Civility is paramount. I'm a little tired, and a little irritable, so at the first instance of flaming, I'll close the thread and infract anyone who complains. Have a nice day
Charity isn't the cure for poverty. So, while it is good of him to think about this issue, it's not going to happen.
That's great. Here's a better question. Where's he getting the money to pay for it? Here it is: Why anyone would think that is a good plan is beyond me. The US economy is stagnating, and bordering on a major recession. Frankly the US economy can't handle that right now. Its the right argument at the wrong time. The US economy needs to get back on its feet before this is ever going to be possible (And I seriously doubt congress will ever pass such a legislative act which is good for Obama because it wouldn't work). The US Economy needs the opposite of Obama's economic strategy. Corporations and companies are suffering and need tax cuts so the can reinvest in capital. A lot of recent job cuts have been blamed on exporting jobs to foreign nations but really, its because companies can't pay the employees so they have to lay them off. Obama can't win this election through economic logic so he's switched to economic fairy tales. George Bush isn't even the cause of the current economic troubles, over speculation in markets is (The president has nothing to do with that). This seems to me to be another one of his fairy tales. Its an absurd prospect. EDIT: i'd also feel the need to mention the age old saying: "Give a man a dollar and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to earn a dollar and you feed him for a lifetime."
Poverty "Senate committee passage of a plan that could end up costing taxpayers billions of dollars in an attempt to reduce poverty in other nations." Two Points First: What about the poverty in our own nation? Second: The reason we have such severe poverty in other nations is because institutes likes the WTO and World Bank gives high-interest loans to countries that will never be able to pay off the interest. Most of the money isn’t used to help the country either. A good case study is to look at Indonesia under Suharto. For a good read on it, read New Rulers of the World by John Pilger.
I found this statement from Senator Obama quite interesting: I recall reading a few weeks ago about Senator Obama's half brother, living in Kenya on less than $1.00 per month. Has Senator Obama stepped forward (with his millions) to help his brother out? If he gave his brother $12.00 he'd more than double his half brother's yearly income. The answer, from Senator Obama's perspective, is to support the use other people's money through legislative confiscation for Charitable causes, often those which combat poverty. Further, if I recall accurately, less than 1% of Senator Obama's income last year was donated to Charitable causes, including his church. His often used statement that "I am my brother's keeper" rings hollow. Maybe, "I'll see to it that you all will be my brother's keeper." I donate regularly to charitable causes, from programs that build schools and infrastructure in West Africa to the Cystic Fibrosis foundation. Taxing the American economy, and thus taxing me...would that result in a reduction of my income and ability to donate? Yes. Does it limit the causes I choose to support, not U.N. Bureaucrats. Yes. That's change, to be sure. Yep, change is in the air. I just hope it doesn't turn out to be the kind of change Senator Obama supports.
Maybe he's planning on using the magical power of hope to bolster a faulty plan? I'm sure with a few years in office, Obama will not only eradicate world poverty, he'll get rid of unhappiness altogether! All it takes is a little bit of hope, some change, and more cryptic legislation.
Given that the government is going to take more of my money regardless of who's in power, I'd rather it be spent on charity than warfare, so I'm cool with that. Really, I'd like a reduction in overall government, but since the monkey has the keys to the banana plantation, that ain't gonna happen until the US actually does collapse a la Rome, at which point it's probably not going to be coming up roses for much of anyone.
Trust me the money won't go to any charities. Most Finacial AID never makes it to the people its intended too. The UN takes some, and what's left usually goes to Dictators and the like. Besides, there's a difference between the government taking money from itself and funding a war, and taking money directly out of the economy (The GDP) to fund foreign nations that have GDP's that are so low they are negligable (Also tend to be nations that hate us).
So? I'd rather they have the money anyway. It's not doing us any good. Nasty stuff. (Also, no, there really isn't a difference. In both cases, the money goes into a black hole that produces absolutely no value in return. Your description is disingenuous at best; the government can't take money from itself without going into debt, which in turn takes the money out of the economy one way or another, usually with interest.) The government goes deeper into debt every year. It will always grow bigger. It will always take more. No one is ever going to vote themselves less power and less money. I'm happier if we're pretending it goes to charity while everyone pockets all they can grab than if we pretend it goes to kill people while everyone pockets all they can grab. At least I can have fond imaginings of the good things the money can accomplish rather than the horrible death it could inflict.
