22 Jun 2012, 7:53 am
I postulate; nothing.
Here's why.
I don't know if you're geo blocked from the source for this so I'll quote a significant portion below.
The evidence that "So they can pick different winners and losers is amply demonstrated in this article about the Tea Party maneuverings at the Detroit Windsor bridge... In a nutshell a monopoly on the border crossing earns one man over $50 million a year. Major operatives of The Tea Party is in full support of this monopoly and doing everything they can to stop the building of a second badly needed bridge.
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/201 ... -s-bridge/
The following is the source for the quoatation above, and the excerpt below. In the excerpt note that many of the issues seem to find agreement between various opinions on the political spectum on this board. But they'll never be settled with the current American political make up and climate.
Ethanol and teachers tenure ...for instance... So, am I wrong? Would a Romney election bring about real change or the picking of different "winners and losers"?
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/201 ... neighbour/
•In economic and thermodynamic terms, the use of corn to produce ethanol is a pointless, and even destructive, commercial practice. Yet it persists, with enormous government subsidy, thanks to a small group of industrialists led by the Archer Daniels Midland Company. Because presidential contenders must start their heartland campaign in Iowa, ground zero for corn farming, standing up for common sense has become perversely difficult.
•While the majority of climate scientists and policy experts agree that man-made global warming is a serious problem, environmental activists are swamped by the much larger influence of energy-industry lobbyists, who argue for permissive emission standards and a do-nothing approach to climate change — and who even sow doubts in the media about established science. (In 2009, environmental groups spent $22.4-million lobbying Congress. Their opponents spent seven times that amount.) Politicians, Lessig argues, should concern themselves with the “externalities” imposed by energy production — such as the hundreds of billions of dollars worth of damage that carbon combustion produces. But because such externalities cannot be monetized in the form of campaign contributions, they are largely ignored.
•The key to great public education is great teachers. According to a Hoover Institute scholar whom Lessig quotes, eliminating just the bottom 6% to 8% of bad teachers would bring America’s mediocre test scores up to the standards of world-leading nations such as Finland. Yet well-funded teachers unions consistently block such moves, rigorously defending a model based on seniority and tenure. (These unions, Lessig notes, are among the largest contributors to the Democratic Party.)
•Everyone agrees that a major factor in the 2008 financial crisis was the moral hazard surrounding banks that were “too big to fail.” Yet thanks to aggressive lobbying by those same banks, none of the regulation to come out of that crisis has put a cap on the size of financial institutions. “In October 2009, there were 1,537 lobbyists representing financial institutions registered in D.C., and lobbying to affect this critical legislation – 25 times the number registered to support consumer groups, unions and other proponents of strong reform,” Lessig writes. The result: Wall Street players have gotten bigger, as the rich swallowed the poor in the post-2008 shakeout. And so when the next crisis comes, taxpayers will again be on the hook for bailouts
Here's why.
Imagine, for a moment, that the Tea Party gets its wish: Not only is Barack Obama booted from office, but so too are dozens of Democratic lawmakers. With the Republican numbers strengthened by an incoming class of rock-ribbed GOP congressman, President Mitt Romney repeals Obamacare and systematically dismantles the heavily regulated welfare state that has been built up, by Democratic and Republican administrations alike, since the New Deal.
That’s the fantasy: a small-government revolution to take America back to the libertarian blueprint created by the nation’s Founding Fathers. But it won’t happen, no matter what happens in November. That’s because, as David Frum reminded us in his recent column about the campaign to build a new Detroit-Windsor bridge, many of the Republican politicians and special-interest groups riding the Tea Party phenomenon don’t really want to get rid of government’s power to decide economic winners and losers. They just want to capture the levers of government so they can pick different winners and losers
I don't know if you're geo blocked from the source for this so I'll quote a significant portion below.
The evidence that "So they can pick different winners and losers is amply demonstrated in this article about the Tea Party maneuverings at the Detroit Windsor bridge... In a nutshell a monopoly on the border crossing earns one man over $50 million a year. Major operatives of The Tea Party is in full support of this monopoly and doing everything they can to stop the building of a second badly needed bridge.
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/201 ... -s-bridge/
The following is the source for the quoatation above, and the excerpt below. In the excerpt note that many of the issues seem to find agreement between various opinions on the political spectum on this board. But they'll never be settled with the current American political make up and climate.
Ethanol and teachers tenure ...for instance... So, am I wrong? Would a Romney election bring about real change or the picking of different "winners and losers"?
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/201 ... neighbour/
•In economic and thermodynamic terms, the use of corn to produce ethanol is a pointless, and even destructive, commercial practice. Yet it persists, with enormous government subsidy, thanks to a small group of industrialists led by the Archer Daniels Midland Company. Because presidential contenders must start their heartland campaign in Iowa, ground zero for corn farming, standing up for common sense has become perversely difficult.
•While the majority of climate scientists and policy experts agree that man-made global warming is a serious problem, environmental activists are swamped by the much larger influence of energy-industry lobbyists, who argue for permissive emission standards and a do-nothing approach to climate change — and who even sow doubts in the media about established science. (In 2009, environmental groups spent $22.4-million lobbying Congress. Their opponents spent seven times that amount.) Politicians, Lessig argues, should concern themselves with the “externalities” imposed by energy production — such as the hundreds of billions of dollars worth of damage that carbon combustion produces. But because such externalities cannot be monetized in the form of campaign contributions, they are largely ignored.
•The key to great public education is great teachers. According to a Hoover Institute scholar whom Lessig quotes, eliminating just the bottom 6% to 8% of bad teachers would bring America’s mediocre test scores up to the standards of world-leading nations such as Finland. Yet well-funded teachers unions consistently block such moves, rigorously defending a model based on seniority and tenure. (These unions, Lessig notes, are among the largest contributors to the Democratic Party.)
•Everyone agrees that a major factor in the 2008 financial crisis was the moral hazard surrounding banks that were “too big to fail.” Yet thanks to aggressive lobbying by those same banks, none of the regulation to come out of that crisis has put a cap on the size of financial institutions. “In October 2009, there were 1,537 lobbyists representing financial institutions registered in D.C., and lobbying to affect this critical legislation – 25 times the number registered to support consumer groups, unions and other proponents of strong reform,” Lessig writes. The result: Wall Street players have gotten bigger, as the rich swallowed the poor in the post-2008 shakeout. And so when the next crisis comes, taxpayers will again be on the hook for bailouts
Only one SCJ is younger than Roberts (Kagan). Do you think they'd agree that Alito (62), Thomas (64) and Scalia (76) might also have succumbed a while ago?
