Start a War, No Money Down!
 

Start a War, No Money Down!

By MATT MILLER

[Infomercial director: " 'The Republican Guide to Wartime Tax Cuts' ... Take One ... Action!"]

ANNOUNCER: In the old days, war profiteering was a grueling round-the-clock job. You actually had to make something, like planes or guns, and then overcharge the government obscenely. Now, thanks to the Republicans, countless Americans are becoming "war profiteers" in their spare time - and you can, too. Riches once thought to be the exclusive preserve of a few unsavory arms merchants have been made available to thousands of successful Americans, many of whom pull in the cash literally as they sleep!

What's their secret? With "The Republican Guide to Wartime Tax Cuts," you can find out what's in the playbook of Republican professionals. You'll get the war you want without laying out a dime, even as you benefit from huge tax cuts to boot (note: certain income thresholds apply).

And here's the kicker: you can slip the bill for all of this - both the war and your tax cut - to unsuspecting children!

I know what you're thinking: "I don't have the self-confidence or social skills to reach for such dreams." But here's the truth: neither did Republicans a few years ago. Yet just this week they came through again. On Wednesday, George Bush signed into law an additional $82 billion for Iraq, which brings the amount America has spent to oust Saddam Hussein and occupy the country close to $300 billion.

Now, whatever you thought about Saddam, the best news is this: we got this war for no money down and zero payments for 10 years. That's right: every penny spent on this war has been added to the deficit. And this latest $82 billion sailed through without a hitch, with no pesky questions as to whether we should actually pay for our own wars today.

(Yes, there was one scare, when Joe Biden said we could do that by repealing a sliver of the tax cuts with which the G.O.P. has incentivized important Americans. Luckily this notion was swatted away as "nongermane.") Now the drive for more tax cuts continues, even as yearly deficits close in on half a trillion dollars!

If you're ready to bring into your own life the power that this total suppression of fiscal and moral reality can offer, "The Republican Guide" is for you. Our CD's and training manuals will teach you how to profit during wartime without ever leaving your home. In an age of everlasting war, we'll show you which congressmen to call to make sure your tax cuts are permanent to match.

But there's more. Beyond learning how to maximize your own wartime tax cuts, you'll master previously undisclosed behavioral secrets that let you act as if there's nothing wrong with getting yours while the getting's good - just as top Republicans do!

Don't take my word for it. Listen to how someone just like you changed his life in a few short hours of study.

[Testimonial]

THIRTY-SOMETHING MALE: I never felt strong enough to utterly ignore Judeo-Christian ethics, even though I suspected that could get me the life I dreamed of. That's why "The Republican Guide" is so inspiring.

Believe it or not, there was actually a time when it was considered offensive to fight wars and cut taxes at the same time. In those days, conservatives were ostracized for wanting to scrap estate taxes for wealthy heirs while soldiers died in distant lands and their families scraped by on food stamps. I know - it seems so far away!

That's when I had to ask myself: if Republicans could find the courage to put these inhibitions behind them, imagine what I could do to reach for the brass ring in my own life. Now, though I'd rather not go into the details, I make more money, pay less taxes and have a beautiful wife and child.

[Back to announcer]

ANNOUNCER: So what are you waiting for? Our operators are standing by at call centers in India. Let "The Republican Guide to Wartime Tax Cuts" change your life, just as it's changed America.

[Voice-over]

WARNING: Support for the Republicans' wartime fiscal policy may include such side effects as 50 million uninsured, crumbling roads and bridges, and swelling inequality. If you are concerned about any of these symptoms, please call Dr. Howard Dean.


Copyright 2005 The New York Times

Very cogent argument. I'm convinced. Sign me up for whatever they're selling. The jabs at soldier's families living on food stamps really brought it home. I mean stealing 50% of someone's life worth is definitely required when people are actually getting free food. There goes my inheritance. Selling my parent's shop and their house so the little bastards can afford better than their food stamps is just a labor of love at gunpoint I suppose.

