“You Get NOTHING” by Sarah A. Hoyt
https://accordingtohoyt.com/2023/02/03/you-get-nothing/

“The problem with the struggles of our day: minimum wage; universal
health; the perfect family; the perfect marriage; the perfect career is
that people have forgotten that nothing is always an option.”

Sarah gets it. This is why the USA is going to have a financial
apocalypse or a civil war in the next 5 to 15 years.

Lynn

On Saturday, February 4, 2023 at 6:52:36 PM UTC+11, Lynn McGuire wrote:
> “You Get NOTHING” by Sarah A. Hoyt
> https://accordingtohoyt.com/2023/02/03/you-get-nothing/
>
> “The problem with the struggles of our day: minimum wage; universal
> health; the perfect family; the perfect marriage; the perfect career is
> that people have forgotten that nothing is always an option.”
>
> Sarah gets it. This is why the USA is going to have a financial
> apocalypse or a civil war in the next 5 to 15 years.
>
Yes, clearly paying people enough to live on will completely destroy society...
and having people able to get healthcare is a terrible idea (note that the US federal government already spends more per capita on healthcare than countries that have single payer - or near single payer - healthcare systems)

Hamish Laws <hamish.laws@gmail.com> wrote in
news:c4736a81-0213-4c5a-8e56-bd60652d3856n@googlegroups.com:

> On Saturday, February 4, 2023 at 6:52:36 PM UTC+11, Lynn McGuire
> wrote:
>> “You Get NOTHING” by Sarah A. Hoyt
>> https://accordingtohoyt.com/2023/02/03/you-get-nothing/
>>
>> “The problem with the struggles of our day: minimum wage;
>> univers
> al
>> health; the perfect family; the perfect marriage; the perfect
>> career is
>
>> that people have forgotten that nothing is always an option.”
>>
>> Sarah gets it. This is why the USA is going to have a financial
>> apocalypse or a civil war in the next 5 to 15 years.
>>
> Yes, clearly paying people enough to live on

while they contribute *nothing* in return

> will completely
> destroy society...

Glad you finally see it.

--
Terry Austin

Proof that Alan Baker is a liar and a fool, and even stupider than
Lynn:
https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/sw-border-migration

"Terry Austin: like the polio vaccine, only with more asshole."
-- David Bilek

Jesus forgives sinners, not criminals.

On Saturday, February 4, 2023 at 9:31:55 PM UTC-7, Hamish Laws wrote:

> Yes, clearly paying people enough to live on will completely destroy society...
> and having people able to get healthcare is a terrible idea (note that the US
> federal government already spends more per capita on healthcare than
> countries that have single payer - or near single payer - healthcare systems)

Still, one should be fair.

The essay by Sarah Hoyt _does_ express a sound general principle.

Social expenditures on the part of the government do have to be kept within
bounds; they need to be reasonable, and within the capacity of the government
to afford. And there have been actual cases where governments, due either
to venality and corruption by their politicians, or an imminent threat of revolution,
have actually brought economies to ruin by overspending.

And there is at least one reason for concern. Look at the recent difficulties
concerning the debt ceiling. While it is clear that the Republican Party is
being irresponsible in the short term, in an attempt to get their way, surely
we must ask why there even _is_ a national debt. During peacetime, it is
expected that a country would pay off all of its debts, and get back to an
even keel!

Of course, though, the way to get the country out of debt isn't by cutting
Social Security! Not when taxes on the higher income brackets are so
much lower than they were back in the prosperous early 1960s. And,
indeed, the only reason Social Security has problems funding itself was
because money was basically stolen from it by earlier Congresses.

They just want to force cuts to Social Security because they figure they
can get the voters to blame the Democrats for it instead of them.

If the United States is in imminent danger of economic collapse, it's
because of the malicious actions of the Republicans, in an effort
to appease the greed of the rich, not because there's anything wrong
with the policies that the Democrats are trying to pursue. The United
States is a wealthy and productive country, not one living far beyond
its means.

Of course, it certainly would help if the U.S. had the ability to compel
Russia to not only rebuild Ukraine, but reimburse the U.S. taxpayer
for the U.S. defence budget since, say, 1948. A lump sum payment
of that amount, with accrued interest and adjusted for inflation,
would suffice to put the financial house of the U.S. in order.

Therefore, at least, those calling attention to any fiscal issues
in the United States should at least put the blame where it belongs -
on Russia!

Of course, I'm not saying it isn't possible afterwards to politely
suggest that, for the time being, we still must focus on addressing
those possible actions that _are_ under our own control. But any
such suggestions should be made in a *constructive* manner, and
any attempt by the party of Donald Trump to score political points
against the Democrats... should be rejected out of hand by the
American people.

