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Laissez-faire or Government Intervention?
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The dollar’s plummeting, the Fed just financed a JP Morgan take-over of Bear Stearns, foreclosures are rising, home prices are dropping, GDP growth is anemic, national debt is obscnene, energy prices are sky rocketing, Iraq is $12 billion a month.
Should we grin and bear it (work on restoring our fundamentals), or should the Fed continue to lower interest rates and bail out investment banks?
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a big collapse would suck, but would make the market correct itself.
if we keep going and get bailed out, wont the next time when a bailout is needed, make it even worse if there is a collapse.
so for me, correct it. the later generations will find a way.
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If it were not for the 110th Congress and the slandering of true conservatives in the 109th Congress, this wouldn’t be an issue.
The only thing we can do, if we are smart, is to tighten our belts, slash entitlement spending and redirect that money to paying off foreign held national debt. (Domestically held national debt is actually a good thing, it drives $$$s into the pockets of US Citizens. Foreign held debt is bad, it removes $$$s from the US Economy.)
For instance:
Social Security reduced so only the impoverished get payments
Welfare replaced with Workfare. If you need money to live and cannot prove you have no ability to work, then you have to work for the state and earn the money.
Schools need to be reduced in funding. (Yes, I know that there’s a lot of hype out there saying it’s underfunded. That’s hogwash. Go get a budget for just about any school and you’ll see how readily and ignorantly they waste the money they are given on worthless programs.)We also need to strip down the government. I suggest disbanding the US Armed Forces and reassigning them piecemeal to the states, keep a corps of Federal Officers and NCOs to coordinate in times of war, otherwise we don’t need the burden. That would, of course, mandate the immediate surrender and withdrawal of troops from such front line assignments like Germany, Italy, France, India, Korea, Vietnam, Japan, Philippines, Midway, etc and serious considerations for keeping troops in the Useless Nations.
We’d need to slash funds wasted on research into how global warming is affecting the dung beetle. Let them get corporate sponsorship.
Hell, make me benevolent dictator for 3 weeks, I’ll get the government back on track and reduced in size by no less then 98%. All I’ll do is enforce the US Constitution.
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@Cmdr:
That would, of course, mandate the immediate surrender and withdrawal of troops from such front line assignments like Germany, Italy, France, India, Korea, Vietnam, Japan, Philippines, Midway, etc and serious considerations for keeping troops in the Useless Nations.
Just out of curiousity, how many troops do you think we have in Vietnam and India?
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@Cmdr:
That would, of course, mandate the immediate surrender and withdrawal of troops from such front line assignments like Germany, Italy, France, India, Korea, Vietnam, Japan, Philippines, Midway, etc and serious considerations for keeping troops in the Useless Nations.
Just out of curiousity, how many troops do you think we have in Vietnam and India?
Considering the push to pull our troops back from places we NEED them in, even 1 troop wasted in Vietnam or India or Korea or Japan or Germany or Italy or Bosnia or Croatia or France is 1 troop too many.
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Other than Embassy guards, how many troops DO we have in Vietnam and India? Do we even have an embassy to have guards in Vietnam?
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It was listed as a duty station when i was serving in 2005. So we have to have at least a battalion, anything less then that and they wouldn’t offer it as a duty station, just assign you if they needed some guys (and if that was the case, Marines would be going since it’d probably be for an embassy and we all know marines open doors better then everyone else. And they are so adorable in those little uniforms. :P)
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Laissez-faire is a pipe dream. That is all I have to say about the topic name. The degree of intervention is the question.
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It’s only a pipe dream if you believe government is the answer to all of our problems.
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@Cmdr:
It’s only a pipe dream if you believe government is the answer to all of our problems.
Can anyone name an instance where putting the government in charge of something actually helped? (besides leading a war that is).
And I am looking for the previous 40 years…… nothing ancient like the New Deal or the like.
