NY Times Story on Pilot Population Decline

[Marco Leon]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/26/fashion/26pilot.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

[Larry Dighera]

On Thu, 26 Apr 2007 14:53:18 -0400, "Marco Leon" >
wrote in >:

>http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/26/fashion/26pilot.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

The number of student pilots is down by about a third since 1990,
from 129,000 to 88,000. The number of private pilots is down from
299,000 to 236,000, according to statistics kept by the Federal
Aviation Administration. And they are aging.

Some longtime private pilots fear that an industry is withering,
and a bit of Americana is slipping away, along with a bit of
freedom and joy. And it is happening in part because of lack of
interest; Walter Mitty doesn’t want to fly anymore.



Could it be that Americans are working longer hours?

http://archives.cnn.com/2001/CAREER/trends/08/30/ilo.study/
CNN) -- You're not imagining it. The United Nations' International
Labor Organization (ILO) has the proof: "Workers in the United
States are putting in more hours than anyone else in the
industrialized world."



And is it possible that the increase in hours worked don't equate to
more disposable income?

http://www.pbs.org/now/politics/workhours.html
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, though the average
work week has increased by just over an hour and a half a week,
the proportion of people who work much longer weeks (48 hours and
more) has risen greatly. The occupations which saw the greatest
increase in the percentage of workers averaging 48 hours per week
or more were professionals and managers (who are most often not
paid overtime though they are among the highest-paid workers) and
sales and transportation workers (who are among the lowest-paid
workers and earn more as they log more hours). The Bureau of Labor
Statistics also notes that high unemployment numbers also
stimulate salaried workers who are employed to put in more hours
each week to safeguard their positions.

[Marco Leon]

"Larry Dighera" > wrote in message
...
>
> Could it be that Americans are working longer hours?
>
> And is it possible that the increase in hours worked don't equate to
> more disposable income?

Yes, and yes. While I don't think that the reasons you mentioned are the
primary reasons, I do think they play a part. Salaries are indeed higher but
so are the housing prices. A "starter" house in Long Island, NY for example
is around $450K. Paying for that mortgage while bringing up a family leaves
little room to blow $7K on a year's worth of flight training.

The article mentions a number of factors and it's interesting in that they
are all for the most part true and all contribute to the problem.

Marco

[kontiki]

Larry Dighera wrote:

>
> Could it be that Americans are working longer hours?
>
> http://archives.cnn.com/2001/CAREER/trends/08/30/ilo.study/
> CNN) -- You're not imagining it. The United Nations' International
> Labor Organization (ILO) has the proof: "Workers in the United
> States are putting in more hours than anyone else in the
> industrialized world."
>

Larry for once I agree with you. I had to write check to Uncle Sam
this year that really hurt. (apparently buying votes is getting
more expensive). I have a full time job and two part time jobs...
apparent;y being a productive American is a costly endeavor.

>
>
> And is it possible that the increase in hours worked don't equate to
> more disposable income?
>
> http://www.pbs.org/now/politics/workhours.html
> According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, though the average
> work week has increased by just over an hour and a half a week,
> the proportion of people who work much longer weeks (48 hours and
> more) has risen greatly. The occupations which saw the greatest
> increase in the percentage of workers averaging 48 hours per week
> or more were professionals and managers (who are most often not
> paid overtime though they are among the highest-paid workers) and
> sales and transportation workers (who are among the lowest-paid
> workers and earn more as they log more hours). The Bureau of Labor
> Statistics also notes that high unemployment numbers also
> stimulate salaried workers who are employed to put in more hours
> each week to safeguard their positions.
>

As I stated Larry, Uncle Sam seems to be spending like a drunken sailor.
I've discovered that the harder you work the more he's got his hand
in my pants taking more of my hard earned efforts to come up with a
few extra bucks for flying. On top of that, the BIGGEST benefactor
odf rising gas prices IS government. Federal and state governments
make more off a gallon gass through taxes than the oil companies do.

[Nathan Young]

On Thu, 26 Apr 2007 14:53:18 -0400, "Marco Leon" >
wrote:

>http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/26/fashion/26pilot.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

One thing that story has wrong is that there are no $100k airplanes to
support Sport Pilots.

The LSA industry certainly appears to be booming. Every flying
magazine I get has a new LSA listed each month. Most of the LSAs are
~$100k.

[Kyle Boatright]

"Larry Dighera" > wrote in message
...
> On Thu, 26 Apr 2007 14:53:18 -0400, "Marco Leon" >
> wrote in >:
>
>>http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/26/fashion/26pilot.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
>
> The number of student pilots is down by about a third since 1990,
> from 129,000 to 88,000. The number of private pilots is down from
> 299,000 to 236,000, according to statistics kept by the Federal
> Aviation Administration. And they are aging.
>
> Some longtime private pilots fear that an industry is withering,
> and a bit of Americana is slipping away, along with a bit of
> freedom and joy. And it is happening in part because of lack of
> interest; Walter Mitty doesn't want to fly anymore.
>
>
>
> Could it be that Americans are working longer hours?
>
Snip
>
>
> And is it possible that the increase in hours worked don't equate to
> more disposable income?

I doubt that. What is happening is that people are spending their money
differently. I have a $100/month cable/internet bill. Plus a $50 cell phone
bill. Plus the maintenance, repair, and replacement expenses for 20
different devices in my home that people didn't have 50 years ago. We have
more discretionary income than before, we just spend it on day to day
conveniences and various iterations of the idiot box (TV, Computer, Gaming,
etc.)...

Snip

My personal theory is that flying is no longer the source of hero worship it
once was. Is there a current Lindberg? How about an Amelia Earhart? Maybe
a John Glenn? Not really. Flying has lost the public's imagination, and
therefore the publicity.

KB

[kontiki]

Kyle Boatright wrote:

>
> My personal theory is that flying is no longer the source of hero worship it
> once was. Is there a current Lindberg? How about an Amelia Earhart? Maybe
> a John Glenn? Not really. Flying has lost the public's imagination, and
> therefore the publicity.
>

I think that's largely true. People are more interestwed in who wins
American Idol than what is going on in the aerospace industry.

[Bob Fry]

>>>>> "LD" == Larry Dighera > writes:
LD> CNN) -- You're not imagining it. The United Nations'
LD> International Labor Organization (ILO) has the proof: "Workers
LD> in the United States are putting in more hours than anyone
LD> else in the industrialized world."

But the US is not really part of the industrialized world, are we.

What do other industrialized countries have? Health care systems,
modern infrastructure, actual working hours that don't keep you away
from home for 12 hours a day. The US has a very costly fragmented
health care system for some, aging infrastructure (we quit building
anything decades ago), and long work hours...just like 3rd world
countries.

They say Russia is a 3rd world country with rockets...well the US is
becoming a 3rd world country with marketing.

Don't try to pin this on just one political party, both have had a big
part in this decline.
--
"Real men don't use backups, they post their stuff on a public ftp
server and let the rest of the world make copies." - Linus Torvalds

[kontiki]

Bob Fry wrote:

>
> Don't try to pin this on just one political party, both have had a big
> part in this decline.


"Americans are so enamored of equality that they would rather be equal
in slavery than unequal in freedom."

"The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that
it can bribe the public with the public's money."

-Alexis de Tocqueville

[Mxsmanic]

Marco Leon writes:

> http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/26/fashion/26pilot.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Sounds right on the mark.

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[Mxsmanic]

Larry Dighera writes:

> Could it be that Americans are working longer hours?

That is certainly part of it. Americans work a lot harder than they used to,
and they are making less money in return (in constant dollars). The number of
people who just scrape by is much greater than it was 40 years ago, especially
in the withering middle class.

> And is it possible that the increase in hours worked don't equate to
> more disposable income?

Absolutely.

Forty years ago there was an affluent and very large middle class in the
United States that had the money and time for things like flying in many
cases. Today that class is vanishing.

The much smaller class of people who can afford to fly today may still be
discouraged by the tremendous barriers to entry into the hobby, as compared to
other hobbies. It is ridiculously difficult to become a private pilot, and
unless one is among the very tiny minority of people who are truly obsessed
with flying, there are many other hobbies that provide similar levels of
satisfaction for far less money and with far less hassle and red tape.

And although some will flame me for this, simulation still enters into the
picture. I note that the number of people interested in online simulation of
flight is greater in Europe than in the United States, and I think the main
reason for that is simply that it's even more difficult to become a private
pilot outside the USA than it is inside the USA. The more difficult it is,
the more likely people are to settle for simulation to satisfy an interest in
aviation, just as the cost and hassle of Formula 1 racing or the sheer
unlikelihood of being drafted onto a football team leads many people to
simulation.

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[Mxsmanic]

Marco Leon writes:

> Yes, and yes. While I don't think that the reasons you mentioned are the
> primary reasons, I do think they play a part. Salaries are indeed higher but
> so are the housing prices. A "starter" house in Long Island, NY for example
> is around $450K. Paying for that mortgage while bringing up a family leaves
> little room to blow $7K on a year's worth of flight training.

Forty years ago, a "starter" house might cost 1.5 times the annual salary of a
person in the middle class. Now it may cost ten times the annual salary of
such a person (although the middle class is disappearing).

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[Mxsmanic]

Kyle Boatright writes:

> I doubt that. What is happening is that people are spending their money
> differently.

That is far less important than the fact that they simply don't have the money
to begin with.

> I have a $100/month cable/internet bill. Plus a $50 cell phone
> bill. Plus the maintenance, repair, and replacement expenses for 20
> different devices in my home that people didn't have 50 years ago.

Add them all up and you'll find that it still doesn't cost anywhere near as
much as flying.

> We have more discretionary income than before, we just spend it on day to day
> conveniences and various iterations of the idiot box (TV, Computer, Gaming,
> etc.)...

No, the income is actually worth less. Adjusted for inflation, discretionary
income is disappearing.

> My personal theory is that flying is no longer the source of hero worship it
> once was. Is there a current Lindberg? How about an Amelia Earhart? Maybe
> a John Glenn? Not really. Flying has lost the public's imagination, and
> therefore the publicity.

I think that very few people indeed are motivated to fly by hero worship.
People undertake hobbies because of a fundamental interest in the hobby, for
the most part, and not become some celebrity is interested in it.

And one reason we don't have aviation heroes any more is that aviation is much
more expensive than it used to be. Also, we have commercial flights every day
that exceed just about anything that can be done in a private plane, so there
aren't many records to break any more.

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[Mxsmanic]

Nathan Young writes:

> The LSA industry certainly appears to be booming. Every flying
> magazine I get has a new LSA listed each month. Most of the LSAs are
> ~$100k.

Flying magazines are perhaps not very objective sources of information.

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[Jay Honeck]

> I've discovered that the harder you work the more he's got his hand
> in my pants taking more of my hard earned efforts to come up with a
> few extra bucks for flying.

Amen, brother. Until we, as a people, come to grips with this
completely out of control, tax-consuming, inefficient monster of a
government bureacracy that we've created, we will find our freedoms
and our income ever more diminished.

This isn't a Democrat or Republican thing -- this is a We the People
thing -- and we've GOT to do something about it, soon.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

[[email protected]]

Mxsmanic > wrote:
> Kyle Boatright writes:

> > I doubt that. What is happening is that people are spending their money
> > differently.

> That is far less important than the fact that they simply don't have the money
> to begin with.

> > I have a $100/month cable/internet bill. Plus a $50 cell phone
> > bill. Plus the maintenance, repair, and replacement expenses for 20
> > different devices in my home that people didn't have 50 years ago.

> Add them all up and you'll find that it still doesn't cost anywhere near as
> much as flying.

For $150 you can easily rent a C-172.

--
Jim Pennino

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[[email protected]]

Mxsmanic > wrote:
> Nathan Young writes:

> > The LSA industry certainly appears to be booming. Every flying
> > magazine I get has a new LSA listed each month. Most of the LSAs are
> > ~$100k.

> Flying magazines are perhaps not very objective sources of information.

So all those ads are false advertising?

Quick, call the Feds.

--
Jim Pennino

Remove .spam.sux to reply.

[Maxwell]

"Mxsmanic" > wrote in message
...
> Marco Leon writes:
>
>> Yes, and yes. While I don't think that the reasons you mentioned are the
>> primary reasons, I do think they play a part. Salaries are indeed higher
>> but
>> so are the housing prices. A "starter" house in Long Island, NY for
>> example
>> is around $450K. Paying for that mortgage while bringing up a family
>> leaves
>> little room to blow $7K on a year's worth of flight training.
>
> Forty years ago, a "starter" house might cost 1.5 times the annual salary
> of a
> person in the middle class. Now it may cost ten times the annual salary
> of
> such a person (although the middle class is disappearing).
>

Then someone is buying way too much house!

[Bertie the Bunyip[_2_]]

Mxsmanic > wrote in
:

> Marco Leon writes:
>
>> Yes, and yes. While I don't think that the reasons you mentioned are
>> the primary reasons, I do think they play a part. Salaries are indeed
>> higher but so are the housing prices. A "starter" house in Long
>> Island, NY for example is around $450K. Paying for that mortgage
>> while bringing up a family leaves little room to blow $7K on a year's
>> worth of flight training.
>
> Forty years ago, a "starter" house might cost 1.5 times the annual
> salary of a person in the middle class. Now it may cost ten times the
> annual salary of such a person (although the middle class is
> disappearing).

Good thing you live in a dumpster then huh?

bertei

[Maxwell]

"Mxsmanic" > wrote in message
...

Oh quit whining and go get a job you moron. If people want to fly, they can
fly. Perhaps a little less than for the same relative money 20 years ago,
but it hasn't changed that much.

[Maxwell]

"Mxsmanic" > wrote in message
...

Why don't you find a way to simulate a news group and quit whining to us.
You wouldn't fly if you had the money, and you would have the money if you
put as much effort in to earning a living as you so trying to convince the
WORLD that simulation compares to actual aviation.

[Maxwell]

"Mxsmanic" > wrote in message
...
> Nathan Young writes:
>
>> The LSA industry certainly appears to be booming. Every flying
>> magazine I get has a new LSA listed each month. Most of the LSAs are
>> ~$100k.
>
> Flying magazines are perhaps not very objective sources of information.
>

Well even the worst ones be the heck out of listening to your head rattle.

[Mxsmanic]

Maxwell writes:

> Then someone is buying way too much house!

How much house can you get for $60,000 (1.5 times the average salary in the
U.S.)?

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[Mxsmanic]

writes:

> For $150 you can easily rent a C-172.

For a month?

--
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[Mxsmanic]

writes:

> So all those ads are false advertising?

false != biased

--
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[[email protected]]

Mxsmanic > wrote:
> writes:

> > For $150 you can easily rent a C-172.

> For a month?

What an ass.

--
Jim Pennino

Remove .spam.sux to reply.

[[email protected]]

Mxsmanic > wrote:
> writes:

> > So all those ads are false advertising?

> false != biased

A number for a price is either true or false; it can't be "biased".

--
Jim Pennino

Remove .spam.sux to reply.

[Larry Dighera]

On Thu, 26 Apr 2007 18:26:47 -0400, "Kyle Boatright"
> wrote in
>:

>My personal theory is that flying is no longer the source of hero worship it
>once was. Is there a current Lindberg? How about an Amelia Earhart? Maybe
>a John Glenn? Not really. Flying has lost the public's imagination, and
>therefore the publicity.

That is an interesting view.

I suppose there may be a disproportionate number of pilots who are
drawn to aviation for the perceived public esteem historically
conferred on airmen. And I agree, that the aura of the "daring young
man ..." has been somewhat tarnished by the less than magical,
cattle-car results of airline deregulation, notorious news stories and
jokes of pilot sleeping/rage/inebriation/... while on flight-duty, and
publicized/sensationalized blunders of less than qualified airmen.
After all, it is the exposé of heroes' clay feet, even more than their
stunning creative deeds, that titillates and boost ratings.

And if this loss of public esteem for airman discourages those who
seek to enhance their self-image through being regarded as pilots by
the public, other than its impact on our political influence due to
declining numbers, I fail to perceive a down-side. I would much
prefer to see competent, unassuming persons with the capacity and
understanding to perform to high standards while operating aircraft,
and a genuine love of the sky, displace the self-impressed, white
scarffed, showman of the past. But that's just me. Times change.

If one attempts a little prognostication, it's easy to see a future of
pilotless, fully automated space and air vehicles operating in a fully
computerized environment, and performing their pedestrian tasks with
all the alacrity and sagacity of an S-Tec System 65. With the
airliner manufacturers requiring ever increasing numbers of their
products to be in flight simultaneously in order to sustain their
market, and the finite nature of airspace (it's not so big a sky after
all), it's clear, that there will be increasing pressure to remove the
(somewhat unpredictable) human element from the system to facilitate
the ever tighter packing of airliners to the point of exceeding the
capabilities of mere humans.

But there will always be a cadre of exuberant and talented souls whose
love of the sky will fuel the development of innovative vehicles[1,2]
and the evolution of flight. So while aviation continues to mature,
it will also evolve. And it's likely that the 21st century will lack
the same warm naiveté, respect for human dignity, and awe of
technology characteristic of the last century, but it will have its
redeeming efficiency to distinguish it with the coming hoards[3]
(baring WWIII).



[1] http://www.cpinternet.com/sadkins/compare.htm
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scaled_Composites
[3]
http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/population/001720.html
Overall, the country’s population would continue to grow,
increasing from 282.1 million in 2000 to 419.9 million in 2050.

