“I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.”
— Ayn Rand
Atlas Shrugged
I wish we had a libertarian party in australia.
I’m sure the point about blah blah not being against charity but being against forced charity has already been made.
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
Former New Orleans residents have been testifying before Congress, demanding jobs, money, housing, medical care and so forth.
Who is to provide this booty?
You. The American taxpayer. See, you are really a milk cow, to be milked whenever someone’s irresponsibility bites them on the ass. Someone chooses to live in a city that’s in a hurricane zone, between two large bodies of water, below sea level – so, when the inevitable happens, you, the taxpayer are supposed to be there, to clean up the mess. And if your not fast enough, you get screamed at.
What if I don’t want to fund other people’s irresponsibility? “Well, we’ve got guns and jails, so you’ll pay or else!” Like most liberals, since they can’t convince someone to cooperate, they resort to violence.
Since when did the claims of parasites become a moral claim on the host? How did those who don’t produce get a moral blank check on those who do? Why do zeros have a mortgage on life?
I’m sure the libs woll call me a heartless, selfish, racist brute. But what am I guilty of? That I want to spend the money that I earned, by my own honest effort? I worked nights in a factory to get my BA. I spent sleepless nights getting my MA. I am proud of my meager earnings (I’m a teacher.). Now my earning are ‘on call’ for those who didn’t want to be bothered? I have to pay blackmail to the lazy?
Someday, this will all come tumbling down. Someday, the real victims will will simply say, “No.” Watch for that day. [/quote]
Actually, you sound like a whiney liberal in your post/thread by insinuating
that you are some type of “victim” due to Katrina.
In addition, you are surely not a history teacher or you would not even
attempt to discount the significance of this great city and it’s huge
contribution to the beginnings of this great country. Ever heard of the
Battle of New Orleans?
http://www.nps.gov/jela/Chalmettebattlefield.htm
Or the Louisiana purchase? Louisiana Purchase
You now have homework, teacher.
You might want to read up on it and try to comprehend what this city and the people who live here
have contributed to helping build the greatest country on earth. New Orleans
was a grand, grand city long before this country got it’s freedom.
How is choosing to live, work, PAY TAXES and live your life in New Orleans
“irresponsible”? Because a hurricane may hit here makes living here irresponsible? Where
the hell do you live?
Also, Katrina did not flood the city. The faulty levees built by the
Army Corp of Engineers (read Federal Government) failed because they did not build them to spec.
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-4/1134028141231650.xml
The Mississippi River Gulf Outlet, aka MR-GO, was built by the Army
Corp. Eng. under great protest of the citizens of this city and St Bernard
Parish. A 35 foot storm surge came into that outlet and wiped out Chalmette
and the entire Parish of St Bernard.
For a teacher, your ignorance on this subject astounds me. It’s scary knowing a nit-wit like yourself
actually is paid to influence minds.
I did not like nor agree with much of anything those woman had to say in font of congress. However your lack of insight to the reality of what happened and the significance of New Orleans is no less off base.
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
“I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.”
— Ayn Rand
Atlas Shrugged[/quote]
Ayn Rand was a heartless b*tch.
Being human means we sometimes give to others who are less fortunate.
I’m playing my little violin for you now, Headhunter, the real victim of Katrina. Oh how I pity you for having to pay an extra few tax dollars. That’s much worse than having your house demolished and being raped in the Superdome.
[quote]deanosumo wrote:
Headhunter wrote:
“I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.”
— Ayn Rand
Atlas Shrugged
Ayn Rand was a heartless b*tch.
Being human means we sometimes give to others who are less fortunate.
I’m playing my little violin for you now, Headhunter, the real victim of Katrina. Oh how I pity you for having to pay an extra few tax dollars. That’s much worse than having your house demolished and being raped in the Superdome.
[/quote]
The evil that is in this world- To give to others less fortunate! Headhunter’s last words- “What about my BA! My brutish life! Oh, the horror! The horror!” Like Col. Kurtz realizing the evil in mankind…
Read something other than “The Fountainhead”. I suggest you start with Ralph Ellison’s “Invisible Man”. ALthough that might be too liberal and whiny for you.
