Raising taxes on the rich

[copperblade]

Accidents do happen. We learn from them and do better.

The gulf oil spill was not the end of the world disaster that it was predicted to be. Nature did the cleanup … not to encourage blowouts. The oil companies don’t want to have their employees killed, equipment destroyed, production lost and huge costs for recovery and remediation.

Is there any scientific evidence to back that up? Just because we’re not hearing anything else about it doesn’t mean everything’s fine down there. You’d eat fish from that area?

Also, nature didn’t just “clean it up” because we had to use oil dispersant, which might be a lot worse for us than the oil. But hey, I don’t see any more black blobs so it must all be clean right? Yeah, right.

Companies know how to take risks. Sure they don’t want a blowout, and they certainly don’t want to lose the oil, but it still happened due to negligence.

Let’s look at it from the correct perspective: the gulf they polluted is a shared resource. So we all pay the cost for their mistake. They should pay for that. Likewise we have an interest in protecting it. That is the role of government–to protect the community interest. That means roads, armies, and regulations on things that affect everyone.

I like you–you’re a nice enough guy, but I disagree with your fundamental philosophy that every man is an island. There has to be a balance between the individual and the group. Remember, our rights extend up until the point where they disrupt the lives of others.

It’s weird, I think most people I know would consider me conservative. Then I come to this forum and everything is flipped around.

“Defenders of the short-sighted men who in their greed and selfishness will, if permitted, rob our country of half its charm by their reckless extermination of all useful and beautiful wild things sometimes seek to champion them by saying the ‘the game belongs to the people.’ So it does; and not merely to the people now alive, but to the unborn people. The ‘greatest good for the greatest number’ applies to the number within the womb of time, compared to which those now alive form but an insignificant fraction. Our duty to the whole, including the unborn generations, bids us restrain an unprincipled present-day minority from wasting the heritage of these unborn generations. The movement for the conservation of wild life and the larger movement for the conservation of all our natural resources are essentially democratic in spirit, purpose, and method.”
Teddy Roosevelt, A Book-Lover’s Holidays in the Open, 1916

 

[DLG123]

AM I dreaming? George W Bush single handedly gave our country to his business partners at the bank and we will be paying off his family and the friends of his family for generations. I never believed in all that conspiracy theory stuff but GW set up our childres for at least the next 5 generations to be owned by his golbal conglomeration. DId you knoe the Bushe’s got out of the oil business. Gues what they’re in now?..WATER. Oh yeah, it’s coming, All you rapture people, I never believed you but your favorite republican kicked it all of with his war in the middle east. The USA is in a position to owe the Fed money until Jesus comes back! Who runs the Fed??? Nobody knows??? The same people that buy elections while the American people sit and watch their fradulent elections be taken over by the same unseen force that is leading us to the rapture. You guys are so hot on the Republicans, I think they must be working for the anti-christ…

There, I said it!
Obama inherited not a recession but a DEPRESSION. He had to spend some money so the whole country wouldn’t shut down and it was all designed by whatever anti-christ council put those Republicans in charge at that time. Look what they did to us. Now they are going to make it seem like it was Obama, when all he did was try to stop the bleeding and help the children! They need health care and you rich republicant’s only think you should get care if you can afford it? Education if you can afford it? You and your antichrist are going to try and bring back slavery?? well I’m not going for it! Give the rich everything and just leave us poor folks to starve with no education or healthcare. Just a bag of dope and a bottle of malt liquor while you keep EVERYTHING for you and the antichritst!

When Bush was sworn in on January 20, 2001, the national debt was $5,727,776,738,304.64.

When “W” left office on January 20, 2009, the national debt was $10,626,877,048,913.08.

The growth in the national debt during his eight years in office: $4,899,100,310,608.44.

The average yearly growth in the national debt during Bush’s presidency: $612,387,538,826.05.

During much of Bush’s tenure, he had a Republican majority in both the House and the Senate.

