Stossel is Awesome

[dogpet]

psychodiva wrote

seriously- I mean- seriously

Brick would work as a shrimper, providing he could undercut disposable bag vendors.

[ILOVEJESUS]

Brick Penn (Penn & Teller ) is a libertarian and you may enjoy watching some of his videos on u tube.

[dogpet]

ilj will shrimp for attention.

[Brick]

All brainless progs cower before the mighty Stossel!

Oh. Canada...

Grr! Profits Bad!

Do you believe in magic politicians?

President Santa Claus Superman

[ILOVEJESUS]

dogpet wrote

ilj will shrimp for attention.

Shrimping? Is this a new dance?

[ubs]

Brick wrote

Title 9 forces schools to spend equal amounts on male and female athletics. Since there are more male athletes, their programs get cut to keep the numbers equal. Segment begins at 12:02.

The problem with that analysis is that the number of young women participating in sports in public schools has gone from 15% pre title nine to 40% and is still climbing, so the affects of past sexism is still working it's way out. What criteria are you advocating, and why are you even concerned with public schools? In honoring your personal philosophies, won't you be sending your children to private?

My sense of private school expenditures by gender is that it is approximately equal - that is to say, if they have a boys rowing team, there is also a girls rowing team. After all private schools aren't selling to children - they're selling to parents and approximately half of the parents have girls.

[ubs]

Stossel seems to be one of those Republicans that wants to shit on the poor and attempts to justify it using some Libertarian talking points, but stops short at any free market doctrine that the wealthy might find offensive.

Someone who is truly Libertarian would spend more time addressing the largest areas of Federal waste - Military expenditures, transfer payments to large corporations, the expense of fiat currency in the hands of the corrupt, the lobbying of large companies to prevent competition especially in the areas of farming and insurance, inheritance.

Food stamps and low income housing are small fish on the US Federal Budget and attacking the disenfranchised is a cowards path. To each his own, I guess.

[Victus]

ubs wrote

The problem with that analysis is that the number of young women participating in sports in public schools has gone from 15% pre title nine to 40% and is still climbing, so the affects of past sexism is still working it's way out.

Well, that kind of assumes that the base rate of participation is equal between genders.

My sense of private school expenditures by gender is that it is approximately equal - that is to say, if they have a boys rowing team, there is also a girls rowing team. After all private schools aren't selling to children - they're selling to parents and approximately half of the parents have girls.[/quote]

ubs wrote

Someone who is truly Libertarian would spend more time addressing the largest areas of Federal waste - Military expenditures, transfer payments to large corporations

Theoretically, yes. That said, those combined, aren't the "largest" areas of "waste". The majority of the budget goes to welfare-y type things (the huge ones being Social Security and Medicare). Another explanation might be that, for libertarians, the military is a legitimate thing for government to be doing, whereas welfare isn't. More pragmatically, he's on Fox and is more likely to use libertarian points to pander to
his conservative audience.

[ubs]

Victus wrote

Well, that kind of assumes that the base rate of participation is equal between genders.

No, it notes that the slope of the line is > 0

Victus wrote

Theoretically, yes. That said, those combined, aren't the "largest" areas of "waste". The majority of the budget goes to welfare-y type things (the huge ones being Social Security and Medicare).

No, defense is larger.

Victus wrote

Another explanation might be that, for libertarians, the military is a legitimate thing for government to be doing, whereas welfare isn't.

No, no. That's a Republican agenda, and that is what I'm saying. This isn't a Libertarian platform. As it happens the ONLY anti war presidential candidate now on the horizon is Ron Paul.

At the level of more than 2x the rest of the world put together, I think it's safe to say that we've exceeded the protection of property rights. So called defense spending is a transfer payment - just a transfer to business.

Victus wrote

More pragmatically, he's on Fox and is more likely to use libertarian points to pander to
his conservative audience.

Yes

[Victus]

ubs wrote

No, it notes that the slope of the line is > 0

The nature of the law is that spending has to be 50/50, which assumes that demand is at the same level.

ubs wrote

No, defense is larger.

Uh, no. As of the 2010 budget...

Social Security: 19.63%
Department of Defense: 18.74%
General Welfare: 16.13%
Medicare: 12.79%
Medicade/SCHIP: 8.19%
Interest on Debt: 4.63%
Health and Human Services: 2.22%
Department of Housing and Urban Development: 1.34%

etc

Total of Welfare* Programs: 64.93%
Defense: 18.74%

Defense is not bigger than all welfare. It's not even bigger than the biggest welfare program.

*Only the ones listed above.

ubs wrote

No, no. That's a Republican agenda, and that is what I'm saying. This isn't a Libertarian platform. As it happens the ONLY anti war presidential candidate now on the horizon is Ron Paul.

Libertarians are anti-war, but they're not anti-military in the same way that they're anti-welfare. For a libertarian, maintaining a military is a perfectly legitimate thing for a government to do (even if the current levels of spending are too high).

ubs wrote

At the level of more than 2x the rest of the world put together, I think it's safe to say that we've exceeded the protection of property rights. So called defense spending is a transfer payment - just a transfer to business.

Absolutely. It's just not the biggest by a longshot.

[Brick]

ubs wrote

Stossel seems to be one of those Republicans that wants to shit on the poor and attempts to justify it using some Libertarian talking points, but stops short at any free market doctrine that the wealthy might find offensive.