I think that the article is right about deficits and fiscal responsibility but don't sign me up for a national health care plan or food stamps. The cost of health care will keep going up until people stop demanding more care than they can pay for. The problem with a national health care system is that the health care demands of everyone are treated equally while the payment i.e. allocation of resources (labor, coal, iron etc.) are not allocated equally. They are dumped on the society as a whole so some people pay a very disproportionate amount. If everyone has roughly the same cost in medical care then the idea of insurance doesn't work and is in fact inefficent because of the added overheard of collecting the insurance. It would be much better if everyone paid as they went. So allowing insurance rates to go up until people start accepting lower levels of health care is the proper approach. Ineqaulity is a rather dubious concept if it means that everyone is the same because some people will always be smarter, richer, better looking, etc. than others. Equality means that the government should not treat those accused of a crime inequally and that the government should not show economic favoritism. Giving state contracts out to women contractors first or proving that there are no women contractors available is economic favoritism and unconstitutional. Favoring white males for presidency of the United States is not equality. Giving rich people a get out of jail free card is criminal favoritism. Mandating a blind quota system based on race, gender, religion etc. when such groupings are not relevant is not equality.

I think socialists should be ridiculed as much as republicans because at best they drag everyone down to a mediocre level that is only slightly better than the previous mean all the while preventing innovation and progress. Does the constitution say promote or ensure the general welfare? Because they are two different concepts.

I agree with a lot of what you said. Health insurance is some kind of weird racket. Did you know that Sen. Bill Frist and his brothers are either at or close to billionaire status from the HMO business? I mean, good work should have its reward but that money's coming from somewhere, and I'm afraid a lot of it is coming out of employers who are struggling to pay it.

Some of the wealth we're seeing today is just a bit sick, IMO. Probably always been that bad, I dunno.

Food stamps might be different. I've heard that it helps to keep farmers afloat and if it keeps starving people from begging on the streets even more than they do (you oughta see it in San Fran...Lohd have mercy) might be worth it. At least with a food stamps only setup, they have the health to go find work and the need to, because all they're getting is the food, ideally anyway.

I hate to admit it, but when I was on an HMO plan for a few years, I did go in more often than I ever had, and some of it was probably unnecessary. Oh well, I'm back to the economy model -- scraping it up however I can.

Sfw?
 

Is there a problem with Dr/Sen Frist making money?

I'd like for every rich mofo out there to get off his moneybags and try public service. I mean, once you have a billion bucks, you need another billion? Huh? You know how to make money, now try something you don't know.

Bot

sounds like you are contradicting yourself. Maybe Im misunderstanding.

I had kinda thought that we should all be smart enough now to not fall for the "class warfare" fostered by liberals to make us think rich people are unfairly getting a larger share than they should.

Its simply idiotic. If a person has a billion, and then make another billion, who gives a ****ingratsass. They aint gonna buy a bigger house or a bigger car, they are simply gonna invest that money into the economy, it will do much better having the money in the hands of a private citizen than the govt anyday.

WTF?

Heck, I don't care if folks want another billion. Makes no difference to me. Heck, they can make 100Bn. I'm just saying that if you've proved that you can do something better than most other people, what's the value in doing it again? Why not find a real challenge--one at which your outcome is terribly uncertain?

For example, I delight in Lance Armstrong winning the TdF so often. I think it is a wonderful achievement. But I don't think that winning any number of subsequent times could match the exhileration of that first win.

In the same sense, after making your first billion or so bucks, what is to be gained in personal satisfaction from doing that again? Why not sail around the world, go to engineering school, get an MBA, finance private space exploration, etc? It seems a waste of opportunity to continue down the same path rather than strike in a new direction, a new horizon.

But I certainly don't think somebody should NOT work to make a second billion if that second billion is a fullfilling goal.

See what I mean?

I bet it's pretty exhilarating to invest that second and third billion in an offshore bank account or a few slave labor sweatshops in Guangzhou Province.

Yo man, I've built multiple $20 million plus houses and I've seen up close the kind of over consumption that people with this kind of $$ think they are entitled to as a gift from God. It was a quandry -- I like working with mahogany, and I didn't mind the income, of course, but mahogany rain forests are being clear cut for this ****.

Right now, land use decisions go to the highest bidder most of the time. The Repubs are pushing for that to happen all of the time. Essentially, the guy who wants to rape the land for the maximum short term profit is going to get his way. I'm sorry, money is not God and some pinhead who thinks making a few $mil from gold mining, with the requisite leaving of a scarred landscape, replete with cyanide pond aftermath, polluted rivers, is just fine.... well I want to pound that mo fo.

