John Edwards:
Today, the relief effort is focused on providing, food, shelter, and clothing to thousands of men and women. That’s the right thing to do.
But the victims of Katrina want more than life’s necessities. They want a chance to rebuild their lives. Many of them also want to help rebuild a city and a coastline that mean so much to them, and so much to all Americans.
We ought to give them the chance to help through a New America Initiative. This initiative, which is modeled after the Works Progress administration, would help them rebuild a devastated region and offer good-paying jobs and hope to the displaced. Join me and say no to President Bush’s failed leadership in a growing call to take this tragedy and turn it into an opportunity. It is not enough to talk about it; we will have to show this Administration that the real leadership means visionary action.
And in the aftermath of Hurrican Katrina, the official “Edwards for President 2008″ campaign has begun.
Here’s a guess: because that would have been the opposite of what he meant.
The rest of the context, please: “Many of them also want to help rebuild a city and a coastline that mean so much to them, and so much to all Americans.
We ought to give them the chance to help…”
Or we could just give the contract to certain favored corporations.
And the water hasn’t even been pumped out yet.
Impressive!
“We ought to give them”
Truly a characteristic Democratic statement. Except it could also be phrased as “we ought to seize MORE goods and services from our hard working tax payers to give to other citizens”. Wonder why the senator didn’t put it that way?
Dugger
“what if you just gave the workers back some of their money”
You mean like reducing taxes? There’s an idea.
Dugger, dugger, I know you can get this.
I guess I have to break it down into smaller units. I didn’t understand it all the first time I heard it, either.
Let’s say I own a factory. You work for me, you make a shovel and I turn around and sell for $10. I pay you $4 to make it. I have taken $6 from you.
How? Because your time, energy and skill created an object that was worth $10, and I gave you only $4 for it. You lost $6 in this exchange. Are you with me so far?
How about following the plan California put in place after the big quake in CA 15 years ago. Hugh projects got built in record time because of an innovative incentive based plan.
Sadie says “I’ll make it short.” 23 lines later….a fuzzy lecture relating to Keynes, Chinese fishing birds, and the depression but at least didn’t criticize my religion or ethnicity.
I’m not aware of who was arguing for unfettered capitalism but my point doesn’t change: the government doesn’t create anything. If they, Repulican, Democrat or Naderite, give somebody something, even a shovel to help rebuild a dam, they take that shovel at point of gun from another citizen. So part of theargument for the Government giving somebody something should address that moral calculus. Its easy, very easy, for Edwards and Democrats to promis to give people stuff. But is it right ? Moral?
Quaker, C’mon. Do you think Edwards SOMEHOW meant all they wanted was verbal permission to go out and work. No goods and services required from the “government”? Perhaps you meant (Edwards is saying) they didn’t want another cash card, but rather machinery and tools etc. to rebuild their city. Still requires goods and services to be seized from citizens. If all they want is a verbal go ahead. Fine. Here it is . Go!
And my point would be not that something shouldn’t be done but that what is done must be viewed in context of what is being seized from others. And to have a politician act like that the big deal is just to promise to “give” seems to ignore that : give to one = seize from another.
Dugger
Well, hedley I’m glad you’re trying but that’s not quite it. The problem here is the way that capitalism redistributes wealth from the workers to the owners in the first place. Taxes are the means of addressing this imbalance. So reducing taxes takes us in the wrong direction.
But of course, it matters what kind of taxes we are talking about in the first place. In our current system, we tax both wealth and work but the scale is tipping more and more towards taxing work only. If you are arguing for decreasing taxes on work, then I agree with you. But that means we would have to increase taxes on wealth to make up the difference.
Dugger — we never got to finish our economics lesson! Is now a good time?
I’ll make it short. It has been observed by anthropologists many times that in a subsistence economy people don’t work any harder than they have to. They work hard enough to get enough food to last them through the year, and then they stop. They feast, they party. They do it again next year.
So how do advanced societies manage to get enough stuff together to advance? To build cities, houses? That’s the miracle of surplus value. It comes from people working harder than what it takes just to get by.
Where does surplus value come from? Adam Smith was the first one to figure this one out. The magic of capitalism comes from the fact that someone is taking value away from those who create it, in order to keep them producing more. Ever seen how the Chinese use ducks for catching fish? The ducks have a ring on their necks that prevent them from eating the fish they catch, their master gives them only a small piece of fish to eat, to keep them hungry, to keep them working. That’s exactly how capitalism works.
But the problem is, as capitalists take more and more from the workers the system breaks down. Smith knew this was a problem but he couldn’t see any solution, because the only means of redistribution they had in his day was peasant revolt, which didn’t work out very well for anyone. So he was stumped but he was man enough to admit it.