Like legalizing drugs?

Someone who is truly Libertarian would spend more time addressing the largest areas of Federal waste - Military expenditures, transfer payments to large corporations, the expense of fiat currency in the hands of the corrupt, the lobbying of large companies to prevent competition especially in the areas of farming and insurance, inheritance.

I'll let Victus handle this.

Food stamps and low income housing are small fish on the US Federal Budget and attacking the disenfranchised is a cowards path. To each his own, I guess.

It doesn't matter if it makes you feel warm and fuzzy. If it doesn't work, get rid of it.

ubs wrote

The problem with that analysis is that the number of young women participating in sports in public schools has gone from 15% pre title nine to 40% and is still climbing, so the affects of past sexism is still working it's way out. What criteria are you advocating, and why are you even concerned with public schools? In honoring your personal philosophies, won't you be sending your children to private?

Why stop at sports then? Are you going to require that 50% of all physics majors be women? Or 50% of all psychology majors be men? Why must the percentages be the same? Should college yoga classes be banned unless half the students are men?

Is Obama honoring his personal philosophy by sending his kids to a private school?

If I choose to send my kids to a private school, I will most likely be forced to pay taxes for the shitty public one I rejected. That's the gov't for you. It's so nice it makes you pay twice

[Irreligious]

Brick wrote

It doesn't matter if it makes you feel warm and fuzzy. If it doesn't work, get rid of it.

Does it matter any more if it makes you feel warm and fuzzy to see some of your fellow Americans suffer?

And who says the Food Stamp program doesn't work? If it gives those without the means to afford food the opportunity to buy it, then it's working.

Brick wrote

Is Obama honoring his personal philosophy by sending his kids to a private school?

Why do I get the sense that you won't be happy until this particular president is living in the projects? Personally, I don't understand your enmity towards Obama, but you are most certainly entitled to your feelings.

Anyway, like nearly all modern presidents, Obama is a millionaire and millionaires rarely send their children to public schools. But that has no bearing on whether or not he is committed to ensuring quality public schools for the vast majority of us who are not millionaires and lacking the means to send our own children to posh private schools.

Brick wrote

If I choose to send my kids to a private school, I will most likely be forced to pay taxes for the shitty public one I rejected. That's the gov't for you. It's so nice it makes you pay twice

Everybody who chooses to send their kids to private school must also pay the taxes that fund public schools. The president is not exempt from paying taxes just because he sends his kids to a private school.

Did you go to public school? If so, who paid for it?

[Choobus]

Irreligious wrote

Did you go to public school?

A more pertinent question might be "did you go to school". Any school. My guess is this is all the end product of fast times at Ayn Rand high......

[lostsheep]

Irreligious wrote

Then it was a terribly bad program for you, and I sincerely understand if you don't give a flying fuck what it may have done for the U.S. auto workers and those who work at plants that manufacture auto parts for those vehicles.

By the way, I'm partial to used cars myself, though not necessarily of the clunker variety. Two or three years old and under 40,000 miles is good enough for me. Though, I tend to drive my vehicles until they are no longer roadworthy. If the Cash for Clunkers program had the effect of creating a shortage of the kind of used vehicles I tend to buy, I guess I'll also get pinched when I go car shopping.

Edited: More bad spelling on my part. That should have been "Mercedes Benzes."

You're right. I'm probably being selfish here, but it is extremely irritating to constantly hear: "Well, we used to have the kind of cars you are looking for, but thanks to 'Cash for Clunkers....'"

These smarmy bastards (car salesmen) are HAPPY I'm SOL, and they feel like they can stick it to me worse than they previously could, AND it's like they KNOW I voted for Obama, so they are not only trying to rub my face in it, they are trying to make me eat it, too. Fuck them, anyway. I had my engine rebuilt. I hope to god my car lasts for a few years and I don't have to come crawling back anytime soon. But my next option might be a scooter!

[Irreligious]

lostsheep wrote

You're right. I'm probably being selfish here, but it is extremely irritating to constantly hear: "Well, we used to have the kind of cars you are looking for, but thanks to 'Cash for Clunkers....'"

These smarmy bastards (car salesmen) are HAPPY I'm SOL, and they feel like they can stick it to me worse than they previously could, AND it's like they KNOW I voted for Obama, so they are not only trying to rub my face in it, they are trying to make me eat it, too. Fuck them, anyway. I had my engine rebuilt. I hope to god my car lasts for a few years and I don't have to come crawling back anytime soon. But my next option might be a scooter!

Oh, please don't get me wrong. I really was not judging you. I think I understand where you're coming from, and you have every right to think of yourself. We all do, more or less. I was merely pointing out the other side of the tale, which is that the Cash for Clunkers program was intended to help save the U.S. auto industry from going bust, and with it, thousands of middle class jobs that allow auto workers to pay taxes and contribute to the economy. At least, that's my very simplistic understanding of why the program was initiated.

I'm not so sure whether or not the negative consequences of that program were "unintended" or "unforeseen" as much as they were weighed against the objective, and found to be less compelling by comparison, at least in the minds of the president and his economic advisers.

Again, I do not blame you for disagreeing with Obama if you (and a lot of other folks) ended up getting screwed in process.