[pauldorell]

Originally Posted by FrugalYankee

Paul that is hysterical. I'm a liberal and proud of it. Not even close to being a Tea Partier. As a matter of fact I canvassed for Patrick Leahy way back when it was legal to shoot Democrats in VT and helped get the very first Democratic Senator from Vermont elected.

Good for you. I'm not that up to date on Patrick Leahy, but we do have Bernie Sanders bumper stickers. A lot of people in Washington probably think he's a crank when he's only trying to do his job the way they should: honestly.

[ladelfina]

FY, is Vermont really raking in some untoward amount of funds via the captive insurance program? Please provide evidence of that, thanks…

Before calling my posts "ludicrous".

[ladelfina]

Originally Posted by AmILost

...
Tell me what would you do if you owned a house and it burned down, and you didn't have insurance?

Well, if I were a member of an Amish community, I would expect help in rebuilding, just as I would expect, myself, to help in rebuilding someone else's lost structure.

Originally Posted by AmILost

What if your car was totalled in an accident, and it was your fault, and you severely injured another driver? Insurance is what allows the existence of a middle class in our society.

I eventually hope not to have a car at all, frankly. My immediate family plan, which will exercise itself within several weeks, is to winnow down from 3 cars to 1, and then eventually none.

That insurance is "what allows" for a middle class is a provocative statement that needs backing up.

Industrial-era ideologies work to alienate and atomize individuals. It needn't be that way.
When Irene struck, hundreds if not thousands of Vermonters came out to assist their neighbors, not asking for proof of insurance. This is an immediate example of what Charles Eisenstein calls "the better world our hearts know is possible".

[ladelfina]

Originally Posted by pauldorell

Ladelfina will have to defend herself.

I already have defended myself. If it were not Mitt Romney, it would be someone else taking advantage of the same system: the system that we plebes are encouraged to applaud and sustain despite its harm to us.

[FrugalYankee]

Originally Posted by pauldorell

Good for you. I'm not that up to date on Patrick Leahy, but we do have Bernie Sanders bumper stickers. A lot of people in Washington probably think he's a crank when he's only trying to do his job the way they should: honestly.

Bernie ran for years and years before finally getting elected. I think he finally achieved the name recognition he needed. I don't always agree with him but he is one of the very few who approaches the task of representing his constituents with integrity and honesty.

[pauldorell]

Originally Posted by ladelfina

I already have defended myself. If it were not Mitt Romney, it would be someone else taking advantage of the same system: the system that we plebes are encouraged to applaud despite its harm to us.

I agree with your basic idea, but you're talking in a domain that's conceptually unfamiliar to most Americans - the kind of thing that might get you called before Congress if Joseph McCarthy were still around. Paul Ryan, also from Wisconsin, is the most conservative vice-presidential candidate since the 19th century.

[arctichomesteader]

Hehe, Coolidge makes all the modern Republicans look like liberals:


President Coolidge, 1st Presidential Film (1924)- YouTube

[pauldorell]

Originally Posted by arctichomesteader

Hehe, Coolidge makes all the modern Republicans look like liberals

True enough, but guess what started the year he left office: the Great Depression.

[arctichomesteader]

Originally Posted by pauldorell

True enough, but guess what started the year he left office: the Great Depression.

The federal reserve was more to blame. Coolidge and Harding prevented the Great Depression from starting around 1920ish. After WWI we had a severe recession that could have turned into the Depression. Harding and Coolidge cut the taxes significantly from Wilson's high rates and things rebounded. It's an almost unknown severe recession these days. When the market crashed in 1929, Hoover's response was to raise taxes, and it turned the recession into the Depression (even FDR denounced that response by Hoover).

[pauldorell]

Originally Posted by arctichomesteader

The federal reserve was more to blame. Coolidge and Harding prevented the Great Depression from starting around 1920ish. After WWI we had a severe recession that could have turned into the Depression. Harding and Coolidge cut the taxes significantly from Wilson's high rates and things rebounded. It's an almost unknown severe recession these days. When the market crashed in 1929, Hoover's response was to raise taxes, and it turned the recession into the Depression (even FDR denounced that response by Hoover).

OK, we really are off topic now. It all depends on which economist you believe. According to the economist I believe, who has a Ph.D. from M.I.T. and a Nobel prize, lowering taxes on the wealthy has no correlation with improved economic growth. Similarly there is no evidence that trickle down theory works. Lowering taxes for people with ordinary incomes does have a stimulating effect. However, you can't expect lowering taxes to solve all problems unless you like disintegrated roads and bridges, increased crime, people dying prematurely for lack of health care, no military to keep out foreign invaders, etc. Everything is a trade-off.