Yeah and the guy who raped you is living in a Government provided doubble wide trailer. I deal with the evacuees every day and it is 50/50 the ones who are greatful of the efforts of our community to help and those who want more. My sister lost her job at a local university because of state budjet cuts. She has a 2 year old son and a 6 year old daughter. She had worked at the university for four years in the admissions office. Now she has to pick up the pieces and move on becaus of tropical storm “Blanco”. But who is running to her rescue? Se is fortunate enough to still have a home but not for long if she cannot find a job.
Louisiana has some of the highest taxes in the country I pay 9.99% on every fucking dollar. We have Casinos here whose taxes are supposed to pay teachers but went to keeping the Saints. But yet our state cannot get shit straight.
We have let this state be welfare dependant and there is no turning back. It is now expected of the state to support these people. If you dont agree with me just move to New Orleans and stay for a year and you will see. I do believe in helping the victims but some are still not satisfied with the help you give. There were people rejecting clothes from a local Wal-Mart because they didnt like them and other refusing used blankets from the salvation army because they were not new. Not to mention the job fair held at the civic cienter which houses 800 evacuees and 85 showed up to participate.
We have got to turn shit around and hold Blanco and Co.accountable for the mismanagement of our state funds. We cannot let La. continue to condone a welfare society. With all the taxes we pay and programs set up to make a difference we should be doing a better job.
[quote]AZMojo wrote:
Why won’t you see the problem with your arguement here? The insurance correlation is a good one.[/quote]
Guys, this whole “insurance=taxes” thing has got to be put to rest once and for all. First and foremost, we can’t confuse the operations of government with those of a business. No analogy could be further from reality. Businesses produce a product or service in order to make money (and they SHOULD make money for such product / service). Competition with other like businesses helps to ensure that each business is striving to provide the best product/service possible. Governments produce NOTHING. They can only a) confiscate and b) borrow in order to fund themselves.
Insurance companies invest premiums into revenue-producing assets. AIG, one of the largest publicly traded insurance companies, took in $18.4 billon in investment income in 2004. They also have HUGE reserves whose specific purpose is to be available when claims arise. Again, AIG had $62.4 billion of such reserves on hand at the end of 2004 (by comparison, it paid out $19.3 billion in claims during the year).
On the other hand, governments can simply go and pull multiple billions of dollars out of the Magical Ass that Lays the Golden Turds anytime it wants to. Hurricane? No prob! AIDS in Africa? Here’s a few billion! And, you don’t even have to give an account of how you use it! Why? Because we don’t care! We have an endless supply of free money! And when we run out, we’ll just float a few hundred billion in bonds! So take those $2,000 FEMA debit cards and go to the strip club! Put another wing on the dictator’s castle in Ooga-booga land. We’ll just print MORE money! Hardly a viable business model for an insurance company. To government, your money is trash, while a private business has innumerable incentives to use it wisely.
Finally, people pay insurance premiums based on their individual risk profile. The fat man with a Twinkie in one hand and a Marlboro in the other is going to pay more in health insurance than the average T-man. The habitual DUI case is going to pay more in car insurance than I, whose last ticket was in 1994 for a turn signal violation. Yes, if a person lives in an environment where the OVERALL risk is higher, then OVERALL premiums will be higher, but it is mainly based on individual risk factors. The only possible exception to this might be employer-provided health insurance (which, again, the company DOES NOT really pay for; YOU do, in the form of a proportionally lower salary), wherein there is no underwriting in the form of health check-ups, lifestyle evaluations, etc.
But then, employer provided health insurance takes us right back to the entitlement mentality that is the core of this thread anyway, doesn’t it?
