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Date:         Wed, 16 Dec 1992 13:16:56 -0400
From:         The Integral Differential <DEMON@DESIRE.WRIGHT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Home ownership among poor
Comments: To: POLITICS@OHSTVMA.ACS.OHIO-STATE.EDU

>>         If we are going to use the poverty level to determine need, we should
>> count all entitlements as income for that purpose.
>
>And we do.  Or, rather, the caseworkers who determine eligibility do.
>And the amount of money appropriated still does not cover all of those
>who are eligible to get it.

        Actually we don't.  There are programs that are means-tested and those
that are not.
        Nonmeans-tested cash transfers from the government cause a reduction in
the poverty rate by 4%, yet there are those stating that we can't count those
funds as "income" when we try to determine who much money the bottom quintile
people actually have.

        Why not?

        If we are basing our funding of such programs on how many people are
"poor", should we not count what affect those very programs are having on the
poor?

        Why not?

        How else are we to judge the results?  If we say "by the number below
the poverty rate" then we are simply following our own tail.  By that logic, we
could give each of them $1 million from the government, yet by "poverty rate"
measures, they could still be "below the poverty line" and thus "in need of
more assistance".

        The system is broken.

>Now, what are you trying to say with this?  That there is too much money
>devoted to anti-poverty programs?  That caseworkers don't filter out the
>non-poor when they authorize payments?  That someone with $25,000 per
>year coming in from a variety of public pension plans is counted as
>officially poor?  Or what?
>
        The system is inefficient, riddled with loopholes, poorly administered,
open to abuse by politicos, a self-perpetuating bureaucracy, and has had 25
years to solve the problem but has not.

        So let's fix it.

>Peter
Brett'
(No snow in this part of Ohio for years.  At least, none worth mentioning :)
From: SABOE@VUVAXCOM.BITNET (linda)
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.politics
Subject: wild weather on the main line
Date: 14 Dec 92 16:45:00 GMT
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU
Original_To:  POL

wow...whatta storm!
nothing's come through since late thurs. we had no power at the univ. from
friday until sunday afternoon. people in certain areas still are in the dark.
we're up now, but not connected to an outside line so who knows if and when
my little weather update will get posted.

a friend's hubby is a manager at peco (for the uninitiated, PECO is the phila.
electric company). he said the the main liners (the snooty old money rich
people and the snooty newer money wannabe's) are out of their minds. they kept
calling to complain that their lights were off, and would they please get them
back on immediately since they were in the midsts of a "very important dinner
party".  peco also had crews out delivering dry ice to people so their food
wouldn't spoil.

people around here don't like to have their trees trimmed. they won't allow
peco to trim branches back from power lines so when wind and stuff happens guess
who's first to go and longest to get back on??? snooty main liners. its named
that due to the train tracks which were called when first built "the main line"
because they connected us w/ phila. then from there to points elsewhere.
the people who settled around here (from good ol willy penn on) were very well-
off. full of history and large estates and horses and old trees that noone
will allow to be trimmed.

actually, i like the old trees (but i won't park under them during a storm).

anyway, friday we finally closed the university at 2pm. we worked from 8am til
then in the dark w/no heat. people were trying to conduct business by
flashlight. we lit candles in the bathrooms. we shook our heads from side to
side a lot. we opened again sat. from 9-2 so people could sit in the dark.

well, hope we get back to the 20th century soon.

-linda
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Original_To:  BITNET%"POLITICS@OHSTVMA.BITNET"
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.politics
Date:         Fri, 18 Dec 1992 17:43:00 EDT
From:         CLARK@EVMSVMS.BITNET
Subject:      Re: Uncl: Re: your mail

>Do you suppose if we took up a collection and sent them there they would
>staighten the place out? B)
>
>-other Andy

Can you see them in the Haight?  The Family still hangs out 'round those
parts occassionally.

I'm sure SF would do more to "straighten" them out than vice versa.