Of course, since the Republicans are supposed to have previously
had control of the Senate _only_ because it represents each state
equally, and it was also the Electoral College that made it possible for
Trump to be elected, *then* why is it that the Republicans have gotten
control of the *House of Representatives*, properly approportioned
according to population, in the most recent mid-term elections?

I suppose it could be because of low voter turnout for mid-terms,
perhaps combined with the return of voter suppression, but this
wasn't the way we were told that things were supposed to turn out.

John Savard

On Saturday, February 4, 2023 at 10:56:25 PM UTC-7, Ninapenda Jibini wrote:
> Hamish Laws <hamis...@gmail.com> wrote in

> > Yes, clearly paying people enough to live on

> while they contribute *nothing* in return

All right then, who should we start with? I suppose the disabled,
particularly the mentally retarded, could be shipped off to the
extermination camps first... after all, that worked before.

Of course, that's unfair. It's an appeal to emotion to stop
people from listening to a rational argument!

It certainly _is_ a valid point that we can't expect the government
to necessarily give us everything we want. It should spend what
it can afford.

But _is_ the government spending so much that there is a real
threat of bad consequences happening? Or is the current push
to restrain government spending all about the greed of the very
rich to have an even bigger share of the pie, by forcing unpopular
cuts under a Democratic President so that the Republicans can
regain control, and shovel more of the money their way?

Right now, that is very much what the debt ceiling fight looks
like. And given the absolute disaster that Trump was as
President, and his continued control over Republicans, that
party has zero credibility among intelligent people.

John Savard

Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> wrote in
news:d107cec6-fe96-4a2c-b88b-b46102d85880n@googlegroups.com:

> On Saturday, February 4, 2023 at 10:56:25 PM UTC-7, Ninapenda
> Jibini wrote:
>> Hamish Laws <hamis...@gmail.com> wrote in
>
>> > Yes, clearly paying people enough to live on
>
>> while they contribute *nothing* in return
>
> All right then, who should we start with? I suppose the
> disabled, particularly the mentally retarded, could be shipped
> off to the extermination camps first... after all, that worked
> before.

Nice dodge. That's not who we're talking about, and you know it.

The U in UBI is for "universal."
>
> Of course, that's unfair. It's an appeal to emotion to stop
> people from listening to a rational argument!

It is exactly that, but you forgot "dishonet." And "thievish," but
that goes without saying with lefies.
>
> It certainly _is_ a valid point that we can't expect the
> government to necessarily give us everything we want. It should
> spend what it can afford.
>
> But _is_ the government spending so much that there is a real
> threat of bad consequences happening?

For past test definions of "happening," yes. Inflation is out of
control, and taxes have been too high for decades, all because of
lefty "entitlement" giveaways.

<TDS hallucinations snipped>

You didn't address the basic point:

What you want is to live in a world that literally encourages
people to be parasites, whose very existence damages other people's
lives.

--
Terry Austin

Proof that Alan Baker is a liar and a fool, and even stupider than
Lynn:
https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/sw-border-migration

"Terry Austin: like the polio vaccine, only with more asshole."
-- David Bilek

Jesus forgives sinners, not criminals.

In article <f7622c93-6a19-4dd5-a46b-b340b0f6f4f1n@googlegroups.com>,
Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>... surely
>we must ask why there even _is_ a national debt. During peacetime, it is
>expected that a country would pay off all of its debts, and get back to an
>even keel!

During the Gingrich Speakership with a GOP majority in both Houses,
we at least had balanced budgets, though the debt remained high.

>Of course, though, the way to get the country out of debt isn't by cutting
>Social Security! Not when taxes on the higher income brackets are so
>much lower than they were back in the prosperous early 1960s. And,
>indeed, the only reason Social Security has problems funding itself was
>because money was basically stolen from it by earlier Congresses.
>
>They just want to force cuts to Social Security because they figure they
>can get the voters to blame the Democrats for it instead of them.

Who is this "they"? The Democrats keep asserting that the Republicans
are going to cut or do away with Social Security and Medicare, but I
just don't see it. It's the same old same old scare tactics.

>If the United States is in imminent danger of economic collapse, it's
>because of the malicious actions of the Republicans, in an effort
>to appease the greed of the rich ...

If the entire top 5% richest people in the US were liquidated, along
with their families, and their entire net worth confiscated, it would
be enough to run the current Federal budget for ... what, a few months?
A year?