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
Thank you, Fonebone![/quote]
I’m here to help 
[quote]dermo wrote:
Huh? I have no problem paying for gas for my car…I choose to drive, so I pay for gas. I was referring to the $9 billion in tax rebates for the oil and coal industry in the most recent energy bill. Why are they being refunded tax billions, when they are in the midst of record profits? This causes a tax gap which we are forced to bridge. Buying gas is not the same as government tax refunds. One is a voluntary purchase of goods, the other is a government corporate giveaway.[/quote]
OK, point taken. I cannot speak knowledgably to the tax “giveaway” issue, as I don’t know in detail what happened. However, I might suggest checking the website of, for example, Citizens Against Government Waste, for alternative suggestions on how the dreaded “tax gap” might be made up. If you can read through that and not be outraged, you are probably dead.
I can also think of far worse uses for a tax break than allowing companies additional funds to invest in the production of a (let’s face it) an ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL commodity. Also, company growth means jobs, economic stimulation and all sorts of other nice things.
As to the profit issue, your helpful poster will now provide a basic lesson in finance:
Quite simply, those companies’ profits went up because their REVENUES went up! And why was that? Well, oil prices were at record highs, even when adjusted for inflation (which they never are).
High oil prices are a simple issue of supply and demand. Already tight refining capacity was constrained by hurricane damage, and China and India are growing their industrial economies at a breakneck pace, never mind high demand in the US.
Now, when dollar revenues go up, dollar profits are of course going to go up. What we need to consider are profit MARGINS (i.e. profits as a percentage of revenues). When viewed in this context, these “obscene” profits are quite less so. A company has various costs, some of which are variable (i.e. are affected by the number of units of product produced - in this case, barrels of oil refined), and some of which are fixed (i.e. are unaffected by the number of units produced - these include salaries, lease and rent expenses, and interest expense, to name a few).
Since the number of units produced was high due to demand, aggregate VARIABLE costs went up. However, the FIXED costs remained the same. Therefore, somewhat higher, but hardly unreasonable, profit margins are the result! Neat, huh?
This sort of thing should be required knowledge of every high school graduate in the country, but I’ll bet my next paycheck that most high school TEACHERS don’t get it.
Time to go to work now…more later
How about a view of things from someone who has been to the Gulf Coast? I didn’t go to New Orleans, I was in Southwestern Ms. I was there for 6 weeks very shortly after Katrina hit. I went there to help. The area was absolutely devasted, you have no idea unless you could see it in person. Images from the television do it no justice. The group I was with stood up police stations, fire depatments, city government buildings, got a new 911 station up and running, and installed new water lines to provide clean potable water with a workable pressure.
Let me tell you what I saw from Ms. residents as compared to what I have seen on tv from the residents of New Orleans. Please note I did say “saw on tv” not in person. I saw people pulling themselves up by the bootstraps, helping eachother and themselves instead of sitting around waiting on someone to do something for them or give them a handout and complaining. I recieved hugs and praise and thanks fom everyone I encountered there instead of complaints.
Many of the compplaintants from New Orelans appear to me to be those that have spent most of thier lives relying on the U.S. government to take care of them, therefore have no real idea how to take care of themselves. The people of Ms. I encountered on the other hand appeared to me to be resilient and self reliant and proud of the fact that they were.
I have no problem helping my fellow Americans through the work of my own hands or my tax dollars and I have done both which is more than many have done. I do feel a bit of shame though as I watch those with the loudest cries sitting on their hands and complaining, doing nothing for themselves but wanting another handout, when they have lived on handouts all their lives. The saddest part of all this to me is that I know in my heart there are people in New Orleans that have reacted in the same way the people I encountered in Ms. did,working hard with their own hands to get thier lives back.
Yet it is the people that point fingers and whine that are getting all the attention and therefore overshaddow the ones that deserve the attention and make them all look bad. I have always heard the Lord helps those who help themselves. God bless America.
Headhunter, have your taxes gone up as a result of Katrina, or have you paid the same as you would have paid anyway?
The definition of a tax is an involuntary payment to the government for the support of government. One of the characteristics of a tax is that it cannot be traced to any specific good or service, it is a general payment made to the government.
Claiming you are a victim is a ridiculous statement. I do agree however that many NOLA citizens are not doing their part, why would they be demanding jobs when there are plenty of jobs to be had? Non NOLA citizens are taking jobs there everyday because there are not enough people to do them all, and they are well paid for it. Too many people just want the handout without helping to rebuild.
