John Stossel's 'Bailout and Bull'

[Zoom-boing]

This was on last night. I only saw the first two parts. Interesting on the leasing the highway part . . . they wanted to do that here in PA but I never heard it as a private company wanting to take the lease, I heard it as a foreign country. Rumors perhaps but leasing to a private U.S. company is very different from leasing to a foreign company/country. As far as I know the idea is dead but after seeing this report, maybe Rendell wasn't so off in this idea.

ABC News: Watch '20/20' Friday Nights at 10 p.m.

 

[PoliticalChic]

This was on last night. I only saw the first two parts. Interesting on the leasing the highway part . . . they wanted to do that here in PA but I never heard it as a private company wanting to take the lease, I heard it as a foreign country. Rumors perhaps but leasing to a private U.S. company is very different from leasing to a foreign company/country. As far as I know the idea is dead but after seeing this report, maybe Rendell wasn't so off in this idea.

ABC News: Watch '20/20' Friday Nights at 10 p.m.

I thought that the final segment was the best. He interviewed Barbara Ehrenreich, whose "Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America," attempts to show that the poor remain poor, and the middle-class cannot make it in America, and then interviews Adam Shepard, who wrote "Scratch Beginnings," who actually lived the life that Ehrenreich outlined, and showed that she had set out to fail.

It seems the Ehrenreich book is required reading in many schools. It remains to be seen if the elitists will make the Shepard book required.

Shepard picked a city (Charleston, SC) out of a hat, and went there with $25. He told no one about his college degree, started out in a homeless shelter, where he resided for about two months. He got a job at a moving company, for $8/hour, and within a year he had $5500 in the bank, a furnished apartment, and a car. "Life is pretty great," he said.

Stossel went on to interview numerous middle-class people and Arthur Brooks, of American Enterprise Institute, formerly of Syracuse University, who stated that "middle-class people live like rich peope did in the '50's."

The best was an Hispanic immigrant who started out poor, works for Valero refineries, and has a house, $50,000 worth of sand buggies for himself and his family (three kids) and spends $1000 every time he takes them out to the dunes.

Brings to mind the old saying that if you finish high school, hold a job for at least a year, and wait until you marry to have children, you can make it in America.

The segment put a stake through the heart of frauds like Ehrenreich, and the left-wing elitists who love to put down opportunity in America.

I hope you get to see the rest of the show.

 

[Dorkazoid_Jones]

"The segment put a stake through the heart of frauds like Ehrenreich, and the left-wing elitists who love to put down opportunity in America."

Political Chic, I couldn't agree more. These folks who are victimmongering like Ehrenreich should never be published. They manufacture victims on every corner and then if you disagree with them it's because you're an INSENSITIVE BASTARD or chick or something like that.

 

[PoliticalChic]

"The segment put a stake through the heart of frauds like Ehrenreich, and the left-wing elitists who love to put down opportunity in America."

Political Chic, I couldn't agree more. These folks who are victimmongering like Ehrenreich should never be published. They manufacture victims on every corner and then if you disagree with them it's because you're an INSENSITIVE BASTARD or chick or something like that.

Well, I'm for publishing, or even self-publishing everything.

What gets my goat is the left-wing acacemics force students to read and regurgitate the "America no-good," crap.

Interesting reviews for the Shepard book on Amazon.

 

[PubliusInfinitum]

"Well said" to everyone...

My favorite part of this that it is VOID of leftists...

"I wonder why?"

The thing about freedom is you're FREE TO BECOME WHAT YOU WANT... and you BECOME THAT by DOING IT.

think of "want" as a door and DOING as the key which opens that door.


The left likes to pretend that the "WANTING" part is the essential part... and how unfair it is that the door is closed...

 

[Zoom-boing]

"Well said" to everyone...

My favorite part of this that it is VOID of leftists...

"I wonder why?"

The thing about freedom is you're FREE TO BECOME WHAT YOU WANT... and you BECOME THAT by DOING IT.

think of "want" as a door and DOING as the key which opens that door.