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We do have an embassy, since 95. I’ve never heard of any troops there other than marine guards, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t I may be able to find out though…
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@Cmdr:
It’s only a pipe dream if you believe government is the answer to all of our problems.
Can anyone name an instance where putting the government in charge of something actually helped? (besides leading a war that is).
And I am looking for the previous 40 years…… nothing ancient like the New Deal or the like.
Darlin, even the New Deal didn’t help. Look back at history and ignore the war propaganda. The New Deal didn’t help anything, we were just circling the drain faster. It wasn’t until WWII when women entered the work force to fill in for the men who had been reassigned to Europe/Pacific that things turned around. And then it was because we became two income families and thus able to pull ourselves out of the great depression DESPITE the government’s influence.
Anyway, I have to admit, the only time I can think of that the Government actually “helped” was in the instances of deploying the National Guard to build sandbag walls to stop flood waters, or to pull people out of forest fires. Short of that, and defending us from war, I cannot think of a single time people were thankful (in the end) to hear the words: “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.”
Honestly, the thing that made Reagan a great president was that he REMOVED government from our lives. It wasn’t that his policies were good or that his budget was good. It was that he stopped the government from getting in the way which allowed the AMERICAN CITIZEN to be good!
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@Cmdr:
It’s only a pipe dream if you believe government is the answer to all of our problems.
It’s a pipe dream because it’s an impossibility and has nothing to do with my preferences.
Even your precious Reagan expanded the government more than we had seen in years and set a precedent in deficit spending.
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big government only helps in the short term. and it makes responsibility vanish so it just pushes the problems farther back in time. great, as always in america, let someone else deal with it. preferably after i’m gone so the thinking goes.
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@Cmdr:
It’s only a pipe dream if you believe government is the answer to all of our problems.
It’s a pipe dream because it’s an impossibility and has nothing to do with my preferences.
Even your precious Reagan expanded the government more than we had seen in years and set a precedent in deficit spending.
You love to claim things like this with absolutely no proof what-so-ever.
Reagan may have expanded the MILITARY more then ever and set a precedent in MILITARY spending. However, he deregulated the air waves, he deregulated the shipping industry. Hell, if it were not for the Socialists (both in America and in Russia) I bet he would have cut the government to 1% of its original size. I know I would.
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Based on government spending, Reagan more than doubled the size of government over his 8 years in office.
From just under half a trillion in annual spending to over 1 trillion in 8 years.
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@ncscswitch:
Based on government spending, Reagan more than doubled the size of government over his 8 years in office.
From just under half a trillion in annual spending to over 1 trillion in 8 years.
And what did he spend it on? Military. In other words, he spent money on the only thing the US Government SHOULD spend money on. National Defense.
I don’t care if a scientist is $5 short on funding to cure cancer. The US Government should ONLY SPEND MONEY ON MILITARY.
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Not quite true Jen.
Annual military spending increased to $250 B per year for Reagan’s last budget (round numbers). That means $750 B per year for non-military expenditures.
From the 1980 budget levels to 1988 levels, military spending went up about $150 B. Domestic spending went up $350 B.
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Then he wasted 350 billion.
Though, I highly doubt his increases were near (in percentages) to someone like, oh, say FDR?
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@Cmdr:
@Cmdr:
It’s only a pipe dream if you believe government is the answer to all of our problems.
It’s a pipe dream because it’s an impossibility and has nothing to do with my preferences.
Even your precious Reagan expanded the government more than we had seen in years and set a precedent in deficit spending.
You love to claim things like this with absolutely no proof what-so-ever.
Reagan may have expanded the MILITARY more then ever and set a precedent in MILITARY spending. However, he deregulated the air waves, he deregulated the shipping industry. Hell, if it were not for the Socialists (both in America and in Russia) I bet he would have cut the government to 1% of its original size. I know I would.
I don’t bother with you anymore because you never did the same in the first place, and refuse FACTS when they are repeatedly shown to you.
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