btw, in many early towns in the US for the first 100-200 years or so the entire town was pure socialism.

Pure socialism, like Pure capitalism can not survive in large or fast societies. This typically means agrarian societies of no more than about 1000 individuals.

Actually, no.

If you want to see real socialism you really can't find it in the US. You never could. The closest we ever got was a presidential candidate that in the 20's that advocated a 100% tax on anyone making over 100K. We also had some communists elected in the 30's to state government.

Now since the 80's we have had a dramatic push to pure capitalism in the form of 'trickle down economics.'. The current debt crisis is a direct result of the tax policies of the early 80's.

Now, the proper level of government influence is:

#1 protect individuals rights from abuse by others
#2 support individuals to the point where they cna thrive if they work at it (this is a very low threshold of about 60K in income a year)
#3 get out of the way of anyone making more than that (so long as they respect #1)
#4 manage public resources for the public interest
#5 Cover the activities necessary for a growing society but which can not create a profit and are too large for non-profits. (The best example is funding basic research but utilities, FEMA and other emergency services also fall under here. Remember, companies very rarely have future horizons greater than about 7 years. This is due to CEO life span. If an investment takes more than that to turn a profit then no company will invest. There are project that are longer than 7 years but these projects have very low risk {since they aren't basic research} and so the new CEOs tend to buy-in and maintain the projects)

Now we may be tripping over deffinitions.

Pure socialism means there are no personal assets and all assets are assigned by the society.

Pure capitalism means there are no public assets. All assets are owned and managed by the individual.

Pure socialism leads to stagnation once a generation has passed since the next generation didn't agree to the system. Pure capitalism leads to anarchy when everyone realises that they can own anything by taking it. There is zero security and zero ability to cooperate (which involves pooling assets which is no longer pure capitalism). This leads to a 'strong man' essentially taking control of everyone around him and making them into serfs.

Now personally I am a 'Social Capitalist'

This means that the free market and capitalism are the best methods of producing an excellent standard of living for everyone better than 99% of the time. However capitalism MUST serve societal aims. If a company or individual is doing an activity that contradicts the greater good than the society they live in has the right to stop them.

It is in society's best interest to NOT have people starving in the street. To NOT have random epidemics sweep through the population. To NOT have poisoned water and air. Etc.

Since capitalism (with charities) has proven time after time that it is incapable of feeding everyone than society as a whole acting through government has to ensure basic food for everyone to avoid food riots and extreme graft which would hurt capitalism as well as society.

Since capitalism (and charities) have proven time and again that it is incapable of providing health insurance for everyone (in the 60's virtually all senior citizens were denied coverage by the private market which promted medicare) society through government created medicare which prevented a huge drain on financial and time resources as families no longer had to pay for senior care of out pocket and it enabled private industry to actually cover some seniors at a profit.

Since capitalism (and charities) have proven time and again that it is incapable of preserving natural resources for the long term (do I really need to provide a list here?) society acting through government created the EPA and other agencies to ensure that private individuals do not destroy public property without consequences.

I could go on but I hope you get the point.

We don't have socialism. We NEVER had socialism.

If you actually compare the policies of Obama against the policies defined as socialist etc from the last 150 years you will find that he actual falls out as a moderate to borderline extreme CONSERVATIVE.

The issue is that today we are more conservative than we have ever been in the last 600 years on this continent.

Take a look at how socialism was defined when communism was actually around... it is extremly different than how socialism is defined by the right as of this moment.

I said limited socialism.

Pure socialism lasts for about a generation. The next generation will generally not follow in the same footsteps and productivity dropps dramatically

Pure capitalism last for about 5 years. It then degrads into anarchy and is reborn as feudalism.

But Limited capitalism with some socialist aspects is the ONLY form of government that has actually lasted any length of time.

Please find me an example of pure capitalism that lasted more than a few years.

Ohh, so you are against the free market!

You must be a SOCIALIST!!!

But honestly, I still have yet to have one person explain how limited socialism is a bad thing. Every time it has been tried it tends to improve standards of living, improve access to free markets and improve economies

Without the federal subsidies AND the special liability protection offered to Coal, oil and gas they would fail.

If you wiped out all subsidies, Coal, Oil and Gas WOULD be cheaper slightly. Afterall, they have 125 years of infrastructure built.

People said the same thing about thoes fancy horseless carriages and the new fangled steam-ships.

