Far fetched fantasy story (2 Viewers)

[AccessBlaster]

Yeah I hear ya, I was thinking more like individuals
Neighbors or WWll types, dustbowl foke.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Heck, a three-foot wall between us and Canada would be great. Didn't Walt Whitman have something to say about good fences making good neighbors?

 

[Frothingslosh]

Heck, a three-foot wall between us and Canada would be great. Didn't Walt Whitman have something to say about good fences making good neighbors?

It was Robert Frost in Mending Wall, and it was used to show how the neighbor who said that felt the wall had to be there because it had always been there, and because his father before him had said the same thing. The narrator, on the other hand, was questioning why the wall even had to be there, since it served no purpose whatsoever.

So yeah, it actually refers to unthinking adherence to dogma, which I rather doubt was the point you meant.

Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
‘Stay where you are until our backs are turned!'
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of outdoor game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.'
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn’t it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That wants it down.' I could say ‘Elves’ to him,
But it’s not elves exactly, and I’d rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father’s saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.'

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Obviously, literature wasn't one of my best fields after I left college. But then again, I never was much on poetry even IN college. Because I was an honors student in high school AND a native speaker of (American) English, I was able to get by with exactly one semester of English as an undergraduate, and grad school didn't require a "socially balanced curriculum." That means it has been over 50 years since my last poetry class. What can I say except "Whoopsie!"

Reading the poem now, I see your point about unthinking adherence to dogma. Makes a good analogy for the atheist threads in its own way.

I would have repaired the wall, though, because short walls and fences - properly laid along property lines - prevent accusations of encroachment. That isn't blind adherence to dogma. That is a response to an actual problem. And for property owners as implied by the poem, it is a reminder of the need to know one's limits. It is also why apartments and houses have walls.

 

[Frothingslosh]

Except that the poem isn't about why the wall is there or even why the READER thinks the wall is there; it's about why the NEIGHBOR insisted the wall be there, and how the neighbor insisted on it because his father did and wasn't willing to consider it past that point ("He will not go behind his father’s saying, And he likes having thought of it so well.") It's a subtle distinction, true, but it exists nonetheless. That's always one of the classic blunders (much like starting a land war in Asia) when reading something like this - acting on the desire to superimpose your own explanation onto what the author is saying.

And while I haven't read much poetry in the last couple decades myself, in college back in the early 90s, I was a computer science major with a philosophy minor, mostly focusing on philosophy in religion. Odd combination, I know.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Frothy, I understand unusual minors. I was more straight-forward, with a chemistry major and a physics minor (mostly the thermodynamics side of physics, not nuclear stuff.) I got into computer disciplines only because my Physical Chemistry prof required us to use our little old one-lung IBM 1620 Mod II with its FORTRAN II-D compiler for some of the lab work.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Oh, and by the way, I was NOT superimposing my views on the poem itself. I was, however, claiming that I do not think the way the author thinks.

On reflection, I see this sub-theme as a dichotomous viewpoint about order vs. disorder. (Yes, that one came out of left field...). I see fences as a way of imposing order. You see them as an unneeded imposition. I see borders as having at least SOME relevance to an orderly society. You seem to want a little more chaos.

This is neither bad nor good - it is reflective of our philosophical differences, I guess.

I respect that you have a personal viewpoint that is entirely your own, one that deserves acknowledgement. I just happen to have a different viewpoint. I would hope that one day you can recognize that it is not as frivolous as you currently seem to think it is.

 

[Vassago]

Americans might start cooking their own meals, if they can afford the food. Unfortunately, with the increase in produce prices due to immigration no longer taking the work, only the rich will benefit from this system in the short term. In the long term, nobody will, except for those that are able to monopolize the industry and snatch up the competition.

 

[AccessBlaster]

If we a make minimum wage say $15.00 an hour won't that drive the cost of
Food higher? Either you have slave labor and cheap food or pay the pervailing wages and pay the price for higher groceries.

I know the utopian answer is "can't we have both"?

 

[Frothingslosh]

Try looking at the states that actually HAVE increased minimum wage.

Washington has had the highest minimum wage in the nation for at least 15 years at this point, and it has led the nation in overall job growth during that same period. When they raised the minimum in Sea-Tac a couple years back, they wound up with an economic boom. The same result is being seen in the other cities that have recently raised minimum wage to $10 and $15.