[Larry Dighera]

On Fri, 27 Apr 2007 03:31:10 +0200, Mxsmanic >
wrote in >:

>people who can afford to fly today may still be
>discouraged by the tremendous barriers to entry into the hobby, as compared to
>other hobbies. It is ridiculously difficult to become a private pilot, and
>unless one is among the very tiny minority of people who are truly obsessed
>with flying, there are many other hobbies that provide similar levels of
>satisfaction for far less money and with far less hassle and red tape.

That is as it should be, in my humble opinion. Folks who consider
aviation a hobby belong on the ground.

[Larry Dighera]

On 26 Apr 2007 18:57:24 -0700, Jay Honeck > wrote
in . com>:

>Until we, as a people, come to grips with this
>completely out of control, tax-consuming, inefficient monster of a
>government bureacracy that we've created, we will find our freedoms
>and our income ever more diminished.

Consider $3-billion a week in Iraq for five years, or much longer
depending..., and the money-sink of a blundering Department of
Homeland Security. It is those useless expenditures that are
consuming the wealth of our nation.

>This isn't a Democrat or Republican thing --

If you fail to see the GOP's madness, you are blind.

[Mxsmanic]

Larry Dighera writes:

> If you fail to see the GOP's madness, you are blind.

If you can't get past partisan politics to see the individuals who cause the
problem, you're part of the problem yourself.

The tendency for people to polarize into club mentality of partisan politics,
as opposed to considering each candidate or elected official as an individual
and each issue as independent of party lines, is a serious problem that tends
to afflict all democracies eventually, and it is part of what leads to their
demise.

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[Mxsmanic]

writes:

> What an ass.

The cable bill is $100 per month. The Cessna bill is $150 per hour. The
choice is easy.

--
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[Mxsmanic]

Larry Dighera writes:

> That is as it should be, in my humble opinion. Folks who consider
> aviation a hobby belong on the ground.

You may find that aviation will no longer be possible at all in the future
with an attitude like that.

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[Mxsmanic]

writes:

> A number for a price is either true or false; it can't be "biased".

Advertisements and journalism involve more than just prices.

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[Larry Dighera]

On Thu, 26 Apr 2007 22:10:39 -0500, "Maxwell" >
wrote in >:

>If people want to fly, they can fly.

One of the best ways for someone interested in aviation to test the
waters is to join a soaring club[1] and earn a glider certificate. The
Civil Air Patrol uses gliders to entice their recruits, and glider
instruction is the perfect entry to airmanship.

Soaring club dues are cheap, and instruction is often provided gratis
by club member CFIs. There is no fuel cost, and the cost of launching
can be reasonable through the use of auto-tow or winch launch. And
soaring club members are usually expected to crew for their fellows
which results in reduced expenses and healthy camaraderie.

So there is a reasonably priced means of entry into the ranks of
airmanship, and it tends weed out the dilettantes.



[1] http://www.ssa.org/sport/wheretofly.asp

[Maxwell]

"Mxsmanic" > wrote in message
...
> writes:
>
>> What an ass.
>
> The cable bill is $100 per month. The Cessna bill is $150 per hour. The
> choice is easy.
>

Only of you are a twelve year old.

[Maxwell]

"Larry Dighera" > wrote in message
...
> On Thu, 26 Apr 2007 22:10:39 -0500, "Maxwell" >
> wrote in >:
>
>>If people want to fly, they can fly.
>
> One of the best ways for someone interested in aviation to test the
> waters is to join a soaring club[1] and earn a glider certificate. The
> Civil Air Patrol uses gliders to entice their recruits, and glider
> instruction is the perfect entry to airmanship.
>
> Soaring club dues are cheap, and instruction is often provided gratis
> by club member CFIs. There is no fuel cost, and the cost of launching
> can be reasonable through the use of auto-tow or winch launch. And
> soaring club members are usually expected to crew for their fellows
> which results in reduced expenses and healthy camaraderie.
>
> So there is a reasonably priced means of entry into the ranks of
> airmanship, and it tends weed out the dilettantes.
>
>
>
> [1] http://www.ssa.org/sport/wheretofly.asp

Yes indeed, there are lots of options. A good used hang glider can be bought
for less than most people have wrapped up in their PCs, software and alike.
You can split costs with any other pilot with an economy pick up, and spend
all weekend camping in the mountians and flying with the hawks for free. Did
it for years myself.

Heck, for less than my monthly cable bill, someone even without a medical
could take an hour of dual in a Skyhawk once a month.

It's all about choices.

[Sylvain]

Mxsmanic wrote:

> The cable bill is $100 per month. The Cessna bill is $150 per hour. The
> choice is easy.

Darn! you are doing it again: I agree with you. Yep, easy choice. Gave
up TV completely three years ago, not missing it one bit.

--Sylvain

[Sylvain]

Larry Dighera wrote:


> One of the best ways for someone interested in aviation to test the
> waters is to join a soaring club[1] and earn a glider certificate.

on top of that, in France -- where our common friend is currently
residing -- gliding clubs are subsidized quite a bit (either
directly or indirectly via subsidies to buy gliders, free loans of
tow planes, grants for the young ones, etc.)

--Sylvain

[kontiki]

Larry Dighera wrote:
>
> Consider $3-billion a week in Iraq for five years, or much longer
> depending..., and the money-sink of a blundering Department of
> Homeland Security. It is those useless expenditures that are
> consuming the wealth of our nation.
>

Larry please... please research and discover that the US spends
THREE times as much on entitlements (welfare and other handouts)
as it does the military.

[kontiki]

Mxsmanic wrote:

> Maxwell writes:
>
>
>>Then someone is buying way too much house!
>
>
> How much house can you get for $60,000 (1.5 times the average salary in the
> U.S.)?
>
Well obviously it depends upon where you live... you couldn't buy a
house in Kalifornia for $60,000 but in other places of the country
you could.

[kontiki]

Mxsmanic wrote:

>
> If you can't get past partisan politics to see the individuals who cause the
> problem, you're part of the problem yourself.
>
Excellently stated...

> The tendency for people to polarize into club mentality of partisan politics,
> as opposed to considering each candidate or elected official as an individual
> and each issue as independent of party lines, is a serious problem that tends
> to afflict all democracies eventually, and it is part of what leads to their
> demise.
>

You nailed it. Too bad few people will actually read your post but its
right on.

[kontiki]

Mxsmanic wrote:

> Larry Dighera writes:
>
>
>>That is as it should be, in my humble opinion. Folks who consider
>>aviation a hobby belong on the ground.
>
>
> You may find that aviation will no longer be possible at all in the future
> with an attitude like that.
>
Well, in essence, that is the way it is in European countries.
Flying is basically not possible for an average person due to the
high costs.

The two biggest impediments are due to government... high taxes
on fuel and various user fees and lots of government regulation.

Anytime you want to destroy a particular human endeavor all you
have to do is get government involved.... education comes to mind.
But I digress.

[Maxwell]

"kontiki" > wrote in message
...
> Mxsmanic wrote:
>
>> Maxwell writes:
>>
>>
>>>Then someone is buying way too much house!
>>
>>
>> How much house can you get for $60,000 (1.5 times the average salary in
>> the
>> U.S.)?
>>
> Well obviously it depends upon where you live... you couldn't buy a
> house in Kalifornia for $60,000 but in other places of the country
> you could.

There are very livable homes in every state for $60k,,,,, but you said 10
time retard,,,, can't you follow your own posts???

Besides, you are either to ignorant or to impatient to accept the fact, that
in every state - you can buy a $60k home, live in it for 10 years, and
usually trade up with your equity, and have a $100k to $120k home for the
same monthly payment. So quit whining, and living in France on hand outs
from you friends. Life is still very livable for those who CHOOSE to live
it.

[Larry Dighera]

On Fri, 27 Apr 2007 10:44:36 GMT, kontiki >
wrote in >:

>Larry Dighera wrote:
>>
>> Consider $3-billion a week in Iraq for five years, or much longer
>> depending..., and the money-sink of a blundering Department of
>> Homeland Security. It is those useless expenditures that are
>> consuming the wealth of our nation.
>>
>
>Larry please... please research and discover that the US spends
>THREE times as much on entitlements (welfare and other handouts)
>as it does the military.

Unlike the examples I mentioned, Social Security and Medicare benefit
the people of this country directly, and do not _needlessly_ squander
our nation's treasure for the benefit of large corporations like
Bechtel and Halliburton.

[Larry Dighera]

On Fri, 27 Apr 2007 10:49:52 GMT, kontiki >
wrote in >:

>Mxsmanic wrote:
>
>>
>> If you can't get past partisan politics to see the individuals who cause the
>> problem, you're part of the problem yourself.
>>
>
>You nailed it. Too bad few people will actually read your post but its
>right on.

Anthony's comment was written in response to what I wrote, and it
completely misses the mark. My comment wasn't intended to be
partisan, but circumstances have made it appear to be.

The war in Iraq and the DHS are disasters. Face it.

[ktbr]

Larry Dighera wrote:

>
> Unlike the examples I mentioned, Social Security and Medicare benefit
> the people of this country directly, and do not _needlessly_ squander
> our nation's treasure for the benefit of large corporations like
> Bechtel and Halliburton.
>

The Constitution does not anywhere authorize the taking of taxpayer
money to be given away in welfare and social programs. It does
in fact authorize an Army for the defense of the country. You
can argue that the war in Iraq is stupid, but the expenditure of
money on defense (i.e. the military) is Constituional.

You apparent consistant disdain for corporations illustrates
your displile for free enterprise and your bias toward big
government.... be we already know that.

This country was founded on the principle of limited government.
For the first 150 years of its existance we had politicians
that understood that concept. To wit, the founding fathers were
all mostly businessmen of some sort or another. The trend today
is that politicians seldome have real world experience in busines.
Far too many of the have never really held a job outside of
government... and too many are simply one in a long line
od political figures... ever inbreeding their government ideas.

[Larry Dighera]

On Fri, 27 Apr 2007 11:01:58 GMT, kontiki >
wrote in >:

>Mxsmanic wrote:
>
>> Larry Dighera writes:
>>
>>
>>>That is as it should be, in my humble opinion. Folks who consider
>>>aviation a hobby belong on the ground.
>>
>>
>> You may find that aviation will no longer be possible at all in the future
>> with an attitude like that.
>>
>Well, in essence, that is the way it is in European countries.

Without the rationale behind Anthony's statement, I do not find it
particularly compelling.

I would venture a guess, that those dilettantes who consider flying to
be a hobby are of a much lesser proportion of European airmen than
they are in the US.

>Flying is basically not possible for an average person due to the
>high costs.

While that is unfortunate if true, it probably tends to keep the
majority of the accidents-waiting-to-happen out of the sky, as only
those who possess adequate passion for aviation to overcome the
financial disincentive are able to fly.

>The two biggest impediments are due to government... high taxes
>on fuel and various user fees and lots of government regulation.

Without a clue of how effective public outcry is in shaping
governmental policy in Europe, I would also blame the silent airmen
who failed to protest the imposition of the stifling measures you
mention.

[Steven P. McNicoll]

"Larry Dighera" > wrote in message
...
>
> Unlike the examples I mentioned, Social Security and Medicare benefit
> the people of this country directly,
>

If the people of this country believed that to be true they wouldn't have to
be forced to participate in them.

[Judah]

"Kyle Boatright" > wrote in
:

> My personal theory is that flying is no longer the source of hero
> worship it once was. Is there a current Lindberg? How about an Amelia
> Earhart? Maybe a John Glenn? Not really. Flying has lost the public's
> imagination, and therefore the publicity.

I'd take it even a step further. 30 years ago, there was a "glamour
factor" to any sort of flying - even Airline. It was relatively more
expensive, there were fewer available flights to fewer destinations, the
flying experience was made to be pleasurable and comfortable, and unless
you were travelling between major cities or vacation spots, it was fairly
expensive in both time and money. You needed to make reservations through a
travel agent, who generally provided full service and took care of you and
made you feel important, and also increased the price by 15%.

Today, you can fly to just about anywhere in the US for a few hundred
dollars or less, and rarely have to wait more than an hour or two between
stops. The advent of web sites like Expedia and Kayak have made it easy to
find cheap fares without being made to feel important. The flying
experience has gone from a full service, comfortable, special experience to
a cattle-car style bus ride where you get nickel-and-dimed for even the
peanuts you eat. Regional carriers with Captains who are substantially
younger and less experienced have deteriorated the "Pilot Hero" image.
Instead, today's American Idol's are the music and sports stars whose
incomes have skyrocketed as compared with pilots. Airline pilots have
become bus drivers with wings.

Flying in general has become a commodity. It's just not special anymore to
most people. It's happening in many other industries as well. It's a shame,
but the truth is, the entire world is evolving in this way as the internet
makes information freely and readily available to the general population...

[Gig 601XL Builder]

Bob Fry wrote:

> But the US is not really part of the industrialized world, are we.
>
> What do other industrialized countries have? Health care systems,
> modern infrastructure, actual working hours that don't keep you away
> from home for 12 hours a day. The US has a very costly fragmented
> health care system for some, aging infrastructure (we quit building
> anything decades ago), and long work hours...just like 3rd world
> countries.
>

Yep, our health care system is so bad that it is where those from countries
with socialized healthcare systems who have the money and a real problem
flock to.

[Phil]

On Apr 26, 11:17 pm, Larry Dighera > wrote:
> On 26 Apr 2007 18:57:24 -0700, Jay Honeck > wrote
> in . com>:
>
> >Until we, as a people, come to grips with this
> >completely out of control, tax-consuming, inefficient monster of a
> >government bureacracy that we've created, we will find our freedoms
> >and our income ever more diminished.
>
> Consider $3-billion a week in Iraq for five years, or much longer
> depending..., and the money-sink of a blundering Department of
> Homeland Security. It is those useless expenditures that are
> consuming the wealth of our nation.
>
> >This isn't a Democrat or Republican thing --
>
> If you fail to see the GOP's madness, you are blind.

The Republicans have been particularly egregious in their borrow and
spend approach, but history shows that the Democrats aren't much
better.

The stereotype of Democrats is that when they control the purse
strings they tend to increase spending. The stereotype of Republicans
is that they tend to hold spending down. The truth is that in years
when one party controls both the Congress and the White House,
spending tends to go up. That is true for Democrats, but it is just
as true for Republicans. The best way to get spending to decrease (or
at least not increase as much) is to have one party control Congress
and the other party control the White House.

[Matt Barrow[_4_]]

"Jay Honeck" > wrote in message
oups.com...
>> I've discovered that the harder you work the more he's got his hand
>> in my pants taking more of my hard earned efforts to come up with a
>> few extra bucks for flying.
>
> Amen, brother. Until we, as a people, come to grips with this
> completely out of control, tax-consuming, inefficient monster of a
> government bureacracy that we've created, we will find our freedoms
> and our income ever more diminished.
>
> This isn't a Democrat or Republican thing -- this is a We the People
> thing -- and we've GOT to do something about it, soon.

Nearly 2/3rds of "We the People" are getting goodies (middle class welfare,
AKA "Entitlements") from Uncle Sugar.

Just how are you going to wean them from the tit? Ask them nicely?

[Matt Barrow[_4_]]

"kontiki" > wrote in message
...
> Mxsmanic wrote:
>
>>
>> If you can't get past partisan politics to see the individuals who cause
>> the
>> problem, you're part of the problem yourself.
>>
> Excellently stated...

Ironic, isn't it, that NOW they're individuals; when they line up at the
trough, they're part of a "special group".

The "natural rights theory" espouses that you neither gain, not lose, rights
regardless of which group(s) you affiliate with or classification you belong
too.

You don't gain rights being, for example, a woman, nor do you lose rights
(to the fruits of your legal labor) by becoming rich.


--
Matt Barrow
Performace Homes, LLC.
Colorado Springs, CO

[Larry Dighera]

On Fri, 27 Apr 2007 12:26:03 GMT, ktbr > wrote in
>:

>Larry Dighera wrote:
>
>>
>> Unlike the examples I mentioned, Social Security and Medicare benefit
>> the people of this country directly, and do not _needlessly_ squander
>> our nation's treasure for the benefit of large corporations like
>> Bechtel and Halliburton.
>>
>
>The Constitution does not anywhere authorize the taking of taxpayer
>money to be given away in welfare and social programs.

I am not taxed for Social Security. I contribute into it. Can you
imagine our nation with tens of millions of homeless seniors who
lacked the foresight to save for their old age? Providing for the
welfare of those who have made a lifelong contribution to our nation's
prosperity through their decades of hard work, and are no longer
employable, is a necessity, just as is public health.

>It does in fact authorize an Army for the defense of the country.

I hope you're not attempting to imply that Bush's Iraq war was a
matter of national defense. That is laughable.

>You can argue that the war in Iraq is stupid,

Actually, I can argue that the Bush's vendetta against Sadam was
illegal, and perpetrated under false pretenses, and his GOP inspired
arrogant disregard for the Constitution is grounds for impeachment far
more grievous than Clinton's philandering.

>but the expenditure of money on defense (i.e. the military) is Constituional.

To mention Bush and the Constitution in the same context is to reveal
your lack of understanding of how Karl Rove orchestrated Bush's
reelection, or blind naiveté.

>You[r] apparent consistant disdain for corporations illustrates
>your displile for free enterprise

(Merriam-Webster left the word 'displile' out of their Collegiate
Dictionary. Perhaps you'd be good enough to provide a definition for
it.)

I have no disdain for free enterprise. Indeed, I have run been the
beneficiary of the fruits of free enterprise as long as I can
remember.

