HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: harsha@ksr.com (Paul Harsha)
Newsgroups: ne.politics
Subject: Re: What happened to non-Big Three votes?
Date: 11 Nov 92 13:22:43 EST

boba@miki.pictel.com (Bob Alexander) writes:

>>In this day and age the last thing we need is another dogmatic "ism".

>Interesting.  Libertarians have a philosophical basis by which they decide
>whether a certain government activity is appropriate.  If I understand
>you correctly, the consistent application of this principle is what you
>call "dogmatic."

dogma (n) : A principal or system of principles.  

dogmatic (adj) : Marked by an authoritarian , often arrogant assertion of
principals. 

I guess I should ammend my definition of libertarianism to include "humorless,
with a keen sense of the obvious."

-Paul

--
   Paul Harsha (harsha@ksr.com)               Kendall Square Research Corp.
From: ncramer@bbn.com (Nichael Cramer)
Newsgroups: ne.politics
Subject: Re: Election finger post-mortem
Date: 5 Nov 1992 17:49:57 GMT
Organization: Bolt Beranek and Newman Inc., Cambridge MA
Distribution: na
Reply-To: ncramer@labs-n.bbn.com (Nichael Cramer)
NNTP-Posting-Host: bbn.com


csquared@coos.dartmouth.edu (C Squared) writes:
|>In article <Bx7rGq.43x@world.std.com> adamg@world.std.com (Adam M Gaffin) writes:
|>>For what it's worth, here, finally, are those numbers: 
|>> [...]
|>These numbers can't be complete.  I know for a fact that this line should be
|>here somewhere:
|>  James "Kibo" Parry, Oth at least 1 - at least 0 percent (I voted for him)
|>C Squared             |          Don't blame me, I voted for Kibo

For that matter, I notice the write-in vote that I cast wasn't included in
the tally either, but presumably there was some (arbitrary) imposed cut
off.

I mean, how long must the tail on this be?  It'd be interesting to know how
many people got at least _one_ vote.


|>> None of These, Oth 2,525 - 0 percent

Maybe in '96...

N
From: gjc@mitech.com (George J. Carrette)
Newsgroups: ne.politics
Subject: Real finance 101
Date: 6 Nov 92 15:04:35 GMT
Organization: Mitech Corporation, Concord MA

Now, somebody recently posted a message claiming to
have some basis in the facts of REMEDIAL FINANCE 101,
full of false conclusions!

Perhaps FINANCE 101 doesn't cover the concept of inflation?

Here is a worked-out example closer to the real thing:

Say in 1990-1992 young Fred made $100k. He lived at
home with his mother so had no expenses other than taxes.
So after paying say $25k in taxes he had $75k left.
Which he used to purchase a condominium in Littleton MA.

Ok, now fast forward to the year 2002, and Fred's mother moves into
a nursing home, so Fred decides to sell his condomium
and move back into the old family homestead.

The housing market has not been doing much in the 1990's,
so prices have barely kept up with inflation, of around 5% a year.
So Fred is able to sell his condo for $162k.

Now, the government says that is a taxable gain of $62k, so Fred
has to pay a tax of $15K. Well, Fred has the cash available, and
being too stupid to see how the government is screwing him, he
gladly pays the tax as being "just and fair."

But in reality? Fred has paid $15k for nothing! He had no gain.
He paid $25k in taxes on his $100k earning the first time,
and then ended up paying another $9k on top of that ten years
later. ($9k = the $15k / 1.62 to convert back to 1992 dollars).

Now what if inflation goes over 5% a year? At 7% a year
the decade adjustment factor is exp(10*log(1.07)) = 1.97
And 10% inflation gives you 2.59 per decade, if that is
over 30 years it is a whopping factor of 17.

5% inflation over 30 years is 4.32, by the way.

What does that mean? That anybody who is building up an asset over
time, taking good care of it, such as real-estate, with all the cash
flow going back into improvements, is going to get screwed really
badly. You would pretty much have to be a complete idiot to get
involved in that kind of thing with the current tax laws.