This happens because of what the GOP refuses to admit - when the people at the bottom of the economic pyramid have more money, they spend it, meaning more activity through the ENTIRE economy, and everyone winds up better off.

I also recall seeing a study some time back (I think around 2010 or so) that if McDonalds were to have to raise their wages to their crew from $7.25 to $10.00, they could cover the entire increase in costs by raising the cost of a Big Mac by a whopping $0.50.

Don't forget that a MASSIVE reason (probably the biggest, honestly, after the assembly line) Gerald Ford did so well with his auto company was because he paid his workers WAAAAAY more than workers received at any other auto maker, which in turn allowed them to actually purchase cars of their own.

It's the movement of money through the entire economy that makes the economy work, not rich people pulling more and more money OUT of the economy while the poor starve. Stagnant wages only work when there is no inflation, and inflation is a fact of life without the gold and silver standards. The truth of the matter is that if the minimum wage had kept up with inflation, it would be either $16 or $22, depending on which model you use to track buying power.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Frothy - very true. Money is meaningless unless it is moving. Potential money, like potential energy, does nothing. It is moving money (or kinetic energy) that gets work done. And for the economy, it is the flow of money through multiple hands (each getting the benefit thereof) that causes growth. Which is why I have some money in banks for my retirement cushion, but a lot more in working capital investments.

 

[AccessBlaster]

Hypothetically if a farmer in California is paying migrants workers $7.50 an hour last year, and now pays $15.00 an hour who exactly is paying the difference? The farmer or the consumers. You can talk all you want about stagnant money. The reality is he's going to pass this increase along to the consumers. And or hire less migrants.

 

[Frothingslosh]

That would first require the farmer to actually be paying migrant workers $7.50 an hour.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

My only complaint in all of this is when I go to "xxxxx" burger or chicken drive-thru, it would be DAMNED nice if that person making more than minimum wage would actually get the orders right once in a while. THAT is, to me, a valid objection.

Raising the minimum wage isn't a terrible idea. Doubling it? Maybe not the best choice. You have to strike a three-part balance between cost of doing business and humanitarian concerns over a decent wage and the effect of the cost increase on prices. There HAS to be something at the table for all THREE participants: Management, Workers, and Customers. Otherwise you have screwed the pooch.

 

[Frothingslosh]

Guys, I can't believe I have to be the one to say this.

The $15 an hour thing is a negotiating point.

You NEVER ask for what you're willing to settle for.

That said, if you look at the history of the minimum wage, not only is it LONG overdue for an increase, but increases have tended to be around 50%. Also, every single last mother-freaking time, the GOP has argued that it would be the end of America as we know it.

EVERY

SINGLE

TIME

I mean, yes, $15 would be nice - it would go a LONG way toward restoring the minimum wage to the same purchasing power it had when it was introduced, but only the most clueless supporter actually thinks it's going there from $7.25. Still, you're going to continue seeing $15 bandied about until the GOP is actually willing to sit down and consider raising it to a level that would at least allow someone working 40 hours a week to support themselves without government assistance.

It will not, however, be the end of the American economy this time any more than it was any OTHER time it got raised.

 

[Frothingslosh]

And before someone invariably goes there (someone always does), no, raising the minimum wage won't affect my income in the slightest, except, perhaps, for increasing it as more people find themselves able to afford health care, even under the abortion the GOP just tried to push through today.

 

[AccessBlaster]

To bad the progressives didn't read the ACT before ramming it through. Wasn't it Nancy Pelosi who said "we must pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it"

 

[Frothingslosh]

To bad the progressives didn't read the ACT before ramming it through. Wasn't it Nancy Pelosi who said "we must pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it"

Or perhaps you should try getting your news from a site that isn't biased and not only taking a partial quote out of context, but editing it to suit their agenda.

Also, bills are in flux and subject to change without notice until actually passed, reconciled with each other, the reconciled bill passed, and finally signed by POTUS. With all the changes constantly being demanded by the GOP at the time, no one could say with any certainty what the final bill would look like.