--
Mike Van Pelt | "I don't advise it unless you're nuts."
mvp at calweb.com | -- Ray Wilkinson, after riding out Hurricane
KE6BVH | Ike on Surfside Beach in Galveston

On 2/6/2023 4:23 PM, Mike Van Pelt wrote:
> In article <f7622c93-6a19-4dd5-a46b-b340b0f6f4f1n@googlegroups.com>,
> Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>> ... surely
>> we must ask why there even _is_ a national debt. During peacetime, it is
>> expected that a country would pay off all of its debts, and get back to an
>> even keel!
>
> During the Gingrich Speakership with a GOP majority in both Houses,
> we at least had balanced budgets, though the debt remained high.
>
>> Of course, though, the way to get the country out of debt isn't by cutting
>> Social Security! Not when taxes on the higher income brackets are so
>> much lower than they were back in the prosperous early 1960s. And,
>> indeed, the only reason Social Security has problems funding itself was
>> because money was basically stolen from it by earlier Congresses.
>>
>> They just want to force cuts to Social Security because they figure they
>> can get the voters to blame the Democrats for it instead of them.
>
> Who is this "they"? The Democrats keep asserting that the Republicans
> are going to cut or do away with Social Security and Medicare, but I
> just don't see it. It's the same old same old scare tactics.
>
Column: Mike Pence, would-be president, has a plan to kill Social
Security. It will cost you.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/news/column-mike-pence-would-be-president-has-a-plan-to-kill-social-security-it-will-cost-you/ar-AA17bgN7?ocid=winpstoreapp&cvid=66271562145d45d9b4cc65f536e7f90a

Republicans have been trying for decades to "privatize" Social Security,
"balance" MediCare and otherwise defund and eliminate various social
safety nets that taxpayers pay for. The current tactic of refusing to
raise the debt limit until budget cuts are agreed to is the _same_ thing
the Republicans have done several times before and the only budget cuts
they are ever willing to accept are to the so-called "Entitlement"
programs, especially Social Security. Which aren't actually
entitlements as we get taxed _specifically_ for them separate from the
general income tax.

--
I've done good in this world. Now I'm tired and just want to be a cranky
dirty old man.

On Monday, February 6, 2023 at 5:23:32 PM UTC-7, Mike Van Pelt wrote:

> If the entire top 5% richest people in the US were liquidated, along
> with their families, and their entire net worth confiscated, it would
> be enough to run the current Federal budget for ... what, a few months?
> A year?

Oh, absolutely there are not so many rich people that taxing them
heavily can fix things... or so I thought.

But some rich people are promoting highly destructive economic
policies, and I presume they're doing that in their own self-interest.

The free-enterprise system is a great engine of wealth production,
and threatening the honest earnings of entrepreneurs would destroy
it. It isn't genuine businessmen who are the problem, it is those who
want their businesses to be monopolies, exempt from competition.

John Savard

On Tuesday, February 7, 2023 at 11:23:32 AM UTC+11, Mike Van Pelt wrote:
> In article <f7622c93-6a19-4dd5...@googlegroups.com>,
> Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
> >... surely
> >we must ask why there even _is_ a national debt. During peacetime, it is
> >expected that a country would pay off all of its debts, and get back to an
> >even keel!
> During the Gingrich Speakership with a GOP majority in both Houses,
> we at least had balanced budgets, though the debt remained high.

The budges were in surplus in 98,99,2000 & 2001
Gingrich retired in 99

Note that budget went into deficit under Shrub almost immediately despite maintaining control of the house & the senate (until a GOP senator left the party)
Do you think it might have had something to do with the 1.8 trillion in tax cuts he pushed through?

> >Of course, though, the way to get the country out of debt isn't by cutting
> >Social Security! Not when taxes on the higher income brackets are so
> >much lower than they were back in the prosperous early 1960s. And,
> >indeed, the only reason Social Security has problems funding itself was
> >because money was basically stolen from it by earlier Congresses.
> >
> >They just want to force cuts to Social Security because they figure they
> >can get the voters to blame the Democrats for it instead of them.
> Who is this "they"? The Democrats keep asserting that the Republicans
> are going to cut or do away with Social Security and Medicare, but I
> just don't see it. It's the same old same old scare tactics.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/01/31/republicans-threats-cut-social-security-medicare-are-record/
"In fact, Republicans have routinely proposed cutting earned Social Security and Medicare benefits. For instance, last year’s Republican Study Committee’s fiscal 2023 budget proposal would have raised the Social Security and Medicare eligibility ages, given Big Pharma sole discretion to set prescription drug prices, reduced seniors’ ability to choose their own doctors, started to privatize Social Security and put access to long-term care at risk by slashing and capping Medicaid. Perhaps Mr. Perry never bothered to read this budget, even though the RSC represents over 150 (more than 70 percent) of his Republican colleagues.