I agree with helping the victims, but they need to do their part.
As a side note, insurance companies do not make money by paying out less than they take in, they make it from investing the money they have up front.
The American political system was founded in Philadelphia, but the American nation was built on the vast farmlands that stretch from the Alleghenies to the Rockies. That farmland produced the wealth that funded American industrialization: It permitted the formation of a class of small landholders who, amazingly, could produce more than they could consume. They could sell their excess crops in the east and in Europe and save that money, which eventually became the founding capital of American industry.
But it was not the extraordinary land nor the farmers and ranchers who alone set the process in motion. Rather, it was geography – the extraordinary system of rivers that flowed through the Midwest and allowed them to ship their surplus to the rest of the world. All of the rivers flowed into one – the Mississippi – and the Mississippi flowed to the ports in and around one city: New Orleans. It was in New Orleans that the barges from upstream were unloaded and their cargos stored, sold and reloaded on ocean-going vessels. Until last Sunday, New Orleans was, in many ways, the pivot of the American economy.
For that reason, the Battle of New Orleans in January 1815 was a key moment in American history. Even though the battle occurred after the War of 1812 was over, had the British taken New Orleans, we suspect they wouldn’t have given it back. Without New Orleans, the entire Louisiana Purchase would have been valueless to the United States. Or, to state it more precisely, the British would control the region because, at the end of the day, the value of the Purchase was the land and the rivers - which all converged on the Mississippi and the ultimate port of New Orleans. The hero of the battle was Andrew Jackson, and when he became president, his obsession with Texas had much to do with keeping the Mexicans away from New Orleans.
During the Cold War, a macabre topic of discussion among bored graduate students who studied such things was this: If the Soviets could destroy one city with a large nuclear device, which would it be? The usual answers were Washington or New York. For me, the answer was simple: New Orleans. If the Mississippi River was shut to traffic, then the foundations of the economy would be shattered. The industrial minerals needed in the factories wouldn’t come in, and the agricultural wealth wouldn’t flow out. Alternative routes really weren’t available. The Germans knew it too: A U-boat campaign occurred near the mouth of the Mississippi during World War II. Both the Germans and Stratfor have stood with Andy Jackson: New Orleans was the prize.
Last Sunday, nature took out New Orleans almost as surely as a nuclear strike. Hurricane Katrina’s geopolitical effect was not, in many ways, distinguishable from a mushroom cloud. The key exit from North America was closed. The petrochemical industry, which has become an added value to the region since Jackson’s days, was at risk. The navigability of the Mississippi south of New Orleans was a question mark. New Orleans as a city and as a port complex had ceased to exist, and it was not clear that it could recover.
The ports of South Louisiana and New Orleans, which run north and south of the city, are as important today as at any point during the history of the republic. On its own merit, the Port of South Louisiana is the largest port in the United States by tonnage and the fifth-largest in the world. It exports more than 52 million tons a year, of which more than half are agricultural products – corn, soybeans and so on. A larger proportion of U.S. agriculture flows out of the port. Almost as much cargo, nearly 57 million tons, comes in through the port – including not only crude oil, but chemicals and fertilizers, coal, concrete and so on.
A simple way to think about the New Orleans port complex is that it is where the bulk commodities of agriculture go out to the world and the bulk commodities of industrialism come in. The commodity chain of the global food industry starts here, as does that of American industrialism. If these facilities are gone, more than the price of goods shifts: The very physical structure of the global economy would have to be reshaped. Consider the impact to the U.S. auto industry if steel doesn’t come up the river, or the effect on global food supplies if U.S. corn and soybeans don’t get to the markets.
The problem is that there are no good shipping alternatives. River transport is cheap, and most of the commodities we are discussing have low value-to-weight ratios. The U.S. transport system was built on the assumption that these commodities would travel to and from New Orleans by barge, where they would be loaded on ships or offloaded. Apart from port capacity elsewhere in the United States, there aren’t enough trucks or rail cars to handle the long-distance hauling of these enormous quantities – assuming for the moment that the economics could be managed, which they can’t be.