He claimed that tax cuts would pay for themselves - they did not. He claimed that tax cuts would result in growth - we are in the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.

Obama had to spend SOME money? try $3,000,000,000,000.00 in one year. Stimulus that stimulated NOTHING execpt the Dems union thugs. They have to do this to keep their public employee unions in business because the paychecks that the CITIZENS pay for the unions get a cut of for their “dues” which the union inturn takes and uses to elect democaRATS that will inturn raise their (the union workers) salaries so that a greater amount of money can come into the union coffers since its based on a percentage rather than a flat rate. It is all a money laundering scheme. you do realize that the President can’t spend adime on his own. Its the house of reps that have the power of the purse.
The Obama admin is projected to spend $9,000,000,000,000.00 in deficit spending in his 4 years! That George Washington to the end of George W Bush’s first term. So before you start saying that its the repulicans that did this to us and our children you should blame ALL the politicians. By the way I do agree with you about the FED it is a GIANT scam!

I also dont appreciate being called the antichrist. you should look into the policies of the democRATS when you start flapping your gums: abortion post and partial, homosexual marriage, keeping GOD out of the school system. The problem is that you look at compassion by the amount of people ON welfare, we look at compassion as the amount of people OFF welfare. Welfare and the war on poverty has not worked out very well for alot of black families.

DLG

 

[copperblade]

Is there any scientific evidence to back that up? Just because we’re not hearing anything else about it doesn’t mean everything’s fine down there. You’d eat fish from that area?

Also, nature didn’t just “clean it up” because we had to use oil dispersant, which might be a lot worse for us than the oil. But hey, I don’t see any more black blobs so it must all be clean right? Yeah, right. (And I’m not blaming only the oil company for that–the image of cleanliness is also in the government’s interest.)

Companies know how to take risks. Sure they don’t want a blowout, and they certainly don’t want to lose the oil, but it still happened due to negligence.

Let’s look at it from the correct perspective: the gulf they polluted is a shared resource. So we all pay the cost for their mistake. They should pay for that. Likewise we have an interest in protecting it. That is the role of government–to protect the community interest. That means roads, armies, and regulations on things that affect everyone.

I like you–you’re a nice enough guy, but I disagree with your fundamental philosophy that every man is an island. There has to be a balance between the individual and the group. Remember, our rights extend up until the point where they disrupt the lives of others.

It’s weird, I think most people I know would consider me conservative. Then I come to this forum and everything is flipped around.

“Defenders of the short-sighted men who in their greed and selfishness will, if permitted, rob our country of half its charm by their reckless extermination of all useful and beautiful wild things sometimes seek to champion them by saying the ‘the game belongs to the people.’ So it does; and not merely to the people now alive, but to the unborn people. The ‘greatest good for the greatest number’ applies to the number within the womb of time, compared to which those now alive form but an insignificant fraction. Our duty to the whole, including the unborn generations, bids us restrain an unprincipled present-day minority from wasting the heritage of these unborn generations. The movement for the conservation of wild life and the larger movement for the conservation of all our natural resources are essentially democratic in spirit, purpose, and method.”
Teddy Roosevelt, A Book-Lover’s Holidays in the Open, 1916

 

[copperblade]

I think we have to start from the assumption that capitalism does not guarantee a meritocracy.

Money is not always the right kind of motivator. By assigning monetary value to things which should have social or moral value and giving “incentives” we remove the moral or social value. If you give someone bonuses for being nice, they begin seeing nice as only a profit or a loss. In the end, you have a lot less people being nice. I’m not saying this very well, but if you’re so inclined please listen to Barry Schwartz on this idea:
ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_using_our_practical_wisdom.html

For those things which the market was designed for, progressive taxes should never be so progressive to go past the 50% mark (in my opinion). I can’t really argue any further because at this point in time I’m not really in favor of progressive taxation except to give the very lowest income people a little bit of a break. (Which by the way is exactly what this country does, if you look at the actual taxes paid–we all pay roughly the same rate except the lowest end of the scale.)

