There is more than one parallel between the US and ancient Rome:)




Iraq needs to be handled with care. Bush stabbed the patient in the belly, now Obama needs to sow him up properly before leaving the operating room. Otherwise you'll end up with an infection spreading across the Islamic world.



What do you expect a Dutchman to say about that? The only reason our drugs problem is still manageable is because we don't make it a problem.



Never a bad idea in and off itself, but under the circumstances both too expensive and too Keynesian in nature.



Did you say eliminate? And leave the hapless victims of the crisis to their fates?



Apart from the last one, very good initiatives.



That makes plain sense. It's what Dutch governments have been doing for the last sixty years.



I doubt present mondial economic realities can support that idea.

Sarek:

When I suggested increasing the number of border patrol agents, ports inspectors and scannig machines, the idea wasn't to reduce drug trafficing. On the contrary, I think all drugs should be legalized. My point was about terrorism. This relates to the Iraq war. If troops are withdrawn and demobilized, some of the money saved can be used to do something that actually enhances national security. I understand you point about the dangers of leaving Iraq prematurely, but frankly, I think there will never be a stable government in Iraq unless it is antagnostic to the U.S. and probably aligned with Iran, with which, as I'm sure you know, the majority of the Iraqis have close ethnic, religious and, increasingly, political ties. There is argument ot made that Iran currently has more influence in Iraq than the U.S. Therefore, an artifical withdrawl plan, based on the absolute neccessity of reducing deficits, needs to be implemented.

Infrastructure:
Maintaing national infrastructure is one of the few legitmate purposes of the federal government. There is nothing keynesian about it; it would create jobs in construction and all the industries assosciated with it; what the plan would not do is encourage more consumer spending, on credit no less, which has been the keynesian policy of the government for decades.

Social Programs:
As a dutchman, I suppose you feel that these are appropriate roles for the government; i myself do not. However, regardless of one's ideology, it is a fact that these are responsible for most of the deficit and and will be absoltely unsustainable in the future. It is estimated that to meet future obligations for SS, Medicare and Medicaid alone, which comprise almost half the budget this year, the U.S. economy would have to grow at a rate above 10% for the next 75 years! That is not possible. We have grown at about 2% for the last several, and those numbers are extremely questionable because of the government underestimation of inflation. IJNn reality, excluding the expansion caused by the taking on of new debt, the U.S. economy has alost certainly contracted in recent years. The sooner we escape this mostrosity, the less painful it will be. The only reason I make a distinction between SS and Medicare on the one hand, and welfare and medicaid on the othe,r is that the older people who rely on the former have no ability to work and save the money to support themselves; it seems unfair to drop their benefits which they have already paid for to some extent. However, if SS and medicare were gradually phased out, so that no new people enter the system as payers or receivers, all is well. Of course, for this to happen, there has to be a more balanced budget, as obviously revenues will drop and the money wil have to come from elsewhere.

Finally, the gold standard:
Your right that in the current economic crisis, the effect of changing the monetary policy would be disastrous; governments would be forced to stop printing money to 'solve' the credit problems and stimulate spending. However, that will not work, that will make the problem worse. The Fed and the other central banks will fail; they cannot continue to inflate the bubble ad infinitum. When it does eventually burst, wouldn't it be better to have a real currency and at least not have to worry as much about inflation?

By the way, Amsterdam...magnificent, always wanted to go. :whistling:

You brought up some valid points here. Much of it is indeed a matter of ideology. It just remains to be seen what will actually happen.

I doubt increased security measures will ever eliminate all possibility of attack. Fredrick the Great of Germany already said 'wer alles defendieren will der defendiert gar nichts'. He, who tries to defend all, defends nothing at all.

Sometimes you need to be proactive, not reactive. And not all proactive solutions need be military solutions.
Iran is a case in point. The Iranian(or should we rather say Persian) people are in actuality a highly developed and culturally extremely rich people. They are not born as religious fanatics.
They can be reasoned with, assuming their current leadership is not kept in power by providing them with a scary external enemy.

And yes, Amsterdam is a very beautiful city. By american standards it is not that big, but its overflowing with its rich cultural heritage.

Sarek, I wasn't going for a full foreign policy. I was trying to deal more with the allocation of resources: namely, away from offensive and counterproductive war toward improved domestic security. Frankly, I'm not afraid of terrorists at all, but spending a little on something that might help intercept an attack is better than spending alot on something which is sure to anger America's enemies yet more. That's all. Obviously, diplomacy will be needed.

To that view I can wholeheartedly agree.
Antagonism can be a very expensive game to play, and if we can break out of that mould fewer resources will be wasted.

Is that really the case or did you make it up for the thread? I thought the founding fathers might have included something like that. Because they knew the republic would degenerate into democracy and choke under it's own weight.