The focus in the media has been on the oil industry in Louisiana and Mississippi. This is not a trivial question, but in a certain sense, it is dwarfed by the shipping issue. First, Louisiana is the source of about 15 percent of U.S.-produced petroleum, much of it from the Gulf. The local refineries are critical to American infrastructure. Were all of these facilities to be lost, the effect on the price of oil worldwide would be extraordinarily painful. If the river itself became unnavigable or if the ports are no longer functioning, however, the impact to the wider economy would be significantly more severe. In a sense, there is more flexibility in oil than in the physical transport of these other commodities.
There is clearly good news as information comes in. By all accounts, the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port, which services supertankers in the Gulf, is intact. Port Fourchon, which is the center of extraction operations in the Gulf, has sustained damage but is recoverable. The status of the oil platforms is unclear and it is not known what the underwater systems look like, but on the surface, the damage - though not trivial – is manageable.
The news on the river is also far better than would have been expected on Sunday. The river has not changed its course. No major levees containing the river have burst. The Mississippi apparently has not silted up to such an extent that massive dredging would be required to render it navigable. Even the port facilities, although apparently damaged in many places and destroyed in few, are still there. The river, as transport corridor, has not been lost.
What has been lost is the city of New Orleans and many of the residential suburban areas around it. The population has fled, leaving behind a relatively small number of people in desperate straits. Some are dead, others are dying, and the magnitude of the situation dwarfs the resources required to ameliorate their condition. But it is not the population that is trapped in New Orleans that is of geopolitical significance: It is the population that has left and has nowhere to return to.
The oil fields, pipelines and ports required a skilled workforce in order to operate. That workforce requires homes. They require stores to buy food and other supplies. Hospitals and doctors. Schools for their children. In other words, in order to operate the facilities critical to the United States, you need a workforce to do it – and that workforce is gone. Unlike in other disasters, that workforce cannot return to the region because they have no place to live. New Orleans is gone, and the metropolitan area surrounding New Orleans is either gone or so badly damaged that it will not be inhabitable for a long time.
It is possible to jury-rig around this problem for a short time. But the fact is that those who have left the area have gone to live with relatives and friends. Those who had the ability to leave also had networks of relationships and resources to manage their exile. But those resources are not infinite – and as it becomes apparent that these people will not be returning to New Orleans any time soon, they will be enrolling their children in new schools, finding new jobs, finding new accommodations. If they have any insurance money coming, they will collect it. If they have none, then – whatever emotional connections they may have to their home – their economic connection to it has been severed. In a very short time, these people will be making decisions that will start to reshape population and workforce patterns in the region.
A city is a complex and ongoing process - one that requires physical infrastructure to support the people who live in it and people to operate that physical infrastructure. We don’t simply mean power plants or sewage treatment facilities, although they are critical. Someone has to be able to sell a bottle of milk or a new shirt. Someone has to be able to repair a car or do surgery. And the people who do those things, along with the infrastructure that supports them, are gone – and they are not coming back anytime soon.
It is in this sense, then, that it seems almost as if a nuclear weapon went off in New Orleans. The people mostly have fled rather than died, but they are gone. Not all of the facilities are destroyed, but most are. It appears to us that New Orleans and its environs have passed the point of recoverability. The area can recover, to be sure, but only with the commitment of massive resources from outside – and those resources would always be at risk to another Katrina.
The displacement of population is the crisis that New Orleans faces. It is also a national crisis, because the largest port in the United States cannot function without a city around it. The physical and business processes of a port cannot occur in a ghost town, and right now, that is what New Orleans is. It is not about the facilities, and it is not about the oil. It is about the loss of a city’s population and the paralysis of the largest port in the United States.
Let’s go back to the beginning. The United States historically has depended on the Mississippi and its tributaries for transport. Barges navigate the river. Ships go on the ocean. The barges must offload to the ships and vice versa. There must be a facility to empower this exchange. It is also the facility where goods are stored in transit. Without this port, the river can’t be used. Protecting that port has been, from the time of the Louisiana Purchase, a fundamental national security issue for the United States.
