Fiscal responsibility: suppose the govt "doesn't spend money it doesn't have."

[asian_roger]

How about we just let the economy fall apart so we can finally have real life Death Race and Hunger Games? We can even revert back to a crazy society like in The Giver. YAY!!!!!!!!

 

[Dr. Jones]

How about we just let the economy fall apart so we can finally have real life Death Race and Hunger Games? We can even revert back to a crazy society like in The Giver. YAY!!!!!!!!

I'm in. Kinda sounds fun in a ****** up sorta way.

 

[northeast]

I am not familiar with the above movies. Were the chicks attractive, plentiful, and passionate? If so, I am in too.

 

[Jazz Spazz]

So how does massive unemployment and the resulting decimation of tax revenues , not to mention increased unemployment payments and other transfer payments from government to unemployed, REDUCE the risk of USA bankruptcy?

Because if you raise the taxes high enough on the people that still have jobs and especially the rich people, the government can recoup the amount they had budgeted. This is important because the more we bring in as a government for taxes, the more we can borrow. Oh, we don't want to reduce the risk of USA bankruptcy... what are you crazy? What we need are more government programs from more tax money for as long as it takes to go bankrupt. We are already morally bankrupt, why not finish it up and be financially bankrupt as well.

 

[Scat]

I am not familiar with the above movies. Were the chicks attractive, plentiful, and passionate? If so, I am in too.

I don't know. What do you think?

 

[northeast]

not bad , not bad at all.... but the guy girl ratio is very important.... ideally , all the heros and and zeros kill each other, leaving cowards like me to comfort multiple grateful women in these emotional times of change and loss

 

[Scat]

not bad , not bad at all.... but the guy girl ratio is very important.... ideally , all the heros and and zeros kill each other, leaving cowards like me to comfort multiple grateful women in these emotional times of change and loss

From now and henceforth I shall refer to you as Grima.

 

[Dr. Jones]

not bad , not bad at all.... but the guy girl ratio is very important.... ideally , all the heros and and zeros kill each other, leaving cowards like me to comfort multiple grateful women in these emotional times of change and loss

LMAO .. I bet it is..

 

[franklin]

I'll address the bolded part first. This is where Franklin and I disagree.

One of the oldest criticisms of Marx focuses on his teleology (in short, that capitalism is a [necessary] stage in a progression that leads to communism). Here, human agency and contingency in general is radically reduced to the progression of a machinic interlocking of forces of which we are never more than a mere function, and this progression has a destiny of sorts. Scholars were right to critique this (even though, as I argue in some of my writing, these critiques have gone way too far). With Franklin, we have a sort of inverted Marxism, where instead of the collapse of capitalism, we finally get the promises that it has promised all along. There is a laundry list of examples that demonstrate that this so-called increasing civility and reduction of poverty on a global scale is, in a word, wrong; and, wherever this might apply, it is not civility and development in some transcendentally good sense, but always "civility" and "development" with respect to the laws and processes which bring people and places into the global market -- an articulation which ALWAYS causes displacement, environmental transformation (which is sometimes catastrophic), loss of diverse ways of understanding the world, new zones of poverty, etc. (off the top of my head, look at Northern Australia, Papua New Guinea, lots of Africa, parts of India, etc.).

Damn dude! Has any of the blood rushed back into the rest of your body yet? I'll have to read this again sober at 5 or 6 in the morning to make sure I fully understand you/myself before responding. For now, a lot of my view is opposite the cataclysmic Jesus. I don't see why His work would include blowing itself up in the end. What's beautiful about that?

*Edit to add*

I actually don't disagree with you on the limited resources scope & misguided implications of the pie is unlimited politically ideology, but more on the long running effects. I.e. I used to read a lot into potash production and don't see how it won't be a huge problem in 100 years or so. That's a long way down the line to each human but not to humanity. I find it incredibly naive to think capitalism will solve all our problems because it has in the last 150 or so years after energy was discovered. The world was incredibly slow growing and constantly engaged in self-feeding destruction because of it for thousands of years. Who are we to think that this new system is automatically self sustaining just because man overcame a few obstacles?