It is the overwhelming political influence wielded by LARGE
corporations, that are able to buy the governmental policies and
programs they desire with the obscene profits (Exxon Mobile ...) from
their monopolies to the detriment of the people of our fair nation,
and then circumvent paying income tax by moving to Dubai like
Halliburton, that I find offensive. Haven't you been paying attention
to the blatant corruption occurring in our country? You remember,
DeLay, Abromoff, Lay, Keeting, Cunningham, Agnew, Boeing, Libby, ...
Kleptocracy is rampant.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-05-06-abramoff-bush_x.htm

>and your bias toward big government.... be [sic] we already know that.

I don't favor big government, but I do challenge privatization efforts
that result in a loss of accountability and transparency for
inherently governmental functions. Don't be fooled; you wouldn't like
to live in a nation that failed to restrain the voracious avarice of
unscrupulous, soulless, faceless, corporations.

>This country was founded on the principle of limited government.
>For the first 150 years of its existance we had politicians
>that understood that concept. To wit, the founding fathers were
>all mostly businessmen of some sort or another. The trend today
>is that politicians seldome have real world experience in busines.

Oh, our congressional representatives seem to have plenty of
experience taking corporate lobby bribes that attempt to place the
interest of the corporations above those of the people, like senator
Rick Santorum's bill to deprive the people of our nation of the
National Weather Service information created with their tax dollars,
so that AccuWeather could sell it to them.

>Far too many of the[m] have never really held a job outside of
>government... and too many are simply one in a long line
>od political figures... ever inbreeding their government ideas.

Whose fault is it that 90% of incumbents are reelected?


I'm happy to see that you don't challenge my original statement:

Unlike the examples I mentioned, Social Security and Medicare
benefit the people of this country directly, and do not
_needlessly_ squander our nation's treasure for the benefit of
large corporations like Bechtel and Halliburton.

[Larry Dighera]

On Fri, 27 Apr 2007 12:41:15 GMT, "Steven P. McNicoll"
> wrote in
et>:

>
>If the people of this country believed that to be true they wouldn't have to
>be forced to participate in them.

Regardless of what the people believe, they are the beneficiaries, not
large corporations.

[Steven P. McNicoll]

"Larry Dighera" > wrote in message
...
>
> I am not taxed for Social Security. I contribute into it.
>

Do you choose to contribute, or are you forced?

[[email protected]]

>
> Yep, our health care system is so bad that it is where those from countries
> with socialized healthcare systems who have the money and a real problem
> flock to.

The US health care system is indeed very bad especially in terms of
cost. Its ironic that a major reason for this is the absence of a free
market in the medical sector. The American Medical Association
undermines the free market with a death grip on who gets to practice
medicine in the country and that grip is so strong that even the
celebrated Nobel prize winning economist Milton Friedman (a major
critic of the AMA) could do nothing to loosen it.

[Matt Barrow[_4_]]

"Phil" > wrote in message
oups.com...
> On Apr 26, 11:17 pm, Larry Dighera > wrote:
>> On 26 Apr 2007 18:57:24 -0700, Jay Honeck > wrote
>> in . com>:
>>
>> >Until we, as a people, come to grips with this
>> >completely out of control, tax-consuming, inefficient monster of a
>> >government bureacracy that we've created, we will find our freedoms
>> >and our income ever more diminished.
>>
>> Consider $3-billion a week in Iraq for five years, or much longer
>> depending..., and the money-sink of a blundering Department of
>> Homeland Security. It is those useless expenditures that are
>> consuming the wealth of our nation.
>>
>> >This isn't a Democrat or Republican thing --
>>
>> If you fail to see the GOP's madness, you are blind.
>
> The Republicans have been particularly egregious in their borrow and
> spend approach, but history shows that the Democrats aren't much
> better.

Seen the Dem's latest proposals? Hooooboy!!

[ktbr]

Larry Dighera wrote:

>
> I am not taxed for Social Security. I contribute into it.

I don't recal ever being offered an option NIT to participate
Larry. If it could I would drop it in a minute and manage it
myself. If it is such a great retirement program why is everyone
forced to participate?

If you are that concerned about all the poor idiots out there
who are too lazy or stupid to manage their life (let alone their
retirement) there are _thousands_ of charities that you can
contribute to. Larry They are run generally much more efficiently
than the government "charities" and have much less fraud.

[ktbr]

Larry Dighera wrote:

>
> Without a clue of how effective public outcry is in shaping
> governmental policy in Europe, I would also blame the silent airmen
> who failed to protest the imposition of the stifling measures you
> mention.

But on the other hand you have no problem with other government
"measures" that stifle individuals and businesses.

[[email protected]]

Mxsmanic > wrote:
> writes:

> > What an ass.

> The cable bill is $100 per month. The Cessna bill is $150 per hour. The
> choice is easy.

A 2006 C172 with G1000 goes for about $140. Older VFR 172's can be
rented for under $100 and 152's for conciderably less.

But yes, the choice is easy; go fly.

--
Jim Pennino

Remove .spam.sux to reply.

[Matt Barrow[_4_]]

"ktbr" > wrote in message
...
> Larry Dighera wrote:
>
>>
>> I am not taxed for Social Security. I contribute into it.
>
> I don't recal ever being offered an option NIT to participate
> Larry. If it could I would drop it in a minute and manage it
> myself. If it is such a great retirement program why is everyone
> forced to participate?
>
> If you are that concerned about all the poor idiots out there
> who are too lazy or stupid to manage their life (let alone their
> retirement) there are _thousands_ of charities that you can
> contribute to. Larry They are run generally much more efficiently
> than the government "charities" and have much less fraud.

Larry is definitely off his medication.

[Gig 601XL Builder]

Larry Dighera wrote:

> I am not taxed for Social Security. I contribute into it.

If it is required by the government it is a tax. If anyone gets more out of
it than they put into it is a income redistribution welfare program.

When taken together about 15% of every dime I have earned in my 30 years in
the labor pool has been paid into SS & Medicare. If I had been allowed to
keep that money and invest it in even a conservative investment I could
retire right now, finish my airplane and never be in anyway a cost to
society. The Social Security Administration is a terrible investment manager
and Medicare is a mediocre health insurance policy at best.

[Steven P. McNicoll]

"Larry Dighera" > wrote in message
...
>
> Regardless of what the people believe, they are the beneficiaries, not
> large corporations.
>

Beneficiaries? Victims would be more accurate.

[Gig 601XL Builder]

wrote:
>> Yep, our health care system is so bad that it is where those from
>> countries with socialized healthcare systems who have the money and
>> a real problem flock to.
>
> The US health care system is indeed very bad especially in terms of
> cost. Its ironic that a major reason for this is the absence of a free
> market in the medical sector. The American Medical Association
> undermines the free market with a death grip on who gets to practice
> medicine in the country and that grip is so strong that even the
> celebrated Nobel prize winning economist Milton Friedman (a major
> critic of the AMA) could do nothing to loosen it.

The cost of the US health system can be blamed on the ABA as much if not
more than the AMA.

[Larry Dighera]

On 27 Apr 2007 07:12:40 -0700, Phil > wrote in
. com>:

>The stereotype of Democrats is that when they control the purse
>strings they tend to increase spending. The stereotype of Republicans
>is that they tend to hold spending down. The truth is that in years
>when one party controls both the Congress and the White House,
>spending tends to go up. That is true for Democrats, but it is just
>as true for Republicans.

We are getting pretty far a field here, but I believe it's fair to
say, that Democrats' spending tends to benefit the people, and
Republican spending tends to benefit large corporations.

[Larry Dighera]

On Fri, 27 Apr 2007 14:22:22 GMT, "Steven P. McNicoll"
> wrote in
t>:

>
>"Larry Dighera" > wrote in message
...
>>
>> I am not taxed for Social Security. I contribute into it.
>>
>
>Do you choose to contribute, or are you forced?
>

I am thankful that our nation is not littered with impoverished
seniors who failed to provide for their years of unemployability.

[B A R R Y[_2_]]

ktbr wrote:
> If it is such a great retirement program why is everyone
> forced to participate?

Not everyone is.

My wife is a member of a teacher's retirement plan and is exempt from SS
contributions.

[Bob Noel]

In article >,
Larry Dighera > wrote:

> We are getting pretty far a field here, but I believe it's fair to
> say, that Democrats' spending tends to benefit the people, and
> Republican spending tends to benefit large corporations.

when using a strange definition of "benefit" for the people.

--
Bob Noel
(goodness, please trim replies!!!)

[Jose]

> The US health care system is indeed very bad especially in terms of
> cost. Its ironic that a major reason for this is the absence of a free
> market in the medical sector.

Actually, I think the source is from elsewhere. Medical insurance in
its various guises removes the connection between the buyer and the
seller. It was first offered as a perq, in lieu of salary, by big
corporations who could get a bargain on it (that is, they could offer it
more cheaply than individuals could get it themselves, thus it was an
attractive perq). This spread too far, and took over the medical system.

I hear this is happening to law now too.

Jose
--
Get high on gasoline: fly an airplane.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

[Jose]

> I am thankful that our nation is not littered with impoverished
> seniors who failed to provide for their years of unemployability.

Yes, but I do resent being the one to support them.

Jose
--
Get high on gasoline: fly an airplane.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

[Ross]

Maxwell wrote:

> "Mxsmanic" > wrote in message
> ...
>
>>Marco Leon writes:
>>
>>
>>>Yes, and yes. While I don't think that the reasons you mentioned are the
>>>primary reasons, I do think they play a part. Salaries are indeed higher
>>>but
>>>so are the housing prices. A "starter" house in Long Island, NY for
>>>example
>>>is around $450K. Paying for that mortgage while bringing up a family
>>>leaves
>>>little room to blow $7K on a year's worth of flight training.
>>
>>Forty years ago, a "starter" house might cost 1.5 times the annual salary
>>of a
>>person in the middle class. Now it may cost ten times the annual salary
>>of
>>such a person (although the middle class is disappearing).
>>
>
>
> Then someone is buying way too much house!
>
>

I like to watch these "Flip this House". I would call them entry level
homes (1100 sq ft) and they can go for $400,000 in LA, SFO area. I am
not sure saleries are up there for the young starting out. My kids
bought 40+ year old homes in the Fayetteville, AR area and I was amazed
how much they had to spend - getting close to $100K and these were in
the 1300 sq ft range. They are not lawyers or engineers.

--

Regards, Ross
C-172F 180HP
KSWI

[ktbr]

B A R R Y wrote:

> ktbr wrote:
>
>> If it is such a great retirement program why is everyone
>> forced to participate?
>
>
> Not everyone is.
>
> My wife is a member of a teacher's retirement plan and is exempt from SS
> contributions.

Teacher's unions are a large lobby and can get special treatment
from politicians.

[ktbr]

Larry Dighera wrote:
>
> Regardless of what the people believe, they are the beneficiaries, not
> large corporations.
>

You talk as if these Corportations are an "evil". What is a
Corportation Larry? It is a publicly owned company or business
that employes people, pays them a salary and benefirs. It is
owned by people... stockholders who are by and large participating
by virtue of pention and 401K plans. They count on Corportations
doing and making profits so that their stock will go up and thus,
they can enjoy a decent return on their investment.

For some reason you disdain the idea of a company making mony...
or even worse that any profits they make should be somewho
turned over to tge government for dispersal to people you think
"need" it. That's a very sad vision of a free country you have.

[Steven P. McNicoll]

"Larry Dighera" > wrote in message
...
>
> I am thankful that our nation is not littered with impoverished
> seniors who failed to provide for their years of unemployability.
>

That's swell, but do you choose to contribute to Social Security, or are you
forced?

[ktbr]

Gig 601XL Builder wrote:
> If it is required by the government it is a tax. If anyone gets more out of
> it than they put into it is a income redistribution welfare program.
>
> When taken together about 15% of every dime I have earned in my 30 years in
> the labor pool has been paid into SS & Medicare. If I had been allowed to
> keep that money and invest it in even a conservative investment I could
> retire right now, finish my airplane and never be in anyway a cost to
> society. The Social Security Administration is a terrible investment manager
> and Medicare is a mediocre health insurance policy at best.
>
>

Amen brother. I too look longingly at that so called "statement" they
send me every year... I can see the money that has been squandered on
my behalf. Like you, had I been able to put that money into an account
of my own I could retire today.

The SS system has been running a "surplus" for many years (of course the
uneeded money is simply spent) but if, in fact, that "extra" money
colleceted were truly invested in securitities it would be a huge amount
by now... and no "crisis" would be looming ahead.

The Social Security Scam gets away doing things with peoples money
that would result in people going to jail if done by private sector
investment company. After all of this... Larry still thinks its a great
idea.

[ktbr]

Larry Dighera wrote:

>
> We are getting pretty far a field here, but I believe it's fair to
> say, that Democrats' spending tends to benefit the people, and
> Republican spending tends to benefit large corporations.
>

Corporations are owned by stockholders... individuals who invest
through their retirement plans. They benefit when companies are
successful and make profits.

[Larry Dighera]

On Fri, 27 Apr 2007 14:38:03 GMT, ktbr > wrote in
>:

>Larry Dighera wrote:
>
>>
>> I am not taxed for Social Security. I contribute into it.
>
>I don't recal [sic] ever being offered an option NIT [sic] to participate
>Larry. If it could I would drop it in a minute and manage it
>myself. If it is such a great retirement program why is everyone
>forced to participate?

Of course, no one is _forced_ to participate, even in the US. It's
only a condition of earning a wage in the US. ...

What would happen if only those who were bad drivers could purchase
automobile insurance? Do you think the premiums would be affordable
in such a case? If you're opposed to SSI, are you also opposed to
automobile, aircraft, life, and health insurance?

>If you are that concerned about all the poor idiots out there
>who are too lazy or stupid to manage their life (let alone their
>retirement) there are _thousands_ of charities that you can
>contribute to.

That attitude is rather shortsighted, and totally out of place in
today's global society. If you fail to bring the less fortunate up,
you will not be happy with the consequences. Trust me.

You don't live in isolation regardless of whether your home is
situated behind the walls of a gated community or not. As the world
population is predicted to double within the next fifty years, we're
all going to have to adjust our tribal biases in order to coexist in
the future.

And where is your compassion for your fellow man? Are you so
contemptuous of humanity, that you would condemn millions of innocent
people to poverty just to save a few dollars? I hope not.

>Larry They are run generally much more efficiently
>than the government "charities" and have much less fraud.

Social Security is not a charity; it is insurance. There is an
inescapable loss of human dignity that occurs to those who receive
charity. Social Security recipients can be proud of having worked
hard during their lives, and owe no debt of gratitude to anyone other
than the FDR administration.

Educate yourself:


http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/01/31/dont_use_fdr_to_undermine_social_security/
FDR believed that Social Security should be simple, guaranteed,
fair, earned, and available to all Americans. President Roosevelt
was adamant that Social Security was an insurance program to
provide basic needs in retirement.

Today, thanks in large part to Social Security, the number of
older Americans below the poverty line has dropped from almost 50
percent to only 8 percent.

[Larry Dighera]

On Fri, 27 Apr 2007 11:18:39 -0400, Bob Noel
> wrote in
>:

>In article >,
> Larry Dighera > wrote:
>
>> We are getting pretty far a field here, but I believe it's fair to
>> say, that Democrats' spending tends to benefit the people, and
>> Republican spending tends to benefit large corporations.
>
>when using a strange definition of "benefit" for the people.

Please try to communicate in complete sentences if you expect me to
infer your meaning. Thanks.

[ktbr]

Larry Dighera wrote:

> Social Security is not a charity; it is insurance. There is an
> inescapable loss of human dignity that occurs to those who receive
> charity. Social Security recipients can be proud of having worked
> hard during their lives, and owe no debt of gratitude to anyone other
> than the FDR administration.

It is not insurance. It is not even solvent. It would not pass muster
if it had to comply with SEC regulations that actual insurance companies
are required to comply with.

If you were a rational person I would try discuss this further but
you aren't so I won't bother.

[Larry Dighera]

On Fri, 27 Apr 2007 11:29:29 -0400, Jose >
wrote in >:

>> I am thankful that our nation is not littered with impoverished
>> seniors who failed to provide for their years of unemployability.
>
>Yes, but I do resent being the one to support them.

We are all on this planet together. The world population is expected
to double in less than fifty years. You're going to have to change
that mind-set if you expect us all to get along in the future.

Or you could found Rand's Gaultville, and live in blissful isolation.
:-(

[Jose]

>>>I am thankful that our nation is not littered with impoverished
>>> seniors who failed to provide for their years of unemployability.
>>Yes, but I do resent being the one to support them.
> We are all on this planet together. The world
> population is expected to double...

You are using the fallacy of "all things being equal". All things are
not equal. The doling out of money =causes= people to reach their hands
out - hands that might otherwise be contributing to society. This is
especially true for the doling out of money based on the recipient
having made poor choices. Guess what that encourages.

Jose
--
Get high on gasoline: fly an airplane.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

[Larry Dighera]

On Fri, 27 Apr 2007 15:48:16 GMT, ktbr > wrote in
>:

>Larry Dighera wrote:
>>
>> Regardless of what the people believe, they are the beneficiaries, not
>> large corporations.
>>
>
>You talk as if these Corportations are an "evil". What is a
>Corportation Larry? It is a publicly owned company or business
>that employes people, pays them a salary and benefirs. It is
>owned by people... stockholders who are by and large participating
>by virtue of pention and 401K plans. They count on Corportations
>doing and making profits so that their stock will go up and thus,
>they can enjoy a decent return on their investment.

In an ideal world, that may be true. But you're not going to get the
former Enron employees to see it that way.