Before Mr. Perry tells seniors not to worry, maybe he should explain why seniors (current and future) shouldn’t be worried that so many Republicans are on record as proposing to cut their financial and health security — and why so many Republicans are willing to risk an unprecedented government default that would threaten their earned benefits."

> >If the United States is in imminent danger of economic collapse, it's
> >because of the malicious actions of the Republicans, in an effort
> >to appease the greed of the rich ...
>
> If the entire top 5% richest people in the US were liquidated, along
> with their families, and their entire net worth confiscated, it would
> be enough to run the current Federal budget for ... what, a few months?
> A year?

The top 10% of people in the USA have 76% of the wealth, the bottom 50% have 1%.
https://financebuzz.com/us-net-worth-statistics

In 2022 total household wealth cleared 150 trillion in the USA
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/10/household-wealth-tops-150-trillion-for-the-first-time-despite-surge-in-debt.html

So the top 10% has over 110 trillion

The current national debt is 31 trillion
https://www.pgpf.org/national-debt-clock#:~:text=The%20%2431%20trillion%20(and%20growing,to%20measure%20our%20national%20debt.

total spending in 2022 was under 10 trillion (https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/total_spending_chart#:~:text=Estimated%20spending%20for%202022%20was,Recession%2C%20to%2041%20percent%20GDP.)

So your guess is right up there with Quaddie's understanding of human nature for accuracy.

On Monday, February 6, 2023 at 7:23:32 PM UTC-5, Mike Van Pelt wrote:
> In article <f7622c93-6a19-4dd5...@googlegroups.com>,
> Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
> >... surely
> >we must ask why there even _is_ a national debt. During peacetime, it is
> >expected that a country would pay off all of its debts, and get back to an
> >even keel!
> During the Gingrich Speakership with a GOP majority in both Houses,
> we at least had balanced budgets, though the debt remained high.
> >Of course, though, the way to get the country out of debt isn't by cutting
> >Social Security! Not when taxes on the higher income brackets are so
> >much lower than they were back in the prosperous early 1960s. And,
> >indeed, the only reason Social Security has problems funding itself was
> >because money was basically stolen from it by earlier Congresses.
> >
> >They just want to force cuts to Social Security because they figure they
> >can get the voters to blame the Democrats for it instead of them.
> Who is this "they"? The Democrats keep asserting that the Republicans
> are going to cut or do away with Social Security and Medicare, but I
> just don't see it. It's the same old same old scare tactics.
> >If the United States is in imminent danger of economic collapse, it's
> >because of the malicious actions of the Republicans, in an effort
> >to appease the greed of the rich ...
>
> If the entire top 5% richest people in the US were liquidated, along
> with their families, and their entire net worth confiscated, it would
> be enough to run the current Federal budget for ... what, a few months?
> A year?

I hate it when people make unbased assertions that just happen to fit their
agendas.

You Can Look This Up.

Federal spending: https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/government-spending
If I read that right, the government (all levels) spent about 14T in 2022. About 6T of that
is Federal.

I suspect you have no real notion of how much wealth is in private hands, or how badly
its skewed to the very rich. Look at this chart:

https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/dataviz/dfa/distribute/chart/#range:2007.3,2022.3;quarter:132;series:Net%20worth;demographic:networth;population:1,3,5,7,9;units:levels

or https://tinyurl.com/36fvwka7

It gives top 0.1%, 99-99.9, 90-99, 50-90, and 0-50% break down.

Note the tiny sliver for the bottom 50%.

The results are: The wealth of the top 0.1% could keep the entire US government system,
at all levels, solvent for a year. The top 1%, about 3 years. The top 10%, over 6 years.

pt

On Saturday, February 4, 2023 at 2:52:36 AM UTC-5, Lynn McGuire wrote:
> “You Get NOTHING” by Sarah A. Hoyt
> https://accordingtohoyt.com/2023/02/03/you-get-nothing/

> Sarah gets it.

Does she really? This line from her post about paying her employees:

> I couldn’t afford to pay them, at all. Every time I paid, it was money
> taken from the ability to pay for something else that I sorely needed.
> That was, if you remember, the whole reason of the fundraiser.

If your business can't pay its employees until you beg your fans to
literally give you their money, not selling them something, then your
business is a charity, and you should register as such.

In article <5b079d2e-c0c4-4b8d-a70f-07381e15cf91n@googlegroups.com>,
Ross Presser <rpresser@gmail.com> wrote:
>On Saturday, February 4, 2023 at 2:52:36 AM UTC-5, Lynn McGuire wrote:
>> “You Get NOTHING” by Sarah A. Hoyt
>> https://accordingtohoyt.com/2023/02/03/you-get-nothing/
>
>> Sarah gets it.
>
>Does she really? This line from her post about paying her employees:
>
>> I couldn’t afford to pay them, at all. Every time I paid, it
>was money
>> taken from the ability to pay for something else that I sorely needed.
>> That was, if you remember, the whole reason of the fundraiser.
>
>If your business can't pay its employees until you beg your fans to
>literally give you their money, not selling them something, then your
>business is a charity, and you should register as such.

