BigOlBear

Not sure why I would waste my time responding to this but I h**e to see this thread cluttered up with personal attacks. If you have a question I must have missed it. Ask again. If all you want to do is to be nasty, please don't. I think you'll find you're way out of your depth.

Trooper745 Loc: Carolina

As of 2007, under Bush, the EPA had a little over 15,000 employees, today it has over 16,000. Just how many employees do you think the EPA should have? My opinion is that the EPA should have ZERO!

As of April this year, FEMA has about 15,000 employees. Again, my opinion is that they need exactly zero, but what is your idea of an efficient and reasonable number?

Could you give us some links to those massive cuts in government agencies you speak of? And by the way, it has been decades since the US postal Service had a good reputation for civil service, and I don't ever remember the EPA or FEMA having a good reputation.

Dummy Boy Loc: Michigan

Wealth acquisition is a zero sum game...many must go without.... so a few can profit.

How do you know that wealth acquisition hasn't harmed anyone... have you talked to anyone in the bread line from Microsoft right now about "harm". Or the families of people that bought GM cars and the executives at General Motors that failed to address a safety problem because they couldn't spend a nickel for a better spring? Or the Indians, harmed by Union Carbide's gas leak in Bhopal, that k**led 100's of people, who are just receiving compensation...oh yea...no zero sum game here. Where the hell have you been for 30 years, pushing buttons at rides at Disney World or an opiate drug tester for AstraZeneca...you're delusional man.

BigOlBear

I know I shouldn't waste my time responding to Dummy Boy (hey, that what he calls himself) and I wish it were possible to have an honest exchange of ideas without name-calling and personal attacks. But, what the hell....

You seem to be saying that there is just so much wealth in the country and, if a farmer were to plant and harvest a crop and then sell it, there was no new wealth created? The farmer's profit after paying for his seed and other expenses was somehow stolen from someone else?

Are you actually saying that people are standing in bread lines because of layoffs at Microsoft? Seriously?

I'm not sure I see what you're getting at with the examples of GM and Union Carbide and I don't see what it has to do with this discussion.

I doubt you really want to know where I've been for 30 years but, just in case you really wanted to know and were not just being nasty, I've been owning and operating several businesses and employing hundreds of people. Just out of curiosity, where have you been?

Dummy Boy, would you please do us a favor and either offer lucid comments, either in agreement or disagreement and knock off the snarkyness (is that a word?) or else go spread your genius on some other posts. I'm doing my best here to encourage people to offer some possible solutions to some of the many problems we face these days. Thank you.

MarvinSussman

If you google, you will find about the same number of federal workers today as 50 years ago but the EPA is new, FEMA is much larger, and the VA has expanded enormously. Everything else has shrunk.

Where are the army of bureaucrats who should now be working on contracts for the 60,000 bridges that need critical repair and the 50,000 dams that have to be removed or changed and the power grid that has to be modernized and put under ground, etc.

Why do you think there are no shovel-ready jobs? Why is the IRS working with magnetic tape archives and ancient machines?

You are putting us in jeopardy relative to China. T*****rs!

MarvinSussman

You were offered a moral dilemma: the obvious similarity between the victim of a tornado, many of them in rural communities with Republican majorities grateful for FEMA's help, and a victim of cancer that you would leave out in the cold. You dismissed the dilemma instead of having the courage to deal with it. Coward!

BigOlBear

It looks as though you see government solutions as the only solutions. You dismissed my answer. I won't respond by calling you a name but, I think you know what others think of you.

Dummy Boy Loc: Michigan

What name calling are you referring to, exactly? So far, you have said that I am "Snarky", meaning that I am flippant, perhaps?

What lies have I told that need to be covered by your "sunshine" attitude in a zero sum world?

You stated that wealth acquisition is a zero sum game: you are wrong.

Also, you stated that you couldn't think of any examples of how wealth creation harmed people: the examples, I provided were to create a discussion of how wealth acquisition IS harmful. Do you know that Union Carbide only recently settled their compensation with the families that were harmed by methyl isocyanates, which can cause immediate death due to shutting down one's lungs, and long term... can cause cancer.

I will make my life's mission to stuff your mailbox as often as I see fit to inform you of how greedy wealth conspirators are harming people. Next time, look at where your light bulbs were made or where your T-shirt comes from and tell me how those countries treat their citizens and how they treat one another.