Katrina has taken out the port – not by destroying the facilities, but by rendering the area uninhabited and potentially uninhabitable. That means that even if the Mississippi remains navigable, the absence of a port near the mouth of the river makes the Mississippi enormously less useful than it was. For these reasons, the United States has lost not only its biggest port complex, but also the utility of its river transport system – the foundation of the entire American transport system. There are some substitutes, but none with sufficient capacity to solve the problem.
It follows from this that the port will have to be revived and, one would assume, the city as well. The ports around New Orleans are located as far north as they can be and still be accessed by ocean-going vessels. The need for ships to be able to pass each other in the waterways, which narrow to the north, adds to the problem. Besides, the Highway 190 bridge in Baton Rouge blocks the river going north. New Orleans is where it is for a reason: The United States needs a city right there.
New Orleans is not optional for the United States’ commercial infrastructure. It is a terrible place for a city to be located, but exactly the place where a city must exist. With that as a given, a city will return there because the alternatives are too devastating. The harvest is coming, and that means that the port will have to be opened soon. As in Iraq, premiums will be paid to people prepared to endure the hardships of working in New Orleans. But in the end, the city will return because it has to.
Geopolitics is the stuff of permanent geographical realities and the way they interact with political life. Geopolitics created New Orleans. Geopolitics caused American presidents to obsess over its safety. And geopolitics will force the city’s resurrection, even if it is in the worst imaginable place.
The fact that anyone over the age of nineteen is basing any of their personal philosophy on Ayn freaking Rand is laughable.
As a philosopher, she was a hack; as a writer, she was execrable.
[quote]RHINO928 wrote:
Headhunter wrote:
Former New Orleans residents have been testifying before Congress, demanding jobs, money, housing, medical care and so forth.
Who is to provide this booty?
You. The American taxpayer. See, you are really a milk cow, to be milked whenever someone’s irresponsibility bites them on the ass. Someone chooses to live in a city that’s in a hurricane zone, between two large bodies of water, below sea level – so, when the inevitable happens, you, the taxpayer are supposed to be there, to clean up the mess. And if your not fast enough, you get screamed at.
What if I don’t want to fund other people’s irresponsibility? “Well, we’ve got guns and jails, so you’ll pay or else!” Like most liberals, since they can’t convince someone to cooperate, they resort to violence.
Since when did the claims of parasites become a moral claim on the host? How did those who don’t produce get a moral blank check on those who do? Why do zeros have a mortgage on life?
I’m sure the libs woll call me a heartless, selfish, racist brute. But what am I guilty of? That I want to spend the money that I earned, by my own honest effort? I worked nights in a factory to get my BA. I spent sleepless nights getting my MA. I am proud of my meager earnings (I’m a teacher.). Now my earning are ‘on call’ for those who didn’t want to be bothered? I have to pay blackmail to the lazy?
Someday, this will all come tumbling down. Someday, the real victims will will simply say, “No.” Watch for that day.
Actually, you sound like a whiney liberal in your post/thread by insinuating
that you are some type of “victim” due to Katrina.
In addition, you are surely not a history teacher or you would not even
attempt to discount the significance of this great city and it’s huge
contribution to the beginnings of this great country. Ever heard of the
Battle of New Orleans?
http://www.nps.gov/jela/Chalmettebattlefield.htm
Or the Louisiana purchase? Louisiana Purchase
You now have homework, teacher.
You might want to read up on it and try to comprehend what this city and the people who live here
have contributed to helping build the greatest country on earth. New Orleans
was a grand, grand city long before this country got it’s freedom.
How is choosing to live, work, PAY TAXES and live your life in New Orleans
“irresponsible”? Because a hurricane may hit here makes living here irresponsible? Where
the hell do you live?
Also, Katrina did not flood the city. The faulty levees built by the
Army Corp of Engineers (read Federal Government) failed because they did not build them to spec.
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-4/1134028141231650.xml
The Mississippi River Gulf Outlet, aka MR-GO, was built by the Army
Corp. Eng. under great protest of the citizens of this city and St Bernard
Parish. A 35 foot storm surge came into that outlet and wiped out Chalmette
and the entire Parish of St Bernard.