>For some reason you disdain the idea of a company making mony...
>or even worse that any profits they make should be somewho
>turned over to tge government for dispersal to people you think
>"need" it. That's a very sad vision of a free country you have.

Those are your inferences. They are not supported by my statements.

I believe that _large_, soulless corporations, for which profit is the
_sole_ criterion for decision making, are using their wealth to wrest
power from our government (which was created for and by the _people_,
not corporations), and bend it into benefiting them at the expense of
our nation's people. There are at least two reasons for that
behavior.

The obvious one is greed, but it's not quite that simple.

The other reason for basing all corporate decisions on profit, is
competition in the marketplace. If a corporation is able to produce
its product at a reduced cost, it may be able to drive its competitors
out of the marketplace by pricing its products below that of the
competition while continuing to make a profit on them, and ultimately
enjoy the goal of all _large_ corporations: a market monopoly. Then
that corporation is free to charge any price it likes that the public
will bear. If the corporation's method of reducing the cost of
producing its product or service involves exploitation of workers
and/or the environment, all the competing companies in that market
segment will be forced to do the same sort of reprehensible
exploiting, or face bankruptcy due to their becoming uncompetitive.

So the much ballyhooed laissez-faire capitalism of the US is
double-edged sward, that is fundamentally flawed. By its vary nature,
corporate competition fosters ever lower prices, perceived as a
good-thing by the buying public, until it drives its competition out
of the marketplace, and the survivor starts gouging. The other edge
is the implicit mandate to engage in unscrupulous exploitation and
fraud in order to dominate, or indeed survive, in the marketplace.
That needs to change.

I see at least two methods of accomplishing corporate responsibility
under a capitalistic system:

1. The buying public can refuse to purchase from those firms who
are less than responsible in the production of their products.
This is beginning to take hold today. You can choose to
purchase your electrical power from "green" generating utility
companies, for example. The trend toward organically produced
food is another example, in which consumers are willing to pay
a premium for a superior product. And you used to be able to
choose to shun foreign goods produced by coolie labor in
unhealthy sweatshops devoid of environmental concerns in favor
of domestically produced products produced in compliance with
US labor, quality, and environmental law. But that options
has become clouded over the last few decades as domestic
corporations have increasingly pursued outsourcing to remain
competitive.

2. The government can reward those companies who voluntarily
choose not to exploit their workers and the environment, to
help them meet their competitions' prices and remain in
business. And those corporations that voluntarily develop
innovative means of responsibly reducing costs should also
receive a government incentive.

I'm still deliberating on how this might be effected.

So while it is obvious that large corporations are fraught with
supporting unscrupulous political influence paddling, exploiting
workers, and defiling the environment, such reprehensible conduct is
not wholly their fault; it is the capitalistic market system that
virtually demands it.

[Larry Dighera]

On Fri, 27 Apr 2007 15:48:38 GMT, "Steven P. McNicoll"
> wrote in
et>:

>
>"Larry Dighera" > wrote in message
...
>>
>> I am thankful that our nation is not littered with impoverished
>> seniors who failed to provide for their years of unemployability.
>>
>
>That's swell, but do you choose to contribute to Social Security, or are you
>forced?
>

I am not forced. Only the majority of US wage earners are compelled
to participate in the Social Security Insurance plan.


http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2004/site_packages/ss_privatization/3150fdrs_soc_sec.html
When President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Social Security
Act into law on Aug. 14, 1935, only a relative handful of citizens
were covered by private pension funds. If you weren't wealthy, or
didn't have an extended family with means, there was no place that
you or your family could turn to if you were in economic distress,
except charity. Most Americans faced a future full of economic
hardship and uncertainty, and a "poverty-ridden old age," to use
FDR's apt description.

Today, thanks to FDR's commitment to the principle of the General
Welfare, one in six Americans—nearly 46 million people—receive a
Social Security benefit. Social Security is more than a monthly
check at retirement age. Nearly one in three beneficiaries are not
retirees; such people receive disability benefits, including
benefits for the blind. In addition, the Social Security
Administration dispenses to the state, monies to cover
unemployment benefits, while also administering funding for the
Medicare and Medicaid programs.

Since the 1970s, the Social Security Administration has
administered Supplemental Security Income (SSI)—the Federal
component of what is commonly called welfare. More than 6.5
million people are still covered by these programs, despite
efforts by the type of people who are now pushing President Bush's
privatization looting schemes to reduce or eliminate such
commitments. Of the more than 6.5 million SSI recipients, 31% are
aged, 56% disabled, and 31% disabled children, according to the
Social Security Administration.

And, it is still the case that Social Security represents the only
source of retirement pension income for the vast majority of
Americans.

[Jose]

>2. The government can reward those companies who voluntarily
> choose not to exploit their workers and the environment, to
> help them meet their competitions' prices and remain in
> business. And those corporations that voluntarily develop
> innovative means of responsibly reducing costs should also
> receive a government incentive.

I'm more than a little uneasy with the government rewarding "good"
behavior, as the definition of "good" changes from administration to
administration, but the mechanism for rewards remains in place.

Jose
--
Get high on gasoline: fly an airplane.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

[Matt Barrow[_4_]]

"B A R R Y" > wrote in message
...
> ktbr wrote:
>> If it is such a great retirement program why is everyone
>> forced to participate?
>
> Not everyone is.
>
> My wife is a member of a teacher's retirement plan and is exempt from SS
> contributions.

Government employee.

[ktbr]

Larry Dighera wrote:
pported by my statements.
>
> I believe that _large_, soulless corporations, for which profit is the
> _sole_ criterion for decision making, are using their wealth to wrest
> power from our government (which was created for and by the _people_,
> not corporations), and bend it into benefiting them at the expense of
> our nation's people. There are at least two reasons for that
> behavior.
>

And I believe that _large_ soulless governments, for which power and
priveledge is the _sole_ criterion for decision making, are using
their legislative and political muscle to wrest power from individuals
and businesses (which were created for and _by_ the _people_, not
GOVERNMENT), and bend it into benefiting THEM and their re-election
campaigns at the expense of the people that actually work and pay
the bills. There are two reasons for this type of behavior :
Arrogance and greed for ever more Power.

> The obvious one is greed, but it's not quite that simple.

Politicians are as greedy as they come. I long list of
people found with their hands in cookie jar come to mind...
an obvious and blatant breach of their oaths of office.
>
> The other reason for basing all corporate decisions on profit, is
> competition in the marketplace. If a corporation is able to produce
> its product at a reduced cost, it may be able to drive its competitors
> out of the marketplace by pricing its products below that of the
> competition while continuing to make a profit on them, and ultimately
> enjoy the goal of all _large_ corporations: a market monopoly. Then
> that corporation is free to charge any price it likes that the public
> will bear. If the corporation's method of reducing the cost of
> producing its product or service involves exploitation of workers
> and/or the environment, all the competing companies in that market
> segment will be forced to do the same sort of reprehensible
> exploiting, or face bankruptcy due to their becoming uncompetitive.
>
To you Larry, profit is bad. That is because you are an irrational
socialist. On the other hand Government is good and can do no wrong
and is comprised of hard working servants full of honesty and integrity.

... right.

> So the much ballyhooed laissez-faire capitalism of the US is
> double-edged sward, that is fundamentally flawed.

All socialists feel that way, and you Larry, are a socialist,
you just won't admit it. I ADMIT to being a capitialist...
at least I am honest about my passion.

> By its vary nature,
> corporate competition fosters ever lower prices, perceived as a
> good-thing by the buying public, until it drives its competition out
> of the marketplace, and the survivor starts gouging. The other edge
> is the implicit mandate to engage in unscrupulous exploitation and
> fraud in order to dominate, or indeed survive, in the marketplace.
> That needs to change.

It may need to change... but I submit that there is no such mandate
in the Constitution or otherwise for Government to get involved in
these changes. Who in government has the experience and integrity
anyway? Most are in fact LIFELONG politicians with preciousl little
real business experience. They are also horribly beholden to the
many speacial interest groups that paid big money to get them
elected... you then they are going to render a fair shack to joe
sixpack???

In fact, if you had a bit more intellectual honesty
you would agree (and even willingly identify) quite a number of
areas where government intervention has caused inequities, high
prices, shortages, business slowdowns due to ignorant and
worthless legislation. Since they always pander to and show
preference to layers and their lawsuits they make out like
bandits (and they are) while joe six-pack pays the bill.
So much for Government "fairness".

>
> I see at least two methods of accomplishing corporate responsibility
> under a capitalistic system:
>
> 1. The buying public can refuse to purchase from those firms who
> are less than responsible in the production of their products.
> This is beginning to take hold today. You can choose to
> purchase your electrical power from "green" generating utility
> companies, for example. The trend toward organically produced
> food is another example, in which consumers are willing to pay
> a premium for a superior product. And you used to be able to
> choose to shun foreign goods produced by coolie labor in
> unhealthy sweatshops devoid of environmental concerns in favor
> of domestically produced products produced in compliance with
> US labor, quality, and environmental law. But that options
> has become clouded over the last few decades as domestic
> corporations have increasingly pursued outsourcing to remain
> competitive.
>
> 2. The government can reward those companies who voluntarily
> choose not to exploit their workers and the environment, to
> help them meet their competitions' prices and remain in
> business. And those corporations that voluntarily develop
> innovative means of responsibly reducing costs should also
> receive a government incentive.
>
> I'm still deliberating on how this might be effected.
>
> So while it is obvious that large corporations are fraught with
> supporting unscrupulous political influence paddling, exploiting
> workers, and defiling the environment, such reprehensible conduct is
> not wholly their fault; it is the capitalistic market system that
> virtually demands it.
>

I see ONE method of Government responsibility and accountability:

T E R M L I M I T S

..

[Gig 601XL Builder]

Larry Dighera wrote:

>
> We are getting pretty far a field here, but I believe it's fair to
> say, that Democrats' spending tends to benefit the people, and
> Republican spending tends to benefit large corporations.

We are way far a field so I added OT to the subject.

It is in no way fair to say that. The Democrat's spending tends to benefit
people who choose not to work. Republican spending tends to benefit those
that do.

[Matt Barrow[_4_]]

Larry Dighera wrote:
>
>
> We are getting pretty far a field here, but I believe it's fair to
> say, that Democrats' spending tends to benefit the people, and
> Republican spending tends to benefit large corporations.

I think a closer look will show Democrat spending benefits their
constituents. (See: Taxpayers Union)

Want to review who they are?

Will you then promise to STFU, goofy?

[Matt Barrow[_4_]]

"ktbr" > wrote in message
...
> Larry Dighera wrote:
>
>> Social Security is not a charity; it is insurance. There is an
>> inescapable loss of human dignity that occurs to those who receive
>> charity. Social Security recipients can be proud of having worked
>> hard during their lives, and owe no debt of gratitude to anyone other
>> than the FDR administration.
>
> It is not insurance. It is not even solvent. It would not pass muster
> if it had to comply with SEC regulations that actual insurance companies
> are required to comply with.
>
Here's Larry's lovechild
http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=262307090805493

> If you were a rational person I would try discuss this further but
> you aren't so I won't bother.

You finally noticed!!

[ktbr]

Matt Barrow wrote:

There you go again Matt, trying to confuse the issue with actual
facts and logic.

;^)

[Matt Barrow[_4_]]

"ktbr" > wrote in message
...
> Matt Barrow wrote:
>
> There you go again Matt, trying to confuse the issue with actual
> facts and logic.
>
> ;^)

I'm Sorry!!!

[Gig 601XL Builder]

Larry Dighera wrote:
>>
>
> I am not forced. Only the majority of US wage earners are compelled
> to participate in the Social Security Insurance plan.
>
>
> http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2004/site_packages/ss_privatization/3150fdrs_soc_sec.html
> When President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Social Security
> Act into law on Aug. 14, 1935, only a relative handful of citizens

SNIP>Most Americans faced a future full of economic
> hardship and uncertainty, and a "poverty-ridden old age," to use
> FDR's apt description.

1935 was the middle od the Great Depression. Damn near everyone faced a
"poverty-ridden old age."


>
> Today, thanks to FDR's commitment to the principle of the General
> Welfare, one in six Americans-nearly 46 million people-receive a
> Social Security benefit. Social Security is more than a monthly
> check at retirement age. Nearly one in three beneficiaries are not
> retirees; such people receive disability benefits, including
> benefits for the blind. In addition, the Social Security

And a certain percentage of these are getting these benefit bay fraud.

> Administration dispenses to the state, monies to cover
> unemployment benefits, while also administering funding for the
> Medicare and Medicaid programs.
>
> Since the 1970s, the Social Security Administration has
> administered Supplemental Security Income (SSI)-the Federal
> component of what is commonly called welfare. More than 6.5
> million people are still covered by these programs, despite
> efforts by the type of people who are now pushing President Bush's
> privatization looting schemes to reduce or eliminate such
> commitments. Of the more than 6.5 million SSI recipients, 31% are
> aged, 56% disabled, and 31% disabled children, according to the
> Social Security Administration.

31% + 56% + 31% = 118%

The words "looting" and "schemes" pretty much show that this was written by
a less than unbiased writer.

>
> And, it is still the case that Social Security represents the only
> source of retirement pension income for the vast majority of
> Americans.

[ktbr]

Jose wrote:

>> 2. The government can reward those companies who voluntarily
>> choose not to exploit their workers and the environment, to help
>> them meet their competitions' prices and remain in
>> business. And those corporations that voluntarily develop
>> innovative means of responsibly reducing costs should also
>> receive a government incentive.
>
>
> I'm more than a little uneasy with the government rewarding "good"
> behavior, as the definition of "good" changes from administration to
> administration, but the mechanism for rewards remains in place.
>
> Jose

Its called social engineering and it breeds corruption and the
affording of 'special favors" to certain groups and favored
businesses by various politicians.

[Bob Noel]

In article >,
Larry Dighera > wrote:

> >> We are getting pretty far a field here, but I believe it's fair to
> >> say, that Democrats' spending tends to benefit the people, and
> >> Republican spending tends to benefit large corporations.
> >
> >when using a strange definition of "benefit" for the people.
>
> Please try to communicate in complete sentences if you expect me to
> infer your meaning. Thanks.

You are smart enough to know what I meant.

For those that need it spelled out: Larry claims that that it's "fair" to
say that Democrats' spending tend to benefit the people. That is
only true if you ignore the adverse side-effects of such spending.
Sometimes the cure is worse than the disease.

--
Bob Noel
(goodness, please trim replies!!!)

[ktbr]

This paragraph right here should be enough to totally **** off
any patriotic American:

"Starting in 1984 and running through 2006, the government collected an
extra $935 billion in Social Security taxes. But even with those extra
dollars, Washington still managed to spend its way to $3.5 trillion in
deficits over that span. So in no real sense has Congress set aside
funds to pay retirement benefits in coming years."

And yet Larry steadfastly defends the program as a good thing
for 'people'. What it is really is a good thing for politicians
and a giant ripoff for hardworking people... people that will
get stiffed and blamed for the who debacle a few years down
the road.

[Larry Dighera]

On Fri, 27 Apr 2007 18:20:57 GMT, Jose >
wrote in >:

>>2. The government can reward those companies who voluntarily
>> choose not to exploit their workers and the environment, to
>> help them meet their competitions' prices and remain in
>> business. And those corporations that voluntarily develop
>> innovative means of responsibly reducing costs should also
>> receive a government incentive.
>
>I'm more than a little uneasy with the government rewarding "good"
>behavior, as the definition of "good" changes from administration to
>administration, but the mechanism for rewards remains in place.
>


I understand your concern. If the solution were simple, it would been
put into action long ago.

Despite your specific concerns, how do you feel about my analysis of
the flaw in a pure capitalistic market system and the concepts of my
proposed solutions in theory?

[Andrew Gideon]

On Fri, 27 Apr 2007 18:29:04 +0000, ktbr wrote:

> T E R M L I M I T S

While I'm not against that idea, I don't hold a lot of hope that it would
make a difference. All that's required to get around it is a little
collusion between "generations" of office holders.

- Andrew

[Andrew Gideon]

On Fri, 27 Apr 2007 07:12:40 -0700, Phil wrote:

> The truth is that in years when one
> party controls both the Congress and the White House, spending tends to go
> up.

Have you data to support this? I've been lamenting the overthrow of the
Republican party by the "social conservatives", operating under the
assumption that the godfearers were the root of the damage to the "small
government", "fiscal sanity" party.

These hyper-liberals - intent upon getting government (and politics) into
all sorts of places in which it does not belong, and bloating government
in the process - have earned a lot of my ire.

What you've written suggests that I've been blaming a false cause, though,
and that's interesting.

- Andrew

[Andrew Gideon]

On Thu, 26 Apr 2007 22:58:21 +0000, kontiki wrote:

> I think that's largely true. People are more interestwed in who wins
> American Idol than what is going on in the aerospace industry.

I suspect that this plays a large part. It's not so much that the heroes
matter (though to some people, I'm sure they do {8^). But the heroes
represent a consumption of the public mindset. Having an aviation hero
means that aviation is on the minds of people.

- Andrew

[Dan Luke]

"Gig 601XL Builder" wrote:

> The cost of the US health system can be blamed on the ABA as much if not
> more than the AMA.

They're both in the same racket along with the drug and insurance companies.

My employees' compensation and my profit are being eroded at a rate far in
excess of inflation by bloating health care costs. We're paying much more
every year but getting worse care and service in return.

