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Grex > Agora35 > #18: The 2000 presidential campaign item | |
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| 25 new of 406 responses total. |
gull
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response 232 of 406:
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Oct 18 18:44 UTC 2000 |
Re #221: One of the things that really worries me about Bush is that I think
he'd be totally incompetant in foreign relations. His thought processes are
too fuzzy, his knowledge too shallow, and his slips of the tongue too
frequent. If he's elected, I feel sorry for his translator. In spite of
your feelings about big gov't vs. small gov't, etc., don't you feel that
this is important.
Also bear in mind that, given how much both candidates agree, it looks more
like a choice between 'big government' and 'slightly less big government.'
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rcurl
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response 233 of 406:
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Oct 18 18:54 UTC 2000 |
I'm not even sure of that. Besides, it seems to me that there is an
*optimum* size of government, and neither candidate (or anyone else
I have heard) has spoken to that. What does 'big government' mean?
It is only a chiche used to beat democrats, even though they have
decreased the size of the government by 300,000 (?) persons since
Pap Bush's big government. There is absolutely no basis for judging
the candidates from arguments over "big government", "smaller government",
or "medium government".
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krj
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response 234 of 406:
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Oct 18 19:53 UTC 2000 |
Digression: Just heard my first radio ad (on WJR), paid for by the NRA,
encouraging us to vote to defend freedom by voting for Bush.
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ashke
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response 235 of 406:
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Oct 18 20:06 UTC 2000 |
now would that be to keep the guns and SHOOT bush, or just bush in general?
<laughs evilly>
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md
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response 236 of 406:
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Oct 18 20:25 UTC 2000 |
Note to any federal or state police types monitoring this:
In response #235, the phrase "shoot bush" was no doubt intended by
ashke merely as a joke. The other participants in this discussion
should not in any case be held accountable for the use of that phrase,
nor should they be required to explain what ashke meant by it,
especially not in an interrogation setting with bright lights, sleep
deprivation, and the bullying of hostile and possibly violent
officers. I thank you.
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brighn
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response 237 of 406:
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Oct 18 20:30 UTC 2000 |
(nice cover, md. they won't catch on if they don't think we're serious...)
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mdw
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response 238 of 406:
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Oct 19 04:52 UTC 2000 |
I don't know that it's fair to judge a candidate solely by one book
written in the 60's [when it's safe to say public awareness of
automobile safety was non-existant,] but to the extent it makes sense,
Nader still comes out smelling like a rose when compared to Mr. W's
snake oil business dealings.
So far as Mr. Bush & foreign policy goes, though, I have to say that I
think people here are barking up the wrong tree. Reagan was just as
incompetent as Bush, when it came to foreign policy - what mattered the
most there was really the people behind the scenes who were managing
Reagan - which is the same team that will be managing Bush should he be
elected. What really matters is not Bush's diplomatic skills, but his
acting skills - and judging by the debates, he shouldn't have any major
problems there. So far as the policy behind him goes, that's pretty
obvious, and what's more, it seems likely Gore wouldn't be much
different. If there's a reason to choose between the two major
candidates, it's not foreign policy.
[ I have to admit, though, Bush's genes may be against him.
One can only hope he hasn't inherited any tendency to throw
up on foreign prime ministers. ]
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mcnally
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response 239 of 406:
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Oct 19 20:16 UTC 2000 |
Either through nature or nurture he seems to have "inherited" several of
the other classic traits of Bush, Sr, so who can tell.. I think that I
would feel more comfortable with a candidate who can speak grammatically
correct English most of the time, but that wasn't a pressing issue for
me during the first Bush administration, so maybe I'm over-valuing it..
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klg
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response 240 of 406:
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Oct 20 01:41 UTC 2000 |
re: "What does 'big government' mean?
It is only a chiche used to beat democrats, even though they have
decreased the size of the government by 300,000 (?) persons since
Pap Bush's big government." According to what I heard, that decrease
is entirely attributable to the reduction in the armed forces
personnel. Furthermore, the "size of the government" does not merely
mean the number of employees it has. The gov't can toss its weight
around by spending $$ on othere things.
