Re: OT you wont believe this


"JerseyRudy" <a44f915@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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On May 13 2009 9:05 PM, Robert Ladd wrote:

"BillB" <bogus@xxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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"Robert Ladd" <rladd5@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
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It's $2.6 million!!!! Studying prostitutes drinking habits......IN
CHINA. Are you really that thick, Bill? And you seem not to grasp the
point that it is precisely because government spending is so out of
control that $2.6 million is only .000001% (I'm too lazy to calculate
this number out, so I'll assume you've got this number calculated
correctly).

It was just a very rough ballpark estimate. It's actually high. And no,
government spending is not "out of control", nor do expenditures on
scientific research like this contribute in any significant way to your
perception of same.


Of course it's out of control. A President that is using our money and
the
money of future generations to bail out businesses that should be allowed
to
fail is "out of control". And whether you want to admit it or not, money
spent on "scientific research" of this sort, on top of many other useless
programs is also "out of control".

The problem is, I would be very willing to let you reap the supposed
benefits of the "out of control" spending if I didn't also have to foot
any
of the bill. But alas, I have no choice to opt-out. This is not a
partisan
thing. Republicans, Democrats, politicians of all persuasions, and
bureaucrats when they get the taste of power, which is so willingly
handed
over by the intellectually lazy that don't want to be bothered by the
spending of a mere pitance of $2.6 million, gladly accept that power and
continue to find other ways to expand it.



Have you no shame in trying to justify this type of expenditure by
deflecting it as a "right-wing game" and characterizing as "false
impressions"? Just because it is pointed out and used as a rallying
point by Limbaugh, Beck and their ilk doesn't automatically give it
justification. If it's ridiculous, then it's RIDICULOUS, even if it's
pointed out by Homer Simpson.

It is not ridiculous. It just *sounds* ridiculous to the terminally
ignorant. That's why it was singled out as a "story" on a right-wing
news
outlet. They know their audience.

Of course it's ridiculous. In a socialist dreamer's mind it is better
for
society to let the government redistribute the wealth from people that
produce goods and services to people that come up with hair-brained ideas
like studying the drinking habits of Chinese prostitutes.

First of all, this was a grant from the NIH. The NIH gets a certain amount
of money every year to distribute grants. The decision on how to
distribute the money is made by scientists and doctors from the NIH, not
politicians. If this particular project would not have gotten this money,
the money would have gone to another health-related project. You are
making it sound as if they took money from you specifically to pay for
this project.


By giving the NIH the power to distribute the grants, politicians and
bureaucrats create their powerbase, which also gives them a layer of
protection, such as in the case of this specific expenditure. "Uh, I didn't
authorize that kind of spending".

You and Bill still can't see the point I'm trying to make. These programs
should not be things that my tax money should be spent on. It's a basic
philosophical difference in our views of what government should be doing.
It won't be answered here, by you or me or anyone else. I believe that
government is much too large and continues to push into areas that they have
no reason to go into. I believe that we as individuals need to take
responsibility for ourselves and our actions. You on the other hand believe
that government should act as "parents" and take care of their "children".

More and more, people are coming to your side. People are taking the easy
way out. Let our "protectors", our "parents", our "decision makers" decide
what is right for us. We don't want to make those decisions ourselves. We
would have to turn off American Idol, Survivor, Dancing with the Stars, the
Super Bowl and actually stop and think. That's not the direction most
people want. We're screwed.



Second of all, the grant was made in November 2008. If you actually think
that this was some kind of creature of a "Socialist dreamer," then the
"Socialist" went by the name of George W. Bush. He was the President when
this grant was approved.

Those who truly think that George W. Bush was a "Socialist" probably need
to reevaluate their use of the word. If he was a "Socialist" then that
means that there are only a handful of people on the far-right of our
political spectrum who are not "Socialists." If the choice is between
being a "Socialist" or being a right-wing extremist, then all you are
doing is making "Socialist" the winning choice.


You obviously didn't catch the part where I said: "This is not a partisan
thing. Republicans, Democrats, politicians of all persuasions, and
bureaucrats when they get the taste of power, which is so willingly handed
over by the intellectually lazy that don't want to be bothered by the
spending of a mere pittance of $2.6 million, gladly accept that power and
continue to find other ways to expand it".

If a politician or bureaucrat has the opportunity to have the people give
them their money and their authorization to spend the money and tell the
people how to live their lives, the politicians will gladly accept that
authority. Bush used 9/11 to grab that power. He used Katrina, rather
poorly, to grab more power. He used the credit market meltdown for more
power grabs. Obama is expanding on the meltdown to continue pushing his
social agenda and power grab. Where in the hell in all of business history,
other than in some 3rd world dictatorial regime could a leader of a country
tell a company that their President has to step down?

It's ridiculous that government has pushed itself into the power of telling
companies whom they should hire and how they should conduct their business.
Those decisions should be made by the owners of the companies and/or the
customers in the marketplace. And government should not be in the business
of business. The concept of "too large to fail" is a myth. It allows
business entities to ignore moral hazard. "We can take risk with impunity
and possibly make many times as much money because if we have miscalculated
and do fail, the government will step in and help keep us afloat. We're
'too large to fail'."

Before pumping billions of dollars into GM and Chrysler I was screaming to
let them fail. Just because THEY fail doesn't mean that there won't be
someone to come in and pick up the pieces and make it work. But of course,
that would probably only happen if it is a viable business opportunity. And
if it isn't viable then our pumping billions upon billions into it won't
make it work. Why should we, the taxpayers, keep a failed industry on
economic life support when it is brain dead?

Robert Ladd





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