--
Dan
C172RG at BFM

[Steven P. McNicoll]

"Larry Dighera" > wrote in message
...
>
> Of course, no one is _forced_ to participate, even in the US. It's
> only a condition of earning a wage in the US. ...
>

Wage earners are forced to participate. Wage earners are someone.


>
> What would happen if only those who were bad drivers could purchase
> automobile insurance? Do you think the premiums would be affordable
> in such a case? If you're opposed to SSI, are you also opposed to
> automobile, aircraft, life, and health insurance?
>

Social Security is not insurance.


>
> That attitude is rather shortsighted, and totally out of place in
> today's global society. If you fail to bring the less fortunate up,
> you will not be happy with the consequences. Trust me.
>

Why should anyone trust you?


>
> You don't live in isolation regardless of whether your home is
> situated behind the walls of a gated community or not. As the world
> population is predicted to double within the next fifty years, we're
> all going to have to adjust our tribal biases in order to coexist in
> the future.
>

I doubt you'll ever adjust your biases.


>
> And where is your compassion for your fellow man? Are you so
> contemptuous of humanity, that you would condemn millions of innocent
> people to poverty just to save a few dollars? I hope not.
>

Absurd.


>
> Social Security is not a charity; it is insurance. There is an
> inescapable loss of human dignity that occurs to those who receive
> charity. Social Security recipients can be proud of having worked
> hard during their lives, and owe no debt of gratitude to anyone other
> than the FDR administration.
>

Social Security is not an insurance policy, it is a ponzi scheme.


>
> Educate yourself:
>
>
> http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/01/31/dont_use_fdr_to_undermine_social_security/
> FDR believed that Social Security should be simple, guaranteed,
> fair, earned, and available to all Americans. President Roosevelt
> was adamant that Social Security was an insurance program to
> provide basic needs in retirement.
>
> Today, thanks in large part to Social Security, the number of
> older Americans below the poverty line has dropped from almost 50
> percent to only 8 percent.
>

So how much of that was done by social security, how much was done by
changing the definition of "older Americans", and how much was done by
lowering the poverty line?

[Steven P. McNicoll]

"Larry Dighera" > wrote in message
...
>
> We are all on this planet together. The world population is expected
> to double in less than fifty years. You're going to have to change
> that mind-set if you expect us all to get along in the future.
>

No, if you expect us all to get along in the future you're going to have to
change your mindset.

[Steven P. McNicoll]

"Jose" > wrote in message
. net...
>
> You are using the fallacy of "all things being equal". All things are not
> equal. The doling out of money =causes= people to reach their hands out -
> hands that might otherwise be contributing to society. This is especially
> true for the doling out of money based on the recipient having made poor
> choices. Guess what that encourages.
>

My gawd, what are you saying? Rewarding some behavior encourages more of
it?

[Steven P. McNicoll]

"Larry Dighera" > wrote in message
...
>
> I am not forced. Only the majority of US wage earners are compelled
> to participate in the Social Security Insurance plan.
>

Good for you. How did you manage to avoid paying social security?


>
> And, it is still the case that Social Security represents the only
> source of retirement pension income for the vast majority of
> Americans.
>

Yeah, it's a damned shame it was ever created.

[Steven P. McNicoll]

"Larry Dighera" > wrote in message
...
>
> We are getting pretty far a field here, but I believe it's fair to
> say, that Democrats' spending tends to benefit the people, and
> Republican spending tends to benefit large corporations.
>

That's neither fair nor accurate. Democrats' spending tends to be for
things that don't work, waste huge amounts of money, and are generally not
supported by the Constitution. Off the top of my head I can't think of
anything that actually benefits the people.

[Steven P. McNicoll]

"Larry Dighera" > wrote in message
...
>
> I understand your concern. If the solution were simple, it would been
> put into action long ago.
>

Actually, the solutions ARE pretty simple. They're not put into action
because doing so would not help those in power stay in power.

[Larry Dighera]

On Fri, 27 Apr 2007 17:38:43 GMT, Jose >
wrote in >:

>>>>I am thankful that our nation is not littered with impoverished
>>>> seniors who failed to provide for their years of unemployability.
>>>Yes, but I do resent being the one to support them.
>> We are all on this planet together. The world
>> population is expected to double...
>
>You are using the fallacy of "all things being equal".

I am? I fail to infer your meaning as it relates to this discussion.

>All things are not equal.

It's difficult to argue with that statement.

>The doling out of money =causes= people to reach their hands
>out -

If true, that is an inescapable side effect. It's a spurious argument
tantamount to refusing to take a life saving medication that may cause
nausea.

>hands that might otherwise be contributing to society.

What? Are you arguing that people shouldn't retire after thirty or
forth years of toil?

>This is
>especially true for the doling out of money based on the recipient
>having made poor choices.

What is true? Are you saying, that those retired workers who have
paid into SSI should not receive a SSI check commensurate with the
amount they contributed during the time they worked and paid into SSI?
Or are you saying, that we, as a country, are not big enough to show
compassion toward those who were created with less than optimal
mentality and manual skill, even when it is in our collective best
interest?

>Guess what that encourages.

What what encourages?

[Larry Dighera]

On Fri, 27 Apr 2007 16:50:57 GMT, ktbr > wrote in
>:

>If you were a rational person I would try discuss this further but
>you aren't so I won't bother.

Are you able to cite a few of what you consider to be irrational
statements made by me in this message thread?

If not, I am forced to conclude, that you are just another unarmed man
in a battle of wits who resorts to personal attack when he has run out
of plausible arguments to support his views.

[Mxsmanic]

kontiki writes:

> Well obviously it depends upon where you live... you couldn't buy a
> house in Kalifornia for $60,000 but in other places of the country
> you could.

I suppose there might be a few people willing to live on the edge of Death
Valley or the summit of Mount Washington.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

[Mxsmanic]

Maxwell writes:

> There are very livable homes in every state for $60k,,,,, but you said 10
> time retard,,,, can't you follow your own posts???

Yes. Ten times the average salary is $400,000, and it's very easy to find
communities in which this is the starting price for admission. If it's worth
living there at all, the price skyrockets.

> Besides, you are either to ignorant or to impatient to accept the fact, that
> in every state - you can buy a $60k home, live in it for 10 years, and
> usually trade up with your equity, and have a $100k to $120k home for the
> same monthly payment.

That's exactly the sort of practice that has made home ownership inaccessible
for so many people today. It's all a matter of greed.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

[Mxsmanic]

ktbr writes:

> This country was founded on the principle of limited government.
> For the first 150 years of its existance we had politicians
> that understood that concept. To wit, the founding fathers were
> all mostly businessmen of some sort or another. The trend today
> is that politicians seldome have real world experience in busines.
> Far too many of the have never really held a job outside of
> government... and too many are simply one in a long line
> od political figures... ever inbreeding their government ideas.

Unfortunately, this is how democracies tend to evolve, which is why they tend
to limit their own lifetimes.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

[Mxsmanic]

Gig 601XL Builder writes:

> Yep, our health care system is so bad that it is where those from countries
> with socialized healthcare systems who have the money and a real problem
> flock to.

Which countries would those be?

What is actually happen is sometimes the opposite: People from the United
States are going to other countries to receive good quality health care at
prices they can afford. Part of this is "medical tourism" to places in India
and elsewhere that cater to foreigners and provide top-quality care at very
reasonable prices, and part of it is to places with socialized medicine that
provide good care at good prices.

I found out a few years ago that it's cheaper to fly to Paris and get a
gall-bladder operation at the American Hospital and then fly back to the U.S.
than it is to get the same operation in the U.S. to begin with, and the
quality of care is the same. People at the hospital confirmed to me that
there are patients doing this, as I recall, meaning that they get a Paris
vacation and equivalent medical care at a lower price than they would pay if
they went to their friendly local hospital back home.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

[Mxsmanic]

writes:

> The US health care system is indeed very bad especially in terms of
> cost. Its ironic that a major reason for this is the absence of a free
> market in the medical sector. The American Medical Association
> undermines the free market with a death grip on who gets to practice
> medicine in the country and that grip is so strong that even the
> celebrated Nobel prize winning economist Milton Friedman (a major
> critic of the AMA) could do nothing to loosen it.

That's part of the problem, but the greatest part of medical costs comes from
institutional providers, i.e., hospitals, and not practitioners. Hospitals
are faceless, for-profit organizations that care only about how much money
they make, and some of them will literally throw cripples out onto the
sidewalk if they cannot pay.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

[Mxsmanic]

Jose writes:

> Actually, I think the source is from elsewhere. Medical insurance in
> its various guises removes the connection between the buyer and the
> seller. It was first offered as a perq, in lieu of salary, by big
> corporations who could get a bargain on it (that is, they could offer it
> more cheaply than individuals could get it themselves, thus it was an
> attractive perq). This spread too far, and took over the medical system.

Quite so. Medical insurance allows people to forget how things get paid for,
and allows medical costs to spiral out of control. People who have insurance
want everything to be paid for and care absolutely nothing about the actual
costs. People without insurance are excluded from decent healthcare by the
resulting upward spiral of costs.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

[[email protected]]

Mxsmanic > wrote:
> kontiki writes:

> > Well obviously it depends upon where you live... you couldn't buy a
> > house in Kalifornia for $60,000 but in other places of the country
> > you could.

> I suppose there might be a few people willing to live on the edge of Death
> Valley or the summit of Mount Washington.

Or you realize than the United States is more than LA, Chicago, and New York.

I was looking at an airpark in Arizona with a 3 year old, three bedroom
house, private hanger, and access to the runway for $220K outside a
smallish town with a WalMart and all the other normal stuff.

Hardly the "edge of Death Valley".

--
Jim Pennino

Remove .spam.sux to reply.

[Larry Dighera]

On Fri, 27 Apr 2007 13:37:44 -0500, "Gig 601XL Builder"
<wrDOTgiaconaATsuddenlink.net> wrote in
>:

>Larry Dighera wrote:
>
>>
>> We are getting pretty far a field here, but I believe it's fair to
>> say, that Democrats' spending tends to benefit the people, and
>> Republican spending tends to benefit large corporations.
>
>We are way far a field so I added OT to the subject.
>
>It is in no way fair to say that. The Democrat's spending tends to benefit
>people who choose not to work. Republican spending tends to benefit those
>that do.
>

Isn't it the Democrats who support labor unions?

[Peter Clark]

On Fri, 27 Apr 2007 14:45:02 GMT, wrote:

>
>
>A 2006 C172 with G1000 goes for about $140. Older VFR 172's can be
>rented for under $100 and 152's for conciderably less.

$125 for the 172S G1000 at BED. $90 for the 152.

[Larry Dighera]

On Fri, 27 Apr 2007 11:46:56 -0700, "Matt Barrow"
> wrote in
>:

>
>Larry Dighera wrote:
>>
>> We are getting pretty far a field here, but I believe it's fair to
>> say, that Democrats' spending tends to benefit the people, and
>> Republican spending tends to benefit large corporations.
>
>I think a closer look will show Democrat spending benefits their
>constituents. (See: Taxpayers Union)
>
>Want to review who they are?
>
>Will you then promise to STFU, goofy?
>

I guess I hit a nerve, huh? Is your business not doing so well? Are
you one of those who lack compassion for their fellow man? Or are
your inhibitions suppressed by your imbibing this Friday afternoon?
It's a little early for that, even for you, isn't it?

Why do you feel that you must use intimidation, defamation, and
truculent bullying to make your point? Can't it stand on its own
merit? Or have I so infuriated you to the point that you are unable
to control your temper? Have you considered a class in anger
management?[1] Get a grip, man.

While I will defend your right to a differing opinion, I will not
tolerate incivility.

If you are unable to refrain from personal attacks, you will not find
a response from me among your future ill-mannered comments.

Are you still falling asleep at the controls of your aircraft for
hours at a time?[2] It's thoughtless, louts like you, who are
incapable of admitting they need a rest-stop who give personal
aviation a bad name.



[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anger_management
In modern society, anger is viewed as an immature or uncivilized
response to frustration, threat, violation, or loss.

[2]
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.aviation.piloting/msg/66beb4fad342849a?dmode=source

[Mxsmanic]

writes:

> Or you realize than the United States is more than LA, Chicago, and New York.

I realize that there are some places that are really nice in which to live,
and a lot of places that are really miserable in which to live.

> I was looking at an airpark in Arizona with a 3 year old, three bedroom
> house, private hanger, and access to the runway for $220K outside a
> smallish town with a WalMart and all the other normal stuff.

If you want to dedicate your life to flying, it sounds like a good deal.
Which airpark is it? I can think of several in Arizona, particularly around
Phoenix.

> Hardly the "edge of Death Valley".

Either you're not talking about southern Arizona, or you've never spent a
summer there.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

[Larry Dighera]

On Fri, 27 Apr 2007 18:29:04 GMT, ktbr > wrote in
>:

>Larry Dighera wrote:
>pported by my statements.
>>
>> I believe that _large_, soulless corporations, for which profit is the
>> _sole_ criterion for decision making, are using their wealth to wrest
>> power from our government (which was created for and by the _people_,
>> not corporations), and bend it into benefiting them at the expense of
>> our nation's people. There are at least two reasons for that
>> behavior.
>>
>
>And I believe that _large_ soulless governments, for which power and
>priveledge is the _sole_ criterion for decision making, are using
>their legislative and political muscle to wrest power from individuals
>and businesses (which were created for and _by_ the _people_, not
>GOVERNMENT), and bend it into benefiting THEM and their re-election
>campaigns at the expense of the people that actually work and pay
>the bills. There are two reasons for this type of behavior :
>Arrogance and greed for ever more Power.

Be that as it may, they don't move to Dubai to escape paying income
taxes they made by profiteering during time of war like Halliburton
apparently has.[1]

>> The obvious one is greed, but it's not quite that simple.
>
>Politicians are as greedy as they come. I long list of
>people found with their hands in cookie jar come to mind...
>an obvious and blatant breach of their oaths of office.

At last, something upon which we can agree.

>>
>> The other reason for basing all corporate decisions on profit, is
>> competition in the marketplace. If a corporation is able to produce
>> its product at a reduced cost, it may be able to drive its competitors
>> out of the marketplace by pricing its products below that of the
>> competition while continuing to make a profit on them, and ultimately
>> enjoy the goal of all _large_ corporations: a market monopoly. Then
>> that corporation is free to charge any price it likes that the public
>> will bear. If the corporation's method of reducing the cost of
>> producing its product or service involves exploitation of workers
>> and/or the environment, all the competing companies in that market
>> segment will be forced to do the same sort of reprehensible
>> exploiting, or face bankruptcy due to their becoming uncompetitive.
>>
>To you Larry, profit is bad.

What has lead you to that erroneous conclusion?

>That is because you are an irrational socialist.

What has lead you to that erroneous conclusion?

>On the other hand Government is good and can do no wrong
>and is comprised of hard working servants full of honesty and integrity.
>
>.. right.

To attribute such nonsensical views to me reveals one or both of at
least two things:

1. You need some remedial instruction in reading comprehension.

2. Your own self interest subjectively clouds your ability to
reason clearly and objectively.

Lacking any citation of my statements that support your unfounded
allegations above, I must conclude that it is likely that both are
true.

>
>> So the much ballyhooed laissez-faire capitalism of the US is
>> double-edged sward, that is fundamentally flawed.
>
>All socialists feel that way,

Now you're trying to tell me that you know the thoughts of all
socialists. Interesting. To what do you attribute your remarkable
omniscience?

>and you Larry, are a socialist, you just won't admit it.

I don't admit it, because it's not true. It is just your subjective
opinion unfounded in fact.

>I ADMIT to being a capitialist...
>at least I am honest about my passion.

I am also a capitalist. I was a hard working small businessman for
decades, as I suspect you may be. I just have enmity toward _large_
corporations that have no compunction about exploiting the people of
our nation and our government to further their interests. And if you
fail to see it, I'm going to have to question your omniscience. :-)

>> By its vary nature,
>> corporate competition fosters ever lower prices, perceived as a
>> good-thing by the buying public, until it drives its competition out
>> of the marketplace, and the survivor starts gouging. The other edge
>> is the implicit mandate to engage in unscrupulous exploitation and
>> fraud in order to dominate, or indeed survive, in the marketplace.
>> That needs to change.
>
>It may need to change... but I submit that there is no such mandate
>in the Constitution or otherwise for Government to get involved in
>these changes. Who in government has the experience and integrity
>anyway?

I'm not sure government is capable of effecting such a change. Perhaps
the people alone are capable of making the change as they have
apparently done in the case of environmentally responsible electrical
power generation.

>Most are in fact LIFELONG politicians with preciousl little
>real business experience. They are also horribly beholden to the
>many speacial interest groups that paid big money to get them
>elected... you then [sic] they are going to render a fair shack to joe
>sixpack???

I'm just trying to envision a solution to the downside of capitalism
of which both the consumers and the businesses seem to be victims.
Call it a creative work in progress. At least I'm thinking outside
the box, and attempting to propose a constructive solution. It's not
easy, but someone has to do it. :-)

>In fact, if you had a bit more intellectual honesty
>you would agree (and even willingly identify) quite a number of
>areas where government intervention has caused inequities, high
>prices, shortages, business slowdowns due to ignorant and
>worthless legislation.

I am fully able to admit that.

>Since they always pander to and show
>preference to layers and their lawsuits they make out like
>bandits (and they are) while joe six-pack pays the bill.
>So much for Government "fairness".

While I agree with much of what you say above, I find it strange that
you should bring those subjects up, as I fail to see how they are
germane to this discussion.

If government is corrupt, it should be changed through electoral
redress.

