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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: koan who wrote (213241)	1/1/2013 4:46:43 AM
From: epicure	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 541344

I am not an oyster lover :-)

To: koan who wrote (213241)	1/1/2013 11:39:34 AM
From: Bread Upon The Water	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541344

Love a Hangtown fry omelet which is bacon, pacific oysters fried above the bacon and then the egg mixture poured on it.

To: koan who wrote (213241)	1/1/2013 3:02:00 PM
From: cosmicforce	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 541344

The idea of right and left leave me queasy... there are things like limited government and low taxes that appeal to me. I'm a social liberal but I'm fiscally conservative. I'm a lower case libertarian with a conscience. Why wouldn't these ideas appeal to me - who the hell wants government all over everything and everything taxed out my reach? Right-sized government and appropriately progressive taxation makes sense. And I want my country to be run efficiently... I don't want people circling the drain, yet I don't want to subsidize "lazy". If there is a program that can accomplish the same thing for 25% less - I want it. However, human nature doesn't. Here's why - when budgets are passed out, they are a proxy for power. Power = money and money = power. It is the E = mc^2 of politics. And I don't mean JUST governmental politics. When you have a money saving idea - to get it accepted in a business and not get everyone to hate you - you must say "here is a way we can do 33% MORE with next years budget". If you come in and say "We can cut 25% off this years budget and do the same thing" you have essentially made everyone who spent this year's budget look like an incompetent who needs less power and people under that budget will figure you intend to be cutting staff, increasing work hours, cutting equipment, etc. They simply can't and won't hear the message I learned the hard way on this ... never start your talk about cuts - talk about revenue neutral performance improvements. They are the same mathematically, but people don't see it that way. If you don't believe me, just get out your calculator and analyze the two statements below. A: I get 10 mpg. If I cut my fuel use by 25% I will use only 7.5 gallons for every 100 miles I drive. B:I get 10 mpg. If I extend my fuel economy by 33% I can drive 133 miles on the same 10 gallons of gas. Duh! These are mathematically equivalent. In the first case the listener typically hears that they are going to get only 7.5 gallons of gas when they used to get 10. In the second statement - they still get their 10 gallons of gas but now get to go further. The savings 25% seems smaller than the benefit of 33%. A: is seen a restrictive and B: is seen as all positive. News flash - we tend to see political talk in the style of A and not B.