But here's what I would do if I were dictator. (In reality, I would not want the job.)

1. Close the border with Mexico. Force Mexico to pay one barrel of oil per illegal alien in the US.
2. Reduce government to the objective of protecting individual liberty.
3. Cut taxes to a reasonable amount, eventually change to a consumption tax.
4. Make abortion illegal, with a few exceptions.
5. Ban Islamism in the US.
6. Restrict voting rights to those informed about the system and with a financial investment in it.
7. Revoke most supreme court decisions overturning popular votes, and many others.
8. Allow gay marriage in states that vote that way, yet strongly persecute all voter-intimidation by pressure groups.
9. Revoke policies such as affirmative action, disparate impact, and many others. Completely start a California constitution from scratch.
10. Declare martial law over sanctuary cities until they follow federal law again.
11. Divide Iraq and redraw the Middle east borders.
12. Invade North Korea.
13. Put a heavy tax on imported Chinese goods until they revalue their currency.
14. Redraw from the United Nations. Withdraw all diplomats and staff. Turn the United Nations building into housing for the working poor.
15. Eliminate fraud from the military and raise the pay of military personnel.
16. Eliminate the Federal Reserve and reestablish the gold or bimetallic standard.

I could go on, and I might.

Just hypothetical Nero, but I sometimes do think that something of that sort might have a place in the consitution. But these days, where O where would we find a Cincinnatus? (the farmer who was elected dictator and relunctantly accepted the position of abolute power)

Anyway, I was looking over my old list and noticed it was pretty scrawny. Here is an new version for whoever might be interested. This time I've focused more on economic issues.

1. Abolish medicaid, saving $259 billion in FY09, 1.103 trillion through 2012

2. Repeal TARP and draw back all funds lent, nullify all garantees, saving $247 billion in FY09 and who knows how much in the future

3. Repeal the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, saving 202.3 billion this year, $727.9 billion through 2012

4. Trim $300 billion from the FY 09 $654.7 billion defense budget, leaving the details to the defense department-cap the budget at that level for 5 years-prohibit the use of armed contractors, anywhere

6. Legally prohibit both tax and non-mandatory spending increases for 5 years, so that new programs would have to be paid for by scrapping old ones

By these actions, a total of $1.0083 trillion would be saved this year and 3.3326+ trillion through 2012, assuming there are no more TARP related expenses (which is a pretty conservative assumption), and assuming that the military budget would otherwise have remained at present levels (also pretty conservative).

That might prevent imminent collapse, and will certainly free alot of money, credit, and resources for use in the free market.

Next, to free that market a little

1. Allow health insurance to be purchased across state lines-pass stringent tort reform-allow the importation of prescription medication

2. Eliminate all federal gasoline taxes

3. Repeal all federal mandates to the states regarding any kind of welfare program-state that there will be no 'bailout' of any kind for any state under any circunstances, ever-deny all federal funding to any state which expands its welfare system

4. Eliminate all subsidies/tax credits/privilages for energy of any kind, especially ethanol

5. Abolish Federal drug prohibition in its entirety, replacing it with a regulatory/taxation regime akin to that for alcohol or tobacco, either saving or generating tens of billions of dollars each year-pardon and free anyone imprisoned for any non-violent drug offences, saving more money and doing justice

6. Audit the federal reserve, keep the results of the audit private so as not to cause panic, establish a committee to determine how best to unwind the Fed's deals, return the money power to congress, and restestablish a metallic standard-require that the committee gives it's report within 5 years, and that the Fed be officially dissolved, one way or another, by that time-immediately prohibit the Fed from loaning any money or providing any garantees to any of the Wall Street banks

7. Restore mark to market accounting rules

8. Remove all moral hazard by legally prohibiting the federal government, or the federal reserve, from loaning any money in any fashion to any corporation, ever

9. Allow drilling of all known oil or gas reserves on federal land, or in coastal waters, whether that land is a national park or not

10. Legally prohibit the states/local governments from offering welfare benefits of any kind to illegal immigrants; prosecute state/local officials who fail to comply for harboring federal fugatives; eliminate all federal funding to any state which provides such benefits to illegal immigrants

11. Eliminate the federal minimum wage and deny all federal funding to states which do not eliminate their own minimum wage laws

12. Prohibit federal funding for any international organization or program associated with the U.N, withdraw from the U.N.

13. Conduct an audit of the CIA, FBI and Homeland Security similiar to the audit of the Fed, in order to make them more accountable, more efficient, and to scrap any programs which are either redundent, ineffective, or, most importantly, unconstitional-find out just how much goes into the 'black budget'

By these actions, we can exclude government from many sectors of the economy and national life in general, increasing our freedom, and unfettering the free market (to some extent, MUCH more has to be done eventually) so that prosperity is at least possible.

