I read the news today oh boy! Page 197

Quote: Griff @ August 5 2010, 4:20 PM BST

Well, I'd rather not live in a society based on the rabid tabloid-spouting opinions of "the people", but each to his own.

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If accountability, responsible spending and above-the-board decision making are "rabid, tabloid-spouting opinions" then someone needs to wipe the spittle from my chin with a copy of the National Inquirer because I appear to have gone rabid.

Quote: Griff @ August 5 2010, 5:15 PM BST

(DaButt) loves a bit of the old death penalty.

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Incorrect.

Quote: DaButt @ August 5 2010, 3:53 PM BST

The people as a whole are smarter, more reasonable and better judges of what is good/bad, right/wrong than the government as a whole. It's a simple truth.

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I always thought the government was made up of people. In fact isn't there a bit in the Gettysberg Address talking about the government being by the people, of the people, for the people. Etc.

Quote: chipolata @ August 5 2010, 5:50 PM BST

I always thought the government was made up of people.

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The government is comprised of a small percentage of "the people" and they seem to have forgotten who their masters are and any economics courses they may have taken in college don't appear to have sunk in. If you and I ran our personal finances/businesses the way they run the government we'd all find ourselves fighting for a spot in line at the soup kitchen.

A recent example of citizens saying "enough." Note that this took place in a staunchly Democrat city of poor, non-Caucasians in a staunchly Democrat state.

Hundreds of residents of one of the poorest municipalities in Los Angeles County shouted in protest last night as tensions rose over a report that the city's manager earns an annual salary of almost $800,000.

An overflow crowd packed a City Council meeting in Bell, a mostly Hispanic city of 38,000 about 10 miles (16 kilometers) southeast of Los Angeles, to call for the resignation of Mayor Oscar Hernandez and other city officials. Residents left standing outside the chamber banged on the doors and shouted "fuera," or "get out" in Spanish.

It was the first council meeting since the Los Angeles Times reported July 15 that Chief Administrative Officer Robert Rizzo earns $787,637 -- with annual 12 percent raises -- and that Bell pays its police chief $457,000, more than Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck makes in a city of 3.8 million people. Bell council members earn almost $100,000 for part-time work. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-07-20/california-official-s-800-000-salary-in-city-of-38-000-triggers-protests.html

Another story about the hole California has dug for itself: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-la-city-pensions-20100804,0,5060130.story

Quote: Nat Wicks @ August 5 2010, 4:04 PM BST

Politics is too hard for me to understand really. The thought of any person or group of people making a decision solely for the good of mindkind is flawed anyway. Human condition all all that.

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Who ever said that our government was solely for the good of the people? Most constitutional governments have layers of conflict betweent the diferent areas, because none of them can be trusted.

Quote: DaButt @ August 5 2010, 6:22 PM BST

If you and I ran our personal finances/businesses the way they run the government we'd all find ourselves fighting for a spot in line at the soup kitchen.

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If your company had to run the thankless, interconnected, no one else has to do it services that government does. Then I'd be hiding in a cave in Afghanistan.

Quote: sootyj @ August 5 2010, 8:43 PM BST

If your company had to run the thankless, interconnected, no one else has to do it services that government does.

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I've seen very little improvement or additions to the basic services provided by the government (defence, infrastructure, social services, etc.) over the last 30 years or so. On the contrary, the military is half the size it was when I served, the retirement age has gone up and social security is broke. Yet why have my taxes gone up? Could it be the fact that government sector jobs are rapidly multiplying as are their benefits and paychecks? The people mentioned above are the first wave of citizens who are going to cut government bloat by voting the offenders out of office. Look what's happening in the heart of the uber-liberal Bay Area:

http://www.mercurynews.com/top-stories/ci_15672528?nclick_check=1

Well the cold war ended.

The population has grown, but the economy is shrinking.

N.B. there are no liberal Americans. Seriously McCarthy shot the last one in 1951 I think.

Quote: sootyj @ August 5 2010, 9:02 PM BST

Well the cold war ended.

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Hmm, how many wars did we fight between 1975 and the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989? What about since then?

The population has grown, but the economy is shrinking.

Only over the last year or two. The economy was strong, but what does that have to do with bloated government and wasteful spending?

N.B. there are no liberal Americans.

You've obviously never been to the Bay Area.

Longer life expectancy is crippling most western economies. Pensions never expected to deal with 20-30 year retirements (it used to be 5)

Health provision can't handle $50,000 wonder drugs.

And young people stack up waiting for a space in the job market.

The cold war ending meant that defence went from keeping Warsaw Pact East of the Iron Curtian. Too 100% pork barrel, if you slashed your defence cost by 90% you'd put 100,000s out of work.

Quote: sootyj @ August 5 2010, 9:22 PM BST

if you slashed your defence cost by 90% you'd put 100,000s out of work.

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And you'd be saying your evening prayers at the mosque right about now, Tel Aviv would be a smoking crater and another few billion people would be frantically learning Chinese.

Well more likely Tehran would be a smoking crater. Unless your seriously suggesting the US has managed to impede anyone's nuclear program ever.

The Chinese aside from Tibet don't really bother invading anyone.

And most Islamic states couldn't invade their own outhouses.

A bully never puts down his fist for he see's all who surround him as bullies to.

Quote: sootyj @ August 5 2010, 9:30 PM BST

The Chinese aside from Tibet don't really bother invading anyone.

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Tell that to Taiwan. You might want to pass that tidbit along to Australia, Japan, South Korea and the rest as as well, as it's certain to ease their worries about China's mushrooming military and, especially, their navy's capability to project power throughout the region.

They never invaded Taiwan and in about 10 years will have absorbed it out of sheer economic inevitability.

As for the Chinese navy. Their flagships are 2 20 year old Russian cruisers, their last old Russian aircraft carrier caught fire and sunk, the other is a converted casino.

It's the second-largest navy in the world and I'll buy you a beer 20 years from now if China hasn't forcibly taken Taiwan, any other territory or got into a shooting war with the west.

Taiwan will fold because well, why piss off your massive neighbour with huge markets? It's happening right now.

Japan is doing everything it can to forge trading links.

China has the 2nd largest navy. But most of it's ships are dated, rusting or pointless.

At it's core China has a medium sized hitech military. Probably enough to take on a couple of European countries or Japan.

But as a humungous world dominating empire?

Not likely.

China like India is, I think, a country of extremes. Vast wealth for the few and Massive Poverty. Untill they can sort out the poverty I think Sooty is right they will never be a "superpower"