Larry Blanchard wrote:
On Wed, 14 May 2008 19:59:44 -0500, Tim Daneliuk wrote:

6.5 Trillion/303,989,787 is about $24,000/person PER YEAR. It's not
the war that's bankrupting us, it's entitlements. Period.

At least until recently, Social Security was running a surplus. It's hard
to blame the deficit on that.

You apparently haven't studied up on how trust funds work. Every excess
(surplus) social security dollar is exchanged to the general fund of the
US for a non-negotiable bond - IOU. The surplus is counted as revenue
by the federal government but the IOU is not counted as an expense.
However the IOU is added to the national debt - trust funds currently
accounting for over $4 trillion of the debt. The only thing the trust
funds accomplish is the masking of about $400 billion of deficit per
year. There is no negotiable asset in any of the 150 or so trust funds.
When these funds are no longer running a "surplus", there will be
nothing for the federal government to do to pay back these IOU's without
1) raising taxes, 2) reducing benefits, 3) cut other programs, 4) borrow
more public debt, or 5) default on the IOUs.

Anyone who buys the notion that there is plenty of money in the trust
funds to keep them going when current collections are running a deficit
hasn't looked at the facts.

Social Security is currently taking in more than it spends on recipients
and will continue doing so for another decade or so. Every dollar of
surplus adds another dollar plus interest to the debt. When that
changes and there isn't enough to pay current obligations, trust fund or
not, the above 5 options are the same.

It's been the law since FDR implemented this ponzi scheme.

Now if those surpluses had been invested in things like Exxon-Mobil,
those nasaty large corporations earnings would be paying instead of your
and my kids/grandkids taxes - and at a better return.


And we spend more on health care and get less than most other
industrialized nations. When health care became a profit center our
system was doomed.

I do realize that neither of these facts will make the slightest
difference to you, Tim.

"Tom Watson" wrote in message
...
snip
The fact is that the Republicans and those who helped to elect the
Chimp again in 2004 have no good arguments as to why they did so.

The country is in an economic crisis,

As compared to?
We have record home ownership rates and a healthy 5.1% unemployment rate and
record tax revenue.

Where's the crisis? Is your objective criteria based on a historical basis,
a world comparison or a 24 hr news cycle crying for attention but bereft of
perspective?

the military is beyond fully
engaged and the politicos are desperately trying not to have to
reinstitute a draft to cover the problem.

A country with 300,000,000 with only 150,000 in Iraq is actually stressed?
We are nowhere close to needing a draft and without something far more
substantial we will not .....a few paltry billion in raises, bonuses or
benefits would more than suffice any current recruiting shortfall. And the
military would much rather keep its current professionalism vs the morass or
the fruit of the Vietnam draft.


If we had to do something about Taiwan right now, what would we do?

Rockets, missiles, subs, aircraft carriers, airplanes & ships as well as the
missile defense so well developed under Bush.....all vastly superior in
numbers and abilities to anyone world wide. If we did do something with
Taiwan you would expect "boots on the ground".....what conceivable scenario
would even considers such a outcome?

The Chimp has run us into the ground and monkeys like you have given
him the mandate to do it.
I very much look forward to changing that in November.
Tom Watson

For someone apparently desiring intelligent argument.... use of "chimp"
might indicate someone not quite able to participate. Rod

On May 14, 11:45 pm, evodawg wrote:
I always liked that line, every ones Wrong if every ones Right! or does it
go the other way around. Who wrote that anyway???

I think you get my point, Its one of those can we just agree to disagree.

Throw all the *******s out and lets start over. Oh one other thing, I read
somewhere that there are somewhere in the neighborhood of 14 million state
and federal government employees, this does not include the Military. What
a racket.
This is from memory, I could be wrong. I googled it and its a hard number to
find, wonder why?????


I often wonder if those figures include local government: Bedford's
two largest employee groups appear to be schoolteachers and cops. When
you add in adminstrators and custodial employees in both areas, plus
the court system and a few other odd ends, this small (in
population--65,000, 754 square miles) county probably has far more
government employees than private, especially if we include game
wardens of one stripe or another, state cops and so forth. If I
weren't so lazy, I'd dig up some figures, but I'm sure we have 1,000
teachers/admins/cops.custodial/etc., if not more.

On May 14, 10:09 pm, "CM" wrote:
I'm sure everything will magically get better if/when B/O gets in? Well
maybe not.

cm

"Tom Watson" wrote in message

...

On Wed, 14 May 2008 17:45:39 -0700, Doug Winterburn
wrote:

Tom Watson wrote:
4077 American Casualties.

85,000 + Civilian Casualties.

$9,372,462,330,025.07 Dollars on the National Debt.

Divided by 303,989,787 (estimated current population of the USA.)

= $30,831.50 per person.