I would declare anarchy.

And gave up power after his work was done.



I would support all of those. Some comments though.
4. I would cut fraud and inefficiency from the defense budget. But not just cut the defense budget.
13. I would bring some order to the mess of secret organisations, but let then do their work.

I thought about being more specific than 'cutting the defense budget by x amount,' but in the end I decided that I frankly don't know enough about the details of the defense department to intellegently comment on it. That's the only reason I'd leave it to the military to determine which cuts should be made. I assume they would make a cost-benefit analysis and cut the least efficient programs, but you're absolutely right that the whole system is corrupt. Maybe another committee is in order, to investigate fraud and bribery? I was also considering adding a provision that bids for actual equipment, and for domestic services, could only be accepted from American companies. I wonder if it would be feasble to ban service contractors altogether? Throughout history, most military establishments have done their own logistical work. Unfortunately, I don't see a way of totally removing the corruption unless we do eliminate all private contracting for the military, both service and equipment. As long as government purchases items or services from private groups, some of those provate groups will try to purchase the government.

I dunno, maybe i'd do something about the economy first off..
Alright, contractionary fiscal policy to cap spending and seal off the vaults from much additional spending. This coupled with the issuing of government bonds to willing consumers. Nothing much is asked, just to buy a $10-20 bond to stimulate the economy for the time being. A progressive lowering of the interest rate would also help at this time. Cut subsidies for transportation, education, and environmental causes (Environmentalists: Relax, this would only be for 2-3 years, and funding would not be cut off entirely. The space program may also be one of the first to lose funding, as it also isn't necessary for the moment. I don't know if it would be wise to counteract unemployment this way, but increasing the labor force would sizably reduce unemployment. Raising the minimum wage might be one solution, because it would entice discouraged workers to find work, if they can. If they don't, then they remain discouraged workers.
Also, remove the death penalty, cut income tax by 5%, and increase farm subsidies. Sorry for not explaining anything else, but i'll continue on later.

I got some more.
1. We actually hang people for treason when they cause things like the mortgage meltdown,or corrupt politicians.
2. Politicians don't get paid.
3. No lobbying whatsoever.

You've got some nice contradictions in here. For example:

Which I would agree with. But then you say:

Every case is different Pangloss, do you want to learn how to quote properly because i know I've said this before somewhere, check Justins video in the vid section of this fourm, please.
Thanks.

Do you want to learn how to moderate properly? There's nothing wrong with that quote.

Thanks.

If you watch the video properly you will see there's a lot wrong with the way you quoted in that post. I would appreciate it immensely if you did and it would help me moderate correctly and you'll see why when you look closer at the video in the vid section of the philosophy forum. How come you think I do not moderate, please, pray tell?
Thanks

I do not need to watch a video on how to use quotes in a forum, I've been posting on forums for years.

As for moderating, I'd only advise that you get off the power trip. Singling me out in the middle of a thread for supposedly not quoting properly does not help anyone.

Certainly EmperorNero will be able to see the logic in the way I broke up his quote to make my point. You apparently do not, so thanks anyway.

I can't watch all of you now can I, power trip? I beg your pardon? What does that mean, please, pray tell? I have spoken to other members regarding their behaviour and I'm not singling you out, I just would like to have a clean forum and you would make it cleaner if you took the time out to watch the video on this forum because you'll see it's quite different to others, you can't just quote one person at the top and leave it at that, how do I know whom you're qouting in the rest of your post and I like to follow you to keep an eye on things, I try to keep an eye on the bigger picture, you know what I mean? But it's hard work, no power trip, pal, I'll forgive your bad quotes if you watch the vid? Huh deal? I would appreicate it if you took the time out to watch it. And you do need to watch the vid because you haven't shown me yet how to quote properly. Hey I do the best I can regarding other members but I can't watch everybody, I don't have eyes in back of my head, you want to try moderating a forum, its hard work, it aint no power trip, I can tell ya, I dont believe that is your concern do you?
Thanks.

Actually, it's quite clear that I was just quoting EmperorNero's post, and broke it up in order to make a couple of points about his plans. It makes it easier for him to understand what I'm getting at that way. If you can't understand this, then fine.

Also I find it pretty funny that you are chiding me for how I choose to quote somebody's post, while your lack of proper grammar and punctuation in that last post of yours make your 'paragraph' nearly unintelligible. Maybe I'll post up a video on english composition for you to watch, while I'm learning the higher art of forum quoting from that video that you say I'm supposed to watch.

Thanks again, now if you don't mind, I'm simply interested in EmperorNero's response.