Fast forward to the Great Depression. Judgement Day for laissez-faire capitalism. John Maynard Keynes was an economist who knew the history of his discipline. He got the idea that, instead of waiting for a full-scale peasant revolt, what if you just gave the workers back some of their money, in a controlled way? Kind of like adding a feedback loop to the system, to keep the engine running. FDR was willing to give it a try and the New Deal was born.
Edward’s idea is right on, but what good does a petition to Bush do? He needs to get his fellow senators to pass this as a bill.
Bush has already taken a pass on this notion, by suspending the minimum wage in the disaster area. He has no interest in anyone coming out of this whole, and just wants his cronies to benefit, just like the CPA in Iraq, another raid on the US Treasury.
I want every penny of the $60 Billion or so spent on helping the needy get back whole. But it clearly won’t happen.
You and Mr. Edwards seem to be starting the discussion from different points.
The federal government will play a role in the reconstruction of New Orleans. It might be an interesting theoretical exercise to debate whether that’s the best course, but it’s going to happen.
With that given, why wouldn’t it be a good idea to employ the unemployed of the destroyed city to have a hand in its reconstruction?
Yes, yes — you agreed! See you are getting it whether you want to or not.
Now let’s look at the nature of that agreement. What kind of person are you that you are willing to work for $4? You’re not a millionare trust fund baby, I’m thinking. You are working because you need the money to support yourself and your family.
Now, if you had a little workshop in your backyard, chances are you would just make your own shovels and sell them at the flea market for $10 and keep the whole thing, right?
Sadie, not with you one iota. Your logic is faulty. . I agreed to work for you and to get paid $4 for making a shovel. If you sell the shovel, you make money. I get paid either way. If you don’t, you lose money because you had to pay me and for the shovel material. You never took $6 from me. I never had it. If I didn’t think $4 was worth my labor I wouldn’t have done it. Give it up. You really are arguing 19th century crap.
Dugger
Sounds like a great initiative to me. I would much prefer that our resources are spent rebuilding these peoples lives rather than putting up casinos and strip malls where their homes once stood.
I know its a great business opportunity and all…now that all the poor folk have been cleared out.
Dugger;
In case you haven’t noticed the american labor force is being taken back to the 19th century. You see, the government does create something; when it works the way ours is supposed to. It creates protection for the powerless from the powerful. It can be the great equalizer.
“the government doesn t create anything …”
certainly not adequate levees, at least not the government under Bush.
frameone says,
the government doesn t create anything &
“certainly not adequate levees, at least not the government under Bush. ”
… or Clinton, or Bush 41, or Reagan, or Carter, or Ford, or Nixon, or LBJ, who was president when Hurricane Betsy first showed how much of a threat a large storm would be to the New Orleans region. I could also list all of the Louisiana governors back to 1965, and all the mayors of New Orleans.
(sigh)
But since we’re talking about John Edwards’ proposal, here are a few more observations.
Dugger has already pointed out the plan’s obvious weakness - it is probably a giant wealth redistribution scheme, and if it’s like other government “jobs programs,” it will do a poor job of providing real permanent, self-sustaining economic growth. Once the government-funded construction ends, where will the jobs go? Or maybe Edwards is thinking of making New Orleans into a giant, trillion-dollar version of the Winchester Mansion?
The heart of the Edwards proposal seems to be providing work for displaced and unemployed residents. Unfortunately, in today’s world ‘unemployed’ and ‘ready to work’ have vastly different meanings. Since we are talking about construction jobs here, I’ll ask some important questions. What percentage of New Orleans’ inner-city poor can operate a dump truck? A bulldozer? A crane? How many have commercial drivers licenses? How many are skilled electricians? Plumbers? Carpenters? Brick masons? Painters? How many have completed even basic occupational safety and HAZMAT training?
WPA worked in 1935 because there was no EPA, no OSHA, no state and city environmental and safety regulations, few state licenses, and far less necessity for skilled or certified workers. In 2005, that isn’t the case. There will probably be a lot of unskilled labor needed for demolition and cleanup, but even those jobs will require HAZMAT training, since flood water is the equivalent of raw sewage. And there will probably be plenty of work for unskilled labor during construction, such as landscaping and roofing. But really — are those “permanent,” career and esteem-building jobs? Or will we just be paying one man to dig a hole and then paying another man to fill it in, as the critics of Roosevelt’s WPA charged.
Unless someone wants to answer those questions honestly and work a lot of money and time for skilled workforce training into this jobs proposal, it’s going to be just another billion-dollar government boondoggle, full of good intentions and promises, full of the right things to get politicians re-elected, but delivering little in actual results, and rife with bureaucratic wastefulness and incompetency.
