What are we going to do with all of these baby boomers?

What the ******** should we do with all of these ******** baby boomers?

Give them a taste of their own medicine and let the "free market" handle Social Security	40.0%	[ 10 ]
Ruin our country paying their ridiculous retirement pensions	4.0%	[ 1 ]
Give them a pension, but put a hard limit on how much we'll spend on those pensions	4.0%	[ 1 ]
Other, you have your own plan	28.0%	[ 7 ]
Gold	24.0%	[ 6 ]
Total Votes:			[ 25 ]

[Heimdalr]

Old Blue Collar Joe

First point, Ford wasn't bailed out. So when you start on the government bailed out the auto industry? Get it right. it was Government Motors that was bailed out, and Dodge. Not Ford.

Gas subsidies? Where? And lets also not forget that the most money made off of gas is by the government. Taxes are wonderful things when you buy such.

Oddly, Nevada has a rich mining heritage...but old Harry suck a d**k Reid refuses to allow them to be taxed. Imagine that. A luxury item that is in his state, and he won't tax it.

The auto industry bailout of 2008-09 was certainly the most visible and recent auto industry subsidy, but it is in no way the only one. Clinton back in '93 fronted various manufacturers a ******** of cash to make hybrid cars. Bush did the same with his hydrogen-powered and unfortunately named "FreedomCar". Also, you're sure to remember Cash for Clunkers. That's only the current and two preceding administrations. In state and local governments, lawmakers often incentivize auto plant construction in their proximity even if it nearly bankrupts them. Don't come and tell me the US doesn't subsidize their auto industry, that's a flat out lie.

Of course, Obama, in his infinite wisdom, doesn't recognize this tradition and thinks he's on a moral high horse when he complains about China's auto industry subsidies, by the way. You're by no means alone in this willing ignorance.

Gas subsidies go to the oil industry. Through regular, ongoing tax breaks, the number is something like $12 billion a year, and on top of that you have the natural disasters. Do you remember Deepwater Horizon? The government had to step in and foot the bill for the cleanup. That's the most prominent and immediate example, I'd give dozens more but I'm about to leave and I hope you get the point by now.

[Old Blue Collar Joe]

Heimdalr

Old Blue Collar Joe

First point, Ford wasn't bailed out. So when you start on the government bailed out the auto industry? Get it right. it was Government Motors that was bailed out, and Dodge. Not Ford.

Gas subsidies? Where? And lets also not forget that the most money made off of gas is by the government. Taxes are wonderful things when you buy such.

Oddly, Nevada has a rich mining heritage...but old Harry suck a d**k Reid refuses to allow them to be taxed. Imagine that. A luxury item that is in his state, and he won't tax it.

The auto industry bailout of 2008-09 was certainly the most visible and recent auto industry subsidy, but it is in no way the only one. Clinton back in '93 fronted various manufacturers a ******** of cash to make hybrid cars. Bush did the same with his hydrogen-powered and unfortunately named "FreedomCar". Also, you're sure to remember Cash for Clunkers. That's only the current and two preceding administrations. In state and local governments, lawmakers often incentivize auto plant construction in their proximity even if it nearly bankrupts them. Don't come and tell me the US doesn't subsidize their auto industry, that's a flat out lie.

Of course, Obama, in his infinite wisdom, doesn't recognize this tradition and thinks he's on a moral high horse when he complains about China's auto industry subsidies, by the way. You're by no means alone in this willing ignorance.

Gas subsidies go to the oil industry. Through regular, ongoing tax breaks, the number is something like $12 billion a year, and on top of that you have the natural disasters. Do you remember Deepwater Horizon? The government had to step in and foot the bill for the cleanup. That's the most prominent and immediate example, I'd give dozens more but I'm about to leave and I hope you get the point by now.

Please point out where I specified an administration? I didn't. They've all done this.
As for the stupid a** 'green' projects? Those aren't subsidies. Quite bluntly, that was the feds telling the big three 'you will attempt to make this', at which point they simply said 'and you're paying us how much for this stupid s**t?'
When have I mentioned China's subsidies? I'm against ANY subsidy. I'm also adamantly against making US farmers sell overseas at lower prices so that they can import foreign s**t at higher prices. Better to let those here sell here.
But I am not swinging at just the Obama administration. That cat gets to hit lots of ******** idiots over a span of decades.
As for corporate tax breaks, the reality is, you jack taxes up on a company, they pass that expense off to the customer, and absorb it by cutting raises.
Theory and reality don't have a lot in common on that aspect. (Nor am I saying don't tax. They're a necessary evil, and anyone that thinks they aren't is delusional, at best.)
But we do need across the board cuts. Some programs need bigger cuts than others, obviously, and professional financial experts need to be brought in to oversee the ******** waste the government has so that minimal efficiency is killed off.

[Christien Chalfant]

Heimdalr

Christien Chalfant

The auto industry was bailed out, but should it have been? No, failing business should go ahead and fail. Yes, there are plenty and an abundance of public roads, but who declared the government as the catalyst for paving the roads and creating them? Oh that's right. The gov't appointed itself to all that, the people never asked for public roads. Regardless, I don't hate the highway nor do I refrain from using it, my point is that there were plenty of other people who could've designed and put forth the highway.