For a teacher, your ignorance on this subject astounds me. It’s scary knowing a nit-wit like yourself
actually is paid to influence minds.
[/quote]
I did not like nor agree with much of anything those woman had to say in font of congress. However your lack of insight to the reality of what happened and the significance of New Orleans is no less off base.
You obviously have not read much of my posts or you would see how truly ignorant you’re being. Like I said earlier, read before you insult.
Nothing you said changes the basic moral principle that each man is the owner of his life, his work, and his property. In one of Ayn Rand’s novels, The Fountainhead, the designing architect blows up a housing project because parasites alter his design w/o permission. That’s how I feel about robbing innocent wictims to rebuild this city. The former residents chose to live there, let them rebuild it or live elsewhere. I’m not their keeper as no one should be.
I’m surprised at how many people want to be serfs to irresponsible adults. Well, to each their own. Just don’t pass laws that rob me while you do it.
[quote]deanosumo wrote:
Headhunter wrote:
“I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.”
— Ayn Rand
Atlas Shrugged
Ayn Rand was a heartless b*tch.
Being human means we sometimes give to others who are less fortunate.
I’m playing my little violin for you now, Headhunter, the real victim of Katrina. Oh how I pity you for having to pay an extra few tax dollars. That’s much worse than having your house demolished and being raped in the Superdome.
[/quote]
Have you read anything I have written? Did I say ‘don’t help others’ anywhere in this thread? I am saying that the help should NOT BE FORCED!! Hello, anybody home? Read the thread or keep your ill-informed opinions at home.
Damn, I’ve said this about 4 times throughout this thread. Do most of you just spout w/o reading?
[quote]Kayrob wrote:
Headhunter, have your taxes gone up as a result of Katrina, or have you paid the same as you would have paid anyway?
The definition of a tax is an involuntary payment to the government for the support of government. One of the characteristics of a tax is that it cannot be traced to any specific good or service, it is a general payment made to the government.
Claiming you are a victim is a ridiculous statement. I do agree however that many NOLA citizens are not doing their part, why would they be demanding jobs when there are plenty of jobs to be had? Non NOLA citizens are taking jobs there everyday because there are not enough people to do them all, and they are well paid for it. Too many people just want the handout without helping to rebuild.
I agree with helping the victims, but they need to do their part.
As a side note, insurance companies do not make money by paying out less than they take in, they make it from investing the money they have up front.[/quote]
Another one — sigh. Tax money is money taken through extortion. Sure, it is used for many good things. BUT IT IS FORCED FROM THE VICTIMS! If I rob you, then use some of the money to buy you a car, does that make my actions moral?
Tax money is legalized loot taken from helpless victims. Blah, blah, you get to vote; sure. Our tax money is taken from us. The people of New Orleans are scrambling after plundered pennies. “Rebuild my life for me! You are all rich and owe me a home, job, medical care!!” I say: help them if YOU wish, but don’t send a legalized gang of criminals to rob me to help them. IT IS IMMORAL!!
[quote]harris447 wrote:
The fact that anyone over the age of nineteen is basing any of their personal philosophy on Ayn freaking Rand is laughable.
As a philosopher, she was a hack; as a writer, she was execrable. [/quote]
Proof? Evidence? Why? How do you know?
Back to the checkout line, Harris.
[quote]Fonebone wrote:
AZMojo wrote:
Why won’t you see the problem with your arguement here? The insurance correlation is a good one.
Guys, this whole “insurance=taxes” thing has got to be put to rest once and for all. First and foremost, we can’t confuse the operations of government with those of a business. No analogy could be further from reality. Businesses produce a product or service in order to make money (and they SHOULD make money for such product / service). Competition with other like businesses helps to ensure that each business is striving to provide the best product/service possible. Governments produce NOTHING. They can only a) confiscate and b) borrow in order to fund themselves.[/quote]
The key difference, in this case, is that business does it for profit. That’s all. The government still provides a service, right? So business really has more incentive to screw you, I mean make more profit. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
It’s nice that you read your prospectus, so few do these days. Did they include that the reserves are REQUIRED by the federal government? How much did they bring in in premiums? You left that out?