Ted,
The good of the initiative is that it reframes the national conversation on reconstruction and on poverty generally. For decades right wingers have whined about “seizure” and “confiscation” of money from “hard-working” people and transferring it to the “undeserving” poor. The poor were never “undeserving”. But now it as obvious as it was during the Great Depression that the Gulf Coast poor are not “undeserving”. In fact, they worked hard in the entertainment industries that brought wealthy Americans to the region. Who do you think worked as janitors in the New Orleans Hyatt or the Biloxi casinos, or busboys in the French Quarter? And now they have nothing. No job. No skills outside the service sector of the Gulf Coast. Little education. No homes. No cars. And in many cases, lost friends and families. John Edwards is absolutely correct here. It is time to redistribute the nation’s resources toward those who have become impoverished through no fault of their own.
Mike, are you just another one of these “guvmint cant do nuthin” types or do you actually have something to contribute? Because I’m trying to work here.
Bush issued an Executive order exempting all contracts for rebuilding from Katrina from the Prevailing Wage Act. Sick, sick, sick. Edwards’ New America Initiative would surely not be in the Bush spirit of effing over laborers. Bush does evil things.
Quaker, AS you restate it, not so bad.
Semant, “It creates protection for the powerless from the powerful.”Sorry the government is not ‘creating’ protection. At the point of a gun it is forcing citizens to force other citizens to comply with certain rules. It brings this about legally by taking the earnings of citizens and using those earnings to pay other citizens to do what the government wants. It is a tool - not a creator. I’m not saying that is all bad; in fact it is necessary, but it doesn’t change the basic equation. The government seizes and transfers wealth. It doesn’t create it. Things are messed up if we constantly praise politicans for promising to seize more earnings.
Dugger “The state is the great fictitious entity by which everyone seeks to live at the expense of everyone else.”
Frederic Bastiat
Sadie,
Government can do many things, but creating artificial economies isn’t one of them.
Elrod,
You’ve just illustrated New Orleans’ most serious problem, which is that a tourism economy isn’t a strong economy at all, and the best that it can do for the vast majority of people is provide minimum-wage jobs like being a “janitor” or “busboy.” Las Vegas has the same problems as New Orleans; the only difference is that Vegas won’t flood.
Which poses another serious question - are the residents of New Orleans better off going back home, living in tent cities until the government builds back tens of thousands of units of government-subsidized housing, then moving back into subsidized housing and mostly living below the poverty line by subsisting on government benefits and “janitor” and “busboy” jobs…
Or are they better off taking advantage of an opportunity to start over again in areas all over the country without such a concentration of poverty, and where they might have a real chance at making it?
You want to talk about “compassion?” All over the country, right now, without an act of Congress, with no Federal government money, there are tens of thousands of people helping New Orleans refugees find new lives in new communities.
That’s a far more realistic and beneficial way of helping New Orleans refugees escape poverty and build better lives for themselves, rather than another boondoggle government “jobs program.”
And there will be no shortage of private assistance to help these people become a part of their new communities - apartments, clothing, furnishings, schools, jobs, etc. - as long as they need it.
It’s going to be hard for the New Orleans folks. Losing their community will be a difficult and painful step, and they’ll need a lot of support and love. Some of them won’t make it. But in the end, for most, it will be worth it. And they’ll be a heck of a lot better off financially and emotionally than they were back in the projects in the New Orleans.
Okay Mike, fine, but no one’s talking about artificial economies. I’m talking about real ones, how real ones really work.
You know how you free-market types are always pissing and moaning about how no one ever gives pure capitalism a chance? How it’s the best of all possible economic systems, and if the government would just get off people’s backs, etc etc? Have you ever wondered why there is no economy in the world based on pure, laissez-faire capitalism?
Because it doesn’t work. It breaks down every time. Always has, always will. The only way capitalism can work as an economic system is when it is coupled with socialism, to redistibute wealth back to those who create it in the first place and keep the machine running.
Mike, as usual, is not making sense.
Pretending NOLA’s economy is all about tourism–with the attendent low-pay, limited career jobs tourist economies—is simply false. Yes, NOLA had a thriving tourism business but what Mike omits is that NOLA is one of this nation’s largest ports bringing jobs in shipping, logistics, transportation mgt., etc. Along the same lines, NOLA is also home to a few shipyards and ship repair facilities.
Of course, NOLA is also a pretty big player in the petro-chemical business. And it has a share of the country’s small to medium manufacturing base.
In reality, affected areas like MS were more hurt by the loss of their tourism (casino) business.