 

[vz71]

Is there any scientific evidence to back that up? Just because we’re not hearing anything else about it doesn’t mean everything’s fine down there. You’d eat fish from that area?

Fish, Shrimp, crab, etc.
Yes. And it was quite good.

Companies know how to take risks. Sure they don’t want a blowout, and they certainly don’t want to lose the oil, but it still happened due to negligence.

Before we claim negligence, we need to consider that the rig had just been given a safety award by the Obama administration.
And we also need to consider the booms necessary to contain the spilled oil were not the responsibility of BP to keep, but were mandated by law to the local federal response teams to keep…and they had none.

I certainly do not exonerate BP, but before we cry negligence we need a clear understanding of who exactly was negligent.

Also, I have to wonder what they were doing that far out. They could most certainly have drilled for oil closer to shore where the water was not so deep…so what pushed BP out into the deep in the first place?

Let’s look at it from the correct perspective: the gulf** they** polluted is a shared resource. So we all pay the cost for** their** mistake. **They **should pay for that. Likewise we have an interest in protecting it. That is the role of government–to protect the community interest. That means roads, armies, and regulations on things that affect everyone.

I am confused. Who exactly is ‘They’?

 

[vz71]

That is the role of government–to protect the community interest. That means roads, armies, and regulations on things that affect everyone.

Is there anything the government did during the oil spill that actually helped the situation?

I would love it if I could depend upon the government to secure my rights and the rights of others, but I do not see a good track record in doing this.

 

[vz71]

Money is not always the right kind of motivator. By assigning monetary value to things which should have social or moral value and giving “incentives” we remove the moral or social value. If you give someone bonuses for being nice, they begin seeing nice as only a profit or a loss. In the end, you have a lot less people being nice. I’m not saying this very well,…

Right!
The government needs to stop using the tax code as a tool for social change.

 

[Monte_RCMS]

Is there anything the government did during the oil spill that actually helped the situation?

I would love it if I could depend upon the government to secure my rights and the rights of others, but I do not see a good track record in doing this.

Well, not the oil spill … but the floods right now going on along the Mississippi River … monster floods … well, looks like done deliberately by your Federal Government … in response to “environmental concerns” …

Can’t believe that our best and brightest would do that to us!

americanthinker.com/2011/06/the_purposeful_flooding_of_americas_heartland.html

 

[YankeeRC]

Read the quote at the link from St John Chrysostom.

Thanks so much for posting this.

That is simply an amazing amount of wisdom and insight into human nature. Must get me some St. John Chrysostom to read

 

[Monte_RCMS]

The problem with great wealth, though, is that, by default, it promotes greed and envy, and with it often comes with slack morals - you only have to look at the world around us. Capitalism works on its own terms because it often finds ways to push frivolous products on the people and tends to make much more money by appealing to the baser instincts of mankind - look at today’s media, for instance. Redistribution of wealth may not be Christian, but neither is unchecked capitalism. Either way, I do agree that excessive interference by the state is a bad thing - and thanks for those references; I stand corrected on some things.

Not everything that capitalism is good at is frivolous.

Capitalism does a great job producing and distributing energy … oil, electricity, natural gas, coal. Airline seats. Automobiles, except when controlled by the government. Health care, except when controlled by the government. Pharmaceuticals. Food. Beverage. Home construction, except when controlled by the government.

There really is no such thing as “unchecked capitalism” except when the government steps in and favors cronies.

Can you give some examples of “unchecked capitalism” here in the U.S. … current examples … not going back to 1913.

 

[Monte_RCMS]

Fish, Shrimp, crab, etc.
Yes. And it was quite good.

Before we claim negligence, we need to consider that the rig had just been given a safety award by the Obama administration.
And we also need to consider the booms necessary to contain the spilled oil were not the responsibility of BP to keep, but were mandated by law to the local federal response teams to keep…and they had none.

I certainly do not exonerate BP, but before we cry negligence we need a clear understanding of who exactly was negligent.

