Leaving aside your bigoted and racist stereotype of Republicans and southerners generally, you continue to make my point even now. This isn't about which party is "better for blacks" - I claim that is a nonsense statement. This is about the belief, implicit in many of the comments in this thread, that your skin color should dictate which party you belong to. Hence Ward Connerly is insultingly called a "house Negro" because he has chosen differently. How is this not racist? Liberals are the self-anointed champions of racial harmony in this country. Maybe you should start acting like it.

Posted at June 26, 2008 1:23 PM in response to Why Blacks (or Anyone Else) Shouldn't Vote for Obama

That you should automatically assume blacks should be liberal is all just Marxist 'false consciousness' BS. Black people, white people, brown people, yellow people, blue people, purple people, are all individual people who have their own individual views. That you should think a black person's conservative views are somehow illegitimate simply shows your own form of racism on display.

Posted at June 26, 2008 2:54 AM in response to Why Blacks (or Anyone Else) Shouldn't Vote for Obama

"House Negro".
Suffers from Stockholm Syndrome.
Would look good with a burning tire around his neck.
Self-loathing haters.
Miserable creatures.

Wow.

And they say liberals are the racially tolerant ones.

Posted at June 26, 2008 2:47 AM in response to Why Blacks (or Anyone Else) Shouldn't Vote for Obama

"Granny bashing". Oh I love it. To even suggest that Social Security is not financially sustainable is now "granny bashing" - of course, only when it comes from the right. When it comes from the left (e.g., Clinton's proposal in the 90's to invest SS money in the stock market), then it's bold and forward-thinking, and it's those scurrilous right-wingers who stand in the way of progress. Funny how it's the Republicans who are the bad guys either way. So perhaps there's a liberal around here who is intellectually honest enough to describe their desired suggestion to fix Social Security to make it financially sustainable. (Hint: Throwing more money at it does NOT meet this goal.) Republicans have made their suggestions and you all think that's unacceptable. Fine. What's your suggestion?

Posted at June 26, 2008 2:20 AM in response to The Housing Crash and the End of Granny Bashing

Hi metamorphicH2O,
First, thanks very much for your contribution.

As to the original intent of SS: Not even the selection of law that you quoted states that SS is supposed to be "social insurance". Rather it says that SS is supposed to be an "old-age benefits" program. This is very different from insurance. With insurance, you collect only if you have need to take advantage of the benefits; with SS you collect even if you don't. And the fact of the matter is, while many people view SS as a form of social insurance, the program has, in the mind of the general public, morphed into a quasi-pension program. So the way I see it, we have a couple of choices:

1. We can continue in the status quo, where SS is this not-really-social-insurance-not-really-pension program which, in the long run, is unsustainable.
2. We can de jure eliminate the pension part of it by turning SS more into what an actual sustainable insurance system ought to be: e.g., everyone pays 'premiums' (taxes) but you only collect if you have a verifiable 'claim'. This is analogous to means-testing SS and IMO it is probably the most politically unpopular option out there. Many people, who are in the SS-as-pension mode, are going to rightly complain that their benefits are being "taken away from them".
3. Or, we can emphasize more the pension part of SS, which is the most popular part of it anyway. But, we can do it in a smart way, in the way that actual pensions are run: i.e., the contributions are invested in the market, but not just willy-nilly; there are plenty of regulations that control how pension money can be invested. It does not have to be a "pure" pension system, which is why I suggested the guaranteed minimum benefit, to be supplemented with tax dollars only if necessary.

So it's not merely a temptation to want to invest piles of cash in the market. It's a recognition of what SS really is in today's world. Honestly I doubt that most people would defend it in the context of social insurance. They would defend it instead in the context of a pension.

About the market: Yes, the market does go up and down. Yes, there have been scoundrels in the market and there will continue to be scoundrels in the market. But please don't fall for the Fallacy of Asymmetric Idealization though - there are merits to partial privatization and there are substantial demerits to the status quo other than the financial unsustainability. For instance, right now, SS is a political football which, from my point of view, is generally used by Democrats to scare elderly voters into voting for them, for fear that Republicans will "take it away" (a complete strawman argument). It's also used as a slush fund for Congress to dispense money however it wishes - on wars, on earmarks, on wasteful boondoggles - and therefore simply invites corrpution. Yes SS has all but eliminated poverty among the elderly but I am arguing that those same goals can be met in other ways without having to rely on status-quo ideas. My impression, however, is that you have general apprehension of investing in the market. Is this impression unfounded? You say you have a 401k yourself (as do I), which I presume is invested predominantly in the market; if it's okay for us why wouldn't it be okay for everyone else too?

About Grover Norquist: Well, if you just don't like the guy then I can understand that you don't ever want to be seen agreeing with him. But every once in a while your opponents will have good ideas and it would be foolish not to count yourself as a supporter of the ideas just because you don't like the proposer. That is the epitome of the ad-hominem fallacy. Yes there are some on the right who would like to see SS go away completely - I can tell you honestly, though, that that sentiment does not reflect mainstream Republican views. It's not what George Bush proposed, for example. What's more, not even the authors of the web page to which you linked advocated eliminating SS abruptly or immediately.