Does the mere presence of hypocrisy reduce the relative veracity of the argument?

[RDHRNG] What do Chinese forums have to do with anything here?[/RDHRNG]

It is a quandry, I'll admit. Confusion is not something I'm proud of but a certain amount seems to be unavoidable, for me anyway. And I am happy for the freedoms in America. I don't think it would be healthy to try to outlaw the building of big houses.

The point I'm trying to make is that it might not lead to our best overall health and welfare to consume so much. I often thought, while building those grand palaces, that I would rather build more modest stuff for more average people. Well (be careful what you wish for) I'm doing that now. The money is not quite as good but I'm learning more as most of what I do is completely independent, so I have to know more to run things start to finish. No health plan, no dental, but I'm getting by.

The longest job I was ever on (2 1/2 years) was the building of a 16,000 sq. ft. house in Portola Valley, which is a bedroom community just west of Palo Alto, Stanford, et al, for a heart surgeon/inventor/Stanford prof. This guy invented the first balloon catheter in '62 or '63 I think. Took him 3 years to find someone who wanted to manufacture it. He has around 70 medical patents. Oh man, just one month's worth of his checks in the mail. He was/is one of the finest, most likeable guys I've ever met, rich or poor. Some of the mega bucks dudes I worked for were insufferable, IMO, but this guy was a class act. He would visit the job almost every day, walking around, and when he would come into a room I was working on, if I didn't say anything (which generally you shouldn't) he would linger and say in this inimitable style, "So....how ya doin'?" If you saw this guy in a coffee shop, you'd never suspect he was a billionaire.

It is estimated that his first device alone has saved the lives or limbs of around 15 million people (blood clot removing device). One of his devices is or was in Dick Cheney's chest, but I won't hold that against him.

My point is, no way am I going to begrudge this guy his money. Nonetheless, his two sons, 30ish, have all the earmarks of idle playboys. Official occupation, both: stock car racer. One of the guys on the job, a steel framer, was an avid weekend racer and he says neither one of them was especially good. I don't mean to knock the doctor on this. Money can be weird $h!t, with all sorts of bizarre manifestations. My dad was way poorer in his youth that I was with growing up with him, and he matured a lot quicker....hell, I'm still a bit flaky, sorry to say. Which brings me to my estate tax rap, which I'll hold off on.

But, I don't mind the question/assertion Narwhal. It's a fair one. To me, a lot of modern life is like being in the middle of a herd of buffalo that may or may not be stampeding towards a cliff. What d'ya do?

Full on hippie idealism is not too groovy and I'm not shooting for that, but I'm not in the kind of world I want either. Oh well...

cmac

Ha ha...those funny Chinese pleople.. :D :D :D

.http://www.humorsphere.com/confucius/

______________________________________________________

I'm gonna have to finish reading that after my stomach stops hurting.. :D

Careful dude, that can haunt you when you start dumping all over this or that hypocrit with whom you disagree.

Hypocricy shouldn't be used to automatically dismiss an argument. A pattern of hypocricy on the other hand...

And what necromancer divines that pattern?

One more thing about that. The house that used the most mahogany by far was the doctor's house I referred to. I loved the guy. What, I'm going to get in his face and tell him what an eco-criminal he is?

And the choice of what to use, how big to make it was way out of my hands. If I had acted on some grand, lofty principle and walked away, it would have still gotten built, and I would have missed out on an excellent opportunity, in about 12 different ways. It's way, way tamer than say, a Nazi guard saying he was just following orders.

So please, Narwhal, I mean I like you and all, but please don't call me a hypocrite behind that.

...I just close my eyes and the patterns emerge--what can I say, it's a gift.

And here is yet another point I posed in response to one of your posts that you couldn't come up with a resonse for.

Once again, master of time and space:

I heard a quote from a rich person once: "At first money brings happiness, but after a while, it just brings more money."

This is one of the problems with unbridled, full on capitalism, IMO, that is, the tendency for the rich to get richer and the poor to get poorer is almost built in. Hardcore Republicans will argue til doomsday that this is the way things are supposed to be but myself, I don't want to be a serf in someone's feudal landlord setup, nor do I think I would really want to be a landlord in same.