[snip]
>I see ONE method of Government responsibility and accountability:
>
>T E R M L I M I T S
>

Perhaps that would help. I don't know. But there are surly pros and
cons to the issue of Term Limits.

call me an ideologue, but I still believe in the noble principles upon
which our nation was founded. Hopefully, change from within the
system is still possible.



[1] http://thinkprogress.org/2007/03/12/leahy-halliburton/

There is no expedient to which a man will not resort
to avoid the real labor of thinking.
-- Sir Joshua Reynolds

[[email protected]]

> > The cost of the US health system can be blamed on the ABA as much if not
> > more than the AMA.
>
> They're both in the same racket along with the drug and insurance companies.
>

I did a google search and here is a good article on how the free
market has been trampled so effectively by the AMA. Its also
interesting to see that even some of the founding fathers of the US
saw this coming:

"One of the signers of our Declaration of Independence was the
physician and psychiatrist Benjamin Rush, MD. He was also involved in
writing our Constitution. He warned, "unless we put medical freedom
into the Constitution, the time will come when medicine will organize
into an undercover dictatorship to restrict the art of healing to one
class of men and deny equal privileges to others; the Constitution of
the Republic should make a special privilege for medical freedom as
well as religious freedom."

http://www.mises.org/fullstory.aspx?Id=1749

[Roger (K8RI)]

On Fri, 27 Apr 2007 05:13:48 +0200, Mxsmanic >
wrote:

>Maxwell writes:
>
>> Then someone is buying way too much house!
>
>How much house can you get for $60,000 (1.5 times the average salary in the
>U.S.)?

I thought the uS always used median and let the people confuse it
with average. Have they changed?

[Matt Barrow[_4_]]

"Bob Noel" > wrote in message
...
> In article >,
> Larry Dighera > wrote:
>
>> >> We are getting pretty far a field here, but I believe it's fair to
>> >> say, that Democrats' spending tends to benefit the people, and
>> >> Republican spending tends to benefit large corporations.
>> >
>> >when using a strange definition of "benefit" for the people.
>>
>> Please try to communicate in complete sentences if you expect me to
>> infer your meaning. Thanks.
>
> You are smart enough to know what I meant.
>
> For those that need it spelled out: Larry claims that that it's "fair"
> to
> say that Democrats' spending tend to benefit the people. That is
> only true if you ignore the adverse side-effects of such spending.
> Sometimes the cure is worse than the disease.

In the case of "benevolent welfare spending", it lead to massive
pathologies.

Read some of Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams works comparing the
pre-welfare state 1950s to the 1970's as regards "African Americans".

Hell, Bill Cosby's recent article (which I assume everyone has seen) tells
us very much.

[Matt Barrow[_4_]]

> wrote in message
ups.com...
>> > The cost of the US health system can be blamed on the ABA as much if
>> > not
>> > more than the AMA.
>>
>> They're both in the same racket along with the drug and insurance
>> companies.
>>
>
> I did a google search and here is a good article on how the free
> market has been trampled so effectively by the AMA. Its also
> interesting to see that even some of the founding fathers of the US
> saw this coming:
>
> "One of the signers of our Declaration of Independence was the
> physician and psychiatrist Benjamin Rush, MD. He was also involved in
> writing our Constitution. He warned, "unless we put medical freedom
> into the Constitution, the time will come when medicine will organize
> into an undercover dictatorship to restrict the art of healing to one
> class of men and deny equal privileges to others; the Constitution of
> the Republic should make a special privilege for medical freedom as
> well as religious freedom."
>
> http://www.mises.org/fullstory.aspx?Id=1749

IIRC, one of the original amendments considered (11th or 12th ??) would have
forbade lawyers from serving in the legislature.

[Roger (K8RI)]

On Thu, 26 Apr 2007 19:28:13 GMT, Larry Dighera >
wrote:

>On Thu, 26 Apr 2007 14:53:18 -0400, "Marco Leon" >
>wrote in >:
>
>>http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/26/fashion/26pilot.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
>
> The number of student pilots is down by about a third since 1990,
> from 129,000 to 88,000. The number of private pilots is down from
> 299,000 to 236,000, according to statistics kept by the Federal
> Aviation Administration. And they are aging.
>
> Some longtime private pilots fear that an industry is withering,
> and a bit of Americana is slipping away, along with a bit of
> freedom and joy. And it is happening in part because of lack of
> interest; Walter Mitty doesn’t want to fly anymore.
>
Let's see... In 1961 my first home (a little 2 bedroom starter) cost
just under $12,000 and I was making less than $9,000 a year.
In 1966 I built a new home for a bit over $80,000 that was valued
close to $120,000 while I was making a bit over $12,000 a year plus
overtime. I was probably averaging around 50 plus hours a week.
In 1987 I quit work (after 26.1 years) and went back to college full
time.I graduated in 1990 with a bachelors degree. I started working as
a professional in May of 9. My starting wages would have paid for this
place, which would be considered a starter home, in just over a year.
We no longer need a large home

>
>
>Could it be that Americans are working longer hours?
>
> http://archives.cnn.com/2001/CAREER/trends/08/30/ilo.study/
> CNN) -- You're not imagining it. The United Nations' International
> Labor Organization (ILO) has the proof: "Workers in the United
> States are putting in more hours than anyone else in the
> industrialized world."

My average work week was over 60 hours and I did not get overtime.
OTOH I was paid well and still had enough time and money to fly about
130 hours a year.

>
>
>
>And is it possible that the increase in hours worked don't equate to
>more disposable income?
>
> http://www.pbs.org/now/politics/workhours.html
> According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, though the average
> work week has increased by just over an hour and a half a week,
> the proportion of people who work much longer weeks (48 hours and
> more) has risen greatly. The occupations which saw the greatest
> increase in the percentage of workers averaging 48 hours per week
> or more were professionals and managers (who are most often not
> paid overtime though they are among the highest-paid workers) and

Most are very well paid, but you have to be careful as to how they
define "professional". These statistics can be selectively interpreted
The same is true of the housing markets. Just what defines a starter
home? For a while in this area starter homes for professionals were
running well beyond $200,000. Now they are settling for a much more
modest "starter home". Some select areas still push the so called
average AND median way higher than in the rest of the country.
One thing that has changed is inflation. We (as starting
professionals) used to be able to purchase homes that pushed our limit
to pay. Even the limit with two incomes as we knew that within just a
few years our wages would be such that one income would easily make
the payments and in the long run the home would likely be worth more,
usually substantially more than we paid. Now that inflation is low
most professionals (in many areas) can not look at the initial home
purchase in that light.

> sales and transportation workers (who are among the lowest-paid
> workers and earn more as they log more hours). The Bureau of Labor
> Statistics also notes that high unemployment numbers also
> stimulate salaried workers who are employed to put in more hours

Not the ones I knew.<:-))
Long hours were just part of the job and it was both known as a high
pressure work place and a good place to work. That was nothing new 17
years ago.

> each week to safeguard their positions.

I think the most important item is missing from this analysis. The
article also noted that the current generation appears to have an
aversion to risk and the general population views general aviation
right in there with Bungee jumping or jumping the Grand Canyon with a
motorcycle. IOW the conclusion which he stated in the article was we
may be, in general, raising a generation of cowards who want to be
protected and shy away from pursuits associated with risk.

Just stop and think of how many people you know have made remarks
about either how risky flying is, or how they worry about you flying.
How many have had to give up flying due to girlfriend, wife, or
family?

One guy I've known for years told me he felt better now that I'm not
flying. Of course he also knew I'd never give it up regardless of how
he, or any one else felt. Hopefully in the not too distant future I
can cause him to go back to worrying about my flying. I'd take a
certain sort of perverse pleasure in that.

[Roger (K8RI)]

On Fri, 27 Apr 2007 03:32:26 +0200, Mxsmanic >
wrote:

>Marco Leon writes:
>
>> Yes, and yes. While I don't think that the reasons you mentioned are the
>> primary reasons, I do think they play a part. Salaries are indeed higher but
>> so are the housing prices. A "starter" house in Long Island, NY for example
>> is around $450K. Paying for that mortgage while bringing up a family leaves
>> little room to blow $7K on a year's worth of flight training.
>
>Forty years ago, a "starter" house might cost 1.5 times the annual salary of a
>person in the middle class.

40 years ago a "starter home" was a small, quiet two bedroom home. For
the last 20 years a "starter home" was more than what most of us ever
hoped ever achieve 40 yerars ago. 20 years ago young professionals
would move out of their apartment into their first home that ran more
than a quarter million at least in this area. HOwever that home would
be gaining equity due to inflation far faster than they were making
payments. Now starter homes are becoming much more modest around here.

>such a person (although the middle class is disappearing).
No it's not.
It's just becoming more isolated from the upper and lower classes.

[[email protected]]

On Apr 26, 1:37 pm, kontiki > wrote:

.. On top of that, the BIGGEST benefactor
> odf rising gas prices IS government. Federal and state governments
> make more off a gallon gass through taxes than the oil companies do.

Huh? I see tax stickers on a per gallon basis. This is not affected
by the price itself.

Unless of course the price gets high and the use of gas therefore
drops, in which case the tax collected also decreases.
IIRC, this was actually the case during the '73 gas crunch.

The taxes are likely higher than the profit. The oil companies don't
have to pay for the roads.

[[email protected]]

On Apr 26, 6:32 pm, Mxsmanic > wrote:
> Marco Leon writes:
> > Yes, and yes. While I don't think that the reasons you mentioned are the
> > primary reasons, I do think they play a part. Salaries are indeed higher but
> > so are the housing prices. A "starter" house in Long Island, NY for example
> > is around $450K. Paying for that mortgage while bringing up a family leaves
> > little room to blow $7K on a year's worth of flight training.
>
> Forty years ago, a "starter" house might cost 1.5 times the annual salary of a
> person in the middle class. Now it may cost ten times the annual salary of
> such a person (although the middle class is disappearing).
>
> --
> Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

There is also a huge change in the definition of "starter". Once upon
a time, it was under 1,000 sf, had electricity and gas, a washer in
the laundry, one bathroom, and perhaps an attached carport. Now it's
wired like a computer business, has AC (but is not any better
insulated than in 1950), a small gourmet kitchen, complete laundry in
the air conditioned space, probably two enclosed garages, a fireplace
even if you live in the desert, and most likely you are forced to pay
homage to an HOA. After that, you MUST have HDTV, DVD, Satellite TV,
cable, digital phones, internet capability hooked up, automatic garage
door openers, security system, automatic porch and garage lights, the
fridge has two doors with auto ice and water, the kitchen has a
garbage disposal, dishwasher, perhaps a wine cooler. You now have a
"master suite" with its own separate bathroom, a whirlpool tub and
separate shower, and two sinks.
In short, the starter house, or any other house, has a lot more stuff
than it did in 1950, and it all costs money.

[Bob Noel]

In article >,
Peter Clark > wrote:

> >A 2006 C172 with G1000 goes for about $140. Older VFR 172's can be
> >rented for under $100 and 152's for conciderably less.
>
> $125 for the 172S G1000 at BED. $90 for the 152.

Aren't rates at KBED inflated because of Massport-induced
expenses? Massport skims 2-3% of the gross. terminal rents at
Massport are excessive. Plus the unjustified expenses associated
with airport access.

--
Bob Noel
(goodness, please trim replies!!!)

[Mxsmanic]

Roger (K8RI) writes:

> No it's not.
> It's just becoming more isolated from the upper and lower classes.

It's actually disappearing, not just becoming isolated. The distribution of
wealth is moving back to the way it was in the nineteenth century, with a very
small minority of very wealthy people and a very vast underclass that just
manages to squeak by--and almost no real middle class at all.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

[Jay Honeck]

> > And, it is still the case that Social Security represents the only
> > source of retirement pension income for the vast majority of
> > Americans.
>
> Yeah, it's a damned shame it was ever created.

Not that I disagree with you -- but your statement seems incredibly
ironic given that you are the beneficiary of a tax-funded retirement
plan that is far more generous than Social Security.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

[Mxsmanic]

writes:

> There is also a huge change in the definition of "starter". Once upon
> a time, it was under 1,000 sf, had electricity and gas, a washer in
> the laundry, one bathroom, and perhaps an attached carport. Now it's
> wired like a computer business, has AC (but is not any better
> insulated than in 1950), a small gourmet kitchen, complete laundry in
> the air conditioned space, probably two enclosed garages, a fireplace
> even if you live in the desert, and most likely you are forced to pay
> homage to an HOA. After that, you MUST have HDTV, DVD, Satellite TV,
> cable, digital phones, internet capability hooked up, automatic garage
> door openers, security system, automatic porch and garage lights, the
> fridge has two doors with auto ice and water, the kitchen has a
> garbage disposal, dishwasher, perhaps a wine cooler. You now have a
> "master suite" with its own separate bathroom, a whirlpool tub and
> separate shower, and two sinks.
> In short, the starter house, or any other house, has a lot more stuff
> than it did in 1950, and it all costs money.

Actually, what you describe was a starter home in the 1970s (except for the
whirlpool tub), and it still cost only about 1.5 times a person's annual
salary.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

[Jay Honeck]

> Teacher's unions are a large lobby and can get special treatment
> from politicians.

Boy, ain't *that* the truth?

Every teacher in the State of Iowa was unilaterally granted a FIVE
THOUSAND DOLLAR PER YEAR raise this past week, with the stroke of our
new governor's pen. No improvements required, no added work -- just
pure, hard cash doled out to each and every teacher, regardless of
performance.

I, of course, expect my children's education to improve
commensurately...
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

[Bertie the Bunyip[_2_]]

Mxsmanic > wrote in
:

> writes:
>
>> What an ass.
>
> The cable bill is $100 per month. The Cessna bill is $150 per hour. The
> choice is easy.
>

Because you don't/can't fly.


Bertie

[Sylvain]

wrote:

> On Apr 26, 6:32 pm, Mxsmanic > wrote:
> There is also a huge change in the definition of "starter". Once upon
> a time, it was under 1,000 sf, had electricity and gas, a washer in
> the laundry, one bathroom, and perhaps an attached carport.

It is funny how close to the description of my house this is; built in
1940, less than 1000 sf including the one car garage/laundry room (by
one car garage it means that it fits one subcompact with just enough room
to get out of the car providing no storing of any junk in the garage);
the only thing that was not there when the house was built is a DSL
connection... The nice thing is that it has a very decent sized back yard.
Which is exactly what I was looking for, except that it is difficult
to find, everything on the market (either to buy or rent) strives to
be exactly the opposite: tiny/no backyard, as many built square feet as
possible (you know, for the 'formal dining room', the
'imposing hallway', the 'vaulted ceiling', the 'three cars garage' which
can fit three massive SUVs with room to spare, and all that crap museum
space that nobody really use except to impress each others -- or to
store vast amount of junk); I mean is it really what people want or
what they think they want because of massive advertising/tv brain washing?
or am I a dying breed?

--Sylvain

[Jose]

> I see ONE method of Government responsibility and accountability:
> T E R M L I M I T S

Not a solution. Play the part of a term-limited politician. How would
you remain powerful? It's not so hard.

Jose
--
Get high on gasoline: fly an airplane.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

[Jose]

>> I'm more than a little uneasy with the government rewarding "good" behavior, as the definition of "good" changes from administration to administration, but the mechanism for rewards remains in place.
>> Jose
> Its called social engineering and it breeds corruption and the
> affording of 'special favors" to certain groups and favored
> businesses by various politicians.

True. But just to play the other side for a moment, this same social
engineering (through tax incentives) has made it easier for Americans to
own their own homes. Or so I'm told. Actually, in the Dominican
Republic, where we sponsor several impoverished children, even the very
poor own their own homes. Outright. Granted, they are not the same
quality of home as we have here, but they are owned, where here in the
US, the less well off rent.

Maybe government zoning and construction laws have something to do with it.

And public libraries are nothing more than a communist or socialist
wealth redistribution mechanism too, but I wouldn't be without them.

The issue is not as simple as either side paints it.

Jose
--
Get high on gasoline: fly an airplane.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

[Jose]

>> I'm more than a little uneasy with the government rewarding "good"
>> behavior, as the definition of "good" changes from administration to
>> administration, but the mechanism for rewards remains in place.
> I understand your concern. If the solution were simple, it would been
> put into action long ago.

The problem with that thinking is the idea that there is =a= solution
(that is, a solution that would please the providers as much as the
recipients).

It's like the "drug problem". Too many people benefit from this
"problem" for it to go away.

Jose
--
Get high on gasoline: fly an airplane.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

[Jose]

> My gawd, what are you saying? Rewarding some
> behavior encourages more of it?

I've heard it happens. :)

Jose
--
Get high on gasoline: fly an airplane.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

[Jose]

>>You are using the fallacy of "all things being equal".
> I am? I fail to infer your meaning as it relates to this discussion.

I explained that subsequently, here:

>> The doling out of money =causes= people to
>> reach their hands out -

to which you reply:

> If true, that is an inescapable side effect. It's a spurious argument
> tantamount to refusing to take a life saving medication that may cause
> nausea.

No, it's not spurious. It's tantamount to not taking a nausia
medication because it might be addictive.

> Are you arguing that people shouldn't retire after thirty or
> forth years of toil?

No. I'm arguing that they shouldn't retire on my dime. If they failed
to accumulate =their= dimes, they have no right coming to me.

> Are you saying, that those retired workers who have
> paid into SSI should not receive a SSI check commensurate with the
> amount they contributed during the time they worked and paid into SSI?