-T.
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.politics
From: jwales@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (jimmy donal wales)
Subject: Re: the way dull tv ought to be
Organization: Indiana University
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 21:38:09 GMT

>Hence, I submit that HE IS RACIST, by my definition and anyone's who
>think it means judging or treating people differently based on their
>race.
>
>--Dr. Pizz--

Dr. Pizz,

Then I take it that you agree with my original thesis, i.e., that
Rush Limbaugh is racist?

--Jimbo

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Date:         Tue, 15 Dec 1992 23:06:57 EST
From:         Doctor Pizz <jdt10@CUNIXB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU>
Subject:      Re: hume v. spike lee / limbaugh
Comments: To: Forum for the Discussion of Politics <POLITICS@ucf1vm.cc.ucf.edu>

Bigot - "a person who is intolerant of any creed, belief, or race that
is not his or her own"

Racist - "a person who believes that his own race is superior"

- Random House Dictionary -
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Date:         Tue, 15 Dec 1992 10:21:19 MET
From:         Grzegorz Albinowski <caius@II.UJ.EDU.PL>
Subject:      caius about cycles
Comments: To: Politics Disc List <POLITICS@ucf1vm.cc.ucf.edu>

The main problem of our times is the Keynesian point of view that injecting
some money into economy will produce growth, of some other desirable    economic
results.

This opinion has dominated thinking of many economists, but I consider it false.

---------------
A SHORT THEORY OF BUSINESS CYCLE

Imagine new money is introduced through open-market operations by the
government's central bank (for example by purchasing govt securities).
Financial institutions now have additional cash to make loans to businesses
around the country.

The corporations expand their operations as they feel   the business is going
ok. They take cheap loans and still expand, because they expect the customers
to have enough money to pay for the merchandise in the future.

And then, suddenly, people observe that all prices around go up, and they call
it inflation. The earnings      (in the inflated dollars) look lower than expect
ed.

The boom seems not to be REAL, it is in fact created by additional money
produced by the government intervention.

As soon as the bank notice inflation the rates go up, the businesses stop
taking loans, the customers(the businesses and their employees) reduce
their spending. The govt starts fighting inlation.

It is the contraction period of the cycle.

------------------

Look, I realy wanted it to be short, but it is the shortest explanation
I can write.

The most harmful factor in this model is the govt/central bank injecting
money into economy and then suddenly restricting the money supply, thus
producing the business cycles.

Introducing gold currency would result in money supply growing slowly,
at a nearly constant rate, as the miners in Siberia and South Africa
produce the precious metal.


Caius.
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Newsgroups: bit.listserv.politics
Date:         Fri, 18 Dec 1992 05:47:00 EDT
From:         CLARK@EVMSVMS.BITNET
Subject:      Re: Some replies...

So, Freeman, you've really revealed quite a bit this time, eh?

Freeman appears to join Pizz in a joint "whatever private employers want to do
is fine, as long as prospective employees know it up front" gig.

Freeman posts a weird bit about 30K this and 30K that and still manages to say
little in response to my post; namely, that what the republican party did (does)
to Nassau County employees in _wrong_, and would be as wrong for a private
employer.  Kickbacks - regardless of the "knowledge" of those involved, are
illegal, by definition.  Freeman ignores this fact, and still goes for the gusto
with the "anything goes' schtick.

I'm not quite sure why Freeman would be so vocal in support of such an obvious
illegality; except that maybe Freeman (like Pizz) is caught up in the
circularity of Freeman's "argument"; realizing that to admit to the kickback
example would more or less blow the original "anything - at all - goes" bit,
Freeman opts for a "complex" analysis of why agreed kickbacks are OK.

Are there stables near this list?  I've been smelling an awfully familiar
odor from various posts lately...Freeman, you been stepping in something
and tracking it to the list?  Your last post sure seems like it...

Hey, this Use-their-last-name-incessantly-without-regard-for-whether-or-not-
they-or-anyont-else-uses-it thing is kinda refreshing....eh, Freeman?