[quote]
On the other hand, governments can simply go and pull multiple billions of dollars out of the Magical Ass that Lays the Golden Turds anytime it wants to. [/quote]
How exactly did you think those insurance reserves are created? You, the consumer, are the Magical Ass that lays the Golden Turds. Now, maybe your tired of being screwed on both ends and that’s understandable, but don’t pretend this is a one-sided thing.
[quote]
Finally, people pay insurance premiums based on their individual risk profile. The fat man with a Twinkie in one hand and a Marlboro in the other is going to pay more in health insurance than the average T-man. The habitual DUI case is going to pay more in car insurance than I, whose last ticket was in 1994 for a turn signal violation. Yes, if a person lives in an environment where the OVERALL risk is higher, then OVERALL premiums will be higher, but it is mainly based on individual risk factors. The only possible exception to this might be employer-provided health insurance (which, again, the company DOES NOT really pay for; YOU do, in the form of a proportionally lower salary), wherein there is no underwriting in the form of health check-ups, lifestyle evaluations, etc. [/quote]
You’re out of you element on this one. You’re deluded to think that your premiums are based only on your individual risk factors. Keeping on the subject of homeowner’s insurance, do you think that homeowner’s in Alaska are going to have their premiums affected because of losses incurred from Katrina? They are, count on it. Insurance companies can’t continue to pay claims without adjusting premiums accordingly. Do you think you’ll EVER pay enough in homeowner’s insurance premium to cover the rebuiling of your home? Not likely. You’re paying to rebuild everybody else’s home.
So, other than the for-profit vs. not-for-profit thing, if fail to see were the analogy doesn’t hold up.
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
harris447 wrote:
The fact that anyone over the age of nineteen is basing any of their personal philosophy on Ayn freaking Rand is laughable.
As a philosopher, she was a hack; as a writer, she was execrable.
Proof? Evidence? Why? How do you know?
Back to the checkout line, Harris.
[/quote]
You want proof and evidence that someone was a lousy writer that only college freshmen find “illuminating”?
You’re kidding, right?
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
Kayrob wrote:
Headhunter, have your taxes gone up as a result of Katrina, or have you paid the same as you would have paid anyway?
The definition of a tax is an involuntary payment to the government for the support of government. One of the characteristics of a tax is that it cannot be traced to any specific good or service, it is a general payment made to the government.
Claiming you are a victim is a ridiculous statement. I do agree however that many NOLA citizens are not doing their part, why would they be demanding jobs when there are plenty of jobs to be had? Non NOLA citizens are taking jobs there everyday because there are not enough people to do them all, and they are well paid for it. Too many people just want the handout without helping to rebuild.
I agree with helping the victims, but they need to do their part.
As a side note, insurance companies do not make money by paying out less than they take in, they make it from investing the money they have up front.
Another one — sigh. Tax money is money taken through extortion. Sure, it is used for many good things. BUT IT IS FORCED FROM THE VICTIMS! If I rob you, then use some of the money to buy you a car, does that make my actions moral?
Tax money is legalized loot taken from helpless victims. Blah, blah, you get to vote; sure. Our tax money is taken from us. The people of New Orleans are scrambling after plundered pennies. “Rebuild my life for me! You are all rich and owe me a home, job, medical care!!” I say: help them if YOU wish, but don’t send a legalized gang of criminals to rob me to help them. IT IS IMMORAL!!
[/quote]
I am in total agreement with your opinion on the people that I saw speak in front of congress. I do not however feel that not all Katrina victims fall under this umbrella.
I do take issue with your view on taxes however. Do you not drive on the roads? Do you use infrastructure?
Instead of telling me why taxes are stolen money, can you give me an alternative to taxation? How would you propose that our government be funded? We enjoy a high standard of living here, and our safety and security is reasonablely assured, but there is no other way to have this standard of living without paying our part.
I don’t enjoy paying taxes, no one does, but I fail to see how we are helpless victims.
Of course taxes are involuntary, otherwise we would all want the benefit, but not pay our part.