The left likes to pretend that the "WANTING" part is the essential part... and how unfair it is that the door is closed...

In conjunction with this Pub, 'Whether you think that you can, or that you can't, you are usually right' (Henry Ford)

 

[johnrocks]

Great show, it is on you tube if anyone is interested. I wish Stossel would run for a political office and win.

 

[American Horse]

This was on last night. I only saw the first two parts. Interesting on the leasing the highway part . . . they wanted to do that here in PA but I never heard it as a private company wanting to take the lease, I heard it as a foreign country. Rumors perhaps but leasing to a private U.S. company is very different from leasing to a foreign company/country. As far as I know the idea is dead but after seeing this report, maybe Rendell wasn't so off in this idea.

The Indiana toll road was a perennial revenue loser with annual costs to the state exceeding tolls. Now the state has 3.8 billion to spend on infrastructure and other improvements separated from the leased toll road, to upgrade the state’s other roads and transportation infrastructure. As part of the agreement the investors/lessees have to upgrade the highway for it’s future use for their toll activities and maintain it during the period of the lease.

Our Mitch Daniels is the same governor who was 'lampooned’ on the Daly Show as the "Idiot Indiana Governor who wanted to sell the Indiana Toll road to Spain.” The distortion presented by that "comedy show” (which is a highly rated news source for many) was that the toll road would be sold when actually it was to be leased for 75 years for 3.8 billion, which is a whole lot of money for a state like Indiana with only 92 counties with their individual transportation improvements needing to be financed.

Indiana's toll road was leased to a private Spanish-Australian consortium: Macquarie-Cintra.

Pennsylvania's like Indiana's toll road has huge logistical value because it carries traffic through the main East/West transportation artery across the US which goes thru Chicago and nearest to the Canadian border.

 

[Zoom-boing]

This was on last night. I only saw the first two parts. Interesting on the leasing the highway part . . . they wanted to do that here in PA but I never heard it as a private company wanting to take the lease, I heard it as a foreign country. Rumors perhaps but leasing to a private U.S. company is very different from leasing to a foreign company/country. As far as I know the idea is dead but after seeing this report, maybe Rendell wasn't so off in this idea.

The Indiana toll road was a perennial revenue loser with annual costs to the state exceeding tolls. Now the state has 3.8 billion to spend on infrastructure and other improvements separated from the leased toll road, to upgrade the state’s other roads and transportation infrastructure. As part of the agreement the investors/lessees have to upgrade the highway for it’s future use for their toll activities and maintain it during the period of the lease.

Our Mitch Daniels is the same governor who was 'lampooned’ on the Daly Show as the "Idiot Indiana Governor who wanted to sell the Indiana Toll road to Spain.” The distortion presented by that "comedy show” (which is a highly rated news source for many) was that the toll road would be sold when actually it was to be leased for 75 years for 3.8 billion, which is a whole lot of money for a state like Indiana with only 92 counties with their individual transportation improvements needing to be financed.

Indiana's toll road was leased to a private Spanish-Australian consortium: Macquarie-Cintra.

Pennsylvania's like Indiana's toll road has huge logistical value because it carries traffic through the main East/West transportation artery across the US which goes thru Chicago and nearest to the Canadian border.

Thanks for this info, AH.

 

[Yukon]

I watched it and it was great. Just shows how many crooks are running around your country. I was shocked.

 

[PubliusInfinitum]

I watched it and it was great. Just shows how many crooks are running around your country. I was shocked.

Well sure... because Canuckistan is so free of graft and government interference in the markets.

 

[oreo]

I thought it was a real eye-opener. The one that was most surprising to me was the pre-kindegarden--that we will all be paying for. My grandson goes to a private day-care--that is educational geered. So basically our pre-schools will be taken over by the "government" basically stepping on a lot of toes in the private sector pre-school--day care arena.