-gjc
From: rnewman@bbn.com (Ron Newman)
Newsgroups: ne.politics
Subject: Please leave "ne.politics" for us New Englanders!
Date: 13 Nov 92 18:30:02 GMT
Organization: Bolt, Beranek & Newman, Inc.
NNTP-Posting-Host: spcsun25.bbn.com

Could all of you from Oregon, Colorado, California, 
Tennessee, and who knows where else please leave us
New Englanders in peace?  This was a nice, friendly,
low-key newsgroup before you all arrived.

-- 
Ron Newman		rnewman@bbn.com
Xref: sparky ne.politics:2929 talk.politics.misc:59796
From: mancur@vccsouth19.its.rpi.edu (Rick Mancuso)
Subject: Re: What happened to non-Big Three votes?
Organization: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY
Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1992 19:26:02 GMT

In article <BETSYS.92Nov5103540@ra.cs.umb.edu> betsys@cs.umb.edu (Elizabeth Schwartz) writes:
>In article <DRG.92Nov4174936@candidus.ma30.bull.com> drg@candidus.ma30.bull.com (Daniel R. Guilderson) writes:
>
>>It really amazes me that Perot could get 20%.
>
>Doesn't amaze me. He was getting the "sick of both sides" vote. If
>he'd just managed to keep his cool and appear a bit less paranoid he
>could have won in some states, I think.
>  Why Perot and not the Libertarians? After all, they've been around
>longer and have a lot of good ideas. I know why they don't get more
>votes ....the Libertarians should ponder long and hard the differences
>between Marrou and Weld.


The Libertarians don't get enough exposure.  I bet that half of the voting 
public don't even know that they exist.  Until the Libertarian candidates
are in on the national debates they will never do better than a meager 
showing, at least in the presidential elections.  

Perot had it, this was the perfect year for a candidate like him.  Perot's 
greatest blunder, well aside from his temporary absense from the race, was
his selection of a running mate.  Stockdale was only supposed to be Perot's 
interim choice, so he could meet the requirements for some of the state
ballots while he was getting signatures.  The absolute perfect choice in my 
mind would have been Warren Ruddman, with a close second going to Paul Tsongas.
I had heard that Perot tried to get both of them, but they refused.  Too bad.
-- 
mancur@rpi.edu	     "Uh...had a slight weapons malfunction. 
Rick Mancuso	      But, uh, everything's perfectly all right now.  
		      We're fine.  We're all fine here...now...thank you.  
		      How are you?"  *wince*
From: jmann@vineland.pubs.stratus.com (Jim Mann)
Newsgroups: ne.politics
Subject: Flat Rate Taxes vs. Graduated Taxes (Was: Re: VOTE, BABY, VOTE!)
Date: 9 Nov 92 16:55:16 GMT
Reply-To: jmann@vineland.pubs.stratus.com
Organization: Stratus Computer Inc, Marlboro MA
NNTP-Posting-Host: gondolin.pubs.stratus.com

In article <fCB=NW@engin.umich.edu> jwh@citi.umich.edu (Jim Howe)  
writes:
> Who's defending the rich?  I'm not.  I'm only defending the right  
of
> someone to keep the fruits of their labor.  I see no reason why  
someone
> should face a higher marginal rate on their income, simply because
> they have passed some mythical income threshold.  I can accept  
having
> people pay more as the earn more, however this is best accomplished
> with a flat tax rate, not a progressively increasing rate.
> 

Why "best accomplished"?