Imagine: would you rather have 5000 lbs of gold now (about $32 million) or 5000 pounds of gold magically deposited along with your bod in say, England of 562 A.D.? You might have more land and servants back then, but I submit that many of the advances in things like pain-free dentistry plus all sorts of trained technicians in various fields have arisen through quasi-socialist (GASP!) thangs like public education.

The GI bill is not something that arose from Republican Hoover after WW1, but from lefty Roosevelt after WW2 and many historians agree that it not only paid for itself many times over but played a large part in our post war prosperity.

As for Frist, I don't like the guy. I don't like people making ga-zillions off of HMOs while doctors are tearing their hair out over small cost limitations and people are forced to fork it over, employers sweat it out, etc. It reminds me a bit of Bechtel's attempts to corner the water market in Latin American countries. People got to have water. We -ell -ell, we'll make them pay through the nose for it. Bwaa - hah -ha -ha (Maniacal George Schultz laugh)

C'mon Bot! Show us what your made of!

But if Frist had hired you to panel his house with mahogany, then you'd have loved the guy.

Inability and choice are indistinguishable to you.

[QUOTE=narwhal]You can choose to dismiss the author, based upon their personal level of hypocrisy, but it surely doesn't mean the cause isn't right, just and true.

Who better to tear down the man, than someone on the inside...and besides, I'm not a bootlick.

I don't think so. I have a finely honed Bull$h!t detector which I picked up from my cowboy dad. Frist sets my back teeth on edge. The doctor I worked for was a class act.

Again Bot, you're employing flippancy because my arguement on the nature of money agitates your comfort zone.

You're right again Narwhal. I do get defensive. But I mean I'm in a no win here. If I try to deny the guy the right to earn and spend his money the way he wants, I'm a luddite. Or, if I actually do work for a guy I like even though I'm not sure it's the ultimately best course for humans to take on the planet, I'm a hypocrite.

...uh, that would be an MPA in justification, hypocrisy and self-indulgence. If you're going to make insinuations, at least get my academic title correct.

Hypocrisy, over indulgence, power, irresponsibility, abuse, all are faults within mankind! Few are innocent, all are effected! It's always been, and may always be, but without resistance, there may very well would be even more of an imbalance, so don't give up the fight, even if you border into being a hypocrite, it's just to what degree!

Like I said way long ago (last week?), I hope that everybody makes lots of money. Have at it. I don't care whether people get rich from HMO's, computer parts, widgets, I'm in favor of legalizing recreational drugs, you think I'm gonna get anxious about somebody making money off another's misery? Hah! I hope the nation has 10,000 people making money off HMO's nursing homes, and low-rent property. I also want 100,000 lawyers on the hunt, gunning for folks who screw-up other folks lives. I hope the lawyers get rich doing it, too!

So go ahead wringing your hands over rainforest destruction one day and accepting filthy lucre from pluotcrats the next. Whatever floats your boat.

Cute.

My point is, you never even remotely concede another's point. I don't expect you to gush with some, "Oh my god, how could I have been so blind as not to see it!"

OTOH, there can't be much give and take of ideas if one of the parties is convinced ahead of time that the other's thinking is deeply, deeply flawed and so why bother even examining the premise?

It's the old, "don't bother me with new evidence, I'm comfortable where I am," aka: Stuck.

And you think I'm like BHD only more erudite? :sun_smile

Oui... :sun_smile

Bot, Bot, Bot..... Like, who destroyed your dream, man?

Science, reason, experience.

...and that little chip implanted in his skull by the good folks at PNAC--tinfoil doesn't make the bad feelings go away, but imperial conquest does unleash a wave of endorphins.

http://zeus.zeit.de/text/2005/20/aussenpolitik_englisch

"Germany never knew what Jürgen Kocka calls an 'alliance of war and freedom.' When German soldiers crossed borders they did not do it in the name of freedom. That changed only in 1999, when German soldiers entered Kosovo together with NATO forces. The same holds true in Afghanistan today.