-T.
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Date:         Thu, 17 Dec 1992 20:48:03 MET
From:         Grzegorz Albinowski <caius@II.UJ.EDU.PL>
Subject:      Re: why gold
Comments: To: POLITICS@ucf1vm.cc.ucf.edu
              at Dec 16, 92 11:31 am

Andrew Allen pisze:

>>
>> >I still don't fully understand this.
>> >The total mass of gold in the world, or in Fort Knox, does not
>> >increase quickly. But its monetary value could increase quickly.
>> >Wouldn't a growing economy lead to a rise in the price of gold?
>>
>> No, the value of gold would be held constant, at for example $35.00
>> per ounce.

No, the currency will be oz (one ounce of gold). We can express value of
merchandise nad services just in oz. Dollars are not needed.

Of course we can rename to oz to be dollar, pound, franc in various contries
just for historical reasons.


Caius.
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Date:         Fri, 11 Dec 1992 13:13:30 EST
From:         Jamie <PL436000@BROWNVM.BITNET>
Subject:      Yesterday's appointments, and tomorrow's

Here's the scoop on Clinton's appointments and the ones he is
supposed to make today or soon.

Already announced and official:

Bentsen will be Treasury Sec'y.

Leon Panetta will be Director of the Office of Management and Budget.
Panetta is now (I think) the chair of the House Budget Committee. He is
a Democrat (formerly a Republican, changed colors in '71) from
California.

Alice Rivlin will be Panetta's deputy. She is a former director of the
Congressional Budget Office, and currently a Brookings Inst. economist.

Roger Altman will be Bentsen's deputy. Altman is a Blackstone Group
investment banker. The Blackstone Group offers services to Japanese
capitalists looking to takeover U.S. businesses.

Robert Rubin will be Clinton's senior economic advisor. Rubin is co-chair
(or co-something) of Goldman-Sachs.

Here are seven appointments Clinton will make soon. All that's missing
is the official stamp.

Carol Browner will be head of the EPA. She was a top aide to Gore.

Dana Shalala (I think one of our Ellens was asking about her) will
be Sec'y of Health and Human Services. She is presently the chancellor
of the Univ. of Wisconsin.

Laura D'Andrea Tyson, a U. Cal. economist, will be head of the Council
of Economic Advisors.

Robert Reich, a Harvard political scientist, will be Sec'y of Labor.

Henry Cisneros, the mayor of San Antonio, will head HUD.

Timothy Worth, who just retired from a Senate seat (Colorado),
will be Sec'y of Energy.

Bruce Babbitt, whom you know, of course, will be Sec'y of the Interior.


As for Secretary of State, it's allegedly a three-way horse race.
Bill Bradley is one contender, Colin Powell is another. But my
money is on Warren Christopher, who is heading up the Clinton
transition team. It looks like Clinton has been handing out
rewards and paying off promises, rather than fixing on an
ideology. And Christopher is an insider.

Jamie
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Newsgroups: bit.listserv.politics
Date:         Fri, 18 Dec 1992 13:00:53 -0800
From:         Andy Freeman <andy@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU>
Subject:      Re: prime theories

>> But for now . . . I don't care what the published rates are.
>> If I make $50,000 (gross) and pay $10,000 in taxes and the next
>> typical, average rich guy makes $500,000 (gross) and pays $50,000
>> in taxes, I call that unfair (I am willing -- but not happily --
>> to exclude Social Security TAXES -- yes TAXES -- out of the above
>> calculation).  You can tell me that he is paying MORE taxes than I am
>> till you are blue in the face, I will not buy it and will still claim
>> that it is unfair.
>
>> KAT is confusing "less" with "unfair".  Said average rich guy is
>> paying MORE, that's a fact.  It may be "not enough", that is,
>> "unfair", but it is MORE.
>
>Very cute.  No, KAT did not CONFUSE less with unfair. Maybe KAT meant
>to say, "You can tell me..., I will still claim that that is unfair."

