This raises a very simple question. If a GOP-Pres could cut FICA 20%, why can't a DEM-Pres cut it 100%?
Obama = enough rope for the MiddleClass to hang itself?
It's now been four generations of the poor & MiddleClass in the USA, arbitrarily over-taxed, just to hold them down!
Them's bitter fightin' words, and a shamefully vicious inequity.
Paul Meli writes:
Paul hit the nail on the head. Especially the 2nd line, about a massive self-con.
At this rate, we're only going to defraud ourselves until we're weak enough to be conquered by some population less stupid. [My tongue-in-cheek, perennial favorite is Iceland. :) ]
If YOU heard a voice from some God - or just a voice of sanity - saying that something has to be done, NOW .... where would you start?
We have 400 years of history, from John Law, to Ben Franklin to Abe Lincoln to Walter Shewhart & W.E. Deming, to Marriner Eccles (& FDR) & then on to Warren Mosler ... all saying that we can't (by current methods) explain and/or teach our way to sustained success ... or at least not fast enough.
It seems that we really do need a devious plan, to save our crooks, fools and self-parasites from themselves, without the delusion that all can be taught everything. We need to address all 3 of the 3i's, simultaneously.
It's now been four generations of the poor & MiddleClass in the USA, arbitrarily over-taxed, just to hold them down!
Them's bitter fightin' words, and a shamefully vicious inequity.
Paul Meli writes:
"Yes, it was done so that "conservatives could never take away workers retirement money…since they "saved" for it".
Our entire monetary arrangement is one of the biggest cons ever perpetrated.
Our well-being is being dictated by an accounting system that has unlimited input, but has a few added loops to confuse the rubes (a kind of shell game) into thinking we have to borrow from our right pocket to fill the left.
Anymore all I say to people I know is 'spending = income. If you can figure out a way to cut spending in that relationship without cutting your own income I'll vote for it.' "
Paul hit the nail on the head. Especially the 2nd line, about a massive self-con.
At this rate, we're only going to defraud ourselves until we're weak enough to be conquered by some population less stupid. [My tongue-in-cheek, perennial favorite is Iceland. :) ]
If YOU heard a voice from some God - or just a voice of sanity - saying that something has to be done, NOW .... where would you start?
We have 400 years of history, from John Law, to Ben Franklin to Abe Lincoln to Walter Shewhart & W.E. Deming, to Marriner Eccles (& FDR) & then on to Warren Mosler ... all saying that we can't (by current methods) explain and/or teach our way to sustained success ... or at least not fast enough.
It seems that we really do need a devious plan, to save our crooks, fools and self-parasites from themselves, without the delusion that all can be taught everything. We need to address all 3 of the 3i's, simultaneously.
Impact. (mitigate and stop the stupid)
Intercept. (stop rewarding incoming stupid)
Instigation. (stop generating so much emerging stupid among developing students)
Where's the glory, logic, or beauty in that? It's deflating.
If you look at this as equivalent to a massive task of tuning a dumb engine, then yes, it can be somewhat enticing.
Yet to do that, we pretty much have to abandon our cherished myth of intelligent human beings, and look on any population as a Pareto-curve of (80%?) foundation stock, (18%?) mutant innovators and idiot savant, OCD capitalists, and ~2% "stem-humans" (equivalent to stem cells).
That takes all the beauty, mathematical or otherwise, out of social evolution, and relegates it to plodding social engineering.
That gets awfully lonely, real fast.
Where's the glory, logic, or beauty in that? It's deflating.
If you look at this as equivalent to a massive task of tuning a dumb engine, then yes, it can be somewhat enticing.
Yet to do that, we pretty much have to abandon our cherished myth of intelligent human beings, and look on any population as a Pareto-curve of (80%?) foundation stock, (18%?) mutant innovators and idiot savant, OCD capitalists, and ~2% "stem-humans" (equivalent to stem cells).
That takes all the beauty, mathematical or otherwise, out of social evolution, and relegates it to plodding social engineering.
That gets awfully lonely, real fast.
Your species is not your friend? In fact, at the present time, 98% of them are obsolete? All of the time? Simply because of the way we educate and train ourselves?
I have a feeling that humans, if they survive the next 200 years, will migrate back to more of a sense of species (not just tribal) self awareness. At present, our over-personalized self-awareness limits the very return-on-coordination that beckons to us, and instead grows our Output Gap as fast as our options expand.
This can't go on much further, as is. If we're still around, 500 yrs from now, surely it'll only be because we completely altered the way we run childhood development & training.
Just as gestation period rises as you go up the phylogenetic order, presumably to allow time to polish & tune construction of more complex brains ...
What we're really evolving here is a Group Brain, to support a Group Intelligence. So far, we're just fumbling around, not even aware of what we're doing.
We don't even discuss such things in current policy, so don't hold your breath waiting on progress. We have to tune this massive engine, not just explain to all the components that they have to evolve. That's a trivially obvious lesson bound to be ignored.
We need to either find a way to steer our own cultural evolution a bit better ... or just face facts, like Omar Khayyám, leave our thoughts for posterity, and go get drunk on wine, [significant others] & food (And/or some more modern diversions).
I have a feeling that humans, if they survive the next 200 years, will migrate back to more of a sense of species (not just tribal) self awareness. At present, our over-personalized self-awareness limits the very return-on-coordination that beckons to us, and instead grows our Output Gap as fast as our options expand.
This can't go on much further, as is. If we're still around, 500 yrs from now, surely it'll only be because we completely altered the way we run childhood development & training.
Just as gestation period rises as you go up the phylogenetic order, presumably to allow time to polish & tune construction of more complex brains ...
[e.g., Parker ST (1990) "Why big brains are so rare: energy costs of intelligence and brain size in anthropoid primates."so too might you expect cultural evolution to reflect more care & attention to the "cultural-gestation" [i.e., early education/training] of those developing humans who become able to organize on a bigger scale.
In: Language and Intelligence in Monkeys and Apes,
eds. Parker ST, Gibson KR; Cambridge University Press, pp. 129-156.]
What we're really evolving here is a Group Brain, to support a Group Intelligence. So far, we're just fumbling around, not even aware of what we're doing.
We don't even discuss such things in current policy, so don't hold your breath waiting on progress. We have to tune this massive engine, not just explain to all the components that they have to evolve. That's a trivially obvious lesson bound to be ignored.
We need to either find a way to steer our own cultural evolution a bit better ... or just face facts, like Omar Khayyám, leave our thoughts for posterity, and go get drunk on wine, [significant others] & food (And/or some more modern diversions).
It's your choice. Be irrelevant to your children's future, or do SOMETHING to help shepherd evolution of Democracy.
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