Tom Watson
tjwatson1ATcomcastDOTnet
www.home.comcast.net/~tjwatson1

Democrat math:

Annual murder rate in California = 2500 or 12500 since invasion of Iraq
(let's get out of California)

Of the above $9+ trillion of debt, $4,142,493,919,287.64 is the debt
owed to the 150 or so trust funds including social security.

$13627.08 per person

$50 trillion of unfunded social program debt to follow in next 4 decades
(not counting what ever nationalized health care will add).

Annual social program debt (intragovernmental debt) now exceeds public
debt including what Iraq might contribute.

Democrat solution to shore up SS: increase FICA withholding to increase
debt at an even faster rate.

And all of this ocurred during a Republican Administration.

How odd.

Tom Watson
tjwatson1ATcomcastDOTnet
www.home.comcast.net/~tjwatson1

""By January 2013, America has welcomed home most of the servicemen
and women who have sacrificed terribly so that America might be secure
in her freedom," McCain said in prepared remarks from a speech he was
to deliver in Columbus, Ohio, on Thursday.

"The Iraq war has been won. Iraq is a functioning democracy, although
still suffering from the lingering effects of decades of tyranny and
centuries of sectarian tension. Violence still occurs, but it is
spasmodic and much reduced," McCain said."

From Reuters.

Is it a case of tunnel vision, as in "light at the end of"?

That sandbox is none of our business, and certainly is not, and has
not been, worth the death of a single American serviceman or woman.
It's the wrong war, in the wrong place for the wrong reasons, and
McCain wants to continue the "What, me worry?" kid's brawl for another
five or six years--with a long term permanent presence.

Not if I can help it.

On Thu, 15 May 2008 04:20:39 -0700, "Rod & Betty Jo"
wrote:


"Tom Watson" wrote in message
.. .
snip
The fact is that the Republicans and those who helped to elect the
Chimp again in 2004 have no good arguments as to why they did so.

The country is in an economic crisis,

As compared to?
We have record home ownership rates and a healthy 5.1% unemployment rate and
record tax revenue.

Where's the crisis? Is your objective criteria based on a historical basis,
a world comparison or a 24 hr news cycle crying for attention but bereft of
perspective?

the military is beyond fully
engaged and the politicos are desperately trying not to have to
reinstitute a draft to cover the problem.

A country with 300,000,000 with only 150,000 in Iraq is actually stressed?
We are nowhere close to needing a draft and without something far more
substantial we will not .....a few paltry billion in raises, bonuses or
benefits would more than suffice any current recruiting shortfall. And the
military would much rather keep its current professionalism vs the morass or
the fruit of the Vietnam draft.


If we had to do something about Taiwan right now, what would we do?

Rockets, missiles, subs, aircraft carriers, airplanes & ships as well as the
missile defense so well developed under Bush.....all vastly superior in
numbers and abilities to anyone world wide. If we did do something with
Taiwan you would expect "boots on the ground".....what conceivable scenario
would even considers such a outcome?

The Chimp has run us into the ground and monkeys like you have given
him the mandate to do it.
I very much look forward to changing that in November.
Tom Watson

For someone apparently desiring intelligent argument.... use of "chimp"
might indicate someone not quite able to participate. Rod




March 17, 2008: 7:11 AM EDT

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Today's economic condition could likely be
seen as "the most wrenching since the end of the second world war,"
wrote former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan in the Financial
Times on Monday.

http://money.cnn.com/2008/03/17/news...ion=2008031707

By Bryan Bender, Globe Staff | September 27, 2007

WASHINGTON - The Army's top officer, General George Casey, told
Congress yesterday that his branch of the military has been stretched
so thin by the war in Iraq that it can not adequately respond to
another conflict - one of the strongest warnings yet from a military
leader that repeated deployments to war zones in the Middle East have
hamstrung the military's ability to deter future aggression.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/wa..._says_general/


Tuesday 29th April 2008 12:13 GMT

A leading Scottish churchman and bioethics thinktank operator has
warned again of the dangers attendant on genetic research, and
recommended that there should be a law against men having children
with female chimpanzees.


http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04...strikes_again/



Tom Watson
tjwatson1ATcomcastDOTnet
www.home.comcast.net/~tjwatson1

"Tom Watson" wrote in message
news
Tuesday 29th April 2008 12:13 GMT

A leading Scottish churchman and bioethics thinktank operator has
warned again of the dangers attendant on genetic research, and
recommended that there should be a law against men having children
with female chimpanzees.


http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04...strikes_again/


Doctor Moreau I presume.

Dave in Houston

On Wed, 14 May 2008 20:55:00 -0700, Doug Winterburn wrote:

At least until recently, Social Security was running a surplus. It's hard
to blame the deficit on that.