That's somewhat better.  It can be both MORE and unfair, but KAT's
response to "it's more" is "I will not buy it AND will still claim
that it is unfair."  If he didn't want to suggest that he was
rejecting "MORE", he could have done so from the beginning.

>If you think that KAT is claiming that $50,000 is not more than $10,000
>then your judgment in debating with KAT comes under severe questioning.
>Your choice.

Huh?  When using "Your choice", one should present alternatives that
have some basis in the situation.

Not being a mind-reader, I won't guess what KAT really "means" and
comment only on what he writes.  Since it is so hard to discuss things
with him without being a mindreader, perhaps discussing things with
him is poor judgement.  I guess that says something about both of us.

>> Progressive marginal or progressive average?  One can have one without
>> the other.
>
>How about both.

How about not?  After all, we've seen that progressive marginal has
some bad properties and there doesn't seem to be a good argument for
it.  (Note that arguments for progressive AVERAGE are not necessarily
arguments for progressive MARGINAL.)

-andy
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Newsgroups: bit.listserv.politics
Date:         Tue, 15 Dec 1992 11:11:00 ET
From:         "Ellen.Edgerton" <EBEDGERT@SUADMIN.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: On limiting posts ...

I just have one question, being rather new to this list...why is it
that people feel absolutely >compelled< to incorporate the COMPLETE
TRANSCRIPTS of previous discussion threads into their posts?

I mean, I can understand including the quotes from the person you're
responding to; but it's reaching absolutely >ridiculous< levels, I
notice.   Half of people's posts are made up of quotes from others.

Maybe these posts wouldn't be so tedious if we weren't forced to
re-read every post every time somebody wants to respond to something;
and maybe then we wouldn't be talking about "limiting posts."


Ellen
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Newsgroups: bit.listserv.politics
Date:         Mon, 14 Dec 1992 13:53:23 -0800
From:         Andy Freeman <andy@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU>
Subject: Re: Look back and wrangle...the poverty thing again

>Now that Peter has informed Brett', -andy and whomever else is on the
>"gee I think we're overestimating the numbers of poor" bandwagon that
>the figures that they are gnawing on aren't the ones that determine
>how much money the government spends on the poor,

Peter was wrong.  The "more money" argument is "there are x%/million
poor people".  It turns out that the defn of "poor" being used is
"interesting".  The fact that, in some cases, said "poor" aren't even
eligible for the aid argued for doesn't significantly affect the
dishonesty of that argument.

>it appears that
>they are going to revive the tired old Reaganista rhetoric about
>fraud in the system...naturally they'll intimate that most folks
>who receive aid have homes, sports cars, large cash incomes from
>selling Amway, etc.

It appears to whom?  That is O'Andy's invention; no one else has
mentioned fraud.

I realize that O'Andy's latched onto a silly position, but that
doesn't justify attributing strawmen to others.  BTW - Nice ad hom
too, but isn't it time to use some other fallacies like false
dicotomies and the like?

>As usual they will utilize a variety of amusing anecdotes... like...
>
>>        And here's the scenario that most people use:
>
>>        Assets are transferred to relatives and "friends" (live-in SOs, for
>>example).

Hmm.  Does O'Andy now want to argue that my grandfather is poor?  (He
transferred almost of his assets to my grandmother.)  How much aid
should he receive?

Whether or not a practice is "fraud" does not depend on how many
people do it.

>>        Carol Mosely-Braun (Senator-elect from Ill.) got stung by this when

Why should she have been stung?  Democrat character doesn't matter.

-andy
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Newsgroups: bit.listserv.politics
Date:         Wed, 16 Dec 1992 14:48:08 EST
From:         Tim Johnson <ST402711@BROWNVM.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: Some replies...

>     First of all, YES, private business should have the right to
>stipulate anything they want to in contracts, as long as they do not
>sign a contract specifying that illegal activities are to be performed.
> Clearly, the sex at lunch hour or kickbacks of salaries are both
>illegal activities.  The first is prostitution, and the second speaks
>for itself.

