From the latest cherry-pickin' hit piece on Ron Paul:
"Voted NO on allowing school prayer during the War on Terror."
It's too hilarious even to comment on
"ron paul"
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Moot?
The BGLFRP question is: "should government -- the US government in particular -- take on the responsibility of helping out those who won't or can't support themselves"?
Personally, I think the US is wealthy enough that there's room for a "yes" or at least a "sometimes". But there's a very real sense in which this question is moot, because the preliminary question "Can the US govt. help them out?" has not been asked yet.
Thought experiment: Should WorldCom buy -- or be allowed to buy -- AT&T? We could argue about that quite a bit, invoking business strategies, antitrust concerns, etc. But why would we? WorldCom is bankrupt. Kaput. Hasta.
By the rules that govern corporate finance, the United States is essentially bankrupt. The U.S. government has ~$27 trillion in unfunded liabilities that it is obligated to pay (credit: David Emery). "With the entire U.S. GDP in 2006 amounting to only half of the current obligation, the scope of this obligation suggests that it may be impossible to reconcile" (also David).
The only candidate who is even talking about US solvency is Ron Paul. I think we should make him president, get back afloat as a country, and then hold the legitimate debate over the BGLFRP question above.
Personally, I think the US is wealthy enough that there's room for a "yes" or at least a "sometimes". But there's a very real sense in which this question is moot, because the preliminary question "Can the US govt. help them out?" has not been asked yet.
Thought experiment: Should WorldCom buy -- or be allowed to buy -- AT&T? We could argue about that quite a bit, invoking business strategies, antitrust concerns, etc. But why would we? WorldCom is bankrupt. Kaput. Hasta.
By the rules that govern corporate finance, the United States is essentially bankrupt. The U.S. government has ~$27 trillion in unfunded liabilities that it is obligated to pay (credit: David Emery). "With the entire U.S. GDP in 2006 amounting to only half of the current obligation, the scope of this obligation suggests that it may be impossible to reconcile" (also David).
The only candidate who is even talking about US solvency is Ron Paul. I think we should make him president, get back afloat as a country, and then hold the legitimate debate over the BGLFRP question above.
Friday, August 17, 2007
By Way of Intro
BGLfRP sits on a couple of principles:
1. Yes, we kinda want government to take care of us from the cradle to the grave. But the federal government has done a piss-poor job of that despite raking an incredible amount off the top of our income, so we want our money back.
2. Government is, in some respects, just a special case of the firm. We do not (completely) accept the libertarian proposition that government is always a corrosive or negative influence on society. It's entire possible that governments -- like firms -- get bigger in proportion to how successful they are.
That's all for now; in depth discussion of these and other points will follow.
PS: Time to blow my cover: I'm probably not actually a big government liberal; just a Ron Paul supporter doing an experiment on how robust the concept of Constitutional government is. (Hint: very)
1. Yes, we kinda want government to take care of us from the cradle to the grave. But the federal government has done a piss-poor job of that despite raking an incredible amount off the top of our income, so we want our money back.
2. Government is, in some respects, just a special case of the firm. We do not (completely) accept the libertarian proposition that government is always a corrosive or negative influence on society. It's entire possible that governments -- like firms -- get bigger in proportion to how successful they are.
That's all for now; in depth discussion of these and other points will follow.
PS: Time to blow my cover: I'm probably not actually a big government liberal; just a Ron Paul supporter doing an experiment on how robust the concept of Constitutional government is. (Hint: very)
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