"I'm GGG and I approve this message."

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
I don't recall saying that we shouldn't build them. We should have the ability to put planes in the air, and when we do, I want them to have stealth technology. I just thought it was interesting that I could, with the back of an envelope, figure out how much I had paid for a particular federal asset -- in my family's case, $17. Which is about as much as an individual federal asset can possibly cost a family of four, short of losing a Nimitz-class carrier in the Bermuda triangle.

Those two pilots have a story they can live off for a while.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
By that math, all those same people forked over $0.44 in 2007 to the Palestinian terrorists and Gaza.

Personally, I'll refrain from a Venti Cafe Latte if they want another plane.

You candy ass. Try the 5 shot Venti Americano. Makes you sweat, like a workout in a cup.

Just make sure you're near a men's room. Never enjoy one of those little bombs before a long drive.

Unless it's in very desolate country.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
You candy ass. Try the 5 shot Venti Americano. Makes you sweat, like a workout in a cup.

Just make sure you're near a men's room. Never enjoy one of those little bombs before a long drive.

Unless it's in very desolate country.

soy?

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
In case you suddenly felt $4.25 disappear from your wallet, and that of your spouse, and each of your kids, and each and every resident of the United States of America, here's why.

Man. No matter why it happened, that does not look good on your next Officer Efficiency Report.

""Lt. Col. Smith is an outstanding pilot, and an exhaustive 6 month investigation proved that he was not at fault when he crahsed his Stealth bomber. . . . "

S_A_M

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
soy?

No, just espresso and water. But I had a lovely almond vanilla soy shake on my way back from the gym earlier.

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
translation: i talk a good Dem game, but I'm voting for McCain.

My point was that I may have paid $25 and a family receiving AFDC may have paid $0, but it's the entirety of the economy that makes your job and my job possible, which means that my ability to pay $25 in federal income taxes per B-2 bomber in service is equally dependent on rich and poor, though I may have "earned" the specific $25 that I then paid to the government. We can't all make $600K per year; if we did, $600K per year wouldn't go nearly as far as it does. The difference between rich and poor is what gives each dollar its value. How else would I know to care about $25 burning somewhere on Guam?

If you were rich enough, you wouldn't be posting on this board -- your leisure time would be spent banging models on piles of cash. You shouldn't be jealous of poor people who get some of the things you have. You should be resentful of the people who have enough money to compete with you for the things you are inclined to buy, like other buyers of McMansions in affluent Detroit suburbs. You have to break out of your treadmill to see this -- Less had to exit the American economy completely in order to stretch his beer-and-prostitute dollar.

[Diane_Keaton]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
My point was that I may have paid $25 and a family receiving AFDC may have paid $0, but it's the entirety of the economy that makes your job and my job possible, which means that my ability to pay $25 in federal income taxes per B-2 bomber in service is equally dependent on rich and poor, though I may have "earned" the specific $25 that I then paid to the government.

Just curious - what were you drinking when you wrote this?

[LessinSF]

Originally posted by Diane_Keaton
Just curious - what were you drinking when you wrote this?

He means that the world needs the idle and incompetent too, and the social structure that saves them from killing and raping you costs you $40,000 per year to keep them in ciggies and beer.

(P.S. I had an Aussie woman get irate at me for suggesting that those on the dole should have to agree to get Norplant as a condition for other people working at the threat of prison for them. How fucking wrong of a sense of entitlement is that?)

LessinPhnomPenh, Cambodia

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally posted by Diane_Keaton
Just curious - what were you drinking when you wrote this?

Obviously I'm doing a poor job of making myself clear. An economy is a thermodynamic system. As with physics, work is only possible because of uneven distribution of molecules, along with rules of physics that cause molecules to want to be evenly distributed. So, too, with money. If there were no "haves" and "have nots," there would be no need for a legal system at all. It doesn't matter if you're a bottom feeder or a bigshot corporate lawyer -- it's the differential between relatively richer and relatively poorer that makes a legal system necessary. If something actually caused money to be evenly distributed, there would be no need for us. If someone caused the "have nots" to stop wanting their situation to change, there would be no need for us. My $25 didn't come directly from the poor who don't pay taxes, but it came to me because of them. So I frankly don't resent them for not kicking in their $8. If it weren't for them, I'd need to learn how to make or fix something.

In other words, I have no illusions that the existence of the poor[er] is the great engine that drives our little sector of the economy. And in the final analysis, it drives all sectors of the economy, because if you eliminate a desire to accumulate wealth, there is no incentive to transform raw materials into commodities and thereafter no desire to buy them.