You have remember she's a product of Salazar's Estado Novo,
when Portugal commanded a fairly brutal empire and the idea
of compensating equitably the people at the bottom of the
heap would have been an astonishing concept to those at the
top.

--
My reviews can be found at http://jamesdavisnicoll.com/
My tor pieces at https://www.tor.com/author/james-davis-nicoll/
My Dreamwidth at https://james-davis-nicoll.dreamwidth.org/
My patreon is at https://www.patreon.com/jamesdnicoll

On Tuesday, February 7, 2023 at 7:18:43 AM UTC-7, pete...@gmail.com wrote:

> The results are: The wealth of the top 0.1% could keep the entire US government system,
> at all levels, solvent for a year. The top 1%, about 3 years. The top 10%, over 6 years.

It's good to have more accurate figures, but his point remains intact: even six years is
not enough in return for killilng the goose that lays the golden eggs.

John Savard

On Tuesday, February 7, 2023 at 8:08:06 AM UTC-7, James Nicoll wrote:

> You have remember she's a product of Salazar's Estado Novo,
> when Portugal commanded a fairly brutal empire and the idea
> of compensating equitably the people at the bottom of the
> heap would have been an astonishing concept to those at the
> top.

I do happen to remember that Salazar ran a dictatorship in Portugal,
but only because my web site mentions the more efficient arrangement
for typewriter keyboards that it decreed.

John Savard

On Monday, February 6, 2023 at 11:07:25 PM UTC-7, Dimensional Traveler wrote:
>
> Column: Mike Pence, would-be president, has a plan to kill Social
> Security. It will cost you.
>
> https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/news/column-mike-pence-would-be-president-has-a-plan-to-kill-social-security-it-will-cost-you/ar-AA17bgN7?ocid=winpstoreapp&cvid=66271562145d45d9b4cc65f536e7f90a

But this column has at least one serious factual inaccuracy!

Reading and writing originated thousands of years ago, not under the
Roosevelt Administration.

Yet, the article claims:

"The New Deal remade the relationship between American government and its
citizens so that, for the first time, government served the average citizen, not
merely the rich. Ever since the New Deal's historic launch in 1933, Republicans
have tried to turn the clock back to prehistoric times."

It is apparent that what is really meant is that the Republicans are trying to
revert the historic events of 1933, not set the United States all the way back
to the days of cavemen.

Seriously, of course, as this inaccuracy is unlikely to mislead anyone, I
suppose it is an effective way for him to express his emotional view
of returning the United States to the pre-Roosevelt economic system.

John Savard

pete...@gmail.com <petertrei@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Monday, February 6, 2023 at 7:23:32 PM UTC-5, Mike Van Pelt wrote:
>> In article <f7622c93-6a19-4dd5...@googlegroups.com>,
>> Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>> >... surely
>> >we must ask why there even _is_ a national debt. During peacetime, it is
>> >expected that a country would pay off all of its debts, and get back to an
>> >even keel!
>> During the Gingrich Speakership with a GOP majority in both Houses,
>> we at least had balanced budgets, though the debt remained high.
>> >Of course, though, the way to get the country out of debt isn't by cutting
>> >Social Security! Not when taxes on the higher income brackets are so
>> >much lower than they were back in the prosperous early 1960s. And,
>> >indeed, the only reason Social Security has problems funding itself was
>> >because money was basically stolen from it by earlier Congresses.
>> >
>> >They just want to force cuts to Social Security because they figure they
>> >can get the voters to blame the Democrats for it instead of them.
>> Who is this "they"? The Democrats keep asserting that the Republicans
>> are going to cut or do away with Social Security and Medicare, but I
>> just don't see it. It's the same old same old scare tactics.
>> >If the United States is in imminent danger of economic collapse, it's
>> >because of the malicious actions of the Republicans, in an effort
>> >to appease the greed of the rich ...
>>
>> If the entire top 5% richest people in the US were liquidated, along
>> with their families, and their entire net worth confiscated, it would
>> be enough to run the current Federal budget for ... what, a few months?
>> A year?
>
> I hate it when people make unbased assertions that just happen to fit their
> agendas.
>
> You Can Look This Up.
>
> Federal spending: https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/government-spending
> If I read that right, the government (all levels) spent about 14T in 2022. About 6T of that
> is Federal.
>
> I suspect you have no real notion of how much wealth is in private hands, or how badly
> its skewed to the very rich. Look at this chart:
>
> https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/dataviz/dfa/distribute/chart/#range:2007.3,2022.3;quarter:132;series:Net%20worth;demographic:networth;population:1,3,5,7,9;units:levels
>
> or https://tinyurl.com/36fvwka7
>
> It gives top 0.1%, 99-99.9, 90-99, 50-90, and 0-50% break down.
>
> Note the tiny sliver for the bottom 50%.
>
> The results are: The wealth of the top 0.1% could keep the entire US government system,
> at all levels, solvent for a year. The top 1%, about 3 years. The top 10%, over 6 years.