No. I'm saying that those people who are getting SSI should not be
getting it from my dime. Or, in other words, I should not be required
to pay into SSI to begin with (and if I end up impoverished because I
failed to provide for my own retirement, say, by living too large while
I was working, then I am not entitled to =your= dime either.)

> Or are you saying, that we, as a country, are not big enough to show
> compassion toward those who were created with less than optimal
> mentality and manual skill, even when it is in our collective best
> interest?

Compassion comes from individuals, not from laws. And I do not agree
that it is in our collective best interests. I don't necessarily
disagree either; there are many facets to this that are being
oversimplified here.

>>Guess what that encourages.
> What what encourages?

Doling out money based on the recipient having made poor choices (not
saving for retirement, for example).

Jose
--
Get high on gasoline: fly an airplane.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

[Jose]

> I thought the uS always used median and let the people confuse it
> with average. Have they changed?

While such confusion may be to the benefit of some, median is probably a
better measure of what people are trying to measure using it. An
average is easily skewed by a small number of instances of extremely
high values, whereas the median isn't. Put another way, if the top 1%
triples their income while everyone else stays the same, the average
income rises, but the median income stays the same. The "real" income
for most people actually goes down, because wealth is relative (via prices).

Jose
--
Get high on gasoline: fly an airplane.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

[Roger (K8RI)]

On Sat, 28 Apr 2007 06:06:37 GMT, Jose >
wrote:

>> I thought the uS always used median and let the people confuse it
>> with average. Have they changed?
>
>While such confusion may be to the benefit of some, median is probably a
>better measure of what people are trying to measure using it. An
>average is easily skewed by a small number of instances of extremely
>high values, whereas the median isn't. Put another way, if the top 1%
>triples their income while everyone else stays the same, the average
>income rises, but the median income stays the same. The "real" income
>for most people actually goes down, because wealth is relative (via prices).

I always looked at it the other way around.
Median is the middle number in the set, so whether you have on person
making a million a year or a thousand it counts the same in which case
the average is skewed and the median isn't. OTOH The number of
discrete values in the set can easily skew the median. So I guess it
depends on how the median is determined in this particular case.
>
>Jose

[Roger (K8RI)]

On Sat, 28 Apr 2007 05:50:22 +0200, Mxsmanic >
wrote:

writes:
>
>> There is also a huge change in the definition of "starter". Once upon
>> a time, it was under 1,000 sf, had electricity and gas, a washer in
>> the laundry, one bathroom, and perhaps an attached carport. Now it's
>> wired like a computer business, has AC (but is not any better
>> insulated than in 1950), a small gourmet kitchen, complete laundry in
>> the air conditioned space, probably two enclosed garages, a fireplace
>> even if you live in the desert, and most likely you are forced to pay
>> homage to an HOA. After that, you MUST have HDTV, DVD, Satellite TV,
>> cable, digital phones, internet capability hooked up, automatic garage
>> door openers, security system, automatic porch and garage lights, the
>> fridge has two doors with auto ice and water, the kitchen has a
>> garbage disposal, dishwasher, perhaps a wine cooler. You now have a
>> "master suite" with its own separate bathroom, a whirlpool tub and
>> separate shower, and two sinks.
>> In short, the starter house, or any other house, has a lot more stuff
>> than it did in 1950, and it all costs money.
>
>Actually, what you describe was a starter home in the 1970s (except for the
>whirlpool tub), and it still cost only about 1.5 times a person's annual
>salary.

As I remember it that era was the start of the big expensive starter
homes.

[Roger (K8RI)]

On Sat, 28 Apr 2007 01:49:16 -0400, Jose >
wrote:

>>> I'm more than a little uneasy with the government rewarding "good" behavior, as the definition of "good" changes from administration to administration, but the mechanism for rewards remains in place.
>>> Jose
>> Its called social engineering and it breeds corruption and the
>> affording of 'special favors" to certain groups and favored
>> businesses by various politicians.
>
>True. But just to play the other side for a moment, this same social
>engineering (through tax incentives) has made it easier for Americans to
>own their own homes. Or so I'm told. Actually, in the Dominican
>Republic, where we sponsor several impoverished children, even the very
>poor own their own homes. Outright. Granted, they are not the same
>quality of home as we have here, but they are owned, where here in the
>US, the less well off rent.

Renting isn't necessarily confined to low or even middle class/income
families here. A great many upper middle class rent as well.

OTOH I'd much rather rent a good quality home or apartment than own
lesser quality. Owning a home is not necessarily every ones goal.
Here a good percentage own to build wealth through equity usually
gained through an increase in value. Also, it's typically cheaper in
the long run to own a modest home rather than rent.

Now it depends on your location. In many areas you can make more
money by investing it rather than paying off a home. If I pay 5%
interest, and my home gains 3% per year I'm far better off letting
that money work at 12 to 14% return, or more

>
>Maybe government zoning and construction laws have something to do with it.
>
>And public libraries are nothing more than a communist or socialist
>wealth redistribution mechanism too, but I wouldn't be without them.
>
>The issue is not as simple as either side paints it.
>
>Jose

[Roger (K8RI)]

On Sat, 28 Apr 2007 05:46:44 GMT, Jose >
wrote:

>> I see ONE method of Government responsibility and accountability:
>> T E R M L I M I T S
>
>Not a solution. Play the part of a term-limited politician. How would
>you remain powerful? It's not so hard.

Here in MIchigan we have had term limits for some time. They are not
working out nearly as well as had been hoped, so we are looking at
lengthening them by at least one if not two more terms.

First term they ar ejust leaaarning the ropes. By the end of the
second term they are just becoming efficient and able to accomplish
something and they are out.

>
>Jose

[Roger (K8RI)]

On 27 Apr 2007 20:28:24 -0700, wrote:

>On Apr 26, 1:37 pm, kontiki > wrote:
>
>. On top of that, the BIGGEST benefactor
>> odf rising gas prices IS government. Federal and state governments
>> make more off a gallon gass through taxes than the oil companies do.
>
>Huh? I see tax stickers on a per gallon basis. This is not affected
>by the price itself.
>
>Unless of course the price gets high and the use of gas therefore
>drops, in which case the tax collected also decreases.
>IIRC, this was actually the case during the '73 gas crunch.
>
>The taxes are likely higher than the profit. The oil companies don't
>have to pay for the roads.

Gas taxes are probably 5 or 6 times the profit per gallon made by the
oil companies.

So far the US has never seen high gas prices compared to the prices
most of the world has been paying for years.

[Steven P. McNicoll]

"Roger (K8RI)" > wrote in message
...
>
> Here in MIchigan we have had term limits for some time. They are not
> working out nearly as well as had been hoped, so we are looking at
> lengthening them by at least one if not two more terms.
>
> First term they ar ejust leaaarning the ropes. By the end of the
> second term they are just becoming efficient and able to accomplish
> something and they are out.
>

Sounds like one term should be the limit.

[kontiki]

Jose wrote:

>
> The issue is not as simple as either side paints it.
>
> Jose

Very true Jose. I was simply evaluating the social engineering
that _I_ feel is societally regressive (i.e like income taxes
and other government programs). I think some tax credits _are_
a good idea because they encourage people or businesses to
produce things (generally).

But to your point, If I were a strict Constitutionalist (which
I am not really) I would oppose all of that stuff. Some positive
social engineering can be good but too much of it (which is
really where we are no I believe) is a very bad thing.

[kontiki]

Larry Dighera wrote:
>
>
> Be that as it may, they don't move to Dubai to escape paying income
> taxes they made by profiteering during time of war like Halliburton
> apparently has.[1]
>
Good. Anyone that can escape from income taxes should get a medal.
What makes you thing government deserves any more of people's
money? They have demonstrated very poor stewardship of what they
rip off from the economy as it is.

[kontiki]

Steven P. McNicoll wrote:

>
>
> Sounds like one term should be the limit.
>
>

I like it. Anyways.. if term limits won't work
I'm open to other suggestions... HEY! How about
lets just do AWAY with them (all the lawyers while
we are at it).

[Matt Barrow[_4_]]

> wrote in message
ups.com...
> On Apr 26, 1:37 pm, kontiki > wrote:
>
> . On top of that, the BIGGEST benefactor
>> odf rising gas prices IS government. Federal and state governments
>> make more off a gallon gass through taxes than the oil companies do.
>
> Huh? I see tax stickers on a per gallon basis. This is not affected
> by the price itself.
>
> Unless of course the price gets high and the use of gas therefore
> drops, in which case the tax collected also decreases.
> IIRC, this was actually the case during the '73 gas crunch.
>
> The taxes are likely higher than the profit.

By about 3-4:1

> The oil companies don't
> have to pay for the roads.
If you've followed the thread, the governemtn doesn't either. The majority
of fuel taxes, both state and federal, goes into the general fund, and that
which does get spent on roads goes for pork barell project.

I've seen a mile of one lane on a four lane road cost well over $2 million
and take nearly a year to merely resurface. Recall the recent Alaska "Bridge
to Nowhere", or all the pork projects in Senator whatshisface in West
Virginia, the mass transit fiascos all over the country...

I'm sure others can offer similar "horror stories".

[Matt Barrow[_4_]]

> wrote in message
oups.com...
> On Apr 26, 6:32 pm, Mxsmanic > wrote:
>
> There is also a huge change in the definition of "starter". Once upon
> a time, it was under 1,000 sf, had electricity and gas, a washer in
> the laundry, one bathroom, and perhaps an attached carport. Now it's
> wired like a computer business,
,,,
>has AC (but is not any better
> insulated than in 1950),

Really?


--
Matt Barrow
Performace Homes, LLC.
Colorado Springs, CO

[Matt Barrow[_4_]]

"Sylvain" > wrote in message
t...
> wrote:
>
>The nice thing is that it has a very decent sized back yard.
> Which is exactly what I was looking for,

The "market" says people prefer smaller yards, as they don't want the
maintenance. No, that is predominanate in larger metro areas.

When land costs are $100K per acre and up, only the custom homes are going
to have larger lots. Another funny item is having four or five bedrooms that
are 8x9 except for the master suite.

> except that it is difficult
> to find, everything on the market (either to buy or rent) strives to
> be exactly the opposite: tiny/no backyard, as many built square feet as
> possible (you know, for the 'formal dining room', the
> 'imposing hallway', the 'vaulted ceiling', the 'three cars garage' which
> can fit three massive SUVs with room to spare, and all that crap museum
> space that nobody really use except to impress each others -- or to
> store vast amount of junk); I mean is it really what people want or
> what they think they want because of massive advertising/tv brain washing?

Big yards are not desired because kids today typically play INDOORS.

Open space gives a less clastrophobic sensation. As for "junk", recall the
adaage that one mans junk is another mans treasure.

> or am I a dying breed?

Not necessarily, but you might want to consider a custom home since you so
detest what your neighbors prefer.

The most homesI build on a ance is five, typically four...and the
overwhelming majority of what we build costs less than $160K at 1500sf.


--
Matt Barrow
Performace Homes, LLC.
Colorado Springs, CO

[Steven P. McNicoll]

"Jay Honeck" > wrote in message
oups.com...
>
> Not that I disagree with you -- but your statement seems incredibly
> ironic given that you are the beneficiary of a tax-funded retirement
> plan that is far more generous than Social Security.
>

How so? The retirement plan was there when I was hired, and I didn't seek
the job because of the retirement plan.

[Matt Barrow[_4_]]

"Roger (K8RI)" > wrote in message
...
> On Sat, 28 Apr 2007 05:50:22 +0200, Mxsmanic >
> wrote:
>>Actually, what you describe was a starter home in the 1970s (except for
>>the
>>whirlpool tub), and it still cost only about 1.5 times a person's annual
>>salary.
>
> As I remember it that era was the start of the big expensive starter
> homes.

That would depend on the employment/income market in the area.

[Matt Barrow[_4_]]

"Jay Honeck" > wrote in message
oups.com...
>> Teacher's unions are a large lobby and can get special treatment
>> from politicians.
>
> Boy, ain't *that* the truth?
>
> Every teacher in the State of Iowa was unilaterally granted a FIVE
> THOUSAND DOLLAR PER YEAR raise this past week, with the stroke of our
> new governor's pen. No improvements required, no added work -- just
> pure, hard cash doled out to each and every teacher, regardless of
> performance.
>
> I, of course, expect my children's education to improve
> commensurately...

Silly person.

[Jose]

> OTOH The number of
> discrete values in the set can easily skew the median.

Yes, and so which one is most appropriate would depend on whether a
=value= is likely to change much, or whether the =number= of values is
the important consideration. In the case of income distribution, the
former is probably more important. In the case of school test grades
from year to year, the latter might have more significance.

Jose
--
Get high on gasoline: fly an airplane.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

[Matt Barrow[_4_]]

"Gig 601XL Builder" wrote:
>
>> The cost of the US health system can be blamed on the ABA as much if not
>> more than the AMA.
>
>They're both in the same racket along with the drug and insurance
>companies.

Both of whom are getting raped by the trial lawyers.

http://www.pacificresearch.org/pub/sab/entrep/2007/Jackpot_Justice/index.html

[Jose]

> In many areas you can make more
> money by investing it rather than paying off a home. If I pay 5%
> interest, and my home gains 3% per year I'm far better off letting
> that money work at 12 to 14% return, or more

This is true, sort of. In any case, those who would make that decision
(rather than fall into it) are savvy enough to figure it out. Most
people are not, and owning their own home is the most security they will
get.

Owning also gives one a stake in the neighborhood that renting does not,
and this is (seen as) a societal good which should be encouraged (to the
extent that any should). So I'm not opposed to tax incentives to
encourage home ownership here. However, I am aware of (though have not
analysed) the other (governmental) things which work against it.

Jose
--
Get high on gasoline: fly an airplane.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

[Jose]

> Very true Jose. I was simply evaluating the social engineering
> that _I_ feel is societally regressive

.... and others may disagree on which ones are regressive and which ones
are not. So, I'm in favor of the light touch, but I'm not necessarily
in favor of no touch.

Jose
--
Get high on gasoline: fly an airplane.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

[Larry Dighera]

On Fri, 27 Apr 2007 23:11:26 -0400, "Roger (K8RI)"
> wrote in
>:

[Detailed financial and hours-worked historical analysis refuting the
notion of the more recent increase in working hours and lower salaries
as a possible cause of the decline in aviation entrants snipped]

>I think the most important item is missing from this analysis. The
>article also noted that the current generation appears to have an
>aversion to risk and the general population views general aviation
>right in there with Bungee jumping or jumping the Grand Canyon with a
>motorcycle. IOW the conclusion which he stated in the article was we
>may be, in general, raising a generation of cowards who want to be
>protected and shy away from pursuits associated with risk.
>
>Just stop and think of how many people you know have made remarks
>about either how risky flying is, or how they worry about you flying.
>How many have had to give up flying due to girlfriend, wife, or
>family?

There is no question that fear plays a role in flying whether it's
airline or personal, with the latter provoking a response several
orders of magnitude greater than the latter. However, I doubt that
there are studies that show an _increase_ in cowardice in GenX. I
sure hope it's not true. Did you find any supporting information for
that notion that you can cite?

[Larry Dighera]

On Sat, 28 Apr 2007 11:28:56 GMT, kontiki >
wrote in >:

>Anyone that can escape from income taxes should get a medal.

You feel that way despite the fact that Halliburton earned their
income from the US government?

In your ideal world, how would the US government be funded?

[Maxwell]

"Mxsmanic" > wrote in message
...
> Maxwell writes:
>
>> There are very livable homes in every state for $60k,,,,, but you said 10
>> time retard,,,, can't you follow your own posts???
>
> Yes. Ten times the average salary is $400,000, and it's very easy to find
> communities in which this is the starting price for admission. If it's
> worth
> living there at all, the price skyrockets.
>
>> Besides, you are either to ignorant or to impatient to accept the fact,
>> that
>> in every state - you can buy a $60k home, live in it for 10 years, and
>> usually trade up with your equity, and have a $100k to $120k home for the
>> same monthly payment.
>
> That's exactly the sort of practice that has made home ownership
> inaccessible
> for so many people today. It's all a matter of greed.
>

Yeah, your greed. You want to sit on your butt and make no contribution, and
expect a $400k home to be given to you.

Poor baby, I should have known you couldn't follow the thread.

[Larry Dighera]

On Sat, 28 Apr 2007 11:33:50 GMT, kontiki >
wrote in >:

>Steven P. McNicoll wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> Sounds like one term should be the limit.
>>
>>
>
>I like it. Anyways.. if term limits won't work
>I'm open to other suggestions... HEY! How about
>lets just do AWAY with them (all the lawyers while
>we are at it).


If you're going to dismantle Congress, you'd have to do the same with
the Judicial and Executive branches. Are you advocating the complete
removal of federal government in the US?

[Phil]

On Apr 26, 2:28 pm, Larry Dighera > wrote:
> On Thu, 26 Apr 2007 14:53:18 -0400, "Marco Leon" >
> wrote in >:
>
> >http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/26/fashion/26pilot.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
>
> The number of student pilots is down by about a third since 1990,
> from 129,000 to 88,000. The number of private pilots is down from
> 299,000 to 236,000, according to statistics kept by the Federal
> Aviation Administration. And they are aging.
>
> Some longtime private pilots fear that an industry is withering,
> and a bit of Americana is slipping away, along with a bit of
> freedom and joy. And it is happening in part because of lack of
> interest; Walter Mitty doesn't want to fly anymore.
>

Maybe one reason there are fewer pilots now is that the pilots who
learned to fly in World War II have been leaving us in the last 17
years. The war exposed a lot of men (and some women) to flying, and
many of them continued to fly after the war. In 1990 many of those
pilots would have been in their 60s.

