StrangeSox

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 11, 2011 -> 11:56 AM) Not new investment. Again you are comparing programs that are already in place, to things that don't exist, or are made up. You are all over the place here. It's new investment every year they approve the subsidies. Why is continuing status-quo subsidies for a fuel controlled by monopolistic forces and shaky dictatorships ok, but shifting subsidies or creating new subsidies for alternatives are such terrible ideas?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 11, 2011 -> 11:54 AM) This simply isn't true, no matter how many times you say it and close your eyes. All subsidies are passed on directly to the consumer through price breaks? Help me understand. To me it simply looks like an insane argument.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 11, 2011 -> 11:53 AM) I believe it is more efficient for sure. Not only are people getting the subsides on demand, instead of being weekly, month, or even annually as a tax return, but they are also getting it without paying billions for the same service. Where's your source for food stamps and energy assistance administrative costs being in the billions? How much of those subsidies are pocketed by executives as bonuses and shareholders as dividends? What do those costs, which simply redistribute wealth from all Americans to the already wealthy, amount to?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 11, 2011 -> 11:50 AM) No I haven't. I have eschewed GOVERNMENT investment in alternatives. I have always argued private investment. But you are a strong proponent of GOVERNMENT investment in fossil fuels. Either way, I want to be clear: you think the poor would be better served by eliminating funding for food stamps and energy assistance and instead giving those funds to multi-billion dollar corporations?

You've also eschewed significant investment in alternatives as pipe dreams, even though you're now arguing that we're completely at the whim of monopolistic suppliers of a limited energy source. Hmm.

What's the efficiency of these subsidies of actually reducing prices versus driving profits higher, by the way?

You honestly believe that giving money to the wealthy is the best means of helping the poor?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 11, 2011 -> 11:16 AM) So tell me in detail how that program is enabled to distribute funds to the 120 to 180 million people you are talking about, with a massive increase in size of our biggest business in the country? Go. What are you missing about "use an existing program like energy assistance?" Also like the question-begging of "massive increase." QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 11, 2011 -> 11:18 AM) There is a staffed governmental agency that does it already, complete with billions of dollars in budgets to do it. To change things you pretty much have to create a whole other group to do this. But it's a question of efficiency, right? If corporate tax subsidies that let corporations drop prices while maintaining or increasing profit margins is more efficient than government programs directly subsidizing the cost of necessities for the poor, shouldn't you be driving to replace food stamps with corporate tax cuts as well? What's the efficiency of giving corporations tax breaks? What percentage is simply kept as additional profits versus actually lowering the price? How is this more efficient than direct subsidization? If demand is so inelastic, why aren't they simply charging the higher no-subsidies price now if demand will support it? Why does the threat of shrinking profits suddenly make it possible for the market to support higher prices?

Why must oil companies receive subsidies to make fuel affordable for the poor but we can give the poor money directly for food?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 11, 2011 -> 11:13 AM) Good lord. You have no interest in getting past your religions talking points here. We'll pick one, energy assistance, which is already being cut. Which will help the poor more, cutting oil subsidies to maintain or increase energy assistance, or cutting energy assistance to maintain or increase corporate profits? Go.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 11, 2011 -> 11:07 AM) All the snark tells me is that you have no idea what I am saying here. Like I said earlier, I feel like you felt the other day with evolution and the like. You are advocating that we must give the wealthy money to sustain profit margins for wealthy shareholders. Otherwise, they'll magically raise prices without consequence to demand to maintain margins which will affect the poor indirectly but potentially substantially and impact the middle class and wealthy directly. For some reason, this redistribution of wealth to a small handful of people so that it may trickle down is the preferred solution to simply directly subsidizing fuel costs.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 11, 2011 -> 11:05 AM) So tell me how exactly you are going give 60 to 90 million people to give that $100 a month, or whatever it works out to? How we already do, the Energy Assistance program? Or something similar to EBT/food stamps? Or should we also give billionaire agribusiness tycoons billions in subsidies so that the poor can eat? Increase the EIT? Any of those options are better than "give the incredibly wealthy even more money and eat the crumbs that fall to their feet"

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Mar 11, 2011 -> 10:59 AM) Fixed.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Mar 11, 2011 -> 10:54 AM) I do recall Cknoll's anger with that title prior to 2008. It's all he would talk about. Thank goodness he's consistent. Eh, it's just a lame joke, about as lame as laughing at tea party people with "communist czar" signs. Harmless and completely partisan.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Mar 11, 2011 -> 10:52 AM) I mean what was the point of that line? That Obama's administration, like Republican ones in the past, use the word czar? Oh my goodness!?!?!? I think Obama has had quite a large number of "czar" administrative positions, more than previous admin's.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Mar 11, 2011 -> 10:50 AM) Can you pull out a more lame one liner? Probably not. We need more Communist Russia Czars!