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scg
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response 241 of 406:
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Oct 20 02:26 UTC 2000 |
Right. I don't think anybody here is disputing definitions of bigger and
smaller governments. Rather, the question is how small the government has
to get to be considered to be "small," and how big the government has to get
ot be considered "big." Presumably somewhere between the biggest imaginable
government (probably some sort of totalitarian communist thing), and the
smallest possible government (anarchy), there is a size range that's pretty
much ideal. I don't think the extremes of big and small government would be
something very many people would want to live with.
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danr
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response 242 of 406:
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Oct 20 16:38 UTC 2000 |
Not only that, I think that government has gotten way too small in some areas.
I think some of the regulatory agencies, such as the FDA and EPA, are
understaffed to the point where they're not able to do their jobs properly.
Small government really is not necessarily a good thing.
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janc
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response 243 of 406:
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Oct 20 16:57 UTC 2000 |
In item 100, bruce says:
>what makes you [aaron] think what makes you think he [Bush] has no
>grasp of farming? I thought he did a hell of a lot better than gore in
>understanding that the family farmer is being hurt by taxes more than
>most people, which is why we are loosing so many farms. Gore didn't
>even recognize how the death tax hurts farmers.
I don;t know what Bush knows about farming, but I do know something
about estate taxes and what Gore said about them and family farmers in
the first debate.
Approximately the way estate taxes now work is that the first $675,000
that you leave to your children goes tax-free. If you leave more than
that, the excess is taxed at a very high rate (the rate is graduated
starting at 18% if you have just $10,000 beyond the $675,000 going up to
55% at the $3 million level). This is tough on family farmers because
the property and equipment they own is likely worth much more than
$675,000, so a large tax bill comes due when they die. Most don't have
enough cash to pay such a bill, so the farm often has to be sold to pay
the taxes on it. This can be mitigated with proper advance planning
(eg, buying enough life insurance to pay the taxes) but is definately a
major burden.
Note that for married couples, each person can leave $675,000 tax-free
(and since transfers between spouses are not taxable one spouse can
transfer money to the other who leaves it to the kids). You can also
transfer the $675,000 before you die, which is a good idea because of
the time value of money ($675,000 now might be $800,000 by the time you
die). Thus for many family farms the unified credit is effectively a
bit more than $1.3 million.
Bush says he favors the complete elimination of estate taxes. Gore says
he favors raising the $675,000 unified credit to $5 million (or
effectively $10 million for couples). He said in the first debate that
this is enough to protect most family farms and small businesses. I
think that that is probably substantially true. Farms worth a lot more
than $5 million probably aren't exactly what you'd normally be thinking
of when you think of "family farms".
I think both candidates offer significant relief for family farms and
small businesses. The difference is mostly in how far they go for
people quite a bit richer than most family farmers.
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polygon
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response 244 of 406:
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Oct 20 17:06 UTC 2000 |
David Brin made some comments very much along those lines:
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/10/18/1251216&mode=thread
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janc
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response 245 of 406:
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Oct 20 18:25 UTC 2000 |
A nice tirade on the theme that it is good that our society is
diamond-shaped (a few on the top, a few on the bottom, most in the
middle) instead of pyramid-shaped (a few on the top, everyone on the
bottom), and that most of those on top actually did something to get
there. Contrasts the traditional American millionare (basically Bill
Gates - inherits some money, but makes a lot more) vs. the traditional
European millionare (inherits some money, goes into politics to prevent
anyone from taking it away). In our social model, the rich still think
they are the same species of animal as the poor. Current inheritance
taxes are nice because they allow the super rich to make their children
quite rich, and encourage them to donate the rest to charitable
organizations (charitable donations are 10 times higher here than in
Europe), funding libraries, universities, cancer research groups, and
what not. Thinks the republican income tax cuts and inheritance tax
cuts are aimed at destroying this model. Thinks Gore's qualifications
to be president resemble Spock's qualifications to be captain of the
Enterprise. Thinks an increaase in the estate tax is OK, but
eliminating it is a crime against America.
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brighn
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response 246 of 406:
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Oct 20 18:55 UTC 2000 |
If Gore = Spock, then Bush = Wesley Crusher. ;}
I think that the minimum for the estate tax should be increaed dramatically
(perhaps doubled), but I do agree that it shouldn't be entirely eliminated.
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polygon
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response 247 of 406:
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Oct 20 22:09 UTC 2000 |
Re 245-246. Brin suggested that the estate tax minimum should be raised
to five or ten million. The point is, not to eliminate it when the
numbers are in the billions.