...and I would equally remark that I don't know why I'm going to waste my time with a smug, thoughtless person who states that they don't understand my use of examples, God man, can you think for yourself or do I have to force you to drink 'til you drown.

BigOlBear

Where do I begin ... you're all over the place. I'm sorry everything seems to make you so angry but there's no way I can respond to all your fears. Maybe you would do well to look for some of the good in the world and dwell less on what you see as evils.

Name-calling ... you said, "Where the hell have you been for 30 years, pushing buttons at rides at Disney World or an opiate drug tester for AstraZeneca...you're delusional man." Also, you launched another personal attack on me at the end of this last post. How is this a good thing?

You claim I said that "...wealth acquisition is a zero-sum game." That's the opposite of what I said. What I said was that I don't think wealth (not wealth ACQUISITION) is a zero-sum game and I stick to that. This is not a matter of opinion, it is a matter of provable fact. But I won't try to prove it to you since your mind seems to be closed to the concept.

I don't believe I accused you of lying. I do, however, believe you are misinformed. Simply being sincere in your beliefs is not enough, you should either know what you're talking about or else you should just listen.

I did not say that I "...couldn't think of any examples of how wealth creation harmed people." There are many examples of theft at all levels ... from the purse snatcher on the street to Putin's efforts to steal the Ukraine. What I said was, "...we have many examples of Americans who have pulled themselves out of disagreeable circumstances and accomplished much, including personal wealth ... all done without harming anyone, while also providing opportunity for others."

Dummy Boy, I think you must live in a black and white world where everything is either all good or all evil. My world has many shades of grey and I would welcome you to open your eyes and ears to your opportunities. Complain less and try to become part of the solutions which, by the way, is the title of this thread.

Trooper745 Loc: Carolina

The below graph doesn't indicate that the '64 and recent federal employment numbers are about same.

As far as the roads go, the democrat party controlled 101st congress screwed the Highway Trust fund, by diverting portions of the fuel tax to the general fund, for their pet projects. Also, recent fuel price increases, caused by Obama policy, have turned the public strongly against any fuel tax increases, which are needed, to replenish the Hwy Trust Fund.

Many of those dams needing repair should be upgraded by the power companies making money from the electricity generated by them. In other cases, the dams on city and county water reservoirs should be fixed by those local governments. Dams on private property, ... well you get the idea. Burying power cables isn't a job of the federal government either.

The only jeopardy in relation to China that the federal government needs to worry about is the cuts to the military that Obama is responsible for.

Floyd Brown Loc: Milwaukee WI

I say the difference is that in a tornado business is disrupted & it is mostly about getting roads, public facilities & business property back in use.

Of course the first attention is in seeing to people. But all to often they are just left to deal with their problems alone after that.

It has always been & always will be business must go on.
What happens to individuals is mostly left to each individual.

Dummy Boy Loc: Michigan

"Where do I begin": is the hallmark of a pompous, dismissive, arm crossed, lazy boy quarterback.

Delusional isn't a name, it is a state of mind

And clearly you aren't good at listening, since you are parting again from reality.

Dummy Boy Loc: Michigan

MarvinSussman

This is my source:
http://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/data-analysis-documentation/federal-employment-reports/historical-tables/total-government-employment-since-1962/

Yours source, having about 10 times the total number of current employees, probably includes state and local governments. Mine, with no real change in 50 years definitely says ''federal''.



All you have to do is print the damn money. With 25 million Americans looking for work, why worry about inflation?



What would a shareholder gain this quarter out of overhauling a dam? Wouldn't an eventual loss reduce tax liability? Why do you think the 60,000 dams need repair? Capitalize the gains and socialize the loss!

Only Uncle Sam can do it:



Who won't touch it without federal revenue-sharing. You live in a dream world.



??????



Same dream world as for dams.



You are really naive if you think wars are fought by armies. Why do you think the Interstate Highway System was a defense project?

Wars are fought with infrastructure, t*****r!

MarvinSussman

Only because you like it that way. It is still a moral dilemma, especially where children are concerned. Why should children of the rich have better health care, education, etc. than children of the poor?

Deal with it, damn it!!