Would YOU vote for RON PAUL

You are delusional if you think that corporations are not the problem, even more so if you think they can be trusted to be good stewards to the environment. Corporations run our government and if any republican got elected this would get much worst than it is. Financially our system has already failed and would have collapsed 3 years ago if not for massive cash injection of money that did not exist, something that sits squarely on Bushes administration. So instead of seeing everything go to shit in a month or two Bush made it so we can watch the economy slowly die. So its not so much about Obama winning as it is about the republicans losing as again they cannot be trusted to maintain and preserve our wildlife areas,national parks, or any other environmental priorities. But change is coming no matter who gets elected, just a matter of how long it will take.

 

Indie

I’ll ask the same question as before - How did they get a working visa to the US if they had no money and little or no education?

And as pointed out the US has very low (some say basically stagnant) social mobility. Meaning where and to whom you are born is of great importance.

 

Indie

LOL – more evasion

I’ve explained at length and in detail numerous times why your ideas would seem more likely to create a worse rather than better society.

You refuse to address those criticisms and are still refusing to address those criticisms.

As to my ideas being ‘bad’ - you repeatedly make that claim but you never seem able to actually produced any rational or reasonable counter-arguments.

As I’ve explained in the Utopia no just Keynes thread http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/showthread.php?t=328353

Actually the problem is that neo-liberalist ideas are the danger.

 

Indie

Ah spoken like the true Social Darwinist.

Again this simplistic mentality – people are more complex (I’m glad to say) there are varying skills and abilities, but that doesn’t mean one person is superior or inferior to another often the skill sets and abilities a person might show are only down to circumstance or chance. For example to whom you are born can have a very great impact on the choices available to you.

But there never has been and never will be a ‘free market’ - products, services and labour have always been in some way regulated for the betterment of society as a whole.

Take for example child labour or working hours, restrictions on both are good for most people in society but were opposed by the few as ‘restrictions’ on a free market because they made profits out of exploiting people.

 

Indie

Oh dear yet more slogans, misdirection and silly scaremongering - ok to reply to just a couple -

As any corporate stooge would say – I mean as I’ve pointed out tin another thread your ideas would not only perpetuate ‘corporate cronyism’ but increase its strangle hold on US society.

WOW its like a 1950’s propaganda pamphlet from one of those nutty right wing organisations like the John Birch Society oh yes the same organisation Ron Paul has heaped praise on.

 

Yes, corporations AND labor unions DO run our government, and it applies to BOTH Republican or Democrat led governments. If you think it is a problem that can be solved by electing Democrats and not Republicans, then you are the one who is delusional. The massive cash injection, approved by Bush and doubled down on by Obama has only put off for a little longer the failure we have been headed towards for decades now, and when it occurs which it will, is going to be even more devastating.
Change will always occur, but some of us would like to see it be change for the better, and not worse.
The 7 billion and growing population is going is having an enormous impact on the environment, what would you suggest be done to reduce that?

 

Yes, corporations AND labor unions DO run our government, and it applies to BOTH Republican or Democrat led governments. If you think it is a problem that can be solved by electing Democrats and not Republicans, then you are the one who is delusional. The massive cash injection, approved by Bush and doubled down on by Obama has only put off for a little longer the failure we have been headed towards for decades now, and when it occurs which it will, is going to be even more devastating.
Change will always occur, but some of us would like to see it be change for the better, and not worse.
The 7 billion and growing population is having an enormous impact on the environment, what would you suggest be done, if anything at all, to reduce that?

 

I would say that with a growing population its even more important than ever to preserve and add to what environmental gains we have won over corporate greed. Labor unions are a shadow compared to corporate power in government, and indeed judging from the union busting efforts of republicans in Ohio and Wisconsin are the only thing separating the American worker from no benefits and a living wage.

 

They were legal immigrants, who have been granted permanent residence in the U.S. entitled to gain full U.S. citizenship, and as such are not denied the ability to work and support themselves.

While whom you are born to may suffice as an excuse for some, or perhaps many, it has been overused to the point that it does little more than exhibit a lack of personal initiative.

 

Indie

The problem is your ideas you claim you want a better world but as has been explained at length and in detail your ideas are more likely to make things worse for the majority of people while only improving the position of wealth in US society.

Criticism of your views that you seem unable to address which makes your assertion seem suspect.

 

Indie

So how as foreign nationals did they enter the US and gain full US citizenship if they had no money and little or no education?

LOL – in other words you can’t address the criticism of your views, just try and hope no-one notice you sidetracked it.

 

If you are incapable of recognizing the futility in where you now place your support, wait a decade and compare. Things will progressively get worse, but then again someone will likely direct your attention to where to place the blame, probably someone they will identify as a Republican.

 

So your point is to bring down ALL societies of the world in accomplishing your idea of equality? Seven billion equal individuals?

 

Indie

But as explained the problem seems to have been the rise of the neoliberal ideas over the past 30 odd years ideas that you seem in large part to support, a criticism of your viewpoint that you still refuse to address.

 

Funny thats what I said when Bush rammed through his third tax cut and ten years havent even gone by yet. And nobody needs to direct my attention to blame the republicans, their follies have been glaringly apparent as long as I have been alive.

 

In my view the problem began nearly 100 years ago.

 

So you see the problem as inadequate taxes, and I see it as extravagant spending.
Democrats have initiated more social programs than the economy can bear. Simple enough and too the point. Republicans have most often compromised with the Democrats which has only exacerbated the problem. I at least recognize that the change we need is not going to result from either a Democrat or a Republican party led government.

 

Its not the social programs that shattered the economy, its the trillions Bush wasted starting and fighting two unwinable wars that are still going on today, and paying for them by borrowing from China. Simple enough and to the point. And your right the change will not come from republicans or democrats,it will come from us and its already happening out on the streets. Its only just begun though and will take awhile to come full circle. So in the meantime trying to reduce the environmental damage done by the corporate government is our first priority.

 

We've been borrowing from China long before the wars, and their costs can be eliminated by pulling out the troops. The Social programs are not something that we can abruptly cut spending on, and their costs in the future are known to exceed the ability to fund no matter how much taxes are increased.
I would hope you might recognize that jobs more than anything else should be the very first item on the list of priorities, especially seeing that deficits will be running over a trillion dollars each year going forward. I don't think China or any other nation is going to continue lending to a nation heading full speed toward total economic destruction.

 

As I’ve pointed out in the Decline thread the rise of neolibralist ideas that have increased wealth’s power and influence in the US coincides with the decline in US’s public economic power.

Fall in top rate tax
1945 - 94%
1970 – 70%
1982 – 50%
1990 – 28%
2010 – 33%
The neo-liberal ‘trickle down’ ideas that counselled low taxation of the rich took hold in the Reagan era and have remained meaning that the real term wages of the middle and lower classes have stagnated or declined while those of wealth have increased hugely.

Rise in top levels of pay
In the 1950’s CEO pay was 25-50 times that of an average worker that has risen to 300-500 times by 2007.
A bigger gap than any other developed nation.

Trade deficit
1960 – Trade surplus of 3.5 billion
2008 – Trade deficit of 690 billion
(The last time the US posted a trade surplus was in 1975)

Decline in manufacturing
1965 - Manufacturing accounted for 53% of the US’s economy.
2004 – It accounted for 9%
The Economist (10/1/2005) stated: “For the first time since the industrial revolution, fewer than 10% of American workers are now employed in manufacturing.”

The criticism of your ideas and those of other right wing libertarians like Ron Paul is that you want to give wealth even more power and influence.