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gull
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response 248 of 406:
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Oct 20 23:30 UTC 2000 |
I don't have that much sympathy for family farms, really. They seem like a
way of life that's simply obsolete, and subsidizing them is like supporting
the slide rule industry. Larger commercial farms seem to do the same thing
much more efficiently.
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happyboy
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response 249 of 406:
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Oct 21 01:04 UTC 2000 |
i don't have that much sympathy for people who
consider a way of life as ancient as farming to
be *obsolete*
fucking socially autistic, i'd reckon.
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scg
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response 250 of 406:
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Oct 21 01:34 UTC 2000 |
There's a difference between saying that a certain kind of farming is
obsolete and saying that all farming is obsolete. I'm merely pointing this
out, and not saying I agree with gull's statement, since I don't know enough
about farming to know whether gull's statement is accurate.
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gull
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response 251 of 406:
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Oct 21 03:14 UTC 2000 |
Re #249: Why? Being ancient doesn't mean it's eternal. Farming has changed
a *lot* over the years; it's gone from being entirely hand work, to
involving animal labor, to being mechanized. Corporate factory farms are
just the next step in this progression. You can pine for the good old days
all you want, but it won't bring back the mom-and-pop 40-acre farms most
people think of as family farms. I don't know if it's really the
government's job to support anachronisms.
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bru
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response 252 of 406:
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Oct 21 15:44 UTC 2000 |
I don't now any family farms that are small enough to fit into 40 acres. Our
farm was 180 acres, our neighbor had 240, and my uncle had around 400 last
I checked. Keep in mind that at least part of that is still woods or wetlands
that do not get farmed.
Some family farms end up around 2000 acres, and the ranches out west are much
more than that.
Now, also include in that things like orchards. The one I worked on was 40
acres and produced something like 7000 bushels a year. They also do cider
and baked goods which adds to the income.
Also, despite what you hear, produce workers, if they are good, can make a
substantial wage. One of the pickers here works only 6 months in michigan
and pulls in (after taxes) over 1000 a week. Then he goes down to florida
to pick.
It also depends on what you grow. In Alberta, canada, they have masive wheat
farms. Same applies to our wheat farms in nebraska and that area. Miles of
huge wheat fields. Corn fields tend to be smaller as do Soybean and hay.
Truck farmers may be smaller still. They grow vegetables and the like,
tomatoes, peas, peppers, beans, onions, celery, lettuce, grapes. This may
be what you meant by the 40 acre farms.
But all these farms have to buy tractors, plows, seeders, spreaders, discs,
cultivators, combines, pickers, and the like. They also have to have
outbuildings such as barns, graineries, silos, and the like.
If he is a dairy farmer, you add a milkhouse, a milkroom, a large stainless
steel milk cooler, a pumping system, milking machines, an emergency generator,
holding pens, feeding system, and who knows what else.
Now the farmer usually has to work 12 hours a day, 7 days a week during the
growing season, and the cows have to be milked twice a day every day no matter
what year round. Stock also has to be fed and watered everyday year round.
Most corporate farms are into growing things with lots of value and profit,
like chikens, turkeys, hogs and such. There isn't enough profit in wheat to
make it valuable to them. They may need grain to feed the stock, but they
aren't looking to make a profit on it.
So we are back to the family farm. If you want to eat, you better hope they
stay in business.
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danr
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response 253 of 406:
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Oct 21 22:43 UTC 2000 |
Now, that last paragraph is just dopey. If people don't eat, corporate farms
don't make any money, either.
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gull
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response 254 of 406:
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Oct 22 00:13 UTC 2000 |
So if their product is so important and so in demand, why are they in
trouble? I thought the Republicans had been telling us all along that the
market will fix all ills. ;>
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mcnally
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response 255 of 406:
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Oct 22 00:43 UTC 2000 |
I was listening to a news program the other day and heard a really
appalling statistic that I simply couldn't believe. Assuming I wasn't
hallucinating, the claim was that something like 40% of US farm revenue
now comes from federal subsidies.
I rather doubt that that's the case, but does anyone have a clear idea
just how big a share of the farm economy comes from subsidies?
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ric
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response 256 of 406:
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Oct 22 14:56 UTC 2000 |
It wouldn't surprise me. The government does pay a lot of farmers NOT to grow
crops on some of their fields.
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