During the last century German soldiers had a history of defeat. In the end, historian Dan Diner notes, 'humiliation came in the shape of freedom, and it spoke English.' Earlier, from 1803 on, it spoke French, but the Germans did not like that either. That they should view themselves as 'liberated' after World War II was a hard sell. And even in 1985, on the occasion of the commemorations of German capitulation, German President Richard von Weizsäcker had a hard time promoting the idea of 'liberation.' To this day, the image of an American soldier risking his life in a foreign land to guarantee someone else's right to vote is irritating to Germans, as could be seen during the Iraqi elections. For Americans, this picture symbolizes the core of their self-image."

THAT, is a long piece, but interesting. FWIW, there are times when I wonder if I'm completely wrong about ol' "W." (Sounds of church bells ringing and hearty hosannahs)

I just don't think the guy has enough understanding of history and ths subtlties of human nature to actually effect the kind of ambitious changes he wants to pull off.

Lao Tzu has some excellent bits about the subtlties of true leadership.

Forgive me:

17. Rulers
The best rulers are scarcely known by their subjects;
The next best are loved and praised;
The next are feared;
The last despised:
They have no faith in their people,
And their people become unfaithful to them.

When the best rulers achieve their purpose
Their subjects claim the achievement as their own.
--Lao Tzu

So, IMO people don't respond well to having their nose stuck into water and being told to drink. Dub-ya's approach is not that heavy handed but it leans slightly in that direction. Don't forget, for thousands of years our antecedents looked like barbarians before a chance congruence of events led to the miracle that happened in the late 18th century. Should we be surprised that other nations are making the same, slow progress toward their own awakening? And, can that process be hastened? It's a tough one to figure.

Nobodies yet mentioned the book by Niccolo Machiavelli, THE PRINCE.
now there's food for thought ! :cool:

[QUOTE=narwhal]
You know....fighting with a pit bull is okay, after a little while though, you begin to understand he likes fighting... :rolleyes:

...I must've skipped out and smoked a doob during indoctrination class the day they embossed the Merkin self-image. Silly me, in my ignorance, I thought soldiers were just supposed to defend the borders and territorial waters.

He's quite a bit at variance with Tzu. For example, he devotes an (excellent!) chapter to the question of whether it is better for a prince to be loved or feared. It is a compelling read.

Maybe the differences between these political theorists are at least partly cultural--that which works in one system might fail in another. And to some degree, both are locked in time.

Yeah....and he was Italian :rolleyes:

Italians are always at odds with everything adn every one.

Trust me I am an expert on Italians....My wife is from the old country and so is her entire family.


Argueing is part of their genetic code.

I worked in Italy for 3 years....Here's a classic....


Q. What's an innuendo?
A. An Italian suppository. :D :D :D :D

An Italian mother of 5 was asked about the Pope's position on birth control.

She said, "He no play'a da game....he no make'a da rules." :sun_smile

And (displaying my "monkey mind," Buddhist term for the mind that flits from one thought to another on the thinnest of connections...):

Olie vent to see a doctor vunn day. He said, "Doc, ya gotta help me, I got this hor'bull constipation....I just can't take a poop."

The doc examines him and says, "Well, I think it's nothing serious...here, I'm gonna give you these suppositories. I want you to put one of these in your rectum in the morning and one at night and come back and see me in one week."

Olie looks at the bottle quizically and says, "Vell....ho-kay."

He goes out and sees Sven. "Sven, ya gotta help me...what the hell is a vrectum?"

Sven says, "What d'ya wanna know for...lemme see that... Oh, hell, I know what this is, you just swallow these with a glass of water."

Olie looks at the bottle and says, "Vell....ho-kay."

He goes back to the doctor after a week and the doctor asks, "Olie! How'd those suppositories work for you?"

Olie says, "Aw doc, them pills you gave me didn't do a damn bit of good. Hell, for all the good they done me, I could'a just as well stuck 'em in my ass."

I read one story written by Machiavelli, don't think it was The Prince. It was about a guy who comes to city, espies the fairest damsel ever, and vows to bed her. Turns out, she's married to the Sultan or Amir, or something, and they're having trouble conceiving a child. Our hero manages to portray himself as just the guy who has the special medicine that can overcome the dear ladies infertility. :D

It's wild. I should find it and read it again.