About people being thrown out on the street: The purpose of the guaranteed minimum benefit is to prevent this situation. That is the social insurance part. Of course I would advocate that this minimum amount be set intelligently so that nobody freezes or starves.

And, about encouraging people to save: To be real honest, if you want to encourage people to save, IMO abolishing SS is the best thing you could do - because then saving for your retirement would be entirely your responsibility, and not saving for it could literally mean freezing in the winter, and no rational person wants that. Of course I don't advocate that. But neither the status quo nor this plan would "encourage people to save" - they would discourage saving because people wouldn't "have to" save, the government does it for them.

I guess the bottom line is, if SS is to be a pension system, then it should be a sustainable pension system run according to good standards of practice; if SS is going to be an insurance system, then it should be a real, sustainable insurance system, which means means-testing it (IMO that's never going to happen); but it can't stay in this sort of quasi middle ground.

Posted at June 15, 2008 6:40 PM in response to Progressive Arguments in Favor of Partial Social Security Privatization

What happened to the "new kind of politics"? Isn't this the "politics of division" of the past?

Posted at June 14, 2008 11:34 PM in response to Obama as the General Election Candidate: "Wanna Rumble?"

Living in a rural area I can say that it really sucks to have to drive hours and hours to get to any large city to take advantage of its amenities. There have been many times where I wish I could be a passenger in some context - be it bus, train, whatever - on the long rides to anywhere. I would happily pay extra to ride the train over having to drive yet again. However, I do think it would be unfair to ask the city dweller to subsidize my bus/train ride via taxation since it is my choice, after all, to live in the sticks.

Posted at June 12, 2008 12:59 AM in response to Fast, Cheap, Easy, Energy Saving: Bus Lanes on Interstates

Don Key,
Actually, the actual necessity here, that I think you are referring to, is gasoline, not oil per se. If I gave you a gallon of oil, you most likely still wouldn't be able to run your car. I get the impression that you think gasoline should be treated like water, in the context of a public utility? If so, then you should follow suit with what's done with many utilities, as you point out - have them run by the state. Nationalize ExxonMobil. Although, if you do that, then I can guarantee that the price of gas will become a political football.

Also I find your language interesting - you talk about companies being "permitted market freedoms". That is the completely opposite way that I look at things. I'm curious, do you think running a business should be something that requires permission from the government?

Posted at June 12, 2008 12:53 AM in response to Time Mag Sniffs At Obama's Economic Plan

Diamondjoe,
I'm not referring to marginal profit, but profit margin. And I refer to profit margins because they represent revenue minus expenses. Which type of business would you rather receive the profits from - a business that had revenues of $1,000,000 but a profit margin of 1%, or a business that had revenues of $100,000 but a profit margin of 20%? Yes the magnitude of the profit is large. But the magnitude of their expenses is also larger - in fact, much larger.

Posted at June 12, 2008 12:45 AM in response to Time Mag Sniffs At Obama's Economic Plan

First, let the record show: I'm not the one calling people names around here.

Second, you conveniently ignore the large bulk of my argument, about the dangers of government subsidies to any corporation for any purpose: the corrupting influence they have on government, the unreliability of being able to target the government subsidy to precisely the desired governmental outcome, the propensity they have to reward bad corporate behavior. You haven't addressed any of these. Instead you blithely argue that subsidies to "good" corporations are desirable while subsidies to "bad" corporations are undesirable, while simultaneously changing the subject away from subsidies to corporations, to subsidies to individuals. EnergyStar isn't a subsidy system, it's an energy efficiency rating system. Ergo that's not even part of the discussion. And obviously I don't agree that encouraging people to buy energy efficient appliances is tantamount to communism. You clearly have this stereotypical vision of a conservative in your head and you are bound and determined to apply that stereotype to me, and who knows how many other conservatives you encounter on the Internet (and maybe even in real life too). Instead of arguing against a stereotype, I encourage you to argue against me.

But, let's suppose for the sake of argument that I agree that government should subsidize everyone - corporations, individuals, whatever - to pursue energy efficient technologies. Fine. How much do we subsidize each? Do we emphasize solar over wind? Wind over geothermal? Geothermal over nuclear? How do you decide how much to subsidize each one? At this point in time, we don't really know what mix of new technologies is the optimal strategy to pursue. Let us suppose we had a crystal ball that could permit us to look into the future and conclude that solar power is the best strategy to pursue. But back in today's world, by subsidizing things OTHER than solar power, government will be pursuing a suboptimal strategy. In fact these other subsidies are actually harmful, as they delay the time at which we can fully move past the petroleum-based economy - since, by pursuing a suboptimal strategy, we will have to rely on current oil-based technologies for a longer period of time.

But I know how you are going to respond already - you are going to say "nonsense", call me a troll, compare me to Aztecs who engage in human sacrifice (now that was a new one), or some such nonsense, and ignore my argument completely. Have fun living in your world where you only encounter comic-book conservatives and liberal ideas are always true, noble and correct.

Posted at June 12, 2008 12:32 AM in response to Time Mag Sniffs At Obama's Economic Plan