State of the Union, 2003

[TXCAP4228]

And carbon is the 8th most abundant. but it still ain't free. What do you think oil is made of?

I'd like to see H2 powered cars and such...how much does it cost to refine a gallon (I know, volume isn't measured in gallons...)?

You are right about carbon/oil, but the way I understand it Hydrogen doesn't need to be refined in the way that petroleum products do.

It will be interesting to see what technology does with this.

I'll bet we could make it work.

 

[FastPilot]

:And I'll tell you this: I value human life a whole lot more than a hardcore right-wing Republican who's willing to kill nurses and doctors to stop abortions!

Killing innocent children in the womb because you refuse to take responsibility for your actions is respecting life? And supporting people who do this respects life? I've always been amazed at the lefts BRAVE stance that you can literally tear children apart limb from limb in the womb (AND THEY ARE CAPABLE OF FEELING PAIN AT THIS STAGE), giving a pass to another mass murderer (Sadam), and arguing that ax wielding child murderers should not only never get the death penalty, but should live out a comfy existence in prison, with privacy, drugs, conjugal visits, cable, internet access, and the ability to file unlimited frivolous lawsuits. I've been in the position more than once of drawing down on someone and being wholly prepared to take their life (once in the defense of myself and my family, and another to protect two innocent people who were being attacked). It was not easy or fun, or motivating, just necessary. How in the world can people get fired up and excited about delivering an eight month baby (except for the head), flipping it over, splitting open the back of its head with a medical instrument, and suctioning out the baby's brain with a vacuum cleaner. Yea, that's respecting life.

Steve

 

[Salty Dog]

The only real problem in realizing widespread fuel cell use is distribution. When you compare it to our current super-efficient gasoline refining and distribution system that took a 100 years to evolve, everything else is going to look sporadic at best. Start in the cities, develop from there, as the free market allows.

With respect us being enablers to our greatest global export - the principle of freedom - look at past progress. In 1900 there were maybe a dozen free countries. Now there's over 100. Freedom promotes stability and limits the power of despots. If you can't control food, water, land, and other precious resources, it's really hard to oppress people. That's a good thing.

Finally, the dividend tax exemption is an enabler to make individually owned retirement accounts more productive. Social Security has one giant flaw - when you die, the money you saved reverts to Gov't ownership. If you OWN the money (individual ownership - one of the great freedoms being our right to own our own property) you can pass it on to your heirs to spend, invest, or blow as they see fit. Why just take 14% of your pay to enrich the government instead of your progeny. Chile figured this out, so can we!

 

[TXCAP4228]

Social Security has one giant flaw - when you die, the money you saved reverts to Gov't ownership. If you OWN the money (individual ownership - one of the great freedoms being our right to own our own property) you can pass it on to your heirs to spend, invest, or blow as they see fit. Why just take 14% of your pay to enrich the government instead of your progeny. Chile figured this out, so can we!

If you think about it, social secuirty in its current form takes money from the contributors today in order to fund the receivers of this money today.

Its almost like a giant ponzi scheme.

Personally, unless this privatization occurs, I will never count on having social security for my retirement.

 

[JuJu]

Lastly, the hell with the French. Having read an abundance of WWII material, their legacy of being wimps goes far past capitulating in three weeks time to a horse driven army! Tough horse driven army though.

I gotta weigh in here with some support for the French, which I don't usually do. After you finish the abundance of WWII material, read through some of the WWI material and see how many French (large % of young male population, indeed some entire villages on the front) were lost during that war. Knowing what the French went through with WWI makes it a little easier to understand why they threw open the cafes for WWII. Also, I have to say I have noticed a distinct difference in the way the French act towards Americans since Germany reunified. It's much better. If you get to Normandy, there is still profound respect there for the invasion and those that perished.

 

[Timebuilder]

I'll try and keep this short.

For a man who has never presented himself as a master of public speaking, he did a commendable job.

Hydrogen car: the major hurdle is finding a method of stabilizing hydrogen for safe transport and handling, as was mentioned above. This is a great idea, and our space experience will be very valuable in this quest. Some of you might remember that I suggested that it would be the oil companies, those with both much to lose AND much to gain, who would be the "energy companies" that will power our future. Let's use oil while we need to, and not use it when we no loger need to. How about a hydrogen aircraft?

Iraq: Bush could not have been more clear as to why we need to hold this dictator to the agreement that ended the Persian Gulf War, and UN resolution 1441. Saddam is clearly in non-compliance, and poses a grave danger to the free world.

Imagine for a moment that it's the spring of 2001. Bush is on TV telling us that we have to go to Afganistan and go after two groups we have never heard of: the Taliban and Al Queda. He says that they are planning a major attack on the US, and thousands of Americans will die. Can you hear the laughter and jeers from the left? Can you hear James Carville? Tom Daschle?

I can.

So let's go back to reality. Hillary Clinton says that Bush hasn't done enough. Others say that we knew about the attack, and did nothing. Many, such as some in this thread, think we have done too much, and given up too much of our freedom to monitoring, checking, and restricting. For Bush, this is a no-win situation. He's da**ed if he does and if he doesn't.

Intelligence and reports from two groups of UN waepons inspectors have noted that Saddam DEFINITELY had WMD, and that he cannot produce ANY documents to show what has happened to those WMD. This menas that we can make the mistake of ignoring these events, and the WMD, and wait for the smoking gun, like Ted Kennedy wants us to do. Or, we and our allays can act decisively, remove Saddam from power, free the people of Iraq from his cruel totalitarian state, and with the help of thousands of Iraquis we can find and destroy the WMD that remain in Iraq, and get a clue as to where the remainder has gone.