Subsidies are important to give new and promising technology an opportunity in the market. Solar is still a baby. We are every year finding new and dramatic ways to improve solar. It will probably be a baby for another 20 years. Coal, Oil and gas haven't been babes for 50+ years. We have seen a small improvement in efficiency but thats it.

Once a technology is no longer in development it should be stripped of subsidies and protections and allowed to stand on its own. Coal, Oil and gas never have done this.

Except with every other power system you have fuel costs as well.

So it takes (making up numbers) 10 people per megawatt to install a coal plant and 15 people per megawatt to install a solar plant. Every year the coal plant spends a few million in fuel and maintenance. Solar has maintenance only and if you are a grid tied system, not much maintenance at all.

Solar needs to drop about 50% from current prices to be directly competetive with the current subsidized price of coal power. If we dropped the subsidies and legal protections than Solar would be directly competetive now.

I have been unable to find what he is referencing.

I was responding to his complaint about transparency and I never looked up his actual source issue. I am unable to verify what he claims which makes me suspicious.

I hope he will cite a source for his claim.

I have no problem with that actually.
But what we really need to do is go back to the taxing system we had when we were agressivly paying down debt AND had a killer economy.

I am not talking about the 90's. I am talking about the 60's.

In the 60's the top tax bracket was at 75% and we had the strongest economy we have ever had.

It sort of makes you think.

I didn't say we don't have a spending problem.

I said With the EXCEPTION of Defense and medicare we don't have a problem.

If you took defense down to the level that our GDP can support compared to the rest of the world, we would save roughly 1.1 trillion dollars a year.

That by itself would bring spending in line.

HOWEVER half of the problem is the economy. The spending is porportionally high because we had a sudden dip in production NOT becuase the real spending skyrocketed (yes it went up a LOT but that is only accounts for a percent or two of GDP).

In addition, our tax system has been so messed up for 30 years (Thank you regan) that we now pay almost 10% of our federal budget to debt (compared to about 0.5% Under Carter).

Health care costs rose NOT because of Medicare/Medicade but because of technology. We Americans alwayws want the latest and greatest therefore we get an MRI for everything rather than X-rays or other cheaper technology. We demand new drugs whoch cost private industry about 2 BILLION dollars and 17 years to create.

THAT is why healthcare costs so much.

Actually, since Medicare and medicad are so big but pay so little, they have actually helped to hold down price increases.

What preventative medice helps is to reduce emergency room visits. Emergency rooms provide the most expensive and least successful health care. However because emergency care can ONLY work if you don't require people to pay up front (just imagine bleeding out while the credit card machine loses the connection) the ER has to provide care. If people can't pay than the hospital raises the price on the rest of us. By ensuring that everyone has some sort of coverage we can dramatically reduce this cost. In addition, medicine is like just about everything else. 20% of the issues cause 80% of the costs. Basic and preventative healthcare dramatically reduces the 20% group which reduces the 80% group proportionally.

You mean after we hit the bottom of a recession?

Of COURSE they will go up.

That is like saying Obama created more jobs last year alone than Bush did for his entire presidency!

Yes it is true but it isn't accurate. Bus started in a boom economy and ended and an absolute horrible economy. So the natural job growth was whiped out when a million jobs were lost right before he left office. This left Bush with exceptionally little job growth to his presidency. Obama didn't have very far to go to beat him.

Just because a $ number is higher doesn't mean the change actually did anything.

So you are saying he is being honest?

Are you complaining that he is actually accounting for all the money that was spent?

Or would you prefer he do what Bush did, not mention the Iraq and Afganistan wars in the budget EVER and get emergency spending resolutions (immediatly boorow rather than plan) several times a year for thoes wars?

The first time the Iraq and Afganistan wars appeared in the federal budget was Obama's first budget which is another reason the apparent deficit is so high. Continuing resolutions don't appear in the budget deficit.

He is being honest and you seem to be mad about it.

TARP part 2 (not Bush's TARP but Obama's TARP) tracked and harrassed the banks that received the money. Obama requiered very strict terms to get the money and so most banks paid it back with interest very quickly. In fact of the 711 billion that Obama got for his TARP (Bush got 850) Obama only actually let out a little over half. So far it has generated a slight profit.

When Bush pushed out his TARP, he didn't track the money and we found out in January that it was essentially lost. Bush burned 850 billion dollars by giving it to banks who then gave it to themselves as bonuses who then moved the money over seas.

Now, if you look at the numbers quoted in forecasts you see that TARP is refering to Bush's policy. The one that burned all the money (850 Billion Dollars). Obama's is costing about 10 billion total.