  Whoa!  Hold on, I'm getting dizzy.  You are going in circles
to quickly for me.  So, we shouldn't make discrimination on the
basis of race or sex or sexual orientation (or is that genderal
orientation, -T.?  What does the pro's prose use?) illegal 'cause
private business should be able to do what ever it wants....as
long as it isn't illegal.

  Are you sure about that?

                        -Tim"feeling dizzy"J
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Date:         Thu, 17 Dec 1992 11:30:00 EST
From:         "Peter J. Schledorn" <UNCPJS@UNC.OIT.UNC.EDU>
Subject: Re: more responses to andy f.'s comments
Comments: To: Forum for the Discussion of Politics <POLITICS@UCF1VM.CC.UCF.EDU>

>         Are those advocating N% increases in pay for N% increases in profits
> willing to take N% cuts in pay when the business losses N%?

They might, if anyone bothered to ask them.  Trouble is, most managers
don't bother to ask--in fact, they look upon it as some kind of insult
to suggest that they do ask.

After all, the most common scenario is that some employees take a 100%
cut in pay through layoffs.

But it doesn't stop there--if the employees are being asked to share in
the risk they may very well want to share in the decision-making power,
as well.  Currently they possess almost no power, yet they bear a
substantial amount of the risk.  To anticipate the inevitable comment,
they actually risk more than the "owners" of the business.  Few
stockholders throw everything they own into a single enterprise, yet a
worker can have only one full-time job, the clock being what it is.

So you might want to think twice about this proposal.  If you follow
it to the logical conclusion, you may well see an unexpected outbreak
of democracy.

Best,
Peter

> Brett'
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Date:         Thu, 17 Dec 1992 15:15:20 -0500
From:         "Chris A. Sloffer" <SLOFFER_CHRIS_A@LILLY.COM>
Subject:      Re: I'm Baaack!!
Comments: To: politics <politics@ucf1vm.bitnet>

I remember you, Ramon.  It's been several years.  Welcome back..

Chris
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Date:         Fri, 18 Dec 1992 16:45:47 MET
From:         Grzegorz Albinowski <caius@II.UJ.EDU.PL>
Subject:      Re: An apology ...
Comments: To: POLITICS@ucf1vm.cc.ucf.edu
              SMITH" at Dec 16, 92 7:53 pm

VALENTINE M. SMITH pisze:
>>
>> I ended up sending "On Rightism..." twice (thrice if you include the one
>> rejected for being an empty file). Sorry about that. Both the second and
>> third posting are exactly the same, and I'm sorry that they got loose like
>> that. VMS
>>
I suspect you have sent it twice just because there is a chance more people
will catch up and read it. Another example of convincing by VOLUME.

Caius
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Newsgroups: bit.listserv.politics
Date:         Fri, 18 Dec 1992 12:15:05 GMT
From:         Dunstan_Vavasour <dunstan@GEC-EPL.CO.UK>
Subject:      Re: clinton and major
Comments: To: politics@ohstvma.bitnet

James:
>There was some discussion in the papers over here recently that relations
>between president-elect Clinton and British prime minister Major may not
>be as comfortable as the Bush/Major relationship was.
>
[stuff deleted]
>Portents of a cooling in the "special relationship", perchance?
>
>
>james

The really special relationship was Reagan and Thatcher, which was
fired by a shared idealogical vision. The relationship between Bush
and Major has been more like two chums who happen to be doing the same
job.

I think the "special relationship" is only marginally dependent on how
the politicians get on. It is more dependent on how the individuals
get on in all walks of life - business, culture etc. What would most
damage the special relationship would be if America started drawing
down the shutters. Were the US Department of Trade to block British
Airways' acquisition of a stake in US Air as a result of lobbying from
American, United and Delta, that *would* damage the S.R.

How do those on the other side of the pond view the special
relationship ?

Dunstan
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