Dugger;
There are two ways to make more money; Money at work(investment0 and people at work(labor force) Labor is the necessary ingredient for investment to grow. This symbiotic relationship has always been ‘good news/bad news’
for both the ownership and labor class. The ownership class is obligated by way of self-interest to maximize profit and minimize expense. It is neither evil or benevolent. It is amoral. If it is necessary to create hardship for the labor class, sobeit. The labor class learns it’s own self-interest lesson from management/ownership. They seek to work less and be paid more. They recognize that the energy they spend to create wealth for their employer is the captial for industrial growth.
The governments role in all of this is to referee the playing field and keep the game fair. In turn, the worker, who has medical care, vacation and sick days, and a living wage that will open doors of opportunity for his children remains healthy and more productive for the employer.
The government facilitated the growth of industry in this country with the enactment of labor laws that kept business healthier than it would otherwise have been left to it’s own counter-productive labor practices.
Government created wealth that was shared (redistributed?)
You know what always amazes me about people like Dugger. Whenever they talk about Democrats “raping the taxpayer,” they fail to mention that this Congress, and the one before it, controlled by the GOP, has spent far more in pork barrell than those that preceded it, and now we’ve got about 300B in annual deficits. Can it, Dugger. Just can it.
Conservatives had America fooled for a long time, that they were the party of fiscal responsibility.
We’re still digging out of Reagan’s debt legacy, and we may never dig out of it. Bush I left office in Recession and 8% unemployement. And with Bush II, we’re back to high deficits and SOARING gas prices.
There was an 8 year period in between, where Americans saw returns to surpluses, economic growth, and prosperity. It just happened, by SHEER coincidence, that we had a Democrat in the WH with real leadership ability during those years. Yes. Just coincidence.
Can it.
JK
Somehow I don’t believe Dugger will have grandchildren.
Raising a family requires taking responsibility for someone else’s well-being, sacrificing your own well-being as needed. This is a direct violation of the “me, me, mine, and why should I have to?” doctrine of the True Libertarian.
Whenever they talk about Democrats raping the taxpayer, they fail to mention that this Congress, and the one before it, controlled by the GOP, has spent far more in pork barrell than those that preceded it, and now we ve got about 300B in annual deficits. Can it, Dugger.
JK is, of course, absolutely correct. When I hear about “fiscal conservatives”–it’s laughable. The GOP has campaigned on the idea of smaller Govt since Goldwater–yet each and every time they’ve had power, they’ve dranmatically increased the size of Govt as well as the federal budget.
If folks like Dugger wish to complain about Dems “raping the taxpayer”–it’s only fair to point out that folks like Dugger are raping their grandchildren. After all, that’s who will be paying the check for Dugger’s unwillingness to pay his own way.
SadieB : That is a truly mean and disgusting thing to say about somebody that you do not even know. But, not the least bit surprising, coming from you.
“not the least bit surprising coming from you”
So now you are the expert on me? That’s a good one.
JD, you hypocrite.
I am no expert on you, nor do I care to be. However, from the tenor of your preening from the moral high ground on a variety of issues, it does not surprise me in the least that you are willing to denigrate another individual in such a way.
Mouse : You are right. I am a hypocrite. I suppose you must resort to name calling when you are incapable of addressing the substance of an argument. Silly me. We all know that only liberals are capable of loving and raising a family.
SadieB: Please tell me that you don’t men conservatives can’t, shouldn’t, or won’t have children.
Please don’t persuade me that you have lost the little mind you have.
Well, JD if it was too harsh, I apologize. I probably could have made my point without personalizing it. Sorry Dugger.
My point was that Libertarians don’t care about people who are here, now. It is probably too much of a stretch to ask them to care about people who don’t exist yet.
And Frank, no I’m not saying conservatives shouldn’t have children. Actually, I think if a conservative is ever going to grow into full humanity, children are one of the few things that might make that happen.
But it’s a risk. Luckily I never married one but I do have friends that did. From what I have seen, conservatives make poor husbands but they can become good fathers if you divorce them soon enough. For some reason, it takes a divorce before they realize they love their children and want to spend time with them. What was “babysitting” before divorce becomes “visitation” afterwards, and all of a sudden they can’t get enough of it.
Conservative men could spare themselves and their families a lot of heartache if they could see this ahead of time.
Frank;
I am saying good conservatives should raise orphans intead of having their own children. That would be true christian conservative compassion in two ways.
1) They would (by adopting some child whose mother was forced to give birth and doesn’t want the child) increase the ‘compassion cache’ with people like me. And they would provide a meaningful context to the values they espouse.
2) At the same time they cease contaminating the human gene pool .