This speech was given to county officials asking specifics about the Affordable Care Act before it was even finalized, and as usual, the Right took the truth and twisted it completely around until it matched the narrative they intend their followers to believe. In-context, its meaning was plain to the people it was meant for; it's only when it was stripped down and all context removed (including the information that it was still undergoing constant revisions) that it begins to sound like the 'we don't know what we're doing' argument the Right loves to wave around. After all, they can't win a damned thing on their own merits, so they have no choice but to lie, cheat, and otherwise deceive the American people.

Claiming that she said "we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it" and that it was an admission that it was incomprehensibly complex is no different than taking "You will never hear me say, 'I am a Nazi'." and telling everyone "Frothingslosh just said, 'I am a Nazi'." By taking the quote out of its context, you completely reverse the meaning, and that didn't even involve having to edit the quote to generate the effect you desired. Same deal here.

So here, for your edification, is a transcript of her ENTIRE speech, made to the 2010 Legislative Conference for the National Association of Counties, which is a meeting of an immense amount of county officials from all over the US.

Thank you, President Valerie Brown [of Sonoma County, Calif.] Don’t we all take pride in Valerie Brown recently being named County Official of the Year for her advocacy on behalf of all of America’s counties? Thank you, Valerie. Her wealth of experience – as a mayor, a state legislator, and an educator and a county executive – makes her an innovative and effective leader for the future. At this time of great challenges, her understanding of the different needs of NACo’s diverse counties is essential.

I understand many other county officials are here from California. Any Californians to be heard from here? Thank you for coming the distance to Washington and for going the distance for our constituents. And I want to acknowledge all of you who are here.

I had the privilege last year to acknowledge the work of the Executive Committee of NACo by welcoming them to the Speaker’s office in the Capitol. This year, I have the even greater privilege to come to you to speak to all of the members of NACo.

On the 75th anniversary of the National Association of Counties, your leadership is more vital and more necessary than ever. You know that. I just want you to know that we in Congress do too.

The diversity of America’s counties represents the diversity of America. And yet, you share common responsibilities, whatever the diversity. America’s counties are leading on the issues most important to Americans: the education of our children, the health of their families, and the security of our communities.

Your common responsibilities bring you to Washington with a common cause: to strengthen the partnership between America’s counties and the federal government. It is in that spirit that I have come here today. It’s in that spirit that we will work together to, as your theme says, to ‘find solutions in tough times.’

I noticed as I was reading your program, it is pretty intense what you have been through this weekend and the beginning of this week, that you have one workshop that was ‘Influencing Congress from Home’ — the cyber influence, very, very important but let me say how important your presence here in Washington is, too. It is very important you have come to all the distance, all the diversity, to make your cumulative impact on the Congress. Please don’t underestimate how important your visit is to us.

I know that you sometimes have felt that your partnership with Washington has not been a balanced one — that burdens have been put on you that you simply cannot fulfill. These difficult economic times have made your challenges even greater. We all know that.

Together, here in this room, we have the opportunity to ensure that the partnership between America’s counties and the federal government is strong, productive, and balanced.

Just a little more than a year ago, our President Barack Obama stood on the steps of the Capitol, just a little more than a year ago and called for swift, bold action now to restore our economic growth. In his budget, he set out a blueprint founded on three pillars for our prosperity: a highly-educated workforce, the future, a clean energy economy, good-paying jobs, and quality, affordable health care for all Americans. And he saw these critical building blocks as engines of job creation and economic growth.

Answering that call, and responding to the needs of America’s counties, we passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, creating and saving up to 2 million jobs so far, and more to come.

You know best what the Recovery Act means to American’s counties. I have traveled the country, visited many counties to dedicate, groundbreak, observe funding coming into counties, tens of millions of dollars in some counties, over $100 million in some counties, hundreds of millions of dollars. For the Port of Houston, for a highway in Colorado, whether it is keeping teachers on the job, cops on the street, we believe that the Recovery Act was essential to keep us from an even worse recession. But in fact, it has created or saved 2 million jobs.

Of particular interest to America’s counties – we increased FMAP, providing immediate relief to counties in the 27 states that contribute to Medicaid, and shored up the safety net for families in difficult times. We provided $624 million for counties in Energy Efficiency Conservation Block Grants — and I know that is important to many of you, you have told me — to promote energy efficiency and conservation while creating jobs and lowering energy costs. I am committed to ensuring that this initiative is strong and ongoing. We have $178 million in Community Development Block Grants that helped you to expand community services, and modernize housing and wastewater systems.

