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To: Raymond Duray who wrote (15370)2/21/2002 10:47:40 PM
From: Mike M2  Respond to of 74559
 
Ray, great site for AC beartopia.net mike



To: Raymond Duray who wrote (15370)2/21/2002 11:21:16 PM
From: Ilaine  Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 74559
 
Very clever with the language, very weak on content. These being Olympics times I am tempted to give Olympics type scores but since I don't watch the Olympics I'll spare you. I note that you must have had your Roget's out, I would have been hard-pressed to think of that many ways to say that A C Flyer's post was nonsense, balderdash, and nonsense on stilts.

I do, by the way, agree with him. Heavy on the facts, low on the invective, plus I think he's right anyway, for the most part.



To: Raymond Duray who wrote (15370)2/21/2002 11:37:54 PM
From: Maurice Winn  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 74559
 
Raymond, you used some big words, which was fun, but the content was poor. < In 1960, a medical school graduate faced a bright future, due to societal subsidization of his education. Today, that same student pops out of school with an instant quarter million dolllar debt. What went wrong? Nothing. According to a dissembler like you. Debt is good. It enslaves people. >

In 1960, some poor working guy, who didn't have the ability to join the elite, went to work each day, and paid taxes to fund the privileged elitist trainee doctor who was enslaving the poor guy. Then, the clever young doctor started business and charged exorbitant fees to the working guy who thereby had to pay twice for the quack's education.

Now, there's no slavery. The clever young person decides they are motivated enough and smart enough to become a doctor. So they borrow some money to fund their education. Then they graduate and charge the working guy who only has to pay once now.

Slavery involves lack of choice and freedom. In your communist system of slavery, the worker pays for the elite to get the very valuable asset of the medical education and then pays again to use that asset when it is developed. Under freedom and capitalism, the worker has a much better life and the doctor has to earn their living without enslaving anyone.

Meanwhile, the poor taxpaying guy in the 1960s, paying for the highway system without government debt, was slaving away day and night. He died a couple of years later, without driving on the highways which are still being driven on for no charge by the smart young doctor who worked the poor taxpayer into an early grave.

If the highways were paid from government debt, and the now-free guy died a couple of years later due to drinking and eating too much with the extra money he had due to reduced taxes, the smart young doctor would have paid for his own education and also would be paying for the highway system.

It's called fairness and good sense. Slavery is bad Raymond. Your suggested system is the slavery system.

Mqurice

PS: The working guy might NOT have eaten and drunk his way to an early grave and might instead have retired early [thanks to his savings] and have spent decades cruising around on his roads, which will be paid for by current taxpayers who are also driving around on said roads.



To: Raymond Duray who wrote (15370)2/22/2002 12:56:41 AM
From: Don Lloyd  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 74559
 
Ray -

...Eliminate the national debt and you eliminate the 14% drag on the national budgets designed for debt service, otherwise known as unclamping the vampire from the neck of the werkin' stiff. ...

How do you propose to do that?

1. Default?
2. Taxes?
3. Borrow?
4. Other?

Regards, Don



To: Raymond Duray who wrote (15370)2/22/2002 1:53:17 AM
From: MSI  Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 74559
 
The defense I've seen for keeping a national debt was by a Wall street bond trader who looked horrified at the prospect.

However, we are now at the stage of virtually unlimited ability to craft together combined instruments of collective debt and safety across a broad portion of the many trillions of $$-worth of private companies, to supply the need for parking safe funds. And there's nothing saying feds can't guarantee x trillions, like they already do for FNMA.

The one thing choking the old-timers is the gold-standard role of federal debt, the only superpower nuclear-capable debt there is.

But once it's needed, a replacement will, I am absolutely certain, be found. A super-bond, etc. When I briefly played in the international money game, the game was to invest in "world prime banks" of a selected caliber, etc etc. There's no limit to how secure you can make it relative to the economic universe.

After all, FNMA and such are backed by the feds.

It's a non-problem.

Getting rid of fed debt increases flexibility, reduces economic drag, makes private debt cheaper, scares our enemies, makes people more optimistic, and probably even cures cancer.... And probably is as likely to happen.

Also, a bit of Enron-honesty in government accounting will show about $22 TRILLION IN UNFUNDED DEBT including little things like fed pensions. Any debt reduction is good debt reduction, IMO. I don't see the problem.



To: Raymond Duray who wrote (15370)2/22/2002 4:34:34 PM
From: Moominoid  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 74559
 
A small amount of government debt is desirable and necessary for some of the reasons that must have been stated in that article. Australian government debt is about $A75 billion which is less than half of one year's government spending. Or c. $US2000 per Australian. That seems about the right amount :)