(Un) Affordable Care Act - the Uncomfortable Truth

[Mn_Mark]

Re: (Un) Affordable Care Act - the Uncomfortable Truth

To my friends on the right: every great fortune has either been made, grown or retained with assistance and or special privilege from the ruling government ( tax law, patent law, regulation, protectionism, the list goes on) - policies which allow economic rent extraction are generally harmful and unfair particularly to the extent they encourage wealth redistribution upward

I don't understand the argument that "rent" is a bad thing. Maybe you are using a technical economic term that has a different meaning than I understand it. But if I save my money, and someone else wants to use it, or use property of mine that I earned honestly or was given freely as a gift, I don't understand what is wrong with the user being expected to pay me something for the privilege of using my money or property. If I'm not going to be permitted to ask for "rent" for its use and the risk of its loss, then I am not going to lend it. How does that help society?

[lektrode]

Re: (Un) Affordable Care Act - the Uncomfortable Truth

george will in the wapo the other day: (below)

and why my late mother - a hard center independent (and a most of her life MA dem) - who somewhat famously (to me ;) said that she "would never vote for a GD Republican again!!" (mostly over the religious right's hijacking of the GOP and their stand against a womans right to choose - she being a feminist type long before that became fashionable -
and then changed her mind shortly after the current occupants 'coronation' - said even more famously:
"... these ARENT the democrats we used-to vote for..."

What he was, he was: What he is fated to become

Depends on us.
— W.H. Auden, “Elegy for JFK” (1964)


BOSTON

He has become fodder for an interpretation industry toiling to make his life malleable enough to soothe the sensitivities and serve the agendas of the interpreters. The quantity of writing about him is inversely proportional to the brevity of his presidency.

He did not have history-shaping effects comparable to those of his immediate predecessor or successor. Dwight Eisenhower was one of three Americans (with George Washington and Ulysses Grant) who were world-historic figures before becoming president, and Lyndon Johnson was second only to Franklin Roosevelt as a maker of the modern welfare state and second to none in using law to ameliorate America’s racial dilemma.

The New York Times’ executive editor calls Kennedy “the elusive president”; The Post calls him “the most enigmatic” president. Most libidinous, certainly; most charming, perhaps. But enigmatic and elusive? Many who call him difficult to understand seem eager to not understand him. They present as puzzling or uncharacteristic aspects of his politics about which he was consistent and unambiguous. For them, his conservative dimension is an inconvenient truth. Ira Stoll, in “JFK, Conservative,” tries to prove too much but assembles sufficient evidence that his book’s title is not merely provocative.

A Look magazine headline in June 1946 read: “A Kennedy Runs for Congress: The Boston-bred scion of a former ambassador is a fighting-Irish conservative.” Neither his Cold War anti-communism, which was congruent with President Harry Truman’s, nor his fiscal conservatism changed dramatically during his remaining 17 years.

Visitors to the Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum here, on the salt water across which his ancestors came as immigrants and on which he sailed his yacht, watch Kennedy press conferences, such as that of Sept. 12, 1963, when, responding to a question about Vietnam, he said his policy was to “win the war there”: “That is why some 25,000 Americans have traveled 10,000 miles to participate in that struggle.” He added: “But we are not there to see a war lost.” His answer was consistent with a 1956 speech calling Vietnam “the keystone to the arch, the finger in the dike,” adding: “This is our offspring — we cannot abandon it.”

A few years later, with the war going badly, several Kennedy aides claimed that he had been planning to liquidate the intervention. But five months after the assassination, Robert Kennedy told an oral-history interviewer that his brother “had a strong, overwhelming reason for being in Vietnam and that we should win the war in Vietnam.”

Interviewer: “There was never any consideration given to pulling out?”
RFK: “No.”
Interviewer: “. . . the president was convinced that we had to keep, had to stay in there  . . .”
RFK: “Yes.”
Interviewer: “. . . And couldn’t lose it.”
RFK: “Yes.”

As president, JFK chose as Treasury secretary a Republican Wall Street banker, C. Douglas Dillon, who 30 years after the assassination remembered Kennedy as “financially conservative.” Kennedy’s fiscal policy provided an example and ample rhetoric for Ronald Reagan’s supply-side tax cuts. Kennedy endorsed “a creative tax cut creating more jobs and income and eventually more revenue.”

In December 1962, he said:
“The federal government’s most useful role is . . . to expand the incentives and opportunities for private expenditures. . . . [I]t is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high today and tax revenues are too low and the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut the rates now.”

John Kenneth Galbraith — Harvard economist, liberal polemicist and Kennedy’s ambassador to India — called this “the most Republican speech since McKinley.” It was one of many. On the day he was killed, Kennedy was being driven to the Dallas Trade Mart to propose “cutting personal and corporate income taxes.”

Kennedy changed less during his life than liberalism did after his death.