Also, I have to wonder what they were doing that far out. They could most certainly have drilled for oil closer to shore where the water was not so deep…so what pushed BP out into the deep in the first place?

I am confused. Who exactly is ‘They’?

Almost forgot, it was the government that prevented that GIANT oil skimmer from going in to operation. They said that a small fraction of the water it scooped up and separated … a small fraction of the water that went back to the Gulf would have some residual oil. In other words, they rejected an approach that was less than 100% perfect. They demanded perfection, 100% or nothing. They were willing to accept failure but not 98% performance.

 

[Monte_RCMS]

Is there any scientific evidence to back that up? Just because we’re not hearing anything else about it doesn’t mean everything’s fine down there. You’d eat fish from that area?

Also, nature didn’t just “clean it up” because we had to use oil dispersant, which might be a lot worse for us than the oil. But hey, I don’t see any more black blobs so it must all be clean right? Yeah, right.

Companies know how to take risks. Sure they don’t want a blowout, and they certainly don’t want to lose the oil, but it still happened due to negligence.

Let’s look at it from the correct perspective: the gulf they polluted is a shared resource. So we all pay the cost for their mistake. They should pay for that. Likewise we have an interest in protecting it. That is the role of government–to protect the community interest. That means roads, armies, and regulations on things that affect everyone.

I like you–you’re a nice enough guy, but I disagree with your fundamental philosophy that every man is an island. There has to be a balance between the individual and the group. Remember, our rights extend up until the point where they disrupt the lives of others.

It’s weird, I think most people I know would consider me conservative. Then I come to this forum and everything is flipped around.

“Defenders of the short-sighted men who in their greed and selfishness will, if permitted, rob our country of half its charm by their reckless extermination of all useful and beautiful wild things sometimes seek to champion them by saying the ‘the game belongs to the people.’ So it does; and not merely to the people now alive, but to the unborn people. The ‘greatest good for the greatest number’ applies to the number within the womb of time, compared to which those now alive form but an insignificant fraction. Our duty to the whole, including the unborn generations, bids us restrain an unprincipled present-day minority from wasting the heritage of these unborn generations. The movement for the conservation of wild life and the larger movement for the conservation of all our natural resources are essentially democratic in spirit, purpose, and method.”
Teddy Roosevelt, A Book-Lover’s Holidays in the Open, 1916

Teddy Roosevelt!

Puhleeze!! He was a “Progressive” … big government activist.

intellectualconservative.com/2006/11/17/teddy-roosevelt-progressive-president/

Excerpt:

None of the intellectuals foresaw that socialism has an inherent tendency toward totalitarianism. They did not understand that imposing socialist uniformity and forcing everyone downwards to the lowest common level of economic equality necessarily must be at the expense of individuals’ natural-law liberties embodied in our original Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

Teddy Roosevelt, and later to some extent Woodrow Wilson, were the answers to academic intellectuals’ prayers.

A damn-the-Constitution activist, Teddy Roosevelt became President after William McKinley’s assassination by social-justice anarchist Leon Czolgosz in 1901. Without pre-approval from Congress, for example, Teddy committed the nation to the cost of building the Panama Canal and started a civil war in Central America to obtain territorial rights. When asked where in the Constitution he found authority for these actions, Roosevelt said that he knew what the situation required and simply did it, whether Congress would concur or not. The Constitution, of course, requires that the Senate advise and consent on treaty matters and reserves to Congress the exclusive right to authorize expenditures of Federal funds.

In the Bismarckian mold, Teddy Roosevelt was a President prepared to take the bull by the horns and overthrow the entrenched ideas of Jeffersonian individuality that stood in the way of intellectuals’ conception of social justice and progress.

While he was not a devout believer in the religion of socialism, the effect of Teddy Roosevelt’s terms in office was to promote the liberal-socialist cause. Like all college-educated persons of that era, Roosevelt had been thoroughly exposed to the secular and materialistic doctrine of socialism, first as a Harvard undergraduate, then in public life. In his defense, it may be said that he confronted an America that was fundamentally different in the economic sphere from the America of 1776.

