#I'm back
4 messages in this thread
Jack,
Kennedy was appealing to me for his sense of humor. It seems that the Cuban
Missile Crisis ruined that. Kennedy made politics interesting (Clinton was
certainly inspired by Kennedy) at least to my eight year old mentality. I
remember watching the conventions and I guess I've enjoyed watching the
political arena since then. As I get older it takes more than good speeches or
humor or idealogy to get my vote. I realize that we need a healthy economy to
support government programs that people seem to want. Some Russians still
believe Stalin was a good guy because they were taken care of. The problem they
have is that they had all programs and no economy. So the problem we have in
America is divining the programs that are possible with the economy we have.
Running up a 4 trillion dollar deficit is a sign that we aren't very good at
this. Unfortunately some people just don't get it–no economy no programs.
Well, let me take that back, they get it and found this solution: slow
economy+deficits=programs. Like I said before, we need twice the gross national
product to support the government we have now. So if you want programs then you
have to double the economy and I'm sure the public would welcome that more than
cutting programs.
Paul
To really pump up the economy without a massive defense program would take
an equally huge commitment to other, more positive comparable programs that
such industries could do, and there's no understanding of that.
Recently an airliner crashed in Russia and because of the inevitable deaths
got big play in the media there. An ABC reporter noted with a chuckle that he
passed two old-timers sitting on a bench shaking their heads over the headlines
detailing the crash, and one said, "You see? Now our airplanes crash, too!" And
the other nodded and replied, "Yes, no airplane ever crashed when STALIN was in
charge!"
Jack,
These Stalin stories are just great. He must have been a master of media
control. Just think of what he could have accomplished with the sophisticated
technologies we have today. It's well known that Soviet history books often
contained pictures with former party operatives cut out of the picture once
they fell out of favor.
Well the country sure could use a Great Econmomy program. Just yesterday, one
of the big pharmeceuticals decided to lay off a thousand workers because of
fear of impending reform. While this will keep it profitable, it won't help the
GNP. I'm sure this is not the desired intention of the new administration, but
it shows how business leaders react to government actions. I think some
business leaders were taken aback by the new administration when classified as
greedy. Maybe they are, but the effect is to burn bridges to the engines (like
it or not) that keep this country going.
Paul
Well, three studies (one by the Wall Street Journal) found that the largest
number of pharmeceutical R&D projects, the largest bearing real fruit, and the
largest per share investment in same, came from the smallest companies and the
government itself! The larger the company, the less it puts into R&D, and, in
fact, Johnson & Johnson, one of the largest, has not actually introduced a new
product it itself developed in more than 10 years! It has bought rights to
other work and then marketed it as its own, but it's not putting that money
into R&D–it's putting that money (up to 25%) into promotion, advertising, and
lobbying!
Funny that these big companies say they can't make money in a regulated
system while French, German, and Japanese drug companies under either
socialized medicine or socialized insurance have made more breakthroughs than
all the large U.S. companies combined!
Remember, Orwell wrote 1984 as a commentary on Stalinism, although now it
applies mostly to the pc movement.