From: hallam@zeus02.desy.de (Phill Hallam-Baker)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.elections
Subject: Re: I HEARD ROSS PEROT WILL BE BACK
Date: 6 Oct 92 11:43:45 GMT
Reply-To: Hallam@zeus02.desy.de
Organization: Deutsches Elektronen Synchrotron, Experiment ZEUS bei HERA

In article <39047@sdcc12.ucsd.edu>, cote@cs.ucsd.edu (Brad Cote) writes:
|>hallam@zeus02.desy.de (Phill Hallam-Baker) writes:
|>
|>>In article <38800@sdcc12.ucsd.edu>, cote@cs.ucsd.edu (Brad Cote) writes:
|>
|>>Perot makes a big thing about "making hard choices" etc etc. Yet what is his
|>>plan to balance the budget? He wants to extort $200 billion per annum from
|>>Europe and Asia to cover the deficit. Does that sound remotely like a hard
|>>decision?
|>
|>No hard choices, eh?
|>
|>* Increase in gas tax by $.10 per year for 5 years (still not European
|>rates).

Increase Gas tax to European rates $3 a gallon.

|>* Increase income tax rates on the top 4% of taxpayers from 31% to
|>34%.

40%

|>* Lower home mortgage interest deduction from $1 million to $250,000.

Abolish it completely.

|>* Tax social security and medical benefits for those with incomes
|>greater than $25K per year.
|>
|>* Cut defense spending more than either Bush or Clinton have proposed.

Reduce it to European levels.


Even Perot is merely tinkering with the system. The hard choice is that the
Regan-Bush Lower Taxes and raise spending days have to be paid for. It's not a
question of going back to Carter's rates - they were in any cases to low to meet
spending requirements. The debt burden cause by Regans S&L deregulation
incompetence must be paid for.

|>Whether we get $200 billion from Europe/Asia over a 5 year period will
|>make little difference. Maybe Europeans should think of it as a
|>'stability tax.'

If we were going to bail out anyone it would be the USSR. They made by far the
greatest contribution to WWII and are in a much worse situation. The US still
has a better standard of living than much of Europe despite it's current
problems.

|>Maybe, but doubtfull.
|>
|>>	2) IBM will either stop manufacturing computers or file for
|>>	   chapter 11 by the year 2000 (when I first made this 
|>>	   prediction in the mid 1980s it was thought impossible,
|>>	   now it is considered rather less likely.
|>
|>This won't happen. What does this have to do with the above political
|>discussion? Or are you just a run-of-the-mill American hater, ready to
|>make all kinds of dire predictions? 

Is this a dire prediction. Anyone who had to suffer JCL will probably consider
it a damn good thing. DEC, HP and SGI will eat IBM's lunch. Sun have already
laid the foundations for removing the PC business from them although it will be
Windows NT that will allow them to do the eating. DEC is taking a heaqvy slice
out of the comercial sector and HP/SGI are staking out most of the other areas
that IBM could once have moved into. 

Perhaps you consider DEC a European company because the Alpha is made in
Scotland? Besides I thought it was rather pro US to admire the dog eat dog
ecconomic system.


|>>	3) Saudi and Kewait will have revolutions within ten years.
|>
|>Who really cares? Ten years from now, we (stupid Americans) will be
|>well on the way to commercial fusion energy, and the Arab nations will
|>not command the excessive attention which they now do.

Only Totemak to have got near breakeven is JET in Oxfordshire.

Commercial fussion is still thirty years away.


|>>If Perot was a housewife from middle America running a genuine grassroots
|>>campaign this might be true. As it is the *ONLY* reason why Perot gets given
|>>time of day is that he is very, very rich.

|>As a European, I don't expect you to understand this unique American
|>political tradition. 

And what a fine bunch of men (and they are almost all men) you end up with as a
result.


|>I can't blame you for taking events here and
|>interpreting them a European light (i.e. only the rich and powerfull
|>can have any input in the governing of a country). Saddly, it is 
|>all you know.

So John Major is rich? I always thought he was the son of a bankrupt and
unemployed trapeese artist who ran away from home to become an accountant.
Kinock was the son of a coal miner and was the first person in his familly to go
to University and Paddy Ashdown was a commando.

Dosen't it strike you that your last comment is a wee bit fatuous when you
political system more or less prevents anyone without a personal fortune of a
million or so from running for any significant office and where Ambasadorships
are bought by rich magnates with campaign contributions?


--

Phill Hallam-Baker
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