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

To: i-node who wrote (466461)	3/25/2009 9:36:06 PM
From: Tenchusatsu	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1574386

Inode, > The only solution is a reduction in our standard of living to that of the rest of the world IMO. I only support that view insofar as to argue for working off the excesses of consumerism. When people finally figure it out, we'll know that our standard of living really doesn't have to suffer as long as the rest of the world continues to improve theirs by leaps and bounds. But that does mean that we can't live in our own isolationist bubble anymore. We're just going to have to compete in the global marketplace and stop pretending that prosperity is inevitable. We'll also have to stop thinking that central planning can replace individual responsibility. In short, we have to start producing again. It doesn't have to be manufacturing, but it does mean that we'll have to do some real soul-searching. Tenchusatsu

To: i-node who wrote (466461)	3/26/2009 9:07:39 AM
From: Taro	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1574386

The reality is that what we're seeing today is in significant part a move to an information-based economy. My buddie Bob made the following comment, Taro "There is truth in this, but it's only a part of the bigger picture. The bigger thing is that this is just one more step in the evolution of worldwide economics. The USA is/was leader for a long time. But its standard of living got all out of whack with the poor countries. Now they are turning their deficit into a plus for them - cheap labor. And so our under-skilled workers are losing their jobs, because manufacturing moves to the cheap-labor sites. The USA has to capitalize on its advanced technology, or pay for the above in a lower average standard of living. But it cannot make that capitalization until it wakes up to the truth - class differences in our society are magnified by the current economic realities. Those with high-tech skills will continue to live a good life, but those who goofed off in school, or were born without sufficient intellectual capacity, will suffer. The geeks win out. BUT populist politicians will make hay on this affect, by taxing the geeks at higher and higher rates to pay for spreading the wealth to the underclasses. The successful and well-off will be penalized more and more for generating wealth. The result will be loss of their motivation. And the result of THAT will be an overall loss for the country. It's all just evolution of economic systems and facts, according to natural law. The day of economic dominance for the USA may be over, maybe permanently. We can only hope the change does not lead to war."

To: i-node who wrote (466461)	3/26/2009 9:13:52 AM
From: Taro	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1574386

Banks are collapsing and will be replaced by virtual facilities over time. Middle-men are going away. I agree. Just like nobody any longer needs a travel agency to buy their flight tickets, eventually we don't need large office banks with a bunch of clerks telling us yes or no. Anybody with a decent credit rating should be qualified for a decent first loan of reasonable size. When he performs on that and thus maintains his credit rating, why wouldn't the same lender qualify him for a bigger loan next time? And so forth. It's as easy as that and it could and should all be handled on line by artificial intelligence. Artificial yes, but most likely a lot better than much of what those clerks can offer us in today's banks. Some fraud, sure, but don't we have that now? Taro

To: i-node who wrote (466461)	3/26/2009 1:17:00 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1574386

Democrats turn back GOP call to reduce spending 9 minutes ago (AP:WASHINGTON) Democrats on the Senate Budget Committee defeated a Republican attempt Thursday to reduce recommended spending across hundreds of programs over the next five years as they moved toward approval of a blueprint that preserves President Barack Obama's top priorities. Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., said his proposal would save $200 billion by freezing spending on non-defense domestic programs for the next two years and allowing modest increases in the future. But Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., chairman of the committee, said it went too far, adding the budget he prepared already provides for less spending than the president wants. The vote was a party-line 13-10. A final vote on the budget was expected later in the day, hours after a House panel approved a similar version on a party-line vote. The plans will go to the House and Senate floors next week over passionate protests from Republicans, who warn of big spending increases and record deficits. Those debates will test Obama's spending increases for domestic programs and the willingness of Democratic moderates to accept record deficits and rapidly growing debt. But more significant challenges will come later in the year as general agreements on fighting global warming and boosting health care promise to be severely tested as details are penciled in. Some Democrats are feeling anxiety over the deficit as well, forcing decisions in both houses to cut back big increases in some domestic programs and to drop Obama's signature $400 tax credit for most workers when it expires at the end of 2010. Both the House and Senate budget plans lack specifics for any of the administration's signature proposals or even clues on how Democrats plan to accomplish goals like raising more than $1 trillion over the next decade to provide universal health coverage. Curbing global warming is welcomed as a general goal, but both budget panels were careful to avoid endorsing Obama's controversial cap-and-trade system for auctioning pollution permits, which will raise energy costs for consumers and businesses. Under Congress' arcane budget legislative process, lawmakers devise a nonbinding budget resolution that sets the terms for subsequent legislation. As a practical matter, the budget provides a pot of money to the appropriations panels to fund Cabinet agencies' annual budgets. But it also serves as a way to define party goals. The House and Senate plans both call for spending less than Obama's $3.7 trillion proposal for next year, mostly by ignoring his request for an additional bailout of the financial industry, with additional savings plotted for future years. The House plan foresees a deficit of $1.2 trillion for 2010 but would cut that to $598 billion after five years. The comparable Senate estimates are $1.2 trillion in 2010 and $508 billion in 2014. Obama's budget would leave a deficit of $749 billion in five years' time, according to congressional estimates _ too high for his Democratic allies _ and would grow to unsustainable levels exceeding 5 percent of the economy by the end of the decade. Republicans pointed out budgetary sleights of hand in the congressional plans, such as abandoning Obama's promises for permanent relief from the alternative minimum tax and other politically essential legislation, such as funding to shelter doctors from cutbacks in payments they receive for serving Medicare patients. Conrad said Thursday that Democrats are trimming the budget "in a responsible way," not with gimmicks. In debate Thursday, the Senate panel approved a plan by Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, to create a panel to scrub the budget for programs to eliminate. In the House, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said Democrats were advancing "the president's high-cost, big-government agenda in camouflage. ... Instead of simply righting the ship, this budget steers it in a radically different direction, straight into the tidal wave of spending and debt that is already building." Each of the two houses' plans envisions substantial increases in core non-defense domestic programs _ $35 billion in the case of the Senate and $42 billion for the House, although both are smaller jumps than the administration's figure of almost $50 billion. Those differences are relatively modest in the context of spending more than $500 billion on the programs involved, and congressional appropriators say the increases over current levels are smaller than they seem due to several complicating factors, like extra spending for the decennial Census. On taxes, the Democrats followed Obama's lead in agreeing to extend many of the Bush-era tax cuts that were enacted in 2001 and 2003. An exception was made in the case of cuts that applied to upper-income wage earners. news.ino.com