There is a difference between the governments money and the GDP. GDP is defined as: GDP = Gross Consumption + Gross Investment + Government Spending + Exports - Imports The War in Iraq is funded only by government spending, which though it does have an effect on the national economy is only a part of it and is not the economy itself (Just a factor of the equation). This bill sounds more like its taking from the entirety of the economy which is an economic disaster. We lose more money taking .7% of our GDP and sending it to causes that will never receive most of it, than we do spending billions in a war thats techincally not a war anymore and will no longer exist in two to three years. The war is only a factor of a factor in the economy, and frankly isn't that much compared to other government spending. You can't really compare it to taking money directly out of the GDP and say they are the same thing (.7% of our GDP = five years of the war in Iraq, unless I screwed up my math which I wouldn't be surprised if I did.).
No one can take money directly out of the GDP. It doesn't work that way. Your explanation is flawed. And I still say I'd rather give the money to the people who hate us. At least they're honest about things.
I didn't make the explaination: I didn't say we were taking money from the GDP the bill does and I do think the government can take money out of it (It is the government after all). . A good point XD. They're certainly more honest than some of the people I know.
Give all the exess money in the world to the poor (in the USA at least) and with in four years most of them will be back in the streets. Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day as they say. In the US it really is possible to climb the social ladder, but the issue is most people don't have the drive, and as easy as it is to climb it's just as easy to fall. Ask me and i'll tell you the money needs to get split between the airforce and the navy. The AF wants more money so they can replace the old worn out POS's they currently have with brand spanking new (third generation I think) jets. National defence should be a priority. But even then that's too much money, we need the money for the economy more than we even need it for defence, pull out of the middle east, and give the money to the people, we want it and need, tax cuts, government funded programs to help us climb the ladder, and even better a program to help teach the poor and homeless how to make, spend and manage their money.
The government can only spend money that the government has control over. The government only has control over money gained by taxation. (Well, and a million other little loopholes and doohickeys, but they can be lumped into taxation for the purposes of this explanation.) *See footnote When they describe the bill as dedicating X percent of the GDP to charitable works, what they mean is the AMOUNT of money ALREADY UNDER GOVERNMENT CONTROL VIA TAXATION which will be spent on charity will be EQUAL TO X percent of the GDP. You can't "take" anything out of the GDP. It just doesn't work like that. --- Now, Obama does plan to shift the tax burden around and put more weight on the top two income tax brackets to increase the overall amount of money coming into the government, which many people like to squawk about because OMG!Taxes. This will not affect anyone who makes less than several million dollars a year. Frankly, I'll let the people who are that wealthy fight their own battles to keep their ridiculous wads of cash. If you're one of them, well, then I understand your dedication to the Republican party. Enjoy your yachts. --- *Super Special Footnote Among the other tools the government uses to get more money to spend is a practice which amounts to "borrowing money from the US Government of the future." This works about as well as you'd expect, especially when, once we get to the future, the government needs to pay off the debts to the government of the past, and does so by borrowing even MORE money from those super-wealthy guys in the future. (This, by the way, is the current favored method of the Republican party, the "small government" party. Ha. It is to laugh.) It's slightly more complicated than that in reality (isn't it always?) but that's basically what it boils down to. It's economic amphetamines; a boost now for a major cost later. But hey, as long as we keep that credit bubble one step in the future, we'll never have to worry about anything ever at all, right?
The government prints money, and trades gold, the hard curency with other contries, when the government trades it's gold reserves the dollar drops. When the government says it's giving money to other contries that's what it's doing, increasing the other contries. (At least that's how I understand how it works I maybe wrong.) Anyways the government can print as much money as it wants but that ruins the economy by crushing the worth of the dollar.