The problem is turning that wealth into something that the government can
pay the bills with. At the lower end of the top 10% you're talking retirement
accounts and primary homes. At the upper end you're talking property and
investments. It's not trillions of dollars stuffed into mattresses, or even
into bank accounts. I suppose you could have a one-time fire sale to foreign
investors. Of course the government could simply hold it, although I'm
trying to imagine the free-for-all that would result when Congress realized
they were the majority owner of most US companies, along with most of the real
estate, and could micromange it all to their hearts' content.
(As an example, I'm almost retirement age and in that 10%...under 4% of our
net worth is liquid. 2/3 of it is our primary home and retirement accounts.)

Robert
--
Robert K. Shull Email: rkshull at rosettacon dot com

On Tuesday, February 7, 2023 at 11:54:10 AM UTC-6, Quadibloc wrote:
> On Monday, February 6, 2023 at 11:07:25 PM UTC-7, Dimensional Traveler wrote:

>
> Seriously, of course, as this inaccuracy is unlikely to mislead anyone, I
> suppose it is an effective way for him to express his emotional view
> of returning the United States to the pre-Roosevelt economic system.
>
> John Savard

There are indeed some GOP activists (and a smaller percentage of GOP politicians) who do indeed want just precisely that. They're the reason the GOP has been losing election after election that they objectively should have won.

The GOP is a coalition of disparate factions, many of whom despise each other. That isn't unusual, the same thing is true of the Dems. Broadly, the GOP main factions are the corporatists, the socons, the nationalists, the working class whites, and (by far the smallest) the libertarians.

The party is dominated at the top by the relatively small, but monetarily powerful, corporatist faction. That's why so many GOP 'strategists' have kept insisting for years that 'economic conservative/social liberal' is the Party's only hope, even though it is in actual fact probably the worst position you can stake out in a national election. That's what the Chamber of Commerce, the Club for Growth, the Koch Brothers, etc. want. They want unlimited immigration, break all unions, unlimited trade liberalization. They're the 'any willing worker' faction. The want capital gains taxes cut and cut and cut. And that's about it.

The reason Trump created such an uproar in the Party is that in 2016 he demonstrated that the party establishment was almost 180 degrees out of phase with the party voters. He roared through the primaries by addressing the issues that the establishment kept claiming were a minority fringe of the party, and they couldn't stop him because they had alienated the entire rank and file. The rank and file of the GOP wanted tight borders, limited legal immigration, they were and are increasingly sympathetic to working class issues, they wanted a strong military and full national sovereignty, and they are mostly to varying degrees socially conservative. They wanted limited taxation, but it wasn't their only issue or their biggest one. But by 2016 that last was just about the only issue they still had in common with the GOP elites.

Jeb Bush, Mr. Establishment, infamously commented that he would have to 'lose the primary to win the general election'. Now he obviously didn't mean that absolutely literally, of course. But what he did mean was the same old message from the GOP establishment, that it was the socons and and nationalists who were losing the general elections for the Party, but economic conservatism could win. Reality was just the opposite, the least popular faction in the GOP with the general electorate is precisely the corporatists who dominate it.

Note that the Dems have a similar problem in reverse: a lot of their economic agenda is popular in the general electorate, but the social agenda is not, but the social agenda drives the party elite, who are also more-or-less on board with the corporate agenda and not much interested in working class issues.

In practice, since the first Bush Admin, the GOP establishment has been in _de facto_ alliance with the Dem establishment to lock in the same basic policies. The message always was 'either vote for the establishment guy or get the other party establishment'. By 2016 that was falling apart, this cartoon actually summed up the dynamic of 2016.

https://external-preview.redd.it/9NUfTwih-1OKB_Iw0oTRlcDx7cfdbpLILw-uqKwaiF0.jpg?auto=webp&v=enabled&s=befee305469c56295d0edef186c9ad752f0dccd3

Today the GOP is roiled by a power struggle between the business wing establishment, trying to get back to pre-2016 status quo, and the base refusing to follow. That's a lot of what the uproar over Kevin McCarthy's speakership was about, and it's why the Koch's are desperately trying to drive the base back into line now.

