Many Recipients of Government Funds Don't Know they Receive Government Funds

[Dot Com]

You overlooked "beyond the initial investment" that means those gov't projects created wealth beyond their cost and some exponentially so such as DARPA & the interstate highway system. Your wholly private enterprise utopia doesn't. The Defense (Offense) Department alone swallows up > 1/2 of the discretionary budget to the Republicans glee I might add.

Where is the evidence that DARPA or the Interstate highway system created any net wealth whatsoever? In the first place, you're ignoring all the wealth they destroyed. For instance, the interstate highways put the railroads out of business in the passenger business and a large part of the freight business, and the railroads don't cost the taxpayers a friggin dime.

What has DARPA produced that created any wealth?

Are you actually claiming that private enterprise doesn't produce wealth? Take a look around at the stuff in your house. That is real wealth. private enterprise produces virtually all of it.

Government is a black hole for wealth.

To start with the highway system, the railroads "don't cost the taxpayers a friggin dime" until you realize a large portion of their development came from government land preferences and in the case of the South, public construction of track. Beyond that, the interstate system was definitely helped boost economic growth. During the first two decades after construction, studies estimate the system caused a 25-30% growth in productivity. It also significantly lowered production and distribution costs.

As for DARPA, I think it would be pretty hard to argue the internet hasn't been a source of wealth.

That bripat isn't aware/refuses to accept the enormous amount of input into the creation of what today is known as the internet, isn't surprising LOL. He's a lock-step, conservative.

 

[bripat9643]

Many Recipients of Government Funds Don't Know they Receive Government Funds

That's because Americans are stupid - just the way the Rightwing powers want them to be.

The membership of the major teaching unions are Democrats, so who's responsible for making them stupid?

 

[boedicca]

Projects such as The Hoover Dam, Interstate highways, postal roads, & DARPA created no wealth beyond the initial investment? I doubt it. Then, the biggest wealth creator/innovator of all- the Def. Dept. What say you?

You added a qualifier that was not there.
Where did the gov't get the wealth to build the dam- the taxpayer.
No one said that the gov't can not redirect resources. But,
that redirection of resources is only taking it from something else in the economy.
The gov't redistributes it to achieve outcomes that it determines to be more desirable.


Also, no one said there should be no gov't for things like public goods, natural monopolies etc.
Furthermore, the gov't can create an ambiance that is conducive for individuals to create wealth is not
denied. In fact, I would say that one major role of the gov't should be to create an atmosphere that
promotes competition in the market place, not hinder it.

So the point still stands

You overlooked "beyond the initial investment" that means those gov't projects created wealth beyond their cost and some exponentially so such as DARPA & the interstate highway system. Your wholly private enterprise utopia doesn't exist. The Defense (Offense) Department alone swallows up > 1/2 of the discretionary budget to the Republicans glee I might add.

And how much of the Stimulus bill was spent on such things?

 

[bripat9643]

That bripat isn't aware/refuses to accept the enormous amount of input into the creation of what today is known as the internet, isn't surprising LOL. He's a lock-step, conservative.

I've been in the tech business for over 25 years, so I'm perfectly aware of who did what to create the internet. The score is this:

Government - 1%
private industry - 99%

 

[boedicca]

An alternate history of the development of the Internet if it really had been the result of government regulation:

In January 1993, idle regulators at the FCC belatedly discover the burgeoning world of online services. Led by CompuServe, MCI Mail, AOL, GEnie, Delphi, and Prodigy, these services have been embraced by the computer-owning public. Users "log on" to communicate via "e-mail" and "chat rooms," make online purchases and reservations, and tap information databases. Their services are "walled gardens" that don't allow the users of one service to visit or use another. The FCC declares that because these private networks use the publically regulated telephone system, they fall under the purview of the Communications Act of 1934. The commission announces forthcoming plans to regulate the services in the "public interest, convenience, and necessity."

The FCC ignores the standalone Internet because nobody but academics, scientists, and some government bodies go there. So do the online services, which don't offer Internet access.

"Regulating the Internet would make as much sense as regulating inter-office mail at Michigan State University," says the FCC chairman. "The online services are the future of cyberspace."

The online companies protest and vow to sue the FCC, but the heavily Democratic Congress moots the suits by passing new legislation giving the commission oversight of the online world.

The FCC immediately determines that the lack of interoperability among the online systems harms consumers and orders that each company submit a technical framework by January 1994 under which all online companies will unify to one shared technology in the near future. The precedent for this are the technical standards that the FCC has been setting for decades for AM and FM, and for television. The online services threaten legal action again, and again Congress passes new legislation authorizing the FCC to do as it wishes. The online companies hustle to submit a technical framework. Microsoft wants in on the game, so it persuades the FCC to extend the framework deadline to July 1995.

