"Dave Hall" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 25 May 2005 00:05:49 GMT, "Jim Hampton"
wrote:
Hello, Dave
I've been really laughing over this thread. Yep, the deficit is *huge*
....
and when folks wake up, the Democrats will get blamed for "raising
taxes".
If. in fact, they do "raise taxes", it would be their fault. I do not
let a large deficit bother me. We've had large deficits before, and it
didn't kill us
We are in deep doo - doo here. Reaganomics didn't work then and it
doesn't
work now.
I don't know about that. The end of a recession and the beginning of
the biggest period of economic growth followed "Reaganomics".
As to the marriage protection act that Bush was for, have we heard
anything
else about that, or was it to get a big reaction (along with votes) from
the
religious folks?
That's a good question. One answer might be that there are more
pressing issues right now (Run away filibusters, the war, getting an
energy bill passed etc.).
One question begs for an answer: what is the divorce rate in this
country?
According to the stats from:
http://www.census.gov/population/soc.../tabA1-all.xls
the percentage of divorced people is 9.6%. For some reason, Frank was
unable (or unwilling) to read the columns and see the actual numbers,
but if you believe the census bureau, that's what it is.
Care to help Social Security?
The best way to help it is to remove it, and divert all former SS
withholdings into individual 401K accounts. Of course that penalizes
those who have already given into the SS program for their entire
working lives. So the transition has to be gradual so to be fair to
everyone.
I'd suggest that once a couple divorces, they
can no longer give nor receive Social Security benefits from another
person
(sole exception being to children). I've heard the divorce rate is close
to
50%, but I honestly don't know.
9.6% according to the 2003 census.
I worked for a manager who was on his third or fourth wife. Hmmmm ....
I'm
wondering if a woman (or man, for that matter) ever questions why their
intended has been divorced three times.
That would certainly send up a red flag for me. But, like they say,
love is blind and it's hard to be rational when all of your blood is
rushing to another organ in your body.
I knew a guy (he passed away over
30 years ago) that was marrying his *fifth* wife! When he passed away,
he
was living with a girl friend a good 20 years younger than he.
Then hopefully he died a happy man, although I would question his
inability to remain faithful, and wonder if there weren't some
"issues" affecting him.
A lot of interesting questions come to mind with many of these threads,
but
few answers.
That's the nature of debate, especially on subjects where answers are
elusive and somewhat subjective. There would be no point is debating
if the earth is round or whether the moon is made of green cheese, as
we know the answers to those questions.
Nope, I'm not for gay marriage, but I question what is it that drives
these
big knee-jerk reactions.
I usually apply Newton's law of action vs. reaction. Someone does
something extreme and the opposite side responds with a equal and
opposite reaction. There wouldn't be such an outpouring of opposition
to gay marriage if there wasn't such a push to legalize it.
I fear that once folks wake up and smell the
coffee, it will be too late. In fact, it may already be too late. If
other
countries stop "lending" us money and allowing our deficit to continue,
we
are in for a crash.
That won't happen, because, like it or not, we live in a global
economy, and if we "crash", we take the rest of the world with us.
1929 will look like a picnic. Many countries are
fearing us. Not only for the "Rambo" style of Bush, but our deficit. If
we
crash, it will have a huge effect on the rest of the world as well.
Exactly! I don't doubt for a minute that the pseudo-elitist socialist
Europeans would pass up any opportunity to put the screws to us
economically. But even they realize that if they do, they do so at
their own peril.
Why do you think OPEC doesn't peg their target to the US dollar anymore?
By basing their target price on another currency, they get more U.S.
dollars if the dollar is weak. OPEC knows that the dollar will rise
again, and so will the value of their "investment". It's no surprise
that oil prices have been falling as of late, which is coincident with
a strengthening dollar.
(hint: the dollar is falling and OPEC wants to make more. I read an
article
that Saudi Arabia wants to build an indoor skiing resort (talk about an
air
conditioning bill!) as well as an underwater hotel.
Hey, if they have the money, more power to them. Although, that sort
of materialism smacks against the core values of Wahabbism and radical
Islam. Maybe we are affecting the middle east more than we thought....
Dave
"Sandbagger"
http://home.ptd.net/~n3cvj
Hello, Dave
I mispoke. I meant the number of marriages that end up in divorce. Most
divorced couples remarry. The "approaching 50%" is the number of first
marriages that end up in divorce. Usually, one of the couple already has an
intended and only needs the divorce to immediately remarry. By the end of a
year or two, both are counted as married, although no longer to each other.
As to the dollar, I agree we have had deficits before; but this thing is
huge. I also suspect that they want to change Social Security (and it will
have to be changed) to an extent that they don't have to pay back all of
those IOUs.
73 from Rochester, NY
Jim