Sadie,
Stick your apology. Your venom will start to taste bad even to you after a while. Been here a lot longer than you, will be here after you have moved on.
JK,
Great points - would be even more effective if they represented what I said. “raping the taxpayer” is a phrase you intitiated, not me. I make the argument that the governments, not just Democratic government, do not create anything, they seize it from citizens. Now if you had paid attention, you would have seen that I have said that government is necessary and that enforcement power is necessary, but that give away programs such as discussed by Edwards need to be viewed in the context that what he is promising is actually ’stuff’ he is seizing from other citizens.
D*mned easy, isn’t it, for Edwards to promise (mostly) his constituents to seize stuff from (mostly) his non-constituents and give it to them? Is that the visionary leadership being prasied here?
Semant,
Your class distinction bear no resemblance to life as I have seen it. It seems grounded in an older era when manufacturing dominated employment. For the most part the so-called laboring class today are in non-manufacturing jobs and OWN their own houses, OWN at least one car, and usually much more. They are also owners - just not owners of businesses. Nevertheless, in your example, with which mostly I agree, the government acts as a referee to permit a more equitable private market place between (to use your world view) labor and business. Still it is not government creating, but facilitating the creation. And still, when the government “gives” something, it came from somebody else.
Dugger
Oops I should have got all this in there before, but I wanted to point out that “I’ve been here longer than you” is a pretty lame attack.
I’ve actually been reading this column for a few months and only started commenting recently because my other Troll Holes dried up. I hate it when that happens. So I checked in here and saw the trolls were plentiful, big and slow. It’s perfect, I like it very much.
You won’t let me down by punking out, will you?
Dugger;
It seems semantics (as always) is in play;
‘Seizing’ by the government could be interpretated thrugh it’s tax incentives for charitable giving. Public relations requires corporations to be sensitve to the opinions of it’s customer base. How is it voluntary for companies who make contributions to tax-exempt organizations, when it is primarily dictated from a position of self-interest . How is that an independent decision?
‘Created’ wealth means….? How do corporations create wealth? Don’t they also ‘facilitate’ rather than create wealth? If you are going to argue that the government (by making the labor playing field a little more fair) does not create wealth when it makes workers more productive, then you must also conclude that a start-up small business with a ‘niche’ soda pop flavor is not creating wealth either. It is merely ‘facilitating’ the transfer of wealth from Coca-Cola to ‘Barney’s Root Beer”.
Venom?
If you cannot defend your philosophy, it’s your problem not mine. I have no personal animosity towards you. I got a little annoyed with you because you won’t talk about reality, you prefer to lecture us all on the fevered dreams of Milton Friedman. I took a cheap shot and apologized for it. There is no venom here.
My advice is, if you can’t defend your worldview against all comers, it might be time to change it.
Leo: Spoken in true Margaret Sanger (i.e., racial purity) fashion.
As if conservatism were genetic, you moron.
Margaret Sanger ….. snort.
When all else fails, flail wildly, eh Frank?
At the same time they cease contaminating the human gene pool .
Proving my point handily.
yes, but, Margaret Sanger?
frank;
….and your substantive, documented point you assume has been proven?
Sadie;
Would be proud to share the crown !
What part of “from what I have seen” did you miss? I am arguing from my own personal experience, of which I am the expert, not you. I think you already admitted as much.
From what I have seen (there, I’ll say it again because apparently you didn’t read it the first time), conservatives do not make good husbands. Theories abound, but my own personal one is that the problem stems from their hierarchical world-view.
It has been observed on many occasions, by people much smarter than me, that one of the key differences between conservatives and liberals is that conservatives believe society is best organized in hierarchies while liberals prefer egalitarian models. It is my personal theory that hierarchical model is not conducive to happy family life, which is why we see such otherwise counter-intuituve results as the fact that the “red states” have higher than average divorce rates.
Semanticleo, so sorry you came in second to me! Don’t feel bad it’s just the “new kid” effect. They’ll get tired of me as soon as a fresh face comes along. Mwahh! (big kiss a la Miss America kissing her runner up)
“Actually, I think if a conservative is ever going to grow into full humanity, children are one of the few things that might make that happen.
But it s a risk. Luckily I never married one but I do have friends that did. From what I have seen, conservatives make poor husbands but they can become good fathers if you divorce them soon enough”
You are a sad, sad person if you have come to view people that do not share your political views in such a manner.
Semanticleo comes in a close second to you.
Really, really, and I mean this. You should have won. You were so much better than me.
Sadie,
I could drink half a bottle of Talisker 10 yr. old and still ‘defend myself’ against your polemics. Otherwise all is forgotten.
Dugger
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