XD. I hadn't considered that. I saw Gross National Product and went straight to GDP. I'm calling another one of my stupid moments. I've called two I get one more . I've been spending the last twenty minutes trying to find a chart for foreign aid by nation but you won't believe how much of a pain it is. I've found like twenty articles but I can't seem to find an actual chart. After spending all this time actually trying to find out who the biggest spenders are I'm at least going to say it. The only article I could find was from 2003 (which kind of sucks I wanted something more recent) and it list the US as provided 35% of the total of the worlds Foreign Aid (Only including government support). The second nation for anyone interested was the Netherlands, then Ireland (Which actually surprised me), Norway, and Switzerland. Overall we give a smaller (Very much smaller) precentage of our GDP to Foreign Aid but still provide a third of the worlds total. Frankly I still say we give enough.
Wait where did we get money? The US has been taking in less than they've been spending since after clinton, and before him it was the same way, in the red zone of spending. The government doesn't have money, they print it up or steal it from Social Security.
I finally found some charts (no doubt I found them right after posting, just my luck XD). Anyone who wants to see Foreign Aid Contributions by nation in Gross Nation Income, Dollars, and some other ones can find them here: http://www.globalissues.org/article/35/us-and-foreign-aid-assistance. If you don't want to read the whole article (Which actually you might want to if the subject interests you. There's a lot of info there. If you want to see the graphic representations just go to the red list of hyperlinks and click: "Foreign Aid Numbers in Charts and Graphs" to skip to the part with the graphs.
Yes, that's what I said, if you read my whole post. RE: Lordofhats My position on this sort of thing is pretty firm. I don't care how much we are giving; we can always give more, and always should. Not from an economic standpoint, but from a purely moral one. No, it's not terribly pragmatic. No, it won't ever get put into practice, and if it did it would probably get us all killed. No, I don't even come close to following the ideal myself. Doesn't change the fact that it's right. "Go, sell all you have and give the money to the poor. Then come take up your cross and follow me." *shrugs*
What do you mean by so called? They broke US and Mexican and International laws by crossing the border. What's not Illigal about that? I don't even think we should give amnisty to cubans but we do. I've lived in FL met a bounch they all talk about how Cuba isn't all that bad, but america is just richer and easier to make it rich so it's the whole streets paved with gold bit, but if a polotician talks to one they start talking about how horrible it is there. It's just people being greedy.
Morally or pragmatically? Morally, absolutely. As long as they're here to work, I say they're welcome. Pragmatically, well, the immigration law is a mess, and the inequalities between the US and the countries from which the immigrants are fleeing are such that no amount of prevention or deterrence is going to stop people from coming over. Worse, an illegal immigrant is parasitic, earning money in the US that is never spent here, and not supporting their local schools and so on through their local-level taxes while still gaining the benefits. (Generally, manual laborers don't make enough to actually pay federal income tax, so I'm ignoring that.) The biggest issue, in my mind, is the fact that the primary draw for illegals is the work they can get. The root problem is not the immigrants, but rather the dishonest businessmen and corporations who employ them, knowingly and purposefully, because A) Many Americans won't work such jobs for what the company is prepared to offer and B) Illegals can be paid far, far less than a "real" worker, not to mention the savings in benefits packages, all because the company can hold the threat of deportation over their heads. Even the piddling wages they get are superior to the opportunities they have at home, and so they come. It's the same way that the real reason pigeon populations in major cities explode to the level of being a pest is not because pigeons are inherently bad or harmful, but rather that a very small minority of the population dedicates themselves to feeding the pigeons, which dramatically increases the flock size and decreases the flock's tendency to roam for foraging purposes. How do you control pigeon populations? Traps? Poison? Barbed wire on possible nesting sites? None of those work worth beans. You reduce the pigeon population by not feeding them. So yes, I'd favor amnesty for the poor sods, because they're the ones being manipulated for someone else's gain. Specifically, ours. How do you think we get those rock-bottom prices we love so much? Paying illegals (or legal but ethically questionable overseas factories) at vastly lower wages to run the gruntwork of the company.
Bravo! But do you know the backlash you will recieve once you try to propose this to our government? Either you jail anyone who hires illegal and force them to pay the correct minimum wage; or you give full amnesty to all illegal immigrants. That's how I see it. There is no in between.