Short answer: margarita and Negra Modelo.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by LessinSF
He means that the world needs the idle and incompetent too, and the social structure that saves them from killing and raping you costs you $40,000 per year to keep them in ciggies and beer.

(P.S. I had an Aussie woman get irate at me for suggesting that those on the dole should have to agree to get Norplant as a condition for other people working at the threat of prison for them. How fucking wrong of a sense of entitlement is that?)

LessinPhnomPenh, Cambodia

I've heard that argument before. "Family is all the poor have. It's their only sense of wealth."

We should put Norplant's operative chemicals in the water, like flouride.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
Obviously I'm doing a poor job of making myself clear. An economy is a thermodynamic system. As with physics, work is only possible because of uneven distribution of molecules, along with rules of physics that cause molecules to want to be evenly distributed. So, too, with money. If there were no "haves" and "have nots," there would be no need for a legal system at all. It doesn't matter if you're a bottom feeder or a bigshot corporate lawyer -- it's the differential between relatively richer and relatively poorer that makes a legal system necessary. If something actually caused money to be evenly distributed, there would be no need for us. If someone caused the "have nots" to stop wanting their situation to change, there would be no need for us. My $25 didn't come directly from the poor who don't pay taxes, but it came to me because of them. So I frankly don't resent them for not kicking in their $8. If it weren't for them, I'd need to learn how to make or fix something.

In other words, I have no illusions that the existence of the poor[er] is the great engine that drives our little sector of the economy. And in the final analysis, it drives all sectors of the economy, because if you eliminate a desire to accumulate wealth, there is no incentive to transform raw materials into commodities and thereafter no desire to buy them.

Short answer: margarita and Negra Modelo.

That's more than tequila and beer.

[ltl/fb]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
You candy ass. Try the 5 shot Venti Americano. Makes you sweat, like a workout in a cup.

Just make sure you're near a men's room. Never enjoy one of those little bombs before a long drive.

Unless it's in very desolate country.

OK, you know that a double shot of espresso has only about the same amount of caffeine as an 8-oz cup of coffee, right? So your 5-shot Americano is like 20 oz of coffee, or really probably no different from a simple venti coffee. (ETA I looked it up, and a venti is indeed 20 oz.)

But maybe something about it makes it more of a diuretic. And at least you aren't female stuck in an inexplicable traffic jam in an area w/o interstate gas stations w/rest rooms. No bare ass for you, bucko.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by ltl/fb
OK, you know that a double shot of espresso has only about the same amount of caffeine as an 8-oz cup of coffee, right? So your 5-shot Americano is like 20 oz of coffee, or really probably no different from a simple venti coffee. (ETA I looked it up, and a venti is indeed 20 oz.)

But maybe something about it makes it more of a diuretic. And at least you aren't female stuck in an inexplicable traffic jam in an area w/o interstate gas stations w/rest rooms. No bare ass for you, bucko.

I thought it was closer to 24 oz. of coffee, similar getting a red-eye venti.

And I wasn't referring to its diuretic effect.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
In other words, you deny that 1993 happened. Got it. There is lots of evidence to the contrary, but it's clear that what you're saying is not reality-based, so that won't slow you down.

93 happened. Congress both increased spending and increased taxes even more to make up for the increased spending. Do you deny that?

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Secret_Agent_Man
Give it up folks.

Spanky's position is ingrained so deeply in Republican mythology that he can't process contradictory facts.

Some of us remember the budget battles of the first 18 months of Clinton (you know, right after Perot had made deficit reduction a key political concern). Perhaps Spanky was out of the country.

At the time, the R's would not accept Clinton's plan because it included tax increases.

S_A_M

What facts do I have wrong?

1) Congress and Clinton raised spending and taxes in the 93 budget. (The only way they could have cut Federal Spending was if they touched the entitlements which they refused to do, so they never reduced spending). The way they moved towards a balanced budget was by raising taxes more than they raised spending. They made some cuts but also added to the budget so they actually increased federal spending from the previous fiscal years.

2) When Gingrich and the Republicans were elected they tried to slow the growth of entitlements.

3) Gingrich and the Republican Congress passed bills that reduced the growth of entitlements and Clinton Shut down the government by refusing to sign a bill that curbed the growth of entitlements as much as the Republican wanted it to.

4) Clinton used his veto power to force the Republican Congress to raise spending.