Surprisingly for a man who was well-educated in the classics, Roosevelt was heedless of the need to preserve the traditions of a government of laws, not of men. A clue was one of his favorite books, Edward Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, which advanced the theory that the rise of Christianity was the cause of Rome’s fall.

In power, Teddy was a headstrong man who consulted only his personal ideas of good, with indifference to legal precedent and the inherent rights of individuals under the Bill of Rights. It was the beginning of the “implied powers” doctrine that Teddy’s young cousin Franklin Roosevelt was to use twenty years later to impose a thoroughgoing system of socialism.

Teddy also set the pattern for our present-day expectation that the President is to be the dominant figure in national politics, grasping ever-greater measures of power at the expense of constitutional checks and balances. His legacy is an American public that labors under the delusion that a President can run the nation as if it were a private company. This, of course, is precisely the collectivized management and social-engineering demanded by liberal-socialists.

 

[Monte_RCMS]

Here’s yet another “oops” that just now made the papers:

foxnews.com/politics/2011/06/22/nasa-scientist-accused-using-celeb-status-among-environmental-groups-to-enrich/

The government brightest and best are at it again.

 

[copperblade]

And we also need to consider the booms necessary to contain the spilled oil were not the responsibility of BP to keep, but were mandated by law to the local federal response teams to keep…and they had none.

And your point is? That the government shouldn’t have even had the law in the first place? How would that have helped?

I certainly do not exonerate BP, but before we cry negligence we need a clear understanding of who exactly was negligent.

Again, you’re being very vague just to make some kind of anti-government point. Who exactly was negligent was BP. You can say the government didn’t do their job as well, but that just furthers my point: we need someone there to help stop these kinds of things.

Also, I have to wonder what they were doing that far out. They could most certainly have drilled for oil closer to shore where the water was not so deep…so what pushed BP out into the deep in the first place?

Doesn’t change who is responsible for the spill.

I am confused. Who exactly is ‘They’?

BP or the people BP hired. That’s who polluted the gulf. Why are you confused? Because you think that we deserve the oil spill for not having a government that enforced stricter policies?

 

[copperblade]

Is there anything the government did during the oil spill that actually helped the situation?

Quite frankly I think the government colluded with BP to a certain extent to make the whole issue go away.

I would love it if I could depend upon the government to secure my rights and the rights of others, but I do not see a good track record in doing this.

“This government is bad” is not a good argument for “we should have less government” in my opinion. The right answer is to demand better enforcement and put pressure on them, not push to remove all protections and let a company like BP do whatever it wants.

 

[copperblade]

Here’s yet another “oops” that just now made the papers:

foxnews.com/politics/2011/06/22/nasa-scientist-accused-using-celeb-status-among-environmental-groups-to-enrich/

The government brightest and best are at it again.

No of course not, we all know that Bernie Madoff is the brightest and the best. This is peanuts compared to the kind of collusion between CEO’s and the review boards that determine their bonuses, which happens all the time for way more amounts of money.

So what’s the point? People can be greedy? I thought this was America, we’re supposed to assume that (these days).

 

[vz71]

And your point is? That the government shouldn’t have even had the law in the first place? How would that have helped?

My point is that the government cannot be trusted to follow its own laws.
So why would we want to empower the government further?

Again, you’re being very vague just to make some kind of anti-government point. Who exactly was negligent was BP. You can say the government didn’t do their job as well, but that just furthers my point: we need someone there to help stop these kinds of things.

There was an explosion, not a spill. The rig exploded and then sank.
The pipeline broke off at the ocean floor and could not be readily sealed.
Now we have to ask ourselves why this is a problem.
The correct answer is because they did not have the technology needed to readily close off this pipe.
Now why do you suppose that is?
Again the correct answer is because the water was too deep to easily work in.
And that leads us back to why the company did their drilling that far into the deep.
And the correct answer is…because the government would not let them drill near the shore.