Meanwhile in Switzerland, Tim Berners-Lee has invented the first Internet browser—"WorldWideWeb," he calls it. The Internet continues to creep along on campuses as a marginalized academic/scientific network used mostly for e-mail. A college student at the University of Illinois named Marc Andreessen helps write a more sophisticated graphical browser, which is released to little fanfare in 1993. When Andreessen leaves his graduate school program, he can't get a job in his field of computer sciences and takes a position as a night manager at a Taco Bell. He spends his spare time repairing broken Macintoshes. ...

If the FCC had regulated the Internet: A counterfactual history of cyberspace. - By Jack Shafer - Slate Magazine

 

[Synthaholic]

Many Recipients of Government Funds Don't Know they Receive Government Funds

That's because Americans are stupid - just the way the Rightwing powers want them to be.

The membership of the major teaching unions are Democrats, so who's responsible for making them stupid?

American culture.

 

[Synthaholic]

That bripat isn't aware/refuses to accept the enormous amount of input into the creation of what today is known as the internet, isn't surprising LOL. He's a lock-step, conservative.

I've been in the tech business for over 25 years, so I'm perfectly aware of who did what to create the internet. The score is this:

Government - 1%
private industry - 99%

You continue to display your ignorance. Who paid for the internet's infrastructure? Government.

 

[bripat9643]

The membership of the major teaching unions are Democrats, so who's responsible for making them stupid?

American culture.

ROFL! I'll take that as an admission that you know Democrats are making Americans stupid.

 

[Synthaholic]

 

[Synthaholic]

The membership of the major teaching unions are Democrats, so who's responsible for making them stupid?

American culture.

ROFL! I'll take that as an admission that you know Democrats are making Americans stupid.

I'm sure you take a lot of things wrong.

 

[bripat9643]

You continue to display your ignorance. Who paid for the internet's infrastructure? Government.

Wrong. Private industry paid for 99% of it in the beginning, and 100% of it now. Can you name one government owned piece of hardware required to run the internet?

 

[bripat9643]

ROFL! I'll take that as an admission that you know Democrats are making Americans stupid.

I'm sure you take a lot of things wrong.

Not usually, and I never get it wrong when I note someone trying to weasel out of admitting the facts.

 

[Ravi]

Unintended consequences. The National Flood Insurance Program actually makes floods worse by not encouraging people to build in places where there is less risk of floods. It would actually be less expensive to simply move anyone whose home is flooded to another area than to constantly rebuild.


Uncle Sam’s Flood Machine | The Freeman | Ideas On Liberty

Developers build in those areas. Big business.

Let me say this again. Make an insurance program like the flood program that covers not just floods but any natural disaster.

We already have that through private insurance. We would even have flood insurance through private carriers if the government had not stepped in, and that would have price widespread development in flood zones out of the reach of most people. The government stepped in and picked it up, and we now have middle class people building homes in flood plains, and we just keep shelling out more money every year.

I hereby make a prediction. If we do set up a government run disaster insurance program we will see an increase in the numbers of deaths related to natural disasters that will be directly caused by the fact that the government will make it less expensive to over build in areas subject to said disasters.

My private insurance costs $6,500 per year and doesn't cover floods. My flood insurance costs $250 per year and covers dwelling and contents.

So, yeah, you're wrong.

 

[Dot Com]

That bripat isn't aware/refuses to accept the enormous amount of input into the creation of what today is known as the internet, isn't surprising LOL. He's a lock-step, conservative.

I've been in the tech business for over 25 years, so I'm perfectly aware of who did what to create the internet. The score is this:

Government - 1%
private industry - 99%

You continue to display your ignorance. Who paid for the internet's infrastructure? Government.

Of course bripat posted a link to back up his assertion? Like most conservatives I've encountered on message boards, prolly not

 

[uscitizen]

Here is something that the right just does not want to talk about. And an example of some who get govt funds.

During fiscal year 2010, the PBGC paid $5.6 billion in benefits to participants of failed pension plans. That year, 147 pension plans failed, and the PBGC's deficit increased 4.5 percent to $23 billion. The PBGC has a total of $102.5 billion in obligations and $79.5 billion in assets.[3]

Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Neotrotsky]

Here is something that the right just does not want to talk about. And an example of some who get govt funds.

During fiscal year 2010, the PBGC paid $5.6 billion in benefits to participants of failed pension plans. That year, 147 pension plans failed, and the PBGC's deficit increased 4.5 percent to $23 billion. The PBGC has a total of $102.5 billion in obligations and $79.5 billion in assets.[3]

Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Why would they be afraid

If anything is a fine example of another failed gov't program; another Ponzi plan like
Social Security. Another gov't plan promising "money for nothing" (and the chicks for free)

So a mandated gov't program that over promises and under estimates costs due to political reasons,
which is now in the hole, shows what?