You apparently haven't studied up on how trust funds work. Every excess
(surplus) social security dollar is exchanged to the general fund of the
US for a non-negotiable bond - IOU. The surplus is counted as revenue
by the federal government but the IOU is not counted as an expense.
However the IOU is added to the national debt - trust funds currently
accounting for over $4 trillion of the debt.

Yes, I'm aware of all that. The fact remains that money was/is collected
from us for the purpose of Social Security. The fact that the crooks in
Washington have spent (stolen?) it on other things is a reflection on
their honesty and our indifference, but it does not negate the fact that
the money was collected.

Another way of looking at it accounting-wise is that the SS funds are
being used to mask the true size of the debt. It's all sleight of hand.

"Tom Watson" wrote in message
...
4077 American Casualties.

I recall the twin towers claiming more than that in one day.

But lets put that into perspective, approximately 4,000,000 Americans die
yearly of natural causes.



85,000 + Civilian Casualties.

A fraction compared to the VietNam war.


$9,372,462,330,025.07 Dollars on the National Debt.

And it was well on its way there by the end of Clinton's rein.


Divided by 303,989,787 (estimated current population of the USA.)

= $30,831.50 per person.


20 years ago I calculated that figure to be about 1/2 of what you came up
with.


Funny how many of us forget that the world was perfect and no one was being
killed in conflict and there was no national debt, it had a surplus before
Bush.

Tom Watson wrote:
On Wed, 14 May 2008 21:11:20 -0500, Tim Daneliuk
wrote:


All of them ... and the mooching sheeple happily trading their freedom
for handouts.


But these self same sheeple elected your man and thus more thoroughly
inebriated him so that he continued his course.

They also elected every single, um, *elected* official. Singling
out Bush as the Bad Guy here is just cheap political theater.
The simple reality is that all of the politicos, of all stripes,
and their mooching constituents have been part of this problem
for decades. If you want to argue root cause, blame FDR who
had utter contempt for the doctrine of enumerated powers.


Will you make the argument that he was not given the mandate that he
so vociferously claimed at the completion of the 2004 election?

That was just political rhetoric and you know it. With an almost
perfect split in the popular vote, I don't see how one could
claim this to be anything resembling a mandate.


My points here - in summary - go like this:

1) Blaming our current fiscal situation predominantly on the war is
disingenuous, as it is not the dominant term in the spending and
borrowing equations.

2) Blaming our current fiscal situation predominantly on Bush is
disingenuous, as the roots and trajectory of the problem long
predate him.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/

On May 14, 8:04 pm, Tom Watson wrote:
4077 American Casualties.

85,000 + Civilian Casualties.

$9,372,462,330,025.07 Dollars on the National Debt.

Divided by 303,989,787 (estimated current population of the USA.)

= $30,831.50 per person.


Not really. More realistically, when you consider that about
134,000,000 federal income tax returns were filed, coupled with the
fact that the top 50% of earners pay just over 96% of the federal tax
bill the numbers are a whole lot worse...at least for those that pay
taxes.

Tom Watson
tjwatson1ATcomcastDOTnetwww.home.comcast.net/~tjwatson1

Larry Blanchard wrote:
On Wed, 14 May 2008 20:55:00 -0700, Doug Winterburn wrote:

At least until recently, Social Security was running a surplus. It's hard
to blame the deficit on that.
You apparently haven't studied up on how trust funds work. Every excess
(surplus) social security dollar is exchanged to the general fund of the
US for a non-negotiable bond - IOU. The surplus is counted as revenue
by the federal government but the IOU is not counted as an expense.
However the IOU is added to the national debt - trust funds currently
accounting for over $4 trillion of the debt.

Yes, I'm aware of all that. The fact remains that money was/is collected
from us for the purpose of Social Security. The fact that the crooks in
Washington have spent (stolen?) it on other things is a reflection on
their honesty and our indifference, but it does not negate the fact that
the money was collected.

It has been the law since the inception of SS by FDR - any surplus
collections must be used to buy government bonds (debt). The liberal
"fix" to shore up SS is to raise the withholding rate so there is an
even larger surplus and consequent larger debt as well as masking even
more of the annual deficit.


Another way of looking at it accounting-wise is that the SS funds are
being used to mask the true size of the debt. It's all sleight of hand.

It masks the annual deficit, but does count in the debt. That is how
the last administration achieved a budget surplus while the debt
continued to increase.

The most amazing part of it is politicians act like there are some real
assets in the trust funds that can be drawn on when the funds run a deficit.

Tom Watson wrote:
March 17, 2008: 7:11 AM EDT

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Today's economic condition could likely be
seen as "the most wrenching since the end of the second world war,"
wrote former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan in the Financial
Times on Monday.

http://money.cnn.com/2008/03/17/news...ion=2008031707


And the very next paragraph

"The U.S. financial crisis won't end until housing prices stabilize, but
that won't happen for months, wrote Greenspan."