On Tuesday, February 7, 2023 at 5:29:50 AM UTC-6, Hamish Laws wrote:
> On Tuesday, February 7, 2023 at 11:23:32 AM UTC+11, Mike Van Pelt wrote:
> > In article <f7622c93-6a19-4dd5...@googlegroups.com>,
> > Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
> > >... surely
> > >we must ask why there even _is_ a national debt. During peacetime, it is
> > >expected that a country would pay off all of its debts, and get back to an
> > >even keel!
> > During the Gingrich Speakership with a GOP majority in both Houses,
> > we at least had balanced budgets, though the debt remained high.
> The budges were in surplus in 98,99,2000 & 2001
> Gingrich retired in 99
>
> Note that budget went into deficit under Shrub almost immediately despite maintaining control of the house & the senate (until a GOP senator left the party)
> Do you think it might have had something to do with the 1.8 trillion in tax cuts he pushed through?

It had more to do with the end of the dot com boom.

The budget surplus in the late 90s and early 2000s was something of an illusion. The economic boom temporarily flooded the coffers with money, but the underlying structural problems were never addressed, instead, spending was _increased_ during that period, so that when the boom ended, the problem was worse than ever.

The tax cuts may or may not have made it worse, but they weren't the underlying problem. The core problem is, and has been since the 1970s, that the electorate wants more government services than it's willing to pay for. The voters are quite fully prepared to cut Someone Else's Program or raise Someone Else's Taxes to fix it...but not their own.

Actually fixing the problem is going to require serious taxation (and not just of the rich), _and_ spending cuts to popular programs.

On Tuesday, February 7, 2023 at 8:08:06 AM UTC-7, James Nicoll wrote:

> You have remember she's a product of Salazar's Estado Novo,
> when Portugal commanded a fairly brutal empire and the idea
> of compensating equitably the people at the bottom of the
> heap would have been an astonishing concept to those at the
> top.

While I did feel that she got some things wrong, I do feel compelled
to point out that Fascist sympathies are not required in order to realize
that money does not grow on trees.

Fiscal realism is a good thing. Her mistake is in failing to recognize
that the ulterior motives of the Republicans are the current problem.

John Savard

On Tuesday, February 7, 2023 at 12:18:35 PM UTC-7, Johnny1A wrote:
> The core problem is, and has been since the 1970s, that the electorate
> wants more government services than it's willing to pay for. The voters
> are quite fully prepared to cut Someone Else's Program or raise Someone
> Else's Taxes to fix it...but not their own.

How is this even a problem?

The _problem_ is that the great masses of ordinary people in the electorate
have not managed to place firm enough control of the government in their
own hands to ensure that the government will act decisively to cut those
programs, and raise those taxes, that would be fully acceptable to the great
majority of the people.

Well, that may not be the _only_ problem. Neither a socialist revolution at
the expense of the rich, nor an attempt to ameliorate the situation of the
Republican base at the extent of the "racialized" is exactly a desirable
solution, and the preceding paragraph could well lead to just those two
choices.

The ideas Trump expressed, but would never dare to act upon, are the
first steps towards sanity.

America is not running out of resources or labor. It _is_ running out of
foreign exchange with which to buy cheap stuff from China. That may
be a problem, but it is survivable and manageable.

John Savard

Ross Presser <rpresser@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Saturday, February 4, 2023 at 2:52:36 AM UTC-5, Lynn McGuire wrote:
>> “You Get NOTHING” by Sarah A. Hoyt
>> https://accordingtohoyt.com/2023/02/03/you-get-nothing/
>
>> Sarah gets it.
>
> Does she really? This line from her post about paying her employees:
>
>> I couldn’t afford to pay them, at all. Every time I paid, it was money
>> taken from the ability to pay for something else that I sorely needed.
>> That was, if you remember, the whole reason of the fundraiser.
>
> If your business can't pay its employees until you beg your fans to
> literally give you their money, not selling them something, then your
> business is a charity, and you should register as such.

A quick glance at the original fundraiser looks more like an attempt to
monetize the blog, with a goal of paying some people to do the support
work (possibly people who were already volunteering) without going straight
to subscriptions and paywalling.
What's your opinion of Patreon (or patronage in general)?

