Leaving the community

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message news:bvfjd.610$V41.75@attbi_s52...
Well, I have a degree in economics, something more than "a few
courses".

Well, welcome to the "Land of Useless Degrees" -- as the owner of an English
degree, I can sympathize....

I also have a degree in software engineering. A little more useful
financially. But, I would disagree that economics is a useless
degree. It's helped my understand how many things really work in our
country and elsewhere. Like why deficits are bad or why some laws get
passed.


;-)

You're mixing up money, accounting, and wealth.

I wasn't mixing up anything -- I was simplifying for the sake of a Usenet
argument. If you want to get into macro-economic theory, most people here
(myself included) will quickly doze off.

Hm. Well, I can understand, but too much simplification loses the
heart of it too.

The pseudo-"science" of economics is one of the main reasons I dropped my
Business major in my sophomore year. The only area of study I found that
was less scientific, perhaps, was sociology -- although it was a close race.

Well, it IS a science. Just not physics or chemistry. It determines
general principles and relationships between things. It's also
probably one of the more abused sciences around. After all, it's
easy to make an argument in economics when you ignore facts that
oppose one's position. This happens routinely.

Let's keep it simple: People who work outside of the government pay all the
taxes that pay for the people's jobs who work INSIDE the government --
period. It doesn't much matter if it's stuff that SHOULD or COULD be done
by the private sector -- cuz it's just not happening.

As a strictly accounting issue, you're right. But, it's not a
strictly accounting issue. If my friend at NACO didn't work for the
FAA, he'd probably still be a CFI (his prior job). If NACO (National
Aeronatical Charting Office) didn't exist, someone would have to do
it. Otherwise we'd have CFIT accidents all over the place.

I'm guessing that those accidents would cost a bundle and depress the
aviation industry something awful. So, there's clearly an economic
benefit for NACO. If there's an economic benefit, it's worth paying
for. So there's income: money given for useful work. And the
outsourcing or privitization of FSS that our government still seems to
want to do will just make my point. In your position if the same work
is done by government FSS it shouldn't be taxed, and if it's done by a
private FSS it should be taxed.

Perhaps the problem is that you're thinking of "the government" as a
monolithic thing. It's not. Neither is it's funding. "Taxes" covers
a lot of ground from local, state income or sales tax, federal income
tax, social security tax, medicare, user fees, etc, etc.

If you want to get into strictly accounting issues, which I read as
the heart of your argument, then the idea of transfer payments between
parts of the government should be considered. This is part of a
modern accounting system for a large organization. However, the
leading party in Congress for the last many years doesn't want to
change the Federal accounting system to something more modern.
Perhaps partly because a better accounting system would make it even
more clear that our current deficit's being covered by Social Security
funds.. These should be in a separate accounting system - we make
companies do that after all.

Anyhow, back to aviation: is it money or lift that makes airplanes
fly? Our just our collective hot air in internet discussion
groups?

-Malcolm Teas

C J Campbell wrote:

If you get right down to it, the only arguments against murder or theft are
basically religious.

Well, if you kill a man, he won't be paying income taxes anymore. There may even be
some drain on the state funds to support his dependents in some fashion. And if
thieves take much of his property, he may be unable to pay his taxes. It also
encourages theft, and the government hates competition.

Either has adverse effects on the health of society, and, like any good parasite
(symbiotic or not), government has a vested interest in keeping its host healthy.

George Patterson
If a man gets into a fight 3,000 miles away from home, he *had* to have
been looking for it.

Matt Barrow wrote:

And the Greeks, Romans, Eastern Indians (all atheist or non-religious) that
had such laws long before Christianity, they...hmmm

These people all had religious beliefs.

George Patterson
If a man gets into a fight 3,000 miles away from home, he *had* to have
been looking for it.

"C J Campbell" wrote in message ...
"Cecil Chapman" wrote in message
m...
P.S. You're right, we should all thank Mr. Bush for turning a hard-earned
surplus budget (earned under Clinton's rule) into a 4.3 trillion dollar
DEFICIT.