Heimdalr

What I was referring to, was an employee getting in a company vehicle to serve a professional function. He will then drive in the name of a business, which is normally expected to reimburse the State for any cost the employee will accumulate in his profession. Damage to property, roads, coal seam fires (In the case of the drunk driver or various other accidents, the business is expected to treat it as a workplace accident and seek to reimburse the employee or his estate, whichever applies). As such, there is ample precedent for treating the business as a single entity and not "individuals doing unrelated things" which is a gigantic cop-out.

Fine, the company car. But is that company car provided by the gov't or is it provided by the employer?
Reimburse the State for any cost the employee will accumulate? But now see here, the employee doesn't have to drive the company car, but perhaps he has to. Then the company would have already made arrangements about the car concerning repairs, mileage, etcetera and those would be known with the driver. Otherwise in a say, small business, the employee would drive his own car and would then be reimbursed for the miles driven, as part of his job. But the Employer reimburses the employee not the gov't.
If the accident happens while doing a company action then of course it's a workplace accident. But then why should the employers and employees be treated as a collective entity? Because of workplace accidents? Sorry but that's really just trying to simplify things. A company is individuals doing related things, not unrelated things. Hence the man reimbursing for mileage driven, the man driving his own car while on the job or a provided company car, the man on the assembly line, the man managing exports to the Caribbean and so forth. They are always related.
But business, as a whole, cannot be taxed. You cannot tax every single person within that company the same way as you would call it business. You could have a fair tax and no "business tax," then that would be the same tax and it would be fair.
But you cannot take a collective nor can you tax a building. Only individuals can be taxed.

The public did ask for public roads, and they continue to ask for public roads to this day. Actually, most of the time you'll see companies lobbying their local government to build roads befitting their expanded operations. The practice isn't going away any time soon, you can disagree all you'd like but it stays a fantasy suited only to make ideological, hypothetical rants like yours.

The company car is provided by both the State and the manufacturer, by a ratio depending on type and make.

I am trying to simplify things. There are inherent risks and inherent public expenditure related to the private sector's use of public commodities. Draining aquifers, pollution, road damage, water purification, power shortages, all of them are public expenditures. To gauge each employee's use of public commodities and tax them accordingly requires a bureaucracy so intrusive and sprawling they have clerks registering how much time you use to wash your hands in the company bathroom.

They ask for public roads now after the gov't has made it so that they can be provided by the taxpayers. But my point is that, was there every a time where there was a large movement or group of people were outrightly asking the gov't to build public roads like the highway before the Eisenhower initiated the highway construction. I'm not saying public roads could go away, it's clear that with the current Mixed Gov't that they will stay, and no one will be ripping the roads from the ground.
It's clear that the private sector does not always provide public services, but if it was profitable to do so, then it would be done.
I like the highway because it's not a toll road, despite there still being some tolls along the highway. Which is why the highway is properly called the freeway.
Public expenditure made so famous by Keynes is a nice intention. But intents cannot be judged, the results must be. Keynes' ideas are often very disputable and controversial.
A bureaucracy so intrusive as you put it, is criminal. Humans have lost their desire for freedom under a false guise or "equality."

[Heimdalr]

I'm not seeing actual counterarguments here, just you two finding a way to soapbox your ideology. It should be well established that government subsidies of the automotive and oil industry is fact. My work here is done.

[Wendigo]

Christien Chalfant

So the stock holder, who invests in the company, and owns a part of the company, therefore having some sort of the control of the company, shouldn't get the right to put their interests for what they think the company should do?
And you give no evidence of stockholder's interests disrupting the economy's "normal operation in unnecessary ways."
What exactly is normal operation? Supply and Demand? Production and Consumption?
What's unnecessary?

I take it you're not old enough to remember the Enron scandal.

[Christien Chalfant]

Wendigo

Christien Chalfant

So the stock holder, who invests in the company, and owns a part of the company, therefore having some sort of the control of the company, shouldn't get the right to put their interests for what they think the company should do?
And you give no evidence of stockholder's interests disrupting the economy's "normal operation in unnecessary ways."
What exactly is normal operation? Supply and Demand? Production and Consumption?
What's unnecessary?

I take it you're not old enough to remember the Enron scandal.

I take you misunderstand that the stock holders who were investing in the company were being screwed over? That they didn't know the data was being misrepresented? That the data was false and skewed?
The executives were taking money from the investors and using it for their personal use instead of the corporation use. But that is a trivial detail. The fact remains was that the stock holders, whose interest was in the success of the company, had no knowledge that the executives were doing this scam.

[Wendigo]

Christien Chalfant

I take you misunderstand that the stock holders who were investing in the company were being screwed over? That they didn't know the data was being misrepresented? That thedata was false and skewed?

Only some of 'em; the others made out like bandits through insider trading.

And, of course, years of fraudulent "brownouts" to hike up utility fees, and bogus accounting.

How about a more recent example, then. Financial derivatives such as the collateralized debt obligation and credit default swap, which had the nominal purpose of freeing up capital from guarding against losses so that it can be invested, and with the obvious secondary purpose of windfall profits and therefore windfall dividends.

THAT had no unforeseen side effects.