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Re: [Phys-l] frizzi

Sorry Bernard,

The government did not "pay" for any of your education. Money was taken from other people (who had no real means to resist) and was given to you. You shouldn't be grateful to the government but to the people who worked hard for a living and had a large portion of their wages confiscated so you could dabble in physics. Politicians (regardless of party affiliation ) stay in power by taking money from one group and passing it on as boons to others (as private welfare or corporate welfare).

Both this administration and the last have spent insane amounts of money with little to show for it except more people expecting entitlements - whether it's Bush's expansion of Medicare and TARP or Obama's "stimulus". Britain has shown the ultimate outcome for all this largess - rioting and looting so people can get more of what they "want" but don't care to work for.

As a Libertarian I find it delightful that the "Tea Party" folk are taking the moribund Republican Party and shaking it by the throat. I only wish that a similar movement was afoot to return the Democrat Party to classic liberalism.

Bob at PC
________________________________________
From: phys-l-bounces@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu [phys-l-bounces@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu] on behalf of Bernard Cleyet [bernardcleyet@redshift.com]
Sent: Saturday, August 20, 2011 6:01 PM
To: Forum for Physics Educators
Cc: Nancy Seese
Subject: Re: [Phys-l] frizzi

On 2011, Aug 20, , at 14:17, LaMontagne, Bob wrote:

Yes - but where we are is big debt and a very bad recession (I won't use hyperbole and say the word depression) - the combination you passed over.

:-)

Bob at PC

Not very big debt by my measure. It's about equal to the GDP, and it include inter govt. debt (borrowing from SS, etc.)

The interest payment last year was about 15% of tax receipts.

Now I'll compare the Cleyet - Seese couple. Our total interest is ~ $1k on ~ $220k ~ 1/2%

But our total debt is > 2X our gross income. The US is half that. and Japan's is 2X the US's. Note: projections and last year's data. For detail see the Wiki.:


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_public_debt#Measuring_debt_relative_to_gross_domestic_product_.28GDP.29

Note, as I writ earlier > 1/2 is to US citizens, so the poor are transferring their "wealth" to the rich via taxes to pay interest. My only objection to US debt.

An argument for which I've waited is we're passing on the debt to our children, well .. we are also passing on to them improved infrastructure and, what should be, a booming economy. Just as the fifties past on to us the highway system and subsidized education. I'm well aware of this. My only cost for my BA was the incidental fee ($57 / semester) my mother housed and fed me. My being a lab asst. paid the rest. The Brit. govt. paid for ALL my Ph.D. and I enjoyed traveling to an AAPT meeting in MI on the Ike. Hwy.


bc sees every day embedded in the sidewalk "WPA 1940" near his abode. That sidewalk is in better condition than more recent ones!
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