[ale] ["Topic"? I don't think it means what you think it means] Re: Incompetent corporate web sites

[Jim Kinney]

On Thu, Oct 22, 2009 at 3:25 PM, wylde bill <durtybill at gmail.com> wrote:

> The only problem with the "public option" is that we've already tried
> letting congress take care of our disability/retirement/medical via
> FICA- and if, as the psychologists claim, past behavior is the best
> predictor of future behavior, we could be fairly certain that letting
> the guys who make and enforce the rules hold the money would screw us
> royally yet again.

It always struck me as a Faustian deal the way congress critters would
"borrow" from the Socialist Security fund instead of balancing the
books. It was one thing in WWI and WWII when there were simply not
enough resources to fund the war effort so the Fed borrowed money by
selling T-bills to rich people. Instead of going to the people who had
the most to loose by a collapse of "our way" and make them cough it
up. So the little guy got a shaft job. But it happened again with
Korea (special tax on phone service that should have been repealed 20
years ago) and again with Vietnam (ANOTHER phone tax that should have
been repealed 10 years ago as PAID OFF). It went into overdrive with
the nowar/coldwar/spendthebastardsintotheground that borrowed every
penny of the cash buffer of the Socialist Security fund and still had
to scuttle education to keep the bonuses up for the war hawks (who
were EXEMPT from the paying into the Socialist Security fund because
of their "special relationship" with the feds). Now, we are totally
fsckin' hosed in debt to China who basically loaned us back what we
would make up in taxes 'cause the whiners who sent every decent paying
job overseas has the congress critter by the short hairs.

I think we have a bright enough group of people in this country to
make the "public option" actually work. The impediment to this is the
engineers won't get to call the shots. The "management" will and they
are all in bed with and hands in the pockets of the very groups and
businesses that need to be rm -rf *'ed and started fresh:

#!/bin/sh
# health care is a right along with breathing and freedom of speech
 import sanity_check_from_REALLY_BRIGHT_PEOPLE()
implement_and_retest_in_20_years()
continue

Do we really have the brains to make a single payer system work? Yes.
Do we have the solid tungsten cajones to do the work to make the
changes and dig out the really deep hole we are in? In my most
optimistic moments, I think not without a major calamity on the scale
of millions-dead-pandemic (H1N1 might be the real trigger soon) or
large meteorite strike or California quake makes Nevada a coastal
state.
>
> Let's have a collective that congress can't touch.  And shoot any of the
> bastards who try.
>
Do we really _need_ a reason? :-) Seriously our critters have
steadfastly refused to put in drop-dead clauses that MAKE them do the
hard work, raising taxes where they have to (um. taxes pay for things.
our total fed, state, local, sales, etc.combined tax rate is the
lowest of all advanced societies worldwide. and we have the worst
social service and educational systems as well. hmmm.) and from the
places that have the resources to kick in more (Bill Gates, et. al,
Haliburton, etc). They are notorious for taking a multi-year project
and fscking with the funding every year. And people wonder why the
costs up front are always wonky for big, multi-year projects. Partly
because none of those scale project can ever be anticipated out to the
last penny primarily because most of the process doesn't exist outside
of those project (think "space flight" or "laser guided missile" to
get a grasp of the scale). Sometime porkbarrel projects are actually
good (planetarium projector purchase for a school district was a major
"fiasco" but was really a edu benefit that should have happened by
another process - politics = lips on donkey kong) but mostly they are
quid pro quo crap that keeps cash flow going to fund a re-election
(maybe we should ban sequential terms in office - one term, get out,
wait a term, run again. hmmm.).

If our military is being shot at in foreign countries, our ambassadors
and congress critters didn't do their job and should get an automatic
may cut. If I hork up and cost my employer a total crapton of cash, I
won't have a job. They get a pay raise. I really like the idea of
moving congress the frontline country for the duration of the armed
conflict. They can live like the locals.

Grr.
-- 
-- 
James P. Kinney III
Actively in pursuit of Life, Liberty and Happiness