DesideriScuri
Posts: 12225
Joined: 1/18/2012 Status: offline
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ORIGINAL: Zonie63 quote:
ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri quote:
ORIGINAL: Zonie63 quote:
ORIGINAL: vincentML quote:
I think the main reason our government gives away free money is for the purpose of political stability. It's easier and cheaper in the long run to just to give out money to the underclass rather than sit around and wait for them to riot and revolt. Zonie, can you document this 'bread and circuses' governance in America? Or is this something you pulled out of the air? Where do you draw the line between helping needy people and giving away "free money?" Or don't you favor helping the needy as a role of governance? It seems pretty logical to me. What other reason could there be? Are they doing it just because the ruling class is nice and cares about people? I doubt it. I favor the government helping the needy, but it's not something that people can necessarily count upon in the years to come. The government is broke, and they may not be able to do it even if they wanted to. I also think that it puts people in a position of dependence. Besides, when is the government going to give consideration to people who actually work? What people need are decent paying jobs, not handouts. It's better for human dignity that people be able to find decent work with good pay, not mickey mouse dead-end jobs that pay next to nothing. To that end, there needs to be an end to free trade agreements and outsourcing. Protecting American workers is a far more important role of governance which has been sorely neglected in recent decades. Likewise, the government needs to make sure that prices are under control, so that we don't have to spend as much on public assistance and food stamps. Same for the healthcare issue. Price controls are the way to go, so that less money is spent to provide the same services to the needy. There's more than one way to solve the problem and make sure that the needy are provided for, other than just giving out money. If we just bring rents and food prices under control, the government could spend far far less than what we're paying now. Price controls won't work. Cap the price, and you'll limit the quality and/or availability. Price controls will cause supply/demand Market failures. That's what was behind the 1970's Oil Crisis. That's what was behind the 1990's S&L Crisis. If price controls were that simple of an answer, why does Congress continue to pass "Doc Fix" Bills? Price controls worked just fine to get us out of the Great Depression, through World War II (as the world's leading industrial power), and led to two solid decades of unprecedented prosperity for America. The oil crisis was the result of an Arab oil embargo because we were supplying arms to their enemy at the time, Israel. Price controls had absolutely nothing to do with that. Yep, nothing at all. Unless...quote:
In October, 1973, the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries announced that its member states would immediately cut oil production by 5 percent and continue to do so each and every month until Israel withdrew from the West Bank, Gaza, and Jerusalem. Days later, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait announced even more dramatic production cuts, and most Petroleum Exporting members likewise declared that they would stop selling oil to the United States until America abandoned support for the state of Israel. Some people believe that the embargo was directly responsible for long gasoline lines and for service stations running dry. The shortages were, in fact, a byproduct of price controls imposed by President Nixon in August 1971, which prevented oil companies from passing on the full cost of imported crude oil to consumers at the pump (small oil companies, however, were exempted from the price control regime in 1973). In the face of increasing world oil prices, "Big Oil" did the only sensible thing: it cut back on imports and stopped selling oil to independent service stations to keep its own franchisees supplied. By May of 1973, five months before the embargo, 1,000 service stations had shut down for lack of fuel and many others had substantially curtailed operations. By June, companies in many parts of the country began limiting the amount of gasoline motorists could purchase per stop. In response, Congress passed the Emergency Petroleum Allocation Act about a month before the embargo, which made matters worse. The Act mandated that supply reductions had to be shared equally between independent and branded gasoline stations. It also put a small percentage of gasoline going to each state under the governors' control, which they could then allocate as they wished if shortages occurred. And occur they did, largely because of the withdrawal of supplies from the market necessary to put together the governors' set aside. Did the subsequent embargo stoke the crisis further? No - the embargo had no effect on imports. Once oil is in a tanker, no one can control where it goes. Oil that was exported to Europe during the embargo was simply resold to the United States or ended up displacing non-OPEC oil that was diverted to the U.S. market. Supply routes were shuffled but import volumes remained steady. Saudi oil minister Sheik Yamani conceded afterwards that the 1973 embargo "did not imply that we could reduce imports to the United States ... the world is really just one market. So the embargo was more symbolic than anything else." In his memoirs, then Secretary of State Henry Kissinger wrote that, looking back, "the structure of the oil market was so little understood that the embargo became the principle focus of concern. Lifting it turned almost into an obsession for the next five months. In fact, the Arab embargo was a symbolic gesture of limited practical importance." While the embargo was an illusion, the production cutbacks were real. Arab oil production between October and December was cut by 340 million barrels. But that cutback was less than the inventory buildup that had occurred earlier in the year. There was still plenty of oil to go around, but few were willing to sell it given the fear of future scarcity. Moreover, the Petroleum Exporting Countries' threat to gradually cut oil production to zero until Israel left the occupied territories lasted all of a month and a half. On Dec. 4, 1973, the Saudis cancelled their promised monthly 5 percent cutback and the rest of the Petroleum Exporting Countries followed. In January 1974, they ordered a 10 percent production increase. No more was heard of the threat.[2] [Bold and Italics mine] quote:
The S&L crisis was purely due to corruption and greed, and it couldn't be due to price controls anyway, because there weren't any price controls at that time. Unless you consider limiting the interest rates that are allowed to be offered by lending institutions. Since that is still a price cap, there were price controls. Read more Here.
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What I support: - A Conservative interpretation of the US Constitution
- Personal Responsibility
- Help for the truly needy
- Limited Government
- Consumption Tax (non-profit charities and food exempt)
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