Part of the idea of a graduated tax is that it is, in part, an 
attempt to tax disposable or discretionary income.  For
example,  someone making $40,000 a year may have relatively
little disposable income, after mortage payement, etc. are
taken into account. A person making $120,000 a year actually
has far more than 3 times as much disposable income (other things,
like number of kids, etc. being equal).   A flat rate tax
says you tax them the same amount (20%, say) on their total 
income.  However, for the person making $40,000 a year, this
might amount to 60, 70, or even 80% of their disposable income being 
taken away.  (20% of 40,000 = $8,000. If the person who is 
making $40,000 a year has mortage, food, transportation, etc.
expenses of $30,000 a year, the tax has eaten up 80% of what is 
left!)  For the person making $120,000, it may be only
25-35% of their disposable income.  (20% of 120,000 is 24,0000.
Now, assume that mortage, etc. for the $120,000 a year person
is $50,000 (which is a pretty hefty jump from the $30,000
we assumed for the other fellow). This means that he/she has
$70,000 a year disposable income. Thus, he/she is having 34% of
his/her disposable income taxed away, not the 80% the person
making $40,000 had to pay.) 

I think this kind of calculation has to be taken into account
when looking at the tax code.

--
Jim Mann            
Stratus Computer   jmann@vineland.pubs.stratus.com
From: jmann@vineland.pubs.stratus.com (Jim Mann)
Newsgroups: ne.politics
Subject: Re: (un)fair taxation
Date: 5 Nov 92 14:41:25 GMT
Reply-To: jmann@vineland.pubs.stratus.com
Distribution: ne

In article <1992Nov4.210948.22510@xylogics.com> barnes@xylogics.com  
(Jim Barnes) writes:
>   Just what is a FAIR tax?
> 
> Let's see, we have:
> 
> 1.  Excise taxes (or sin taxes) on things like cigarettes, alcohol,  
etc.
>     These tax the consumers of such things.  Those who don't  
consume
>     these items do not pay the tax.  This is usually seen as a  
regressive
>     tax unless the tax is on such things as fur coats or power  
boats.
> 

I don't consider why this is considered a regressive tax, except
when it is on necessities.  In many ways, this is the best kind of
tax, because then the consumer can decide whether or not to
buy the item in question, and thus whether or not to pay
the tax (unlike an income tax, which you have to pay whether you're
broke or not).

> 2.  Consumption taxes (like sales taxes):  When you purchase  
something
>     you pay the tax.  This is clearly affects lower income people
>     more than higher income people since a larger fraction of the  
lower
>     incomes are spent on comsumables.

Though this is mitigated a bit since in most states food and
clothing are not taxed.

> 
> 3.  Per-capita taxes like the British tried to establish a few  
years
>     back.  Everyone pays the same tax without regard to income or  
wealth.
> 
> 4.  Flat rate income taxes where everyone pays the same percentage  
of
>     income regardless of income source or what the income is used  
for.
>     This does not tax accumulated wealth.
> 
> 5.  Progressive rate income taxes:  the more you earn, the higher  
the
>     rate with the expectation that at higher levels of income,  
there
>     should be a greater ability to pay.  Again this does not tax
>     accumulated wealth.
> 
> 6.  Taxes on wealth (ie property taxes):  this ignores the fact  
that
>     there may be no income stream (eg. retired people) supporting
>     the property wealth and the property may need to be liquidated
>     in order to pay the tax.

This kind of tax could work if you put enough exemptions into
it. The big problem is property taxes on the current value of
a home, when the home has gone up in value a lot over the years.
Often, working class or fixed income families can't afford to
pay the taxes if the home is really taxed at market value. Thus,
we need some sort of an exemtion here. 

> 
> 7.  I'm sure there are others.

Luxury taxes (though I guess these are a subset of your excise
taxes), especially when applied to higher priced items: cars
that are worth over $35,000, big boats, houses over $300,000,
etc.  

