[ale] Corporate taxes...

[Joseph A Knapka]

F. Grant Robertson wrote:
> The welfare of our future generations is entirely dependant upon the
> debt load we leave them, and the preservation of our constitution.

That seems to me to be a remarkably simplistic characterization.
While local competition and optimization can lead to reasonably
good global optimization wrt current conditions, local interactions
do not magically lead to *foresight*. Billions of years of evolution
clearly demonstrate that. Change the environment too quickly,
and entire species vanish, their hard-won optimization to local
conditions irrelevant in the new order. The human race is no exception.

> 
> And as for your argument on buying luxury cars.. I happen to own a BMW,
> so, good choice.  I'm all for federal funding of education, I think it's
> possibly the only thing our founding fathers overlooked, and had they
> actually ventured into the issue, I think it's apparent that their
> solution would have been very different than our current one. This is
> precisely why I support the dissolution of the department of education,
> and the institution of school choice through educational credits and
> vouchers.  Only through the reinstitution of competition in our
> educational system will we ever be able to compete and win on a global
> scale. As it stands, the legislative branch of government are in
> ultimate control of what we are taught.

Seems to me school boards and individual teachers have a lot more
control than the federal govt, and most homogenization of the
curriculum is driven by colleges via standardized-test
requirements. But this is another issue I haven't looked into
in great detail, so am not prepared to debate in a cutthroat,
take-no-prisoners fashion :-)  I happen to agree about
the voucher issue. I've had my own kids homeshooled, in public
school, and in Montessori, and it would be nice to have equal
support for all those options.

> I think you should be able to
> realize that absolute power corrupts absolutely

That's an aphorism, not an argument.

> and, to that end our
> government is doing an inadequate job of eduacating our population. You
> yourself said you do not have the grasp of economic science needed to
> debate my points, and this is a perfect example. civics, economics, and
> history are all being removed from the education of our children, who
> are also our next crop of voters.

I had, and my kids have, ample opportunity to learn about all of
those subjects. I just wasn't interested enough in them at the
time to actually spend any effort learning them. Education is
largely wasted on the young. I was far more interested in those
bulky chunks of semiconductors Radio Shack had just begun
selling (the TRS-80).

> Without a proper understadning of the
> forces they control how are they ever to be expected to make the proper
> choices as an electorate and therfore provide the guidance for our
> continued success?  

That is a good question, and I agree with the implied answer. But
your statement at the beginning of this post seems to imply
that all they really need to know about is debt load and the
Constitution :-)

-- Joe


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