Next, the blue text:

While this might be loosely true across history, it has been particularly true in the States and governments of monotheistic and apocalyptic people. As soon as Christianity and Islam are adapted into the ideology of expansive empires, this dialectical way of seeing the world goes into hyperdrive. This is a long discussion, but, trust me, this apocalyptic thinking is at the very foundation of theories of life and rights, despite the fact that many know this to be contrary to evolutionary theories of life and a more kind ethics. This is the beginning of the discussion as to why I try to scrub Christian moralizing from my ethics. Paradoxically, I regard it as unethical or "immoral" (if I have to use that term for the sake of conversation). Contrary to what Spazz thinks, I'm deeply indebted to ethics and spirituality, but just on different terms. (If I appear to be a dick around here, it's only because this place allows me to be rough and sharp with my language, where most of the time I have to be overly-explanatory and pedagogical... that gets tiring).

This is already too long, so I won't launch into my own positive political program.
Thanks again to Franklin for sharing.

As I suspected, but thanks for the context. Very interesting stuff.

 

[franklin]

Because if you raise the taxes high enough on the people that still have jobs and especially the rich people, the government can recoup the amount they had budgeted. This is important because the more we bring in as a government for taxes, the more we can borrow. Oh, we don't want to reduce the risk of USA bankruptcy... what are you crazy? What we need are more government programs from more tax money for as long as it takes to go bankrupt. We are already morally bankrupt, why not finish it up and be financially bankrupt as well.

You seem to have completely disregarded the Joseph Smith quotes I provided earlier. Did you consider the implications of what he was calling for?

 

[Dr. Jones]

You seem to have completely disregarded the Joseph Smith quotes I provided earlier. Did you consider the implications of what he was calling for?

I missed it. In this thread?

 

[PearlWatson]

Government Waste: 20 Of The Craziest Things That The U.S. Government Is Spending Money On

#1 A total of $3 million has been granted to researchers at the University of California at Irvine so that they can play video games such as World of Warcraft. The goal of this "video game research" is reportedly to study how "emerging forms of communication, including multiplayer computer games and online virtual worlds such as World of Warcraft and Second Life can help organizations collaborate and compete more effectively in the global marketplace."

#2 The U.S. Department of Agriculture gave the University of New Hampshire $700,000 this year to study methane gas emissions from dairy cows.

#3 $615,000 was given to the University of California at Santa Cruz to digitize photos, T-shirts and concert tickets belonging to the Grateful Dead.

#4 A professor at Stanford University received $239,100 to study how Americans use the Internet to find love. So far one of the key findings of this "research" is that the Internet is a safer and more discreet way to find same-sex partners.

#5 The National Science Foundation spent $216,000 to study whether or not politicians "gain or lose support by taking ambiguous positions."

#6 The National Institutes of Health spent approximately $442,340 to study the behavior of male prostitutes in Vietnam.

#7 Approximately $1 million of U.S. taxpayer money was used to create poetry for the Little Rock, New Orleans, Milwaukee and Chicago zoos. The goal of the "poetry" is to help raise awareness on environmental issues.

#8 The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs spent $175 million during 2010 to maintain hundreds of buildings that it does not even use. This includes a pink, octagonal monkey house in the city of Dayton, Ohio.

#9 $1.8 million of U.S. taxpayer dollars went for a "museum of neon signs" in Las Vegas, Nevada.

#10 $35 million was reportedly paid out by Medicare to 118 "phantom" medical clinics that never even existed. Apparently these "phantom" medical clinics were established by a network of criminal gangs as a way to defraud the U.S. government.

#11 The Conservation Commission of Monkton, Vermont got $150,000 from the federal government to construct a "critter crossing". Thanks to U.S. government money, the lives of "thousands" of migrating salamanders are now being saved.

#12 In California, one park received $440,000 in federal funds to perform "green energy upgrades" on a building that has not been used for a decade.

#13 $440,955 was spent this past year on an office for former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert that he rarely even visits.

#14 One Tennessee library was given $5,000 in federal funds to host a series of video game parties.

#15 The U.S. Census Bureau spent $2.5 million on a television commercial during the Super Bowl that was so poorly produced that virtually nobody understood what is was trying to say.

#16 A professor at Dartmouth University received $137,530 to create a "recession-themed" video game entitled "Layoff".

#17 The National Science Foundation gave the Minnesota Zoo over $600,000 so that they could develop an online video game called "Wolfquest".

#18 A pizzeria in Iowa was given $60,000 to renovate the pizzeria's facade and give it a more "inviting feel".

#19 The U.S. Department of Agriculture gave one enterprising group of farmers $30,000 to develop a tourist-friendly database of farms that host guests for overnight "haycations". This one sounds like something that Dwight Schrute would have dreamed up.

#20 Almost unbelievably, the National Institutes of Health was given $800,000 in "stimulus funds" to study the impact of a "genital-washing program" on men in South Africa.