> 
> So, just what is a fair tax?  Or are we faced with the conclusion
> that we need to have a range of various types of taxes so that we
> arrive at a point where the sum total is (according to some 
> definition) "fair"?
> 
> 

--
Jim Mann            
Stratus Computer   jmann@vineland.pubs.stratus.com
From: jmann@vineland.pubs.stratus.com (Jim Mann)
Newsgroups: ne.politics
Subject: Re: Venting on voter registoration (was Re: Worth noting)
Date: 5 Nov 92 14:45:35 GMT
Reply-To: jmann@vineland.pubs.stratus.com
Distribution: ne

In article <1992Nov04.233707.4875@kronos.com> richb@kronos.com (Rich  
Braun) writes:
> I suggested:
> >>Why not register people at birth or at the time they receive  
citizenship?
> >>It'd cut down on all the voter-registration bureaucracy and silly  
overhead
> >>in our system.
> 
> lmann@vineland.pubs.stratus.com writes:
> >The answer is simple---voter fraud.  You need verification of
> >residency.  How many states have you lived in since you were
> >born?  Towns?  Precincts?  Since I was born in Burlington
> >Vermont, what's to stop me from voting up there today...
> 
> To flesh out my proposal:
> 
> 	1)  Maintain a central, online database in Washington with a
> 	    unique voter ID for every citizen.

Aargh. This seems to be a cure that is far worse than the 
disease.  I'd rather not have the government have to maintain
such a database. Even aside from privacy issues, the bureaucracy
needed to maintain such a database would be immense.

Also, I think that we're trying to solve a problem that
doesn't really exist for most people. Registering to vote
in most places is simple.  Just go to your town offices ONCE
after you've moved there and register. After that, you're set,
until you move again.  I'm really wary about people who
think this is too much effort. If making one trip into
town is too much effort for these folks, are they really going
to make the even bigger effort of staying informed and voting
intelligently?

--
Jim Mann            
Stratus Computer   jmann@vineland.pubs.stratus.com  
Newsgroups: ne.politics
From: betsys@cs.umb.edu (Elizabeth Schwartz)
Subject: Re: What happened to non-Big Three votes?
Organization: University of Massachusetts at Boston
	<DRG.92Nov4174936@candidus.ma30.bull.com>
Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1992 15:35:40 GMT

In article <DRG.92Nov4174936@candidus.ma30.bull.com> drg@candidus.ma30.bull.com (Daniel R. Guilderson) writes:

>It really amazes me that Perot could get 20%.

Doesn't amaze me. He was getting the "sick of both sides" vote. If
he'd just managed to keep his cool and appear a bit less paranoid he
could have won in some states, I think.
  Why Perot and not the Libertarians? After all, they've been around
longer and have a lot of good ideas. I know why they don't get more
votes ....the Libertarians should ponder long and hard the differences
between Marrou and Weld.
--
System Administrator                  Internet: betsys@cs.umb.edu
MACS Dept, UMass/Boston               BITNET:ESCHWARTZ%UMBSKY.DNET@NS.UMB.EDU
100 Morrissy Blvd                     Staccato signals
Boston, MA 02125-3393                      of constant information....
From: mad@spirit.clearpoint.com (Michael Davis)
Newsgroups: ne.politics
Subject: Re: What happened to non-Big Three votes?
Date: 5 Nov 92 20:19:20 GMT
	<DRG.92Nov4174936@candidus.ma30.bull.com>
	<BETSYS.92Nov5103540@ra.cs.umb.edu>
Organization: Walking Dead Man Bar and Grille


On 5 Nov 92 15:35:40 GMT, betsys@cs.umb.edu (Elizabeth Schwartz) said:

es>   Why Perot and not the Libertarians? After all, they've been around
es> longer and have a lot of good ideas. I know why they don't get more
es> votes ....the Libertarians should ponder long and hard the differences
es> between Marrou and Weld.

What the Libertarians need to ponder is how they can be on the ballot
in fifty states and still not get any serious media attention.  I
mean, what are the criteria of the League of Status Quo, er Women
Voters in deciding who gets to play?

	"Only serious candidates get media attention.  It's proof that
{Marrou, Fulani} aren't serious because they get no media attention."