Someone mentioned the Constitution and asked whether or not the President can make a statement that reveals his religious faith. The answer is yes. He cannot, however, provide the power of his office to recommend to Congress that a law be passed in order to make any one religion the official religion of the USA.

One needs to remember that the decision of the Supreme Court that the establishment clause extends to restrain religious expression from public discourse was not the intent of the framers.

It is curious, indeed that David Westerfield will never die in a California jail for the murder of a child, yet thousands of California women murder their children every week with the approval of the same government. It is the ultimate act of the powerful over the powerless.

So, my view is that our continued pressure and ultimate disarming of Iraq is a matter of responsibility of the US, and not a matter of ego, attempts to kill GB senior, unlimited oil supplies, or general warmongering. We made a mistake, under public and UN pressure, to let the Gulf War end as it did, and now we have a mess to clean up because we decided to allow Saddam a diplomatic "out". Maybe Saddam will wise up and take off for Sweden.

Of course, to leave would be smart and reasonable. Something that Saddam has shown that he isn't.

 

[Salty Dog]

Really on a tangent here, but an interesting topic nonetheless. As a FINC major, I once added up my dad's Soc Sec contributions as if they were put into a fund earning the (then) historical stock market average rate of return, then assumed an 8% pay-out from the nest egg in perpetuity. Believe it or not, Soc Sec was a better deal, but not by much.

Considering he went from $54 his first year as an Airman Recruit (1957) all the way to his retirement as an AA DC-10 CA he obviously had some serious dough "in" the plan at the end.

Soc Sec pays him back as if he had done that very thing, only it is actually done, as you say, with current money - not his own that was literally sitting in an investment pile the whole time. The biggest difference is that the notional nest egg will not get split between my brother and me when he (and/or mom) croaks. That's "non-voluntary disenrollment" in Soc Sec terminology!

I just don't understand why more people don't raise a huge stink about this. Image generation after generation of your family amassing wealth in this pass-down manner. Lowly bottom feeders of the middle class like us would easily join the ranks of trust-fund babies like Ted Kennedy in just a few generations. Assuming our kids don't blow it all on cars and drugs before they reach 30... That's what happens when fear-driven senior citizens who vote upwards of 80% of the time are driving who writes the laws. The key is convincing those in the system that nobody wants to take it away while enabling those of us who don't believe they'll ever see a dime to implement a system that works.

Now that Aristotle Onassis' grandaughter just turned 18, though, I'll just use the great pilot pickup lines from that other thread to marry the billionairess! Hope she likes older guys!!!!

 

[Mr. Irrelevant]

Juju,


I'm not against the French, in fact one of my closest friends was born, grew up in Nantes and lived here in the U.S. for 10 years. Regardless, their Vichy government in WWII is/was a disgrace. They turned over untold numbers of Jews to the Germans in order to improve their own living conditions. Really pathetic. My friend and his wife, in the one discussion I had with them about this were clearly ashamed of what had gone on at that time. I never brought the subject up again as I could see it was painful for them. On the other hand, I'd agree that there was a tremendous amount done by the French underground to assist the allies in preparing for D-Day. I can't recall the exact amount of railroad tracks they blew up in the months/years prior to the invasion but it was a staggering number (at least to me). Today though, they unfortunately put their own interests in front of the worlds. Not a suprise to me.

Salty Dog mentioned the effects on individuals retirement accounts. Although I agree, this is not going to give our economy the BIG shot in the arm it needs. I would agree in theory that the double taxation is wrong but wiping it out would so clearly, only initially benefit a small number of very wealthy people in this country. Bush really seems to either believe very strongly in supply-side economics (or upside-down economics as Gov. Locke called it) or simply his conviction on the double-taxation issue was so strong he wanted the div tax-cut. I do recall it was part of his campaign to get rid of it. Again, I agree in theory but I make over 50k per year and this isn't going to help me or any of my friends.

It should be D.O.A. Even most republican lawmakers are against it. And it is half of his plan. What the heck!!

Good thread so far. Lots of arguments and ideas w/o the name calling. At least it hasn't been hijacked into an RJDC thread.


Mr. I.

 

[chawbein]

Mr. I,

Do you have any investments? If not, then it won't help you, if you do, then it helps you. There are tons of people in this country who own stock that pays dividends whether directly in the form of shares or indirectly in the form of a company-sponsored retirement plan or 401k. The real benefit of the tax cut is the whole package that let's EVERYBODY WHO PAYS TAXES keep some more of their money. Some may say that keeping an extra $300 a year doesn't mean didly squat, but take that $300 and mulitply it by 120,000,000 taxpayers and you get a phenominal amount of money pushed back into the economy.

For those who say the tax is slanted towards the rich (outside of the dividend tax), you are nuts. If you make a household income of 50k or better, you are in the top 25% of the "richest" people in the country. Oh, by the way, the top 50% of the "richest" in the country pay 96% of the taxes. The top 10% that keeps getting tossed around pays 67% of the taxes in this country. You have to have a household income of 92k to be in the top 10%. Why don't those people deserve a tax cut? Why, because all those have-nots might have to miss a FREE CHECK FROM THE GOVERNMENT.

 

[Andy Neill]

Could someone help me out here? I don't understand the double taxation of dividends point. It was my understanding that dividends paid out by a corporation were a business expense like employee salaries and such. Such payments would reduce corporate income and the tax liability. If that is not the case, then they must be paid after taxes and then the double taxation argument would make sense.

Does the payment of dividends affect the taxes a corporation pays or not?