So why is the deficit so much bigger?

#1. Bush left us with a very lousy economy. That by itself accounts for HALF the deficit. If we eliminated ALL of Buh's bad stuff and ALL of Obama's bad stuff we would STILL have a deficit of about 600 billion.

#2. We are still in Iraq and Afganistan (about 20% of the current deficit)

#3. We still have the Bush tax cuts (about 20% of the current defficit)

#4. Inflation. At the very least you expect the debt to increase several percent just through natural inflation.

Obama and his policies are actually resonsible for about 200 billion in added deficit for this year.

The reality is, with the exception of the military and Medicare, We don't have a spending problem!! Our federal spending is EXTREMELY lean. This is why it has been so hard to cut anything.

The CBO looked through the budget and concluded that there was actually only about 60 billion in wasted spending in the federal budget...

Now, our military is roughly 50% of all the military in the world. We spend about 500 billion a year directly on the department of deffense. When you add in all other non-military but defense related costs (Veterans affairs, satalite launch, CIA, NSA black projects and the interest associated with defense over spending) we are ACTUALLY spending closer to 1.4 trillion EVERY YEAR on defense!

Now to keep it in perspectve. The next largest military in the world is the Chinese. They spend 20 billion a year.

Finally, medicare IS a problem. I am not arguing that it isn't. But Obamacare is actually the first step to addressing this. Medicare is so expensive because we are a very FAT country and we have a whole lot of people who are too poor to buy insurance and too rich for medicad. Obamacare makes it possible for these people to buy insurance which SHOULD allow them to get better preventative treatment and SHOULD reduce medicare costs.

The Bush tax cuts resulted in an acceleration of the 2000 recession and the high point was LOWER than the peak in the 90's.

Because of the Bush tax cuts we had the second most abysmal recovery EVER in 2001-2003. The only worse recover was his SECOND recession 2008-2009.

When you actually compare change in GDP to the top marginal tax rate you find that they are essentially independent. You can set it at historic lows or historic highs like in the 40's when it was at 95% and the economy gows humming righ along.

In fact you find a very slight BENEFIT from higher taxes to a point.

If you chart out the performance of the GDP according to the top marginal tax rate you actually find that our economy has been MOST effective at a tax rate of 60% (yes Six-Zero).

This actually makes sense because if the top tax bracket is high than owners/investors whill choose to not realize (take home) the profit and instead will tend to reinvest which boosts the economy.

Now it is true that in the past under certain situations lowering taxes helps. Like when Kennedy lowered them from 90 to 75%. But in general this is rare. For instance, when Regan cut taxes in the early 80's he triggered a recession. The recession was only resolved after he raised taxes 5 seperate times.

In virtually every case a tax cut has directly lead to a worsening economy the next year while a tax increase (to a point) has resulted in an improved economy the next year.

Take a look at this analysis: http://www.businessinsider.com/a-few-graphs-on-real-gdp-growth-rates-versus-taxes-and-the-size-of-government-2011-1

It is very interesting and simple enough for even me to replicate.

Bail out of GM, TARP (part 2), Obamacare, I could go on.

Each of these have either completly repayed itself (Tarp part 2), is just short (GM at 5-8% short) or made significant improvements over the original, Obamacare (expected to save a quarter trillion dollars over the prior system)

Now personally I don't think we should have bailed GM out. I don't think we should have bailed ANYONE out (Banks). Instead we should have used that money to support thoes that would have been hurt because we let these firms get too big. (GM suppliers and dealers, and provided temporary expanded FDIC insurance for account holders).

I think this sets an extremly poor precedent. Now large corporations KNOW that they can privatize the progit while socializing (as in you and me) the risk.

No, Obama has spent more dollars, but Bush has spent more PERMANTE dollars.

By this I mean that Bush's policies amounted to taking tax money and burning it on the white house lawn.

While Obama has certainly done some of this as well, most of his most expensive policies have already or will recoup most if not all the money invested. What this means is that the long term impact is just the interest on the debt for the time the money was out.

There is an intersting article published a few days ago:

http://ezkool.com/2011/07/two-potus-spending-2/

What I find amazing is that as far as I can tell, Regan, Bush junior and Obama all seem to have read '1984' and decided that it demonstrated a sound financial plan! Read the book. The key aspect of the financial system was making production disapear through war. This kept most of the population poor, reduced the availability of consumer good and had the fringe benefit of sparking patriotism...

What I cna't believe