Transportation investments and broadband access that have strengthened business opportunities close to home.

You’ve seen the results, many of you, you have told me about them and again, as I say, you have told me on the site right in your own counties. But I want to just tell you, give you a perspective from here as to what the difference the Recovery Act has made nationally to our economy. Consider this:

In the last quarter of the Bush Administration, what was reported in the first quarter of last year, America’s GDP, the rate of growth of GDP was a minus 6.4 percent. Minus 6.4 percent. In the equivalent quarter of the Obama Administration one year later, it is at plus 5.9 percent. A swing of over 12 percent in the GDP. This is the fastest rate that we have seen in a long time.

When we were debating the recovery bill a year ago, a year and a month ago, the stock market was about 6,500. Yesterday it closed 10,500 — a swing of 4,000 points.

Just last week, we learned that America’s manufacturing base grew for the seventh straight month — and is now at its second highest level in years.

And think of this – jobs. In the first three months of 2009, but let me just state one month so that we can compare them. In January of 2009, the last month of the Bush Administration before we passed the Recovery Act, 779,000 Americans lost their jobs. 779,000 for January of 2009. This January 2010, 20,000 Americans lost their jobs — far too many, we want to move to the plus side of course — but a difference of over three quarters of a million people in just that one month. Thank you, American Reinvestment and Recovery Act.

But our work is far from complete. We know that. Congress will stay focused on our top priority: putting Americans to work. And I said putting Americans to work, I didn’t say putting Americans back to work. Because we have far too people who will have no job, never had a job that they would go back too.

So we must invest in training, apprenticeships, and vocational education for the chronically unemployed so we put all of America back to work — some back to work, some newly to work. I think you see this in your counties where we have some young people who have not had the opportunity that America must afford them so that as our economy grows with training and vocational training that many more people will participate in the economic prosperity that we see for our country.

Just last week, we passed the Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment Act, that’s HIRE — Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment Act, we write these acronyms — another step forward in our fight to put more Americans back to work.

With $15 billion in critical investments, this bill includes: extension of the Highway Trust Fund. And though the investment is $15 billion and that is paid for, it will unleash tens of billions of dollars in infrastructure investment in your communities. And for small business, we can never do enough and more needs to be done but in this particular bill: a payroll tax holiday for businesses that hire unemployed workers, to create some 300,000 jobs and an income tax credit of $1,000 for businesses that retain these employees. It’s very specific and targeted. And then we have specific support to small businesses with tax credits and accelerated write-offs.

This bill is one key element, just one step of our broader agenda to expand lending to small businesses, build the infrastructure of the future, support job training, keep police, firefighters, and teachers on the job.

Tomorrow, Congressman George Miller will introduce his local jobs bill, which allows for county governments and municipalities to retain workers. I think Valerie had a hand in this. I know he is grateful to the input of NACo in crafting this significant legislation. We believe at this time that nothing is more critical to the long-term economic security of American families and to our economy than comprehensive health care reform, health insurance reform.

As you are in Washington this week, we stand at the doorstep of history, ready to realize a centuries old dream, started by a Republican President, Teddy Roosevelt. He was the one who started this country thinking in this direction, and we are deeply in his dept. But, we are a hundred years late. A century old dream of health care for all, and we will be prepared to send the bill to President Obama’s desk that ensures affordability for the middle class, accountability for the insurance companies, and access for millions more Americans, tens of millions more.

Nobody knows better than you the strain on hospitals that never turned a patient away, and health care providers grappling with the challenges of the uninsured and shrinking reimbursement. You know as well as anyone, that our current system is unsustainable. It’s unsustainable to individuals and their families. It’s unsustainable for small businesses. It’s unsustainable for your communities. It’s unsustainable for our state, local, and national budgets.

