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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Road Walker who wrote (229825)	4/18/2005 8:02:03 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1576881

In the first "statement" your problem is with "small increments", in your second you say "The extra spending bothers me less than the extra government control over how resources get used". "Small increments" is not limited to small increments in spending. What would be increased (by a small to at most moderate increment) was government control. As I said in my original statement "I'd rather the decisions about which of these nice things are bought or invested in be decided by the private sector rather than the government. Even if somehow a massive government investment in broadband would be a good thing (and that is very debatable itself) pushing further down the line of the government directing what gets invested in this country would be a bad thing." You replied that Bush and congress have plenty of power and that more power isn't an issue. I replied that more power was an issue even if this idea would only be a small increase (or increase by a "small increment"). There is no contradiction or required shift in opinion between that statement and "The extra spending bothers me less than the extra government control over how resources get used and where investments are maid. Extra government spending is only a part of that larger issue." In both statements (and before either) I have been arguing against increasing government power, esp. power in to new areas, whether such an increase is large or small. --- My point is that you said: "The extra spending bothers me less than the extra government control over how resources get used and where investments are maid <sic>." Government ALREADY controls the resources as you admit; how can you say: "bothers me less than the extra government control over how resources get used"? More contradiction. Government already controls a lot of resources. That doesn't mean that a massive new government mandated investment in broadband internet access would not increase the amount of resources the government is controlling or directing the use of. It doesn't matter much to me if the government mandate is through direct government spending (taxing away the money and than spending it on internet connections) or through regulation (for example requiring phone companies or anyone else to provide discounted high speed internet services to schools and libraries). The 2nd method doesn't require much (if any) extra government spending but it still increases the amount of control government has over how resources get spent. Besides, we are off the original topic (which always happens with you), the positives and negatives of government intervention to make our automobile fleet more efficient. 1 - Follow this conversation backwards. This particular discussion starts with your post about high speed internet connections and government subsidies. I didn't change the topic. Message 21231399 2 - This is a closely related topic, they both fit under the overall question of how much should the economy be directed around government imposed goals rather than the operation of the market. Lately you have responded to statements like that by pointing out existing government intervention and then arguing that we already have social engineering. Its true we have a lot of it but that doesn't mean we should have a lot of it, or that increasing it would be a good idea. Tim