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Mar 11, 2011 -> 10:47 AM) I repeat, what I predicted, would happen, almost to a T. so is it assumption 1 or assumption 2?

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Mar 11, 2011 -> 10:40 AM) ...and you've jumped the shark. Gratz, Fonzie. ?que? edit: I was poking fun at jenks ignoring all of the examples of the GOP gutting science funding or introducing anti-science bills.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Mar 11, 2011 -> 10:38 AM) Do you want to know the sad truth of this? If we fixed everything...I mean everything, every single complaint you could possibly have about wealth...I'm talking COMPLETE social justice here, and took all the money in the US, and divided it equally to every citizen... Within 10 short years, 95% of the people that are broke now...would be broke again... And 95% of the people that are ultra rich now...would be ultra rich again. The other 5% would be the few individuals in-between that actually make something of their opportunity. Now, you can dismiss what I'm saying all you want...but it'd happen. It's as sure as death and taxes. This assumes that people are wealthy or poor due mainly to merit and ability. That's a pretty s*** assumption. Or maybe the assumption is that the ultra-rich are unscrupulous, immoral bastards who will backstab their way right back to the top, convincing everyone below to fight each other while they laugh once again? Also, I want to be very clear here: I'd never advocate for simply redistributing wealth equally per capita. I don't eschew private enterprise. I'm not a communist here, even if I've hyperbolically approached that line lately with some of the rhetoric.

This is eerily similar to "something called 'volcano monitoring'"--->"alaskan volcano erupts" But hey, cutting NOAA, NSF, NIH and introducing creationist anti-evolution bills on a yearly basis isn't anti-science or anti-intellectual! It's Pro-Skepticism!

If we were to eliminate food stamps and instead gave those dollars to ADM and such, would the poor have more or less food? Would the wealthy have more or less money? What would happen to ADM's stock upon that announcement? Would it go up, down or stay the same?

In this thread, we learn that the solution to poverty is to give the wealthy more money. Sorry for the snark, but this is what you're arguing here. We must continue to give tax breaks to the wealthy so that they can sustain their record profits. If we don't, they'll simply raise prices because demand is inelastic (so why not raise prices now?!). This will hurt the poor not through direct fuel prices since they don't have cars but indirect price increases of goods which they can barely afford now. It's unconscionable to think of simply subsidizing the poor and doing something to fix the wealth gap.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 11, 2011 -> 10:19 AM) When your income is small, it doesn't take much of a change to put you out on the street. You understand that right? Don't let the propaganda of total dollars make you lose sight of what even something like $100 a month would mean to a family making less than $20k a year. I don't. I also think part of the problem is that there are so many families making low wages, and I don't think the answer is to continue to widen the wealth chasm that's grown in this country over the last several decades by shoveling more money at the wealthy in hopes that they'll drop some change we can pick up off the ground. $100 is going to hurt that family? Give them $100. Don't give the billionaire $1,000,000 and hope enough trickles down to the poor family.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 11, 2011 -> 10:17 AM) At the end of the day keep energy prices down benefits the poor. Creating a whole new governmental agency, and paying all of those extra billions of dollars, to do what is already being done, it just stupid in my opinion. Why shift the money from billions dollar corporations to trillions dollar government who would waste a significant chunk of the money anyway? That isn't a compelling argument to me. Spending more to achieve the exact same thing is just a waste. You have found all of the high end stuff, but have done zero actual research into what the effect of five dollar gas would have on a family of four in poverty. There is nothing you pulled up that showed what doubling the price of electricity would do for a middle class family. Well, we're back to shoveling money at the wealthy being the best solution to helping the poor. And we're relying on the rather dubious assumption that directly subsidizing the poor would somehow be more expensive than subsidizing the wealthy so that fuel costs are driven down, which again primarily helps the wealthy but also helps the poor. I've found the high end stuff laying out that oil subsidies benefit the wealthy by a large margin. I've found that if we really care about helping the poor, we'd cut oil subsidies instead of cutting energy assistance aid to the poor. Which of these is more beneficial to the poor? the wealthy? oil subsidies or energy assistance?

I find it odd that Republicans use "help the poor!" mantra to protect multinational corporate subsidies but also turn around and gut programs that are actually designed specifically to help the poor.