When Government Has Too Much Money...

[AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP]

You get this kind of thing:

Orland Hills has a library board, but no library.

Norwood Park has a paid three-member board with the sole job of overseeing 40 streetlights.

And a southern Illinois tuberculosis board has amassed more than $200,000 yet it treats only one patient every two to three years, the Massac County Board chairman said

Governments like to shreik and cry like stuck pigs whenever cuts are proposed claiming they're already down to the bare bones, and when that doesn't work- they like to threaten the public with fewer fire fighters, fewer cops, and fewer teachers-- direct threats to our safety if we don't pay up.

But the reality is that government at all levels is repleat with waste-- nevermind the fraud-- like this. Let's face it, if we don't simply deny them the funds then government will keep coming up with creative ways to spend our money.

At some point, we need to re-assert that our money is OUR money and our government is our SERVANT, not our master.

articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-06-20/news/ct-met-your-tax-dollars-20110620_1_library-board-library-district-streetlights

[bubblyandblue]

From NakedCapitalism
"Money is a commodity, invented to help people by facilitating transactions. It is not wealth in itself. Wealth is natural resources, water, food, land, education, skill, spirit, ingenuity, art.
owning their homes at the same cost they would have had to pay in rent – the economic definition of equilibrium in property prices.
banks could have told to refrain from gambling on derivatives, from lending for currency and commodity speculation, and from making takeover loans and other predatory financial practices. Public ownership would have run the banks like savings banks or post office banks rather than gambling schemes fueling the international carry trade (computer-driven interest rate and currency arbitrage) that has no linkage to the production-and-consumption economy.
The government could have used its equity ownership and control of the banks to provide credit and credit card services as the “public option.” Credit is a form of infrastructure, and such public investment is what enabled the United States to undersell foreign economies in the 19th and 20th centuries despite its high wage levels and social spending programs. As Simon Patten, the first economics professor at the nation’s first business school (the Wharton School) explained, public infrastructure investment is a “fourth factor of production.” It takes its return not in the form of profits, but in the degree to which it lowers the economy’s cost of doing business and living. Public investment does not need to generate profits or pay high salaries, bonuses and stock options, or operate via offshore banking centers.
Credit is seen as necessary; but what of credit derivatives, the financial sector’s arcane “small print”? How intrinsic are financial gambles on collateralized debt obligations (CDOs, “weapons of mass financial destruction” in Warren Buffett’s terminology) – not retail banking or even business banking and insurance, but financial bets on the economy’s zigzagging measures. Without casino capitalism, could industrial capitalism survive? Or had the superstructure become rotten and best left to “free markets” to wipe out in mutually offsetting bankruptcy claims?"
Tax the crap out of speculation, derivitives etc. above and take it off off wealth creation (capital and labor)

[floridayankee]

Considering both feds and states are running massive deficits, I'd say that we have too much credit.

[cme1201]

Jun 22, 2011 13:21:40 GMT -5 floridayankee said:

Considering both feds and states are running massive deficits, I'd say that we have too much credit.

And are begging for a credit line increase

[AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP]

Jun 22, 2011 13:37:09 GMT -5 cme1201 said:

Jun 22, 2011 13:21:40 GMT -5 floridayankee said:

Considering both feds and states are running massive deficits, I'd say that we have too much credit.

And are begging for a credit line increase

Not merely begging, but making threats. They're trying extortion.

Imagine your credit cards are maxed out. You could live on the $100,000 a year you actually earn, but you insist on spending $142,000 a year. Now, imagine telling your creditors that unless you are offered a credit line increase you won't be able to afford the payments you're already making.

Does that math work?

Would that inspire your creditors to have more, or less confidence in you?

Nevermind the smoke and mirrors. Nevermind the crying and whining. Nevermind the threats. This is what the federal government has proposed, and this is the story the left would have us all believe.

You shouldn't buy it. Our creditors aren't going to buy it. And the more we show an unwillingness to control spending, the worse it's going to be. Temporary default now while we straighten out this mess is one thing; but the enevitable total default later is a whole different matter.

Fortunately we have a handful of adults in office now willing to apply the brakes.

[marshabar1]

Jun 22, 2011 14:02:26 GMT -5 AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP said:

Jun 22, 2011 13:37:09 GMT -5 cme1201 said:

And are begging for a credit line increase

Not merely begging, but making threats. They're trying extortion.

Imagine your credit cards are maxed out. You could live on the $100,000 a year you actually earn, but you insist on spending $142,000 a year. Now, imagine telling your creditors that unless you are offered a credit line increase you won't be able to afford the payments you're already making.

Does that math work?

Would that inspire your creditors to have more, or less confidence in you?

Nevermind the smoke and mirrors. Nevermind the crying and whining. Nevermind the threats. This is what the federal government has proposed, and this is the story the left would have us all believe.

You shouldn't buy it. Our creditors aren't going to buy it. And the more we show an unwillingness to control spending, the worse it's going to be. Temporary default now while we straighten out this mess is one thing; but the enevitable total default later is a whole different matter.

Fortunately we have a handful of adults in office now willing to apply the brakes.

Well Paul that's exactly the way world banking works and that's the way the bankers like it. Anything to keep interest payments coming. That is the only real money. Everything else is promises turned into stuff.

They hate it when a population will no longer walk out on the non-existent bridges to "prosperity" through credit.

But honestly I think they've bitten off more than they can chew this time. We'll pay the price of course, they never do.

[bubblyandblue]

We must tax the speculation and un-tax wealth creation. It all will catch-up sooner or later.

[fairlycrazy23]

Too much fun whats that mean
It's like too much money, theres no such thing
It's like a girl too pretty, with too much class
Being too lucky, a car too fast
No matter what they say I've done, well I ain't never had too much fun