You can blame BP if you wish, but it was the government that set up the recipe for disaster.

BP or the people BP hired. That’s who polluted the gulf. Why are you confused? Because you think that we deserve the oil spill for not having a government that enforced stricter policies?

The argument is made for a smaller government that is less intusive to individuals as well as businesses.
The government interference causing BP to drill deeper then they could readily repair is just one argument.
Then we have the government interfering with cleanup efforts…and the government not following their own laws…and the government corruption you lay claim to as well.

Shrink the government, grow the economy.

 

[vz71]

BP or the people BP hired. That’s who polluted the gulf.

Let’s not forget…
The Gulf was already polluted.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ixtoc_I_oil_spill

 

[copperblade]

My point is that the government cannot be trusted to follow its own laws.
So why would we want to empower the government further?

What do you mean by “empower the government” ? The government is already empowered to regulate, and I want them to do it right. But we can’t get them to do it right if we have a whole subset of the population that wants to thinks government “can’t” do the right job, so we should just get rid of it.

There was an explosion, not a spill. The rig exploded and then sank.

There was a spill. An “explosion” didn’t leak into the gulf–oil did. That’s a spill. No one is upset about the explosion part per se.

The pipeline broke off at the ocean floor and could not be readily sealed.
Now we have to ask ourselves why this is a problem.
The correct answer is because they did not have the technology needed to readily close off this pipe.
Now why do you suppose that is?

They had the technology to keep this from happening (at least in this case), but they misread the pressure data and slipped up.

"Now its own internal probe, which it began immediately after the spill began, found that on April 20 managers misread pressure data and gave their approval for rig workers to replace drilling fluid in the well with seawater.

“The seawater was not heavy enough to prevent gas that had been leaking into the well from firing up the pipe to the rig, causing the explosion.”

Again the correct answer is because the water was too deep to easily work in.
And that leads us back to why the company did their drilling that far into the deep.
And the correct answer is…because the government would not let them drill near the shore.

You can blame BP if you wish, but it was the government that set up the recipe for disaster.

BP has already accepted the blame. Your argument is specious. It doesn’t even matter if they had the technology or not. Wherever they’re allowed to drill, that’s a technical problem for BP to solve.

dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1307439/BP-accepts-blame-Gulf-Mexico-spill-leaked-memo-reveals-engineer-misread-pressure-reading.html

The argument is made for a smaller government that is less intusive to individuals as well as businesses.

Arguing simply over “smaller” or “bigger” is asinine. The only question is if we get good value for our money. I’ll agree with you that we are not always getting good value. But if you think shrinking government regulation is going to help, I think that’s a mistake. You’re going to be ruled by somebody, whether it’s Wall Street or the Fed, the only difference it makes is in how much say you have in the matter, and what you do with that power.

If you want to shrink anything, start with the programs, not the regulation.

The government interference causing BP to drill deeper then they could readily repair is just one argument.

“The government made them do it,” is a poor argument, even by BP’s own admission. The better argument is to show that the government wasn’t doing its job or had too little regulation. Or do you think without the government oil spills would never happen, and if they did BP would be even more concerned citizens of the community? They have a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders to make money. As long as you accept that premise, I will contend that the market can never accurately build a desirable society without external rules.

Then we have the government interfering with cleanup efforts…and the government not following their own laws…and the government corruption you lay claim to as well.

I’m definitely not happy with the corruption and abuses in government. I just think the lesser of the two evils is to have the government regulation. In this case, I don’t know how much downright corruption there was, but I think it was in the political interest to make it look like the government punished BP and everything was cleaned up. The spill isn’t good for BP or the government, but at least the government has some pressure from the citizens.

Sorry I brought it up… I think I’ve been taking this thread off-topic.

 

[Monte_RCMS]

Some useful reading by a state economic development advocacy group.

Good links, as well:

goldwaterinstitute.org/article/6191