Robert
--
Robert K. Shull Email: rkshull at rosettacon dot com

rkshullat@rosettacondot.com writes:
>Ross Presser <rpresser@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Saturday, February 4, 2023 at 2:52:36 AM UTC-5, Lynn McGuire wrote:
>>> “You Get NOTHING” by Sarah A. Hoyt
>>> https://accordingtohoyt.com/2023/02/03/you-get-nothing/
>>
>>> Sarah gets it.
>>
>> Does she really? This line from her post about paying her employees:
>>
>>> I couldn’t afford to pay them, at all. Every time I paid, it was money
>>> taken from the ability to pay for something else that I sorely needed.
>>> That was, if you remember, the whole reason of the fundraiser.
>>
>> If your business can't pay its employees until you beg your fans to
>> literally give you their money, not selling them something, then your
>> business is a charity, and you should register as such.
>
>A quick glance at the original fundraiser looks more like an attempt to
>monetize the blog, with a goal of paying some people to do the support
>work (possibly people who were already volunteering) without going straight
>to subscriptions and paywalling.

And a quick view of her "essay" indicates she misprepresents the
positions of those whose politics she disagrees. For example,
Capitalism, as practiced by the modern west, is
unsustainable in the long run. There's no doubt that a system
built on growth will eventually encounter limits to that growth.

That is completely unrelated to her assertion that people who
believe that capitalism has flaws dislike it because they think
they should be given free Iphones. That sentence alone was
enough to invalidate the rest of her essay.

Namecalling is not a rational form of rhetoric, but it seems
to be her go-to response to those who differ with her viewpoints,
and at that point I found that I had better things to do than
continue to read the remainder.

On 2/7/2023 12:07 AM, Dimensional Traveler wrote:
> On 2/6/2023 4:23 PM, Mike Van Pelt wrote:
>> In article <f7622c93-6a19-4dd5-a46b-b340b0f6f4f1n@googlegroups.com>,
>> Quadibloc  <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>>> ... surely
>>> we must ask why there even _is_ a national debt. During peacetime, it is
>>> expected that a country would pay off all of its debts, and get back
>>> to an
>>> even keel!
>>
>> During the Gingrich Speakership with a GOP majority in both Houses,
>> we at least had balanced budgets, though the debt remained high.
>>
>>> Of course, though, the way to get the country out of debt isn't by
>>> cutting
>>> Social Security! Not when taxes on the higher income brackets are so
>>> much lower than they were back in the prosperous early 1960s. And,
>>> indeed, the only reason Social Security has problems funding itself was
>>> because money was basically stolen from it by earlier Congresses.
>>>
>>> They just want to force cuts to Social Security because they figure they
>>> can get the voters to blame the Democrats for it instead of them.
>>
>> Who is this "they"?  The Democrats keep asserting that the Republicans
>> are going to cut or do away with Social Security and Medicare, but I
>> just don't see it.  It's the same old same old scare tactics.
>>
> Column: Mike Pence, would-be president, has a plan to kill Social
> Security. It will cost you.
>
> https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/news/column-mike-pence-would-be-president-has-a-plan-to-kill-social-security-it-will-cost-you/ar-AA17bgN7?ocid=winpstoreapp&cvid=66271562145d45d9b4cc65f536e7f90a
>
> Republicans have been trying for decades to "privatize" Social Security,
> "balance" MediCare and otherwise defund and eliminate various social
> safety nets that taxpayers pay for.  The current tactic of refusing to
> raise the debt limit until budget cuts are agreed to is the _same_ thing
> the Republicans have done several times before and the only budget cuts
> they are ever willing to accept are to the so-called "Entitlement"
> programs, especially Social Security.  Which aren't actually
> entitlements as we get taxed _specifically_ for them separate from the
> general income tax.

Never gonna happen. But, Social Security might be means tested like
Australia did a decade or so ago. Bill Gates won't get a SS transfer
each month into his checking account. Of course, the SS check would be
a rounding error for him.

Lynn

On Tuesday, February 7, 2023 at 2:48:06 PM UTC-5, rksh...@rosettacondot.com wrote:
> Ross Presser <rpre...@gmail.com> wrote:
[snip]
> > If your business can't pay its employees until you beg your fans to
> > literally give you their money, not selling them something, then your
> > business is a charity, and you should register as such.
> A quick glance at the original fundraiser looks more like an attempt to
> monetize the blog, with a goal of paying some people to do the support
> work (possibly people who were already volunteering) without going straight
> to subscriptions and paywalling.
> What's your opinion of Patreon (or patronage in general)?

Most Patreon subscriptions are set up along the lines of "Give me a steady income
and I promise to regularly produce product." One-time fundraisers are a bit different.

I still feel that asking for money when the only product is going to be more blogging
is a form of begging, and while it's certainly legal and even moral to beg on most
occasions, it's not something I'll support.

But what the hey, I'm certainly not her audience, and there are no circumstances
where she'd ever get a penny from me, for blog or for book. So she won't miss me
and my opinion can be safely ignored.