The Kennedy library here where he lived draws substantially fewer visitors than does Dallas’s Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza, where he was murdered. This is emblematic of a melancholy fact: How he died looms larger in the nation’s mind than how he lived. His truncated life remains an unfinished book and hence tempts writers who would complete it as they wish it had been written.

This month, let it suffice to say what Stephen Spender did in “The Truly Great” (1932):
“Born of the sun, they travelled a short while toward the sun.
“And left the vivid air signed with their honour.”

no siree, "... these ARENT the democrats we used-to vote for..."

[Woodsman]

Re: (Un) Affordable Care Act - the Uncomfortable Truth

[QUOTE=vt;271007]

At the very least the current administration is liberal and leaning left. you are in a very small minority to think otherwise.

I hate crowds and mobs, especially the cognitive kind. And I'm perfectly content to be a minority of one.

When the right wing decides the terms, of course the current administration is portrayed as a den of lefties. When there is no escape from propaganda and social isolation is wielded as a club to enforce correct thought, of course Obama and Pelosi are socialist lefties. I'm not trying to convince anyone to come over to my way of seeing. Frankly, it's bound to make anyone grumpy all this unvarnished reality and calling things by their actual names.

[Woodsman]

Re: (Un) Affordable Care Act - the Uncomfortable Truth

I don't understand the argument that "rent" is a bad thing. Maybe you are using a technical economic term that has a different meaning than I understand it. But if I save my money, and someone else wants to use it, or use property of mine that I earned honestly or was given freely as a gift, I don't understand what is wrong with the user being expected to pay me something for the privilege of using my money or property. If I'm not going to be permitted to ask for "rent" for its use and the risk of its loss, then I am not going to lend it. How does that help society?

We know you don't understand, Mn. I like the way you flaunt your lack of it with such confidence.

[lektrode]

Re: (Un) Affordable Care Act - the Uncomfortable Truth

I hate crowds and mobs, especially the cognitive kind. And I'm perfectly content to be a minority of one.

When the right wing decides the terms, of course the current administration is portrayed as a den of lefties. When there is no escape from propaganda and social isolation is wielded as a club to enforce correct thought, of course Obama and Pelosi are socialist lefties. I'm not trying to convince anyone to come over to my way of seeing. Frankly, it's bound to make anyone grumpy all this unvarnished reality and calling things by their actual names.

its ok woody - i still think your POV - esp the historical context in which you present it - is still quite valuable.

i may not agree with some (or even a lot of it) - but eye DO still like to think about it - perhaps its biggest value, in that
IT MAKES US THINK

[Mn_Mark]

Re: (Un) Affordable Care Act - the Uncomfortable Truth

[QUOTE=Woodsman;271010]

I hate crowds and mobs, especially the cognitive kind. And I'm perfectly content to be a minority of one.

When the right wing decides the terms, of course the current administration is portrayed as a den of lefties. When there is no escape from propaganda and social isolation is wielded as a club to enforce correct thought, of course Obama and Pelosi are socialist lefties. I'm not trying to convince anyone to come over to my way of seeing. Frankly, it's bound to make anyone grumpy all this unvarnished reality and calling things by their actual names.

If you don't think Obama, Pelosi, and Reid are left-wing, then could you name the politicians who you think are left-wing? Who - which specific people - would need to be running things here before you'd say the government was run by the left wing?

[lektrode]

Re: (Un) Affordable Care Act - the Uncomfortable Truth

If you don't think Obama, Pelosi, and Reid are left-wing, then could you name the politicians who you think are left-wing? Who - which specific people - would need to be running things here before you'd say the government was run by the left wing?

+1
woody?

also - FRED: somethings messin up with the 'quote' function - its leaving in the 'handle' of the previously-quoted in the 2nd-gen/3rd persons quoting (if that makes any sense?)

anybode else seeing this happen???

[vinoveri]

Re: (Un) Affordable Care Act - the Uncomfortable Truth

I don't understand the argument that "rent" is a bad thing. Maybe you are using a technical economic term that has a different meaning than I understand it. But if I save my money, and someone else wants to use it, or use property of mine that I earned honestly or was given freely as a gift, I don't understand what is wrong with the user being expected to pay me something for the privilege of using my money or property. If I'm not going to be permitted to ask for "rent" for its use and the risk of its loss, then I am not going to lend it. How does that help society?

Yes, the technical economic term as in rent extracted by the rentier for example that Keynes references - not a landlord or other owner renting out his property per se, although the landlord situation may apply, e.g, owner finances purchase of property to rent - the key point in this case would be where did he get the loan; if from a Fed-backstopped lender that's allowed under law to create credit ex nihilo (i.e. lend money that never existed via someone's honest work) then there is an element of economic rent that accrues to both the lender and the landlord, i.e. they profit from the debt based money system per se, not their own hard work and wealth creation.

