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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: J_F_Shepard who wrote (229910)	2/22/2002 12:55:31 AM
From: Selectric II	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769667

Some people make progress in life. Others are like ice cubes stuck in a mold. Seems you favor the latter.

To: J_F_Shepard who wrote (229910)	2/22/2002 8:38:07 AM
From: Neocon	Respond to of 769667

My family was solidly Democratic, favoring politicians like Hubert Humphrey. I supported McGovern as a teenager, actually doing campaign work, although my parents balked at McGovern. There were various steps from that to voting for Reagan in '80 (even then, I did not consider myself a conservative, and remained a registered Democrat for about a decade). For example, I was horrified at the aftermath of the Vietnam War: the boat people, the re- education camps, the Cambodian disaster. It made no sense to me to blame the United States, and just went to show that Communists were evil. Similarly, information on the Cultural Revolution began to come out. Far from the beautiful accounts of airheads like Shirley MacLaine, it was a disaster, killing, robbing, and humiliating people recklessly, sending old people out into the fields to die, being merciless to intellectuals, and letting the fanatics run wild. Again, Communism, seemed pretty bad. Deng was better, but still would not democratize and jailed dissidents, and tyrannized Tibet. The Soviet Union had shown its true colors when it rolled into Prague to stop the Czech Spring in '68. Additionally, more and more dissidents became known in the West, and Solzhenitsyn came out with "The Gulag Archipelago". The Soviets got tangled up in Afghanistan, deployed intermediate range missiles in Europe, and sponsored the Sandanistas, who began systematic persecution of political dissidents. Meanwhile, fanatics took over in Iran, and the pace of terrorism in the Middle East and Europe sped up. Not just Arab extremists, either, but groups like the Bader- Meinhof gang in Germany. Carter met a great deal of this with passivity, although he could eventually be roused. Ted Kennedy would clearly have been more lackadaisical about security concerns. I began to regret having had a part in establishing "McGovernism" as a strong force in the Democratic Party. I remember watching Tom Snyder's Tomorrow Show, around the time of the election. Herbert Block, the late liberal editorial cartoonist was on. He was deploring Carter as being feckless, and saying that if he had no other choice, he would vote for Reagan. However, he did have another choice, voting for the renegade Republican moderate. I just thought: "throwing your vote away." If Reagan were preferable to Carter, than vote for him..... This is just a description of some of the foreign policy components of the change. I will address other matters shortly......

To: J_F_Shepard who wrote (229910)	2/22/2002 9:28:35 AM
From: Neocon	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769667

Now, on to economics.... First, I learned more about economics in college and after, for example, getting clear the idea that there is no "just price" for goods and services, only exchange value. Although there might be situations where fraud or coercion enter in, most exchanges are voluntary and represent a fair assessment of what the value of the objects are to the parties involved, which will differ according to circumstance. From that, I came to realize that there could not be a "just price" for labor, either. Barring fraud or coercion, there was just a negotiated price that was inherently fair. This totally dissolved the conceptual support for the idea that workers are naturally exploited and executive salaries are inherently unfair. Furthermore, I came to understand the idea of capital investment better: capital was attracted to the prospect of higher returns, with the assumption of greater risk. That is the basis upon which the economy develops. Without the greater potential for rewards, the risk would not be assumed. Therefore, returns are the cost of attracting capital, and are inherently fair, and one should only regulate against fraud and coercion, and in order to increase confidence in the stability of the market. Without a free market in capital, it is likely that resources would be misallocated. I also watched a series called "Free to Choose" on PBS, even as I was reading around economics textbooks and other material. It was put together by Milton Friedman. In it, he makes an excellent case for the Great Depression to be a failure of government, not a systemic failure of capitalism, because the Federal Reserve did not move quickly to solve the liquidity crisis created by the initial wave of bank failures, and things snowballed. He also makes an excellent case that most regulatory agencies end up becoming tools of the affected industry, and suppress competition through cartelization. There were other things as well, I mention only two that especially impressed me. Finally, I was persuaded that Laffer had something in talking about the disincentive and distorting character of the tax code. Obviously, if the marginal dollar is going to be taxed at 90%, there is little incentive to pursue it, at the expense of one's free time and other resources. Obviously, if capital gains are going to be taxed at the rate of income, it reduces the incentive to re- allocate capital from less attractive areas to more attractive areas, and thus leads to inefficiency in investing. Obviously, if there are tax advantages to marginal investments, it skews investment. Thus, I became generally comfortable with the idea of tax reform and the decrease of regulation, as an antidote to the stagflation of the Carter years. I thought that, in the end, the argument favoring economic growth, and the notion that a rising tide lifts all boats, was correct......

To: J_F_Shepard who wrote (229910)	2/22/2002 9:44:27 AM
From: Neocon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769667

On to welfare and social spending: First, I think that the sounder the economy, the better off those at the bottom of the ladder are. There are more jobs, they are likely to pay better, and there is more opportunity to advance. In addition, the more prosperous a society, the more money there is available for charity and social spending. Second, I think that most social spending is best pursued by states and localities, since it makes sense to take into account local conditions. For example, in the Bay area, real estate is so expensive, it takes much more to live than in North Carolina. There are no one- size- fits- all solutions. The federal government has a role, for example, in ensuring that poorer states are not too stuck with an inadequate tax base for their burden, but it should be narrow.] Third, social spending should be targeted to the truly needy. For example, there is no reason to socialize medicine generally, whereas there may be reason to provide more subsidized clinics and other forms of care to the indigent. Fourth, there are moral hazards to making welfare too attractive for the able- bodied, or not providing basic job training. There are teenagers who get pregnant to get their own apartment; there are people who would rather spend their time getting high than look for a job; there are people who don't know how to dress or act for an interview. Thus, I favor welfare reform. My idea is to get people off the rolls as soon as possible, and provide more and better services for the most needy. Fifth, the foregoing applies to schools as well. Federal aid should be mainly channeled to school districts with large immigrant populations, to help them cope, and to the inner cities, to alleviate classroom crowding, promote better discipline, and devise programs like afterschool enrichment sessions for latchkey kids. I think that is enough on social spending for right now......

To: J_F_Shepard who wrote (229910)	2/22/2002 10:03:11 AM
From: Neocon	Respond to of 769667

Just a quick wrap up on some other issues: I think that parents need encouragement and support to impress upon them the importance of being there for their children, and to make it easier to fulfill their roles. I believe that our biggest social problems originate from chaotic,non- nurturing homes without steady role- models or discipline. I do not think that drugs are harmless, or that the war on drugs is a waste of time. Too many neglectful parents are drug users, and too many of their children will spend their high school years wasted. I do not think that promoting sexual responsibility is a waste of time: a lot of the chaos in American homes is caused by dad catting around, and/or mom bringing a string of boyfriends home. If one wants to be a druggie or a libertine, one shouldn't have children. On the environment: I have nothing against anti- pollution efforts, nor fundamental conservation. But my default position is pro- growth. If one cannot show me a strong reason not to open an area for multiple use, I favor exploration. I am in favor of drilling for oil in ANWR, for example. Additionally, I am skeptical of "last few inches" mandates, when emissions are already low in most of the country. They are often costly. I am a "people first" kind of guy. I think that people are often too paranoid about the Christian Right. In my observation, they are but one faction in conservatism, and many of them bend over backwards to demonstrate they are not crypto- theocrats. I think I will leave the rest for now, and see if there are any follow up questions....