President Obama said, one year ago, when he called the first bipartisan, on March 5th of last year, the first bipartisan House and Senate meeting together with many outside stakeholders together at the White House, to find a way for us to come together. And at that time, he said: ‘Health care reform is entitlement reform.’ We cannot sustain the upward spiral of the increases in health care and what that means in Medicare and what it means in Medicaid. So from the standpoint of our national budget, and for your budgets, the current system, as I said, is unsustainable.

Again, it’s unaffordable for families, individuals and families, for businesses of any size, and it is a cost to our economy. Imagine an economy where people could follow their aspirations, where they could be entrepreneurial, where they could take risks professionally because personally their families health care needs are being met. Where they could be self-employed or start a business, not be job-locked in a job because they have health care there, and if they went out on their own it would be unaffordable to them, but especially true, if someone has a child with a pre-existing condition. So when we pass our bill, never again will people be denied coverage because they have a pre-existing condition.

We have to do this in partnership, and I wanted to bring up to date on where we see it from here. The final health care legislation that will soon be passed by Congress will deliver successful reform at the local level. It will offer paid for investments that will improve health care services and coverage for millions more Americans. It will make significant investments in innovation, prevention, wellness and offer robust support for public health infrastructure. It will dramatically expand investments into community health centers. That means a dramatic expansion in the number of patients community health centers can see and ultimately healthier communities. Our bill will significantly reduce uncompensated care for hospitals.

You’ve heard about the controversies within the bill, the process about the bill, one or the other. But I don’t know if you have heard that it is legislation for the future, not just about health care for America, but about a healthier America, where preventive care is not something that you have to pay a deductible for or out of pocket. Prevention, prevention, prevention — it’s about diet, not diabetes. It’s going to be very, very exciting.

But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy. Furthermore, we believe that health care reform, again I said at the beginning of my remarks, that we sent the three pillars that the President’s economic stabilization and job creation initiatives were education and innovation — innovation begins in the classroom — clean energy and climate, addressing the climate issues in an innovative way to keep us number one and competitive in the world with the new technology, and the third, first among equals I may say, is health care, health insurance reform. Health insurance reform is about jobs. This legislation alone will create 4 million jobs, about 400,000 jobs very soon.

We must have the courage, though, to get the job done. We have the ideas. We have the commitment. We have the dedication. We know the urgency. Now we have to have the courage to get the job done. So proud that President Obama is taking the message so forcefully to the American people! This is long overdue, a hundred years.

The challenges we face, the health, the education, the education of our children, the economic well-being of their families, the safety of neighborhoods, all of this, all roads lead to you. The challenges we all face are too great though for each of us to face them alone. We need to form the partnerships, strengthen partnerships at every level of government and with committed and compassionate leaders to understand that the need to focus on the next generation, we need to focus on the next generation, not the next election.

With that in mind and with great enthusiasm and a sense of history that we have of this responsibility to ensure that health care in America is a right not a privilege; let us move forward in the spirit of restoring and strengthening our partnership, and finding solutions in difficult times. In so doing, we will realize the dream of a brighter future. Thank you for all that you do to make that so.

Thank you NACo, for the opportunity to be with you. On behalf of my colleagues in the Congress, I welcome you to Washington, D.C. I hope we will see you on Capitol Hill. We want your advocacy either here or from home.

Thank you, Valerie Brown, for the invitation to be here. Thank you all.

 

[Frothingslosh]

Now if you want to find corrupt politicians trying to ram health care reform through before people can find out what's in it, you need look no further than the Republican Party of America, what with their attempt at forcing a final vote on a multi-hundred page ACA repeal perhaps 12 hours after introducing it, and after taking unprecedented steps to ensure that NO ONE got to see it before it was formally submitted to Congress.

There was a reason the Democrats forced it to be read, in its entirety, into the official record.

 

[Vassago]

Frothy - very true. Money is meaningless unless it is moving. Potential money, like potential energy, does nothing. It is moving money (or kinetic energy) that gets work done. And for the economy, it is the flow of money through multiple hands (each getting the benefit thereof) that causes growth. Which is why I have some money in banks for my retirement cushion, but a lot more in working capital investments.

This seems to be something that is lost to the top percentages of the country, if not the world. The widening gap in the distribution of wealth is a BAD thing for the economy. It means more money is hoarded, less money is circulated. It actually causes the value of the money to go down. By hoarding more and more money out of circulation, you are actually making it worthless.