[Woodsman]

Re: (Un) Affordable Care Act - the Uncomfortable Truth

+1
woody?

also - FRED: somethings messin up with the 'quote' function - its leaving in the 'handle' of the previously-quoted in the 2nd-gen/3rd persons quoting (if that makes any sense?)

anybode else seeing this happen???

Looks fine to me. Take a screen shot of what you are seeing. That will help Fred troubleshoot. Or, shoot the trouble maker.

[lektrode]

Re: (Un) Affordable Care Act - the Uncomfortable Truth

Looks fine to me. Take a screen shot of what you are seeing. That will help Fred troubleshoot. Or, shoot the trouble maker.

its possible that its on my end, seeing as eye been watching various markets today and have several 'push-media' screens, with several tabs each open - which seems to have gone away now that i've shut some down.

'we now return you to your regularly sched'ld ranting/raving...'

;)

[Woodsman]

Re: (Un) Affordable Care Act - the Uncomfortable Truth

If you don't think Obama, Pelosi, and Reid are left-wing, then could you name the politicians who you think are left-wing? Who - which specific people - would need to be running things here before you'd say the government was run by the left wing?

No thanks, I don't want to subject anyone to danger. Why don't you come up with a list for yourself. There's some consensus around DC's post as being helpful by way of common terminology, so have at it.

[Woodsman]

Re: (Un) Affordable Care Act - the Uncomfortable Truth

george will in the wapo the other day

Lek, why would you turn to someone who is every respect an ideological enemy of New Deal/Fair Deal/New Frontier liberalism to define JFK's legacy? Ask the people who knew him and worked for him first. Look then at the character of his enemies and then judge their claims. Ask the 90% of Americans polled who still see JFK as the most popular, most adored president of the last century.

Of course his enemies hate him, distort his life and the circumstances of his death. That's what they do. That's what they've always done and will always do.

You're right that these aren't the Democrats we used to know. They're not the Republicans we used to know, either. But I tell you what, they are precisely the same sort of right wing conservatives they have always been. A bit more polished, far more expert in public relations and psychology, but the same bunch of weirdos of the sort JFK called "nut country."

[vt]

Re: (Un) Affordable Care Act - the Uncomfortable Truth

Woody,

There are also quite a few left wing liberals, and some totally as nuts as their right wing conservative weirdos. On each sides of the fence these make up about 3% of the population. Then there are maybe 20% liberal and 25% conservatives in the population.

I'd posit that almost half the population is in the center and fed up with the left and right wings. This independent group is growing and will make up the New Majority Party. It will be socially liberal and fiscally more conservative, smaller government, anti FIRE, pro growth, and anti lobbying than we now see.

We need to marginalize the right and left. We need to insure the government protect the disabled and temporarily disadvantaged, but not hold back the creative growth of the nation's wealth creation for the common good.

We need to keep the crazy left and right from any influence on progress.

[Woodsman]

Re: (Un) Affordable Care Act - the Uncomfortable Truth

This independent group is growing and will make up the New Majority Party. It will be socially liberal and fiscally more conservative, smaller government, anti FIRE, pro growth, and anti lobbying than we now see.

From your lips to god's ears. Similar thoughts on this grey November day.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: (Un) Affordable Care Act - the Uncomfortable Truth

But is a new party the best answer?

HOW will it be created and funded?

HOW will it communicate it's message?

To me the likelihood of a new traditional political party gaining traction in the US would be akin to a new power going up against the combined capabilities and power of NATO(GOP) and Warsaw Pact(Democrats) in the Fulda Gap Germany circa 1987 in a conventional contest for power.

I would rate the chances as nil.

While I agree completely with:

"It will be socially liberal and fiscally more conservative, smaller government, anti FIRE, pro growth, and anti lobbying than we now see."

What I don't see is the plan on HOW to achieve it.

Without which isn't it doomed to fail?

I've posted here in the past about my belief that the way to defeat the entrenched parties and special interests is creating a forcing function...particularly on the points of anti-lobbying.

An internet centric social movement, with a tiny, protected, unbiased, and non-partisan leadership core pushing a single issue:

If you accept a single dollar of special interest lobbying money you are a traitor, a leper, a child molestor.

A digital/political scarlet letter.

The amount of resources needed to achieve a successful anti-lobbying/corruption effort would be quite limited if executed effectively.

Setting up a new and traditional political party is a waste of time and resources.

It truly would be like my NATO/Warsaw Pact example combining to destroy a couple of rebels.

Why would you EVER want to let your opponents select the location and timing of the battle?

Think like an insurgent(of the figurative, NOT literal variety).

An idea and a non-partisan social movement cannot be attacked in the same way that a political party and candidate can.

How would the next election cycle look if a fast moving social movement consisting of millions of disaffected voters all agreed to force rank their issues of concern(abortion, taxation, health care, SS) well behind the acceptance of special interest money?