Journal Marxist Hacker 42's Journal: The High Cost of Smaller Government 10
Ok, admittedly this focuses on the Bush years- a pair of men who can't really be called conservative. But I find it interesting how some resistance among fiscal conservatives for "social" programs actually costs us a lot more in the long run than if we'd just go ahead and socialize those costs. From the people who claimed Iraq would cost to much to go into, A new estimate of what conservative politics really costs claims we've wasted $27 TRILLION that we didn't have to spend. Did you know a lack of universal health care costs us 5% of our GDP annually, in comparison to any socialized medicine country in the world?
It's time to put the CONSERVE back in CONSERVative- and be willing to embrace social programs and the environment when they make fiscal sense instead of being a bunch of liberal spenders.
It's time to put the CONSERVE back in CONSERVative- and be willing to embrace social programs and the environment when they make fiscal sense instead of being a bunch of liberal spenders.
claims we've wasted $27 TRILLION that we didn't ha (Score:2)
Big numbers are no longer meaningful.
The magnitude of the national debt will soon exceed one Au [wikipedia.org]. Will the golden sun still rise?
Re: (Score:2)
The magnitude of the national debt will soon exceed one Au. Will the golden sun still rise?
What, one AU in centimeters, where a centimeter is equated to a dollar? We're two thirds the way there already. In terms of magnitude, we're already there: 1e13 dollars versus 1.5e13 cm.
If you had 20 dollar bills equal to the national debt, how many football fields could you cover? I don't know, but you'd need enough football fields to add up to a square 44.6 miles on a side.
Re: (Score:2)
Workin' hard, trying to find some humor in the fact that the symbol 'money' is becoming as tragically debased as other traditional symbols.
Re: (Score:2)
I got it.
And I have to disagree. I'm not sure that the traditional symbol of money actually fits a world where fast & cheap transportation and instantaneous communication has replaced traditional trade routes.
Rather I think what we need is a new money- one that fits instantaneous transactions, is rent (interest) free, has an expiration date (use it or lose it) and isn't a store of value at all, but rather just a medium of exchange.
We can then separate out stores of value from money. Mo
Re: (Score:2)
What if one went the other direction, and made exactly one million "invariant dollars", extremely non-counterfeitable, and used them in combination with other intangible forms of currency?
Of course, discussing systems that would be simpler, less ambiguous, more transparent and ultimately fair just marks us as uninitiated into the Principalities and Powers really driving matters...
Re: (Score:2)
other intangible forms of currency?
Intangible forms of currency is the big problem- it causes a disconnect in the mind between purchase and cost of purchase. Which is fine if you don't mind your entire country having bank accounts that can only be described in irrational numbers.
Re: (Score:1)
A glass of water in desert costs a hundred times more than that in a big city. Price can merely indicates the relative value of something. Profit generates itself from these difference. People's satisfaction is a criterion of what profit is, but it does not reflect well the absolute value of its own.
There must be an absolute value but really hard to measure it. Certaily money has little to do with the realm of value.
Re:claims we've wasted $27 TRILLION that we didn't (Score:2)
Well, yes, that's a big part of the point- we didn't have that $27 trillion to waste.
Political parties (Score:2)
I think the main problem with our current political parties (worldwide) is that they are focused on methods rather than outcomes. Party A thinks this is always the best way to do things and Party B thinks that is always the best way to do things.
I think there's a possibility now (or soon) of a shift to a more outcome-based approach. "We want to get these results and we'll find the most effective most efficient way to get there."
Re: (Score:2)
That alone would be a huge improvement- a movement away from ideology, and towards outcomes.
After all, that's how we work in the rest of the world! Another thought is perhaps we need not "Government as business", but rather "Government as charity"- where it's the individual taxpayer who decides who gets what portion of government funds. That way, at least, spending would be reduced to revenue.