If you can spot the fallacy there, you get the satisfaction of being
right, if not of having real representation.


-Mike					mad@spirit.clearpoint.com


Government is not reason; it is not eloquence. It is force!  Like
fire it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.

				---  George Washington
From: jmann@vineland.pubs.stratus.com (Jim Mann)
Newsgroups: ne.politics
Subject: Re: A new tax system ... was Vote...
Date: 6 Nov 92 17:14:26 GMT
Reply-To: jmann@vineland.pubs.stratus.com

In article <85==HH=@engin.umich.edu> jwh@citi.umich.edu (Jim Howe)  
writes:
> 
> Not necessarily so.  You could simply track the amount of  
investment, which
> is already done, and deduct it from income.  The remainder would  
represent
> consumption.  Give people personal exemptions and you eliminate the
> most regressive nature.  The WSJ column has a better explanation  
about
> how the current tax system and method of reporting could be  
converted
> into a consumption based system.

It seems that you could also accomplish some of this by using
a two-tiered sales tax on some items. For example, you could
keep the sales tax on cars costing under $20,000 5% but make 
it 10% on cars over $20,000.   You'd have to limit this type 
of thing to only a handful of items, though, since too many
would result in a mess of regulations.



--
Jim Mann            
Stratus Computer   jmann@vineland.pubs.stratus.com
From: rnewman@bbn.com (Ron Newman)
Newsgroups: ne.politics
Subject: Minor candidates (was Re: Election finger post-mortem)
Date: 5 Nov 92 19:08:48 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: Bolt, Beranek & Newman, Inc.
NNTP-Posting-Host: spcsun25.bbn.com

So who are these people?  I assume they are people
who are on the ballot in at least one state (that's why
your vote for "Kibo" wasn't included).

|>  Andrew Marrou, Oth 278,528 - 0 percent
Libertarian

|>  Lenora Fulani, Oth 211,742 - 0 percent
New Alliance Party

|>  Bo Gritz, Oth 97,601 - 0 percent
"Populist" Party  (really white supremicists)

|>  John Hagelin, Oth 44,521 - 0 percent
Natural Law Party (Transcendental Meditation adherents)

|>  Howard Phillips, Oth 39,391 - 0 percent
Former Nixon adminstration official, ultra-conservative.
I don't remember what party he ran under.
In Massachusetts, he was "Independent Voters' Party".

|>  James Mac Warren, Oth 27,464 - 0 percent
Who's that?

|>  Lyndon LaRouche, Oth 25,688 - 0 percent
We know all too well who HE is.

|>  Ron Daniels, Oth 25,404 - 0 percent
Some sort of "Independent Black political party"

|>  Drew Bradford, Oth 4,605 - 0 percent
|>  Jack Herer, Oth 3,452 - 0 percent
|>  Helen Halyard, Oth 3,068 - 0 percent
|>  J. Quinn Brisben, Oth 2,789 - 0 percent
|>  None of These, Oth 2,525 - 0 percent
|>  John Yiamouyiannis, Oth 2,316 - 0 percent
|>  Honest Jim Boren, Oth 980 - 0 percent
|>  Earl Dodge, Oth 953 - 0 percent
|>  Delbert Ehlers, Oth 876 - 0 percent
|>  Eugene Hem, Oth 395 - 0 percent
|>  Isabell Masters, Oth 395 - 0 percent
|>  Robert Smith, Oth 290 - 0 percent
|>  Gloria La Riva, Oth 178 - 0 percent

Anyone know anything about any of these?
(I assume "None of These" was from the Nevada ballot,
which always has this as an option)

-- 
Ron Newman		rnewman@bbn.com
Newsgroups: ne.politics
From: adamg@world.std.com (Adam M Gaffin)
Subject: Re: What happened to non-Big Three votes?
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
Date: Sun, 8 Nov 1992 01:32:03 GMT

In article <DRG.92Nov7131120@candidus.ma30.bull.com> drg@candidus.ma30.bull.com (Daniel R. Guilderson) writes:
>I posted a message which accused CNN of lying about minor party
>results a couple of days ago.  Apparently CNN was relying on AP for
>the information and it was AP who dropped the ball and then presumably
>lied to cover its ass.  I still fault CNN for not checking into the
>problem further to determine the facts.