The other study regarding this was that the study showed that once kids hit the 4th grade one could not determine the benefits of a student that went to the head-start program. I thought that was very interesting also.

Basically the program proved to me--that the private sector is much more efficient at bridge & road building & pre-school education than an expensive taxpayer takeover.

 

[Goodfella]

I thought it was a real eye-opener. The one that was most surprising to me was the pre-kindegarden--that we will all be paying for. My grandson goes to a private day-care--that is educational geered. So basically our pre-schools will be taken over by the "government" basically stepping on a lot of toes in the private sector pre-school--day care arena.

The other study regarding this was that the study showed that once kids hit the 4th grade one could not determine the benefits of a student that went to the head-start program. I thought that was very interesting also.

Basically the program proved to me--that the private sector is much more efficient at bridge & road building & pre-school education than an expensive taxpayer takeover.

I was a little bit confused with the Pre-K segment. Will current pre-k schools be taken over by the government or will the government build new schools for pre-k children similar to the public schools we have now?

 

[Zoom-boing]

I thought it was a real eye-opener. The one that was most surprising to me was the pre-kindegarden--that we will all be paying for. My grandson goes to a private day-care--that is educational geered. So basically our pre-schools will be taken over by the "government" basically stepping on a lot of toes in the private sector pre-school--day care arena.

The other study regarding this was that the study showed that once kids hit the 4th grade one could not determine the benefits of a student that went to the head-start program. I thought that was very interesting also.

Basically the program proved to me--that the private sector is much more efficient at bridge & road building & pre-school education than an expensive taxpayer takeover.

I was a little bit confused with the Pre-K segment. Will current pre-k schools be taken over by the government or will the government build new schools for pre-k children similar to the public schools we have now?

I thought pre-school was an option, not a requirement. Did they change that?

 

[midcan5]

The problem with Stossel type propaganda is he gets to pick and choose his reality. How many who have lost jobs that paid a decent wage can now live on 8 dollars an hour? Especially if they have a family and bills. And yet many do, but the point of Ehrenreich's research was the same as Stossels so why were her results different? Because she lived real life as a waitress and or housekeeper, not the life of a person with a college degree who saved a whole 5k. I wonder is that close to Buffett's earning? The great leap of assumption in the above conservative ideologue posts is the fact the person having a hard go of it is at fault. Given that assumption one needs then to consider why the person waitressing or housecleaning selects to be poor? Given an option they pick being poor because of? Sorry, I must not understand people who pick being poor, particularly when they work hard every day. Or just maybe Stossel and his ilk are full of shit to use simple language. I think the latter.

Poverty

 

[Bern80]

The problem with Stossel type propaganda is he gets to pick and choose his reality. How many who have lost jobs that paid a decent wage can now live on 8 dollars an hour? Especially if they have a family and bills. And yet many do, but the point of Ehrenreich's research was the same as Stossels so why were her results different? Because she lived real life as a waitress and or housekeeper, not the life of a person with a college degree who saved a whole 5k. I wonder is that close to Buffett's earning? The great leap of assumption in the above conservative ideologue posts is the fact the person having a hard go of it is at fault. Given that assumption one needs then to consider why the person waitressing or housecleaning selects to be poor? Given an option they pick being poor because of? Sorry, I must not understand people who pick being poor, particularly when they work hard every day. Or just maybe Stossel and his ilk are full of shit to use simple language. I think the latter.

Poverty

You don't believe Ehenreich chose hers for here book? You don't think she set out to convey a certain persepctive and only found people who matched it?

You're being just plain dishonest here Mid. Shepeherd did the exact same thing and he did 'make it'.

As answer to why to waitresses choose to be poor? Well let's talk about making assumptions again shall we. It is YOU who are assuming things. YOU are the one assuming somehow waitressing just happens to someone. It doesn't. YOU are the one full of shit mid because it is the people of your ilk that refuse at every turn to acknowledge the individuals role and ownership in why they are where they are.