Maybe context is required here to fully understand Greenspan's
comments.......I would suggest that "most wrenching" is not at all that
wrenching when it will work its way out in a few months. Possibly one may
surmise his comments were specific to the self inflicted meltdown of the
lending and borrowing sub prime crisis....I'd even suggest much of the sub
prime disaster hype was merely intended for the little guy to once again
bail out big business folly.

By Bryan Bender, Globe Staff | September 27, 2007

WASHINGTON - The Army's top officer, General George Casey, told
Congress yesterday that his branch of the military has been stretched
so thin by the war in Iraq that it can not adequately respond to
another conflict - one of the strongest warnings yet from a military
leader that repeated deployments to war zones in the Middle East have
hamstrung the military's ability to deter future aggression.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/wa..._says_general/


Food for thought and I would suspect quite true......With the current size
of the military plopping 150,000 troops anywhere in a long term policing
action is going to strain resources of both manpower and machine. But one
might readily surmise neither military size nor budget is absolutely fixed
and under a grave threat could be subject to change or even shock..... Iraq
assets could be deployed elsewhere if the need arose.

A more cynical view might even entertain a connection between the budget
request and the Generals suggested views
"Meanwhile, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates asked Congress for a
record-setting $190 billion to continue the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for
the next year - nearly $50 billion more than anticipated. Most of the money
would go to Iraq. If the request is approved, the cost of the 2003 invasion
will top $600 billion."



Nonetheless most any anticipated world wide emergency or security response
including Taiwan does not include the assets (boots on the ground) primarily
used in Iraq's police action. In fact with such a large military presence in
the Middle-East, logistically some actions would be considerably
easier...i.e. bombers would not have to fly as far, ships already stationed
etc...... I would even surmise that after the Bush military build-up that
certain hard assets including cruise missiles greatly exceed the Clinton
years (he used them up) and that with the missile defense fast track under
Bush we have a level of safety from rogue missiles never before
achieved......


Tuesday 29th April 2008 12:13 GMT

A leading Scottish churchman and bioethics thinktank operator has
warned again of the dangers attendant on genetic research, and
recommended that there should be a law against men having children
with female chimpanzees.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04...strikes_again/
Tom Watson
tjwatson1ATcomcastDOTnet
www.home.comcast.net/~tjwatson1

Tis a sad day if a law is actually needed.......In spite of popular wisdom
my kids have humans on both sides....Rod

"Tom Watson" wrote in message
...

The fact is that the Republicans and those who helped to elect the
Chimp again in 2004 have no good arguments as to why they did so.

No? The alternative was Kerry. No further arguments necessary.

BTW, Here's a picture of your chimp:

http://tinyurl.com/4d2k2v

Lee K wrote:


"Tom Watson" wrote in message
...

The fact is that the Republicans and those who helped to elect the
Chimp again in 2004 have no good arguments as to why they did so.

No? The alternative was Kerry. No further arguments necessary.

BTW, Here's a picture of your chimp:

http://tinyurl.com/4d2k2v
Think Rush Limbaugh started this parody.
--
"You can lead them to LINUX
but you can't make them THINK"
Running Mandriva release 2008.0 free-i586 using KDE on i586

On May 14, 9:54 pm, Doug Winterburn wrote:
Tom Watson wrote:
On Wed, 14 May 2008 18:36:20 -0700, Doug Winterburn
wrote:

You mean your point wasn't deaths and debt and whose math is represented?

Address the issues at hand and find a way of responding that would not
get you flagged by Robert's, or any other rules of order.
Again, the issues you brought up weren't deaths and debt and whose math
is represented? I believe I was absolutely on point.

Let's cut to the chase on this, Doug.

I hold you and everyone who voted like you responsible for each and
every one of those 4077 American deaths.

Does that clear it up for you?

Absolutely. I hold you and every one who voted for the previous
administration

Which, after bin Laden was iimplicated in the bombings of the
Khobar towers and the East African Embassies, made several
attempts to kill or capture bin Laden, whihc the Republicans
characterized as "wagging the dog".

As opposed say, to the present administration who, after
bin Laden was implicated in the bombing of the Cole, took
his name off their list of international 'terrorsits' and disbanded
the program tasked with hunting him down.

for the 9/11 deaths as well as all the deaths that will
occur as a result of voting in people who will not confront the
Islamo-fascist menace that is currently at war with us.

Does that clear it up for you?

The present administration ignored the islamofascist
menace until September 11, 2001. Then it was only
though the efforts of Powell and Tenet that the administration
was convinced to confront it. Despite Powell's best efforts,
the adminsitration soon lost interest in the matter, and
turned it's attention to Iraq instead.

--

FF

"RF" wrote in message
WTF does any of this have to do with wood working? Keep the political
crap off your group, it will not come of any good and has ruined many a NG

You're wasting your time railing against off topic messages, but if you're
going to do it, how about not quoting someone's entire message?