degree because they by default are illegally in this country!!! Illegal immigrants do not live lavishly paid for by YOUR tax dollars.

What is it with the immigrant bashing? You have enough white trash in your own backyard to keep you quiet for a few generations. [I know you said 'this goes for everyone else' --- so why point the finger to the immigrants and add the 'everyone else' as an afterthough?]

How? What exactly do you disagree with me on my rant about the economic value of a stadium?

No there isn't. There is also ALWAYS the need to question and evaluate how/what/why certain taxes are in place and it is our job as people to raise those questions and demand answers. I am all for that, but please, let's look at the questions and answers from all possible angles and hold those that are truly responsible accountable and not persecute some scapegoats because it's so much easier.

Perhaps you can accomplish this, but make sure you will not sell your books to anyone using that stadium or deriving any economic benefit from the renovation. In fact, you might want to provide your publisher along with Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, and every other bookstore with a loooong list of people who worked on the renovation (and taking home wages), selling food and beverages in the booths (people taking home a paycheck and vendors such as coca cola and pizza hut and ALL their employees who derive revenues and again wages and salaries), restaurants, parking lots, etc.... Cause you don't want the sales tax to pay for the stadium, then surely you don't want the economic value generated to help trickle some cash into your pockets from the revenues of that book you will be selling.

Deal?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Spunkywho perhaps. Perhaps we should just prioritize and ELECT people who put children before bombs? Let's put our taxes to where it really counts!

Not going to fight you there.

Re:Homeschooling/Private schooling. I never said abolish public schools, I was merely expressing my frustration with paying for services I've never used and will never use. While points can be made on both sides of that argument, it's not my concern.

I've seen homeschooling done through middle and highschool, and have seen it work. Probably couldn't have 20 years ago, but the internet's a great thing. Obviously it's not for people who don't want to spend the time at it, or who want to accumulate the same level of stuff that they could with two parents working. But again, I've seen homeschooling families work out with just one parent working.

I have no doubt that a stadium has great economic value. However, you yourself said it was injust to use public funds to help out a private enterprise. What are we disagreeing about here?

Re:Executives. I can sympathize somewhat. I've run into a fair share of over-paid jerks (more than likely less than you) who are constantly trying to justify their expensive existance to their company. They really irk me when they act like God's gift to selling, despite the fact that they were probably hired INTO that position instead of advancing through the ranks.

That's not to say that I think someone who works hard and advances through their company doesn't deserve more than the shelf stocker, but...

Re:Minimum wage. I think jobs should pay what people are willing to work for a position. What kind of regulation there is something we can dispute up one hill and down another. I don't think that some Congresscritter can make a (good) judgement call for every business and every position and every person in the nation.

Adrian