That is really funny coming from a Democrat. Here we have Democrats accusing
Bush of behaving too much like a Democrat. ROFL.

Just for historical accuracy I think the "behaving too much like a
Democrat" thing is pretty outdated. After all, the only balanced
budgets in the last thirty years has been with the Democrat Bill
Clinton in office. (Source: Appendix F of the CBO publication The
Budget and Economic Outlook: Fiscal Years 2005-2014.)

No matter what you think of Clinton, neither of the Bush presidents,
nor Ford, nor Reagan managed that. In fact, the deficit climbed
significantly in the Reagan and first Bush terms. First time over one
trillion. two trillion, and three trillion in those years.

So, high time to adjust our view to reality.

-Malcolm Teas

"C J Campbell" wrote in message
...
Well yes, actually, there was a proven connection even during Clinton's
time. Saddam regularly paid bounties to the families of suicide bombers
for
Hamas and offered rewards for anyone who would kill Americans.

Ahh, right. The Hamas. Remind me again...they were the ones that planned
the 9/11 attacks then? Oh, no...it wasn't them, was it?

I'm still waiting for the "connection" that explains why we're in Iraq now.

"C J Campbell" wrote in message
...
If you get right down to it, the only arguments against murder or theft
are
basically religious.

Hardly. A peaceful society requires that members of that society be safe
and that their property remains safe. If murder and theft are allowed, the
outcome is assured: rampant violence, and an enormous waste as everyone
invests most of their resources trying to take what the other members of
society have, including their lives.

You don't need religion to justify rules against murder or theft.

Peter Duniho wrote:

I'm still waiting for the "connection" that explains why we're in Iraq now.

I doubt it will surface for many years. The president said he would still have
invaded even if he had known there were no WMDs and no connection between Al Quaida
and Sadam, so I'd say the real reasons for the invasion are things that haven't been
made public by the administration. Lots of other people have advanced theories,
though.

George Patterson
If a man gets into a fight 3,000 miles away from home, he *had* to have
been looking for it.

Peter Duniho wrote:

snip

My main point was simply that the electorate in general believes what they
want to believe, regardless of what the actual truth is. This is true of
all people, regardless of party affiliation. My secondary, much less
important point (especially now that the election is over), might be that
I personally feel that lying to the public in order to justify a deadly
war is a much bigger transgression than has been witnessed in the
Executive branch since the Iran-Contra scandal.

Pete

Very well put Pete.

I'd add that even if the Iraq invasion was justified it was bungled badly.
The administration ignored its own experts and we lost lives because of it.
For that reason alone they don't merit being returned to office.

--
Frank....H

The pseudo-"science" of economics is one of the main reasons I dropped my
Business major in my sophomore year. The only area of study I found that
was less scientific, perhaps, was sociology -- although it was a close
race.

Well, it IS a science. Just not physics or chemistry. It determines
general principles and relationships between things.

If it were a "science" there would be "facts" and "truth" in economics.
Instead, we have "Keynesian" theory, and "Supply Side" theory, and "Trickle
Down" theory, and a hundred other theories, all attempting to provide some
sort of plausible explanation for why the very human creation called an
"economy" actually behaves the way it does.

And this is as the macro-economic level, where things are a bit closer to
science. It's a far cry from physics, chemistry or pure mathematics.

And a the micro-economic level, you might as well toss the bones, or read
your tea leaves -- you'll be just as accurate at predicting the future.

The rest of your points are well taken, however.

(It's MONEY that makes a plane fly, BTW... ;-)
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

"G.R. Patterson III" wrote in message
...


Matt Barrow wrote:

And the Greeks, Romans, Eastern Indians (all atheist or non-religious)
that
had such laws long before Christianity, they...hmmm

These people all had religious beliefs.

Not in the sense that CJ was using the term.