How much more we need gov't; great gimmick the gov't has - create the very problem which you can
then use to justify even more useless intervention. Talk about job security ...


This was another program that was never suppose to cost the gov't any money
because the sourcing for it would come from not general tax revenues but:

Insurance premiums paid by sponsors of defined benefit pension plans
Assets held by the pension plans it takes over
Recoveries of unfunded pension liabilities from plan sponsors' bankruptcy estates
Investment income.

The gov't would run it and set the rates and pick the investment options.


We see how well it worked

yeah, lets not talk about it

 

[uscitizen]

Here is something that the right just does not want to talk about. And an example of some who get govt funds.

During fiscal year 2010, the PBGC paid $5.6 billion in benefits to participants of failed pension plans. That year, 147 pension plans failed, and the PBGC's deficit increased 4.5 percent to $23 billion. The PBGC has a total of $102.5 billion in obligations and $79.5 billion in assets.[3]

Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Why would they be afraid

If anything is a fine example of another failed gov't program; another Ponzi plan like
Social Security. Another gov't plan promising "money for nothing" (and the chicks for free)

So a mandated gov't program that over promises and under estimates costs due to political reasons, which is now in the hole, shows what?

How much more we need gov't


This was another program that was never suppose to cost the gov't any money
because the sourcing for it would come from not general tax revenues but:

Insurance premiums paid by sponsors of defined benefit pension plans
Assets held by the pension plans it takes over
Recoveries of unfunded pension liabilities from plan sponsors' bankruptcy estates
Investment income.

The gov't would run it and set the rates and pick the investment options.


We see how well it worked

yeah, lets not talk about it

supporting the failed pension plans of private industries?
Corporate welfare to cover the failures of private industry and keep down the public outrage.

 

[Neotrotsky]

Here is something that the right just does not want to talk about. And an example of some who get govt funds.

During fiscal year 2010, the PBGC paid $5.6 billion in benefits to participants of failed pension plans. That year, 147 pension plans failed, and the PBGC's deficit increased 4.5 percent to $23 billion. The PBGC has a total of $102.5 billion in obligations and $79.5 billion in assets.[3]

Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Why would they be afraid

If anything is a fine example of another failed gov't program; another Ponzi plan like
Social Security. Another gov't plan promising "money for nothing" (and the chicks for free)

So a mandated gov't program that over promises and under estimates costs due to political reasons, which is now in the hole, shows what?

How much more we need gov't


This was another program that was never suppose to cost the gov't any money
because the sourcing for it would come from not general tax revenues but:

Insurance premiums paid by sponsors of defined benefit pension plans
Assets held by the pension plans it takes over
Recoveries of unfunded pension liabilities from plan sponsors' bankruptcy estates
Investment income.

The gov't would run it and set the rates and pick the investment options.


We see how well it worked

yeah, lets not talk about it

supporting the failed pension plans of private industries?
Corporate welfare to cover the failures of private industry and keep down the public outrage.

Read your own wiki link, it was suppose to be funded by non gov't monies.
The public outrage should be on how poor the gov't ran it
In fact, there should be public outrage on how poor the gov't runs everything

Technically speaking it would not really be corporate welfare; it would be
pensioner welfare. The company is question is long gone and bankrupt

Hey, perhaps if we taxed businesses more to fund the plan that would help

 

[Antiderivative]

The government is so pervasive in our lives that everyone receives benefits from it.

 

[uscitizen]

Why would they be afraid

If anything is a fine example of another failed gov't program; another Ponzi plan like
Social Security. Another gov't plan promising "money for nothing" (and the chicks for free)

So a mandated gov't program that over promises and under estimates costs due to political reasons, which is now in the hole, shows what?

How much more we need gov't


This was another program that was never suppose to cost the gov't any money
because the sourcing for it would come from not general tax revenues but:

Insurance premiums paid by sponsors of defined benefit pension plans
Assets held by the pension plans it takes over
Recoveries of unfunded pension liabilities from plan sponsors' bankruptcy estates
Investment income.

The gov't would run it and set the rates and pick the investment options.


We see how well it worked

yeah, lets not talk about it

supporting the failed pension plans of private industries?
Corporate welfare to cover the failures of private industry and keep down the public outrage.

Read your own wiki link, it was suppose to be funded by non gov't monies.
The public outrage should be on how poor the gov't ran it
In fact, there should be public outrage on how poor the gov't runs everything

Technically speaking it would not really be corporate welfare; it would be
pensioner welfare. The company is question is long gone and bankrupt

Hey, perhaps if we taxed businesses more to fund the plan that would help

Obviously if a corp pension fund fails the pensioners should just be cut off.
Just like if a privatized SS system failed.