Well, AP may have dropped the ball, but they didn't lie about it.  They
didn't say *anything* about it.  Before the election, they sent out
several advisories to the effect that the first 3rd-party numbers would be
sent out around 10:30.  They were -- 10:30 a.m. the next morning.  I
suspect what happened is that the AP newsroom in New York, or wherever
such data is collected, was simply exceedingly busy and that some harried
editor decided to forego putting together results for what he or she
considered an ultimately trivial file, much as editors in my newsroom
decided not to waste time putting the number of blanks into our election
tally charts.  Yes, yes, I know that Libertarians are *not* trivial, but
in the controlled chaos of a newsroom on Election Night, 200,000 some odd
votes when compared to tens of millions of votes for the big three can
certainly seem trivial.
-- 
Adam Gaffin
Middlesex News, Framingham, Mass.
adamg@world.std.com
Voice: (508) 626-3968. Fred the Middlesex News Computer: (508) 872-8461.
Newsgroups: ne.politics
From: boba@miki.pictel.com (Bob Alexander)
Subject: Re: What happened to non-Big Three votes?
Organization: PictureTel Corporation
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1992 17:41:03 GMT

>The Libertarians got @250K votes. That is likely less than the number of
>people who signed their ballot petitions. _I_ would suggest that the
>Libertarians look at their platform. As long as they remain a utopian
>social club, they will garner neither votes nor serious media attention.

The overwhelming majority of voters don't know anything about the
Libertarian Party, let alone the platform, so I find it hard to
believe that the platform is the problem.

There were several other parties on the ballot, each with their own
platform different from the LP's.  They all did worse than Marrou.
Either their platforms are worse than the LP's (I'll let you judge
that) or platforms aren't the issue.  Note that the US Taxpayer's
Party has the perfect conservative platform (free markets, anti-abortion,
anti-gay) but did not attract all the conservatives who don't trust
Bush.

If Marrou had received coverage equivalent to the Big Three and had
still received only 300,000 votes, I would concede that the problem
is in the message.  But right now, the problems are that few have
heard the message and many people won't vote for a third party even
if they agree with it (especially in a tight race between the big two.)

     Bob Alexander                                     boba@pictel.com
       The more the government does, the better libertarianism looks
     -----------------------------------------------------------------
     Organizations don't have opinions; people do.  The above opinions
     do not reflect those of the directors, stockholders, managers, or
     other employees of PictureTel.

Newsgroups: ne.politics,talk.politics.misc
From: jwh@citi.umich.edu (Jim Howe)
Subject: Re: Ignorance - Was Re: VOTE, BABY, VOTE!
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 92 09:34:38 EST
Organization: IFS Project, University of Michigan
Reply-To: jwh@citi.umich.edu

In article <1992Nov13.075605.8167@smds.com>, rh@smds.com (Richard Harter) writes:
|> In article <gYC=9HB@engin.umich.edu> jwh@citi.umich.edu writes:
|> 
|> >This is already happening.  Efficient farming depends on economies
|> >of scale.  What is wrong with large farms?  I repeat, farming is
|> >a business and as such should meet the same criteria as any other
|> >business.  If it can't succeed without government aid, it shouldn't
|> >be operating....
|> 
|> Would it shock you to be told that you know almost nothing about the
|> economics of agriculture and that most of what you do know is wrong?
|> 

Perhaps you can enlighten us all.


James W. Howe                  internet: jwh@citi.umich.edu
University of Michigan             uucp: uunet!mailrus!citi.umich.edu!jwh
Ann Arbor, MI   48103-4943