Originally Posted By: Tempest
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Worded differently: Corporations exist to make money. Government exists to spend money. One the people work for, the other works for the people.
The government works for the people? Who says? It force-ably extracts wealth from its subjects. I'd say that we are mugged by the government, and work for corporations by choice, to make profit from our labor.
Your VOTE says. The government is SUPPOSED to represent the interests of the people. If it doesn't, then there is a problem with the process and the people who voted in the government. What the government has BECOME is an issue with who it is supposed to represent, not with the fundamental idea of what it is supposed to BE. If the government is no longer the voice of the people, then what have the people done to allow or create that?
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Or can a corporation force money from your pocket? Your examples are purely idealist and not realistic. Has the government ever done something that you didn't like? Then it doesn't work for you. Or have you fired it?
If the government has done something I don't necessarily agree with, then I have to consider that I am not the only person the government represents. It is not meant to be the voice of, or act upon the wills of one person. It is supposed to represent a NATION of people, all of whom are not going to agree on certain matters. It is supposed to be the loudest voice; the voice of the MAJORITY who wins out in cases like this. And if my voice is the voice of a minority, then how can I fault the government for that?
This is how it is SUPPOSED to work. I'm not saying that is how it CURRENTLY works. Keep that in mind.
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"We can vote the people in government out!" Great, but how often? Every 2,4,6 years?
People can force an election. If the issue is not pressing enough for a forced election, then is waiting for the term to be up going to be that big a deal?
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You make economic decisions everyday, and will probably change your mind often on things within 2 years.
Yes, PERSONAL economic decisions that affect myself and my family, not the nation as a whole.
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This allows for a dynamic, free economy, based on what the people want.
What allows for a dynamic, free, economy? Your job going to China? Please, tell me how that benefits anybody in this country.
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Your vote lasts for years, and the guy you voted for has never heard of you (nor does he care too) and has no idea what you want.
Funny enough, the guy I vote for does know me. I've talked to him in E-mail. If you have a concern that you feel needs to be voiced to the people who represent you, you can contact them, and in my experience, they WILL reply. Some of these things even become election issues! Scary I know. Have you actually ever TRIED to talk to your government?
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Much less the other representatives that you didn't vote for, or the permanent unelected regulators that have jobs for life.
Nor would I care to talk to the representatives I didn't vote for. I voice my concerns to the ones I DID vote for, and let them discuss those issues with the other parties. And since we don't all vote for the same people, if my concern is a concern shared by many, then it is quite likely that the other representatives are already aware of the issue anyway!
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nor have to generate any kind of profit, the inventions and technologies that have come from military spending are far greater than anything we've seen in the private sector.
Where does the military get its resources from to fund these things? If the people making the decision have nothing of their own on the line (skin in the game), what motivation do they have to use resources efficiently?
I already told you where they get the resources: My tax dollars. Your argument is invalid, [censored], you wouldn't even be able to MAKE this argument without this type of spending haven already taken place. I mean, I could UPS you a stone and you could chisel your argument into that stone and then UPS it back to me, that way we could use all private-sector technology, but I'd rather, and I'm sure you'd rather, use this government-funded Internet thingy, and our computers that are the result of government spending, right?
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$60 billion in fraud every year in Medicare alone.
$100 billion in various overlap every year. Is anything being done about these things? NO. Because it's not their money.
14 million unemployed right now. Is anything being done about that by the private sector? NO. Because they don't care. They make more PROFIT shipping those jobs to China.
14 million at a gross average of $42,028.00 a person gives us $588,392,000,000.00 in taxable income. Those same people have an average of $31,410.00 disposable income (after taxes), meaning there is $439,740,000,000.00 being put back into the economy through their spending. And if we look at the difference between their gross and NET, we could say that roughly $148,652,000,000.00 of that is taken as tax to fund various programs.
And then of those 14 million people, how many are taking unemployment, using welfare, community housing......etc. You have to take those expensive OUT before you factor back in the numbers above, making the overall gain even greater!