What we need is a way to expose people to flying like the war did.
Hopefully the Young Eagles program will help with that.

[Maxwell]

"Ross" > wrote in message
...

>
> I like to watch these "Flip this House". I would call them entry level
> homes (1100 sq ft) and they can go for $400,000 in LA, SFO area. I am not
> sure saleries are up there for the young starting out. My kids bought 40+
> year old homes in the Fayetteville, AR area and I was amazed how much they
> had to spend - getting close to $100K and these were in the 1300 sq ft
> range. They are not lawyers or engineers.
>

Obviously you can spend as much as you like, and with homes that usually
means location. But if someone really wants a $60 started, they can find
something livable in most any town with a few exceptions. Problem is, most
are wanting a lot more than they are willing to pay for.

[Maxwell]

"Mxsmanic" > wrote in message
...
> Roger (K8RI) writes:
>
>> No it's not.
>> It's just becoming more isolated from the upper and lower classes.
>
> It's actually disappearing, not just becoming isolated. The distribution
> of
> wealth is moving back to the way it was in the nineteenth century, with a
> very
> small minority of very wealthy people and a very vast underclass that just
> manages to squeak by--and almost no real middle class at all.
>

That's because more and more young poeple are much like yourself. The find
it much easier to sit around and complain about what they don't have, than
working to secure their wants and needs in the future.

[Maxwell]

"Mxsmanic" > wrote in message
...
> writes:
>
> Actually, what you describe was a starter home in the 1970s (except for
> the
> whirlpool tub), and it still cost only about 1.5 times a person's annual
> salary.
>

Just can't follow a thread can you. You are clearly the type of crum that
wants everything handed to him. Just keep making your "self defeating"
excuses. Just be ready to settle for the results someday when you realize
you have "excused" your life away.

[Larry Dighera]

On Fri, 27 Apr 2007 21:53:28 GMT, "Steven P. McNicoll"
> wrote in
et>:

>
>"Larry Dighera" > wrote in message
...
>>
>> Of course, no one is _forced_ to participate, even in the US. It's
>> only a condition of earning a wage in the US. ...
>>
>
>Wage earners are forced to participate. Wage earners are someone.
>

That is how I understand it also. However no one is forcing anyone to
support themselves through earning a wage.

>>
>> What would happen if only those who were bad drivers could purchase
>> automobile insurance? Do you think the premiums would be affordable
>> in such a case? If you're opposed to SSI, are you also opposed to
>> automobile, aircraft, life, and health insurance?
>>
>
>Social Security is not insurance.
>

Perhaps you're correct. That's what it was called in the old days as
you can see here: http://www.ssa.gov/history/1986dibhistory.html

A HISTORY OF THE SOCIAL SECURITY DISABILITY PROGRAMS
January 1986

INTRODUCTION

The recognition of the hardships created by a worker's loss of
earnings due to disability dates back to consideration of the
original Social Security Act of 1935. After the establishment of
the retirement insurance program under the 1935 Act, serious
thought was given to whether that program should be expanded to
provide wage related cash benefits to workers who become
permanently and totally disabled before age 65 and to their
dependents. ...

>>
>> That attitude is rather shortsighted, and totally out of place in
>> today's global society. If you fail to bring the less fortunate up,
>> you will not be happy with the consequences. Trust me.
>>
>
>Why should anyone trust you?

Because I'm an honest guy?

>
>
>>
>> You don't live in isolation regardless of whether your home is
>> situated behind the walls of a gated community or not. As the world
>> population is predicted to double within the next fifty years, we're
>> all going to have to adjust our tribal biases in order to coexist in
>> the future.
>>
>
>I doubt you'll ever adjust your biases.
>

It's not easy, but I'm aware of them and working on changing. How
about you?

>
>>
>> And where is your compassion for your fellow man? Are you so
>> contemptuous of humanity, that you would condemn millions of innocent
>> people to poverty just to save a few dollars? I hope not.
>>
>
>Absurd.

Just for a moment try to imagine a nation where the poor old folks who
have given the toil of their youth to increasing the GNP (or whatever
its called these days) littering the pavement of your city so thick
that you can't walk down the sidewalk. Isn't that what you're
advocating? Or are you reluctant to address that issue in this
discussion?

>
>
>>
>> Social Security is not a charity; it is insurance. There is an
>> inescapable loss of human dignity that occurs to those who receive
>> charity. Social Security recipients can be proud of having worked
>> hard during their lives, and owe no debt of gratitude to anyone other
>> than the FDR administration.
>>
>
>Social Security is not an insurance policy, it is a ponzi scheme.

Interesting. That notion is exacerbated by fluctuations in the age
distribution in the population, but given a linier rise in population
over time and infinite time, its difficult to justify such a belief.

>
>
>>
>> Educate yourself:
>>
>>
>> http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/01/31/dont_use_fdr_to_undermine_social_security/
>> FDR believed that Social Security should be simple, guaranteed,
>> fair, earned, and available to all Americans. President Roosevelt
>> was adamant that Social Security was an insurance program to
>> provide basic needs in retirement.
>>
>> Today, thanks in large part to Social Security, the number of
>> older Americans below the poverty line has dropped from almost 50
>> percent to only 8 percent.
>>
>
>So how much of that was done by social security, how much was done by
>changing the definition of "older Americans", and how much was done by
>lowering the poverty line?
>

You tell me.

[Maxwell]

"Gig 601XL Builder" <wrDOTgiaconaATsuddenlink.net> wrote in message
...
> Larry Dighera wrote:
>
>> I am not taxed for Social Security. I contribute into it.
>
> If it is required by the government it is a tax. If anyone gets more out
> of it than they put into it is a income redistribution welfare program.
>
> When taken together about 15% of every dime I have earned in my 30 years
> in the labor pool has been paid into SS & Medicare. If I had been allowed
> to keep that money and invest it in even a conservative investment I could
> retire right now, finish my airplane and never be in anyway a cost to
> society. The Social Security Administration is a terrible investment
> manager and Medicare is a mediocre health insurance policy at best.

And don't loose sight of the fact that your employer has to double it.
Everything deducted by your employer has to be matched by him. So when you
make your estimates of where you would be with a private investment, double
it.

[Larry Dighera]

On Fri, 27 Apr 2007 22:14:20 GMT, "Steven P. McNicoll"
> wrote in
et>:

>
>"Larry Dighera" > wrote in message
...
>>
>> I understand your concern. If the solution were simple, it would been
>> put into action long ago.
>>
>
>Actually, the solutions ARE pretty simple.

Are you able to articulate them? How would you address the implicit
mandate in a Capitalistic system, that drives corporations to
continually seek cost reductions to the point of absurdity and
_dishonesty_ just to meet the competition's price and remain viable in
the marketplace? Do you believe outsourcing US jobs is good for our
nation? Do you believe that forcing US corporations to move to other
countries in order to escape income tax liability on income earned in
the US is desirable? Let's see how simple you can make the solutions
of which you speak.

>They're not put into action
>because doing so would not help those in power stay in power.

Are you also suggesting that the solution is to dismantle the US
government?

[Jose]

> And don't loose sight of the fact that your employer has to double it.
> Everything deducted by your employer has to be matched by him. So when you
> make your estimates of where you would be with a private investment, double
> it.

Well, if your employer didn't have to double it, your salary might well
be higher by that amount.

Jose
--
Get high on gasoline: fly an airplane.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

[Larry Dighera]

On Sat, 28 Apr 2007 06:02:44 GMT, Jose >
wrote in >:

>>>You are using the fallacy of "all things being equal".
>> I am? I fail to infer your meaning as it relates to this discussion.
>
>I explained that subsequently, here:
>
>>> The doling out of money =causes= people to
>>> reach their hands out -
>
>to which you reply:
>
>> If true, that is an inescapable side effect. It's a spurious argument
>> tantamount to refusing to take a life saving medication that may cause
>> nausea.
>
>No, it's not spurious. It's tantamount to not taking a nausia
>medication because it might be addictive.

So your choice is to expire rather than take the life saving
medication, because it's possibly addictive? That is what you are
saying. Is that what you mean?

>
>> Are you arguing that people shouldn't retire after thirty or
>> forth years of toil?
>
>No. I'm arguing that they shouldn't retire on my dime. If they failed
>to accumulate =their= dimes, they have no right coming to me.

Aren't you overlooking the fact that SSI recipients have paid into the
SSI fund, so it's not your dime?

>
>> Are you saying, that those retired workers who have
>> paid into SSI should not receive a SSI check commensurate with the
>> amount they contributed during the time they worked and paid into SSI?
>
>No. I'm saying that those people who are getting SSI should not be
>getting it from my dime. Or, in other words, I should not be required
>to pay into SSI to begin with (and if I end up impoverished because I
>failed to provide for my own retirement, say, by living too large while
>I was working, then I am not entitled to =your= dime either.)

I still have trouble with your insistence that it is your dime given
the fact that the SSI recipient has contributed into the SSI program
over the life of his working career.

I also think that you would find the consequences of tens of millions
of additional poor homeless souls littering the pavement more
repugnant than the objections to SSI.

Aside from those issues, what sort of person abandons his aged
parents, because he doesn't want to fund their existence? Eliminating
SSI would be roughly equal to that to me.

>> Or are you saying, that we, as a country, are not big enough to show
>> compassion toward those who were created with less than optimal
>> mentality and manual skill, even when it is in our collective best
>> interest?
>
>Compassion comes from individuals, not from laws. And I do not agree
>that it is in our collective best interests.

So the way you see it, government should not provide for the
inevitable portion of its population that is unemployable? Isn't it
deliberate blindness to pretend the inevitable unemployable segment of
any population doesn't exist?

>I don't necessarily
>disagree either; there are many facets to this that are being
>oversimplified here.
>
>>>Guess what that encourages.
>> What what encourages?
>
>Doling out money based on the recipient having made poor choices (not
>saving for retirement, for example).
>
>Jose

Is that being done? It seems to me, that recipients of SSI receive a
check commensurate with what they have paid in over their productive
life span. SSI isn't based on poor choices; it's based on how much
money was paid into it by the recipient.

[Maxwell]

"Jose" > wrote in message
...
>> And don't loose sight of the fact that your employer has to double it.
>> Everything deducted by your employer has to be matched by him. So when
>> you make your estimates of where you would be with a private investment,
>> double it.
>
> Well, if your employer didn't have to double it, your salary might well be
> higher by that amount.
>

That is probably correct, and much more to my point.

[Jose]

> Just for a moment try to imagine a nation where the poor old folks who
> have given the toil of their youth to increasing the GNP (or whatever
> its called these days) littering the pavement of your city so thick
> that you can't walk down the sidewalk.

Imagine for a moment a nation where the young folk spend recklessly and
go into debt instead of saving for their retirment, knowing that when
they come of age, somebody else will take care of them. This is the end
result of a slow creep of large organizations (including but not limited
to government) making benevolent decisions for us.

What kind of nation will that lead to? Certainly not a strong one - not
a world leader.

Jose
--
Get high on gasoline: fly an airplane.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

[[email protected]]

Larry Dighera > wrote:

<big snip>

> Is that being done? It seems to me, that recipients of SSI receive a
> check commensurate with what they have paid in over their productive
> life span. SSI isn't based on poor choices; it's based on how much
> money was paid into it by the recipient.

That is not entirely true for everybody.

It is possible to receive benefits without ever having worked a day
in your life or contributing one cent to SSI.

Granted, those that qualify are small in number.

--
Jim Pennino

Remove .spam.sux to reply.

[601XL Builder]

Larry Dighera wrote:
> On Fri, 27 Apr 2007 13:37:44 -0500, "Gig 601XL Builder"
> <wrDOTgiaconaATsuddenlink.net> wrote in
> >:
>
>> Larry Dighera wrote:
>>
>>> We are getting pretty far a field here, but I believe it's fair to
>>> say, that Democrats' spending tends to benefit the people, and
>>> Republican spending tends to benefit large corporations.
>> We are way far a field so I added OT to the subject.
>>
>> It is in no way fair to say that. The Democrat's spending tends to benefit
>> people who choose not to work. Republican spending tends to benefit those
>> that do.
>>
>
> Isn't it the Democrats who support labor unions?

Labor Unions are not people any more than Corporations are people.

[Maxwell]

"Phil" > wrote in message
ups.com...
> On Apr 26, 2:28 pm, Larry Dighera > wrote:
>
> Maybe one reason there are fewer pilots now is that the pilots who
> learned to fly in World War II have been leaving us in the last 17
> years. The war exposed a lot of men (and some women) to flying, and
> many of them continued to fly after the war. In 1990 many of those
> pilots would have been in their 60s.
>

I think that is a contributing factor, but I also think the whole world
turning to recreation through electronic gadgets is a big part of the pie as
well. I know several pilots that were very active 20 years ago, that now
spend those same dollars on home entertainment, and progressively larger
belts as well.

[601XL Builder]

Steven P. McNicoll wrote:
> "Roger (K8RI)" > wrote in message
> ...
>> Here in MIchigan we have had term limits for some time. They are not
>> working out nearly as well as had been hoped, so we are looking at
>> lengthening them by at least one if not two more terms.
>>
>> First term they ar ejust leaaarning the ropes. By the end of the
>> second term they are just becoming efficient and able to accomplish
>> something and they are out.
>>
>
> Sounds like one term should be the limit.
>
>

At which point only the senior government employees have any power at
all because they become the only people that have a clue as to how
anything works.

I do think there is on exception to this. President. One 6 year term.

[Jose]

> So your choice is to expire rather than take the life saving
> medication, because it's possibly addictive? That is what you are
> saying. Is that what you mean?

No, my choice is to put up with nausia rather than become addicted to
some powerful narcotic. It's a matter of degree - is the cure worse
than the disease? In this case, I do think so. You seem to disagree.

I find the side effects of the dole to be large scale, long term, slow
to manifest, and extremely hard to get rid of. This is most true of
welfare, somewhat less true of social security, less true of insurance
(depending in part on whether it is mandatory or not), but even in the
case of (say) auto insurance, there are significant negative effects.

In the case of car insurance, the cure, or rather, treatment,
(insurance) is better than the disease (uninsured motorists killing
people). In the case of welfare, the cure is =far= worse than the
disease. In the case of Social Security, we are creeping across the
threshold. I don't know, maybe we passed it already. Maybe not.

> Aren't you overlooking the fact that SSI recipients have paid into the
> SSI fund, so it's not your dime?

Not really. The SSI benefits are only loosely tied to the money they
put in. They are more tightly tied to the total amount that has been
put in, which allows the big pot to pay a small set of recipients. Now
the pot is getting smaller, and the entitled people are getting larger
in number. Thus the accusation that it is a ponzi scheme is not
unwarranted.

> Aside from those issues, what sort of person abandons his aged
> parents, because he doesn't want to fund their existence? Eliminating
> SSI would be roughly equal to that to me.

My relationship with my parents is considerably deeper than my
relationship with my neighbor's out-of-work cousin's boyfriend. I'm not
completely against the concept of SSI, but I don't see legislated
charity as being the same as caring for my own parents.

> So the way you see it, government should not provide for the
> inevitable portion of its population that is unemployable?

To do so will increase that number. This is a disservice to those on
the edge, as it encourages them to go the wrong way. I do see and agree
with your point about the truly unemployable, but even that is a tricky
problem; look how welfare has floundered.

>> Doling out money based on the recipient having made poor choices (not
>> saving for retirement, for example).
> Is that being done?

It discourages people from saving for their own retirement, and thus
makeing a poor choice, from which SSI will rescue them.

Jose
--
Get high on gasoline: fly an airplane.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

[Roger (K8RI)]

On Sat, 28 Apr 2007 13:29:13 GMT, Jose >
wrote:

>> OTOH The number of
>> discrete values in the set can easily skew the median.
>
>Yes, and so which one is most appropriate would depend on whether a
>=value= is likely to change much, or whether the =number= of values is

The problem with income is we don't know if they include every income
that is different than the others or if they put them into brackets.
"I think" it's the latter, but have not been able to find any
information on how they come up with those figures. Most of those
numbers don't have a lot of meaning if we don't know how they are
derived. I remember reading that some incomes are exempt, or not
included.

As the old saying goes, "Statistics don't lie, but statisticians do."

>the important consideration. In the case of income distribution, the
>former is probably more important. In the case of school test grades
>from year to year, the latter might have more significance.
>
>Jose

[601XL Builder]

Maxwell wrote:
> "Gig 601XL Builder" <wrDOTgiaconaATsuddenlink.net> wrote in message
> ...
>> Larry Dighera wrote:
>>
>>> I am not taxed for Social Security. I contribute into it.
>> If it is required by the government it is a tax. If anyone gets more out
>> of it than they put into it is a income redistribution welfare program.
>>
>> When taken together about 15% of every dime I have earned in my 30 years
>> in the labor pool has been paid into SS & Medicare. If I had been allowed
>> to keep that money and invest it in even a conservative investment I could
>> retire right now, finish my airplane and never be in anyway a cost to
>> society. The Social Security Administration is a terrible investment
>> manager and Medicare is a mediocre health insurance policy at best.
>
> And don't loose sight of the fact that your employer has to double it.
> Everything deducted by your employer has to be matched by him. So when you
> make your estimates of where you would be with a private investment, double
> it.
>
>
>

Well I did take that into account when I quoted the 15% figure. 7.65% x2

[Roger (K8RI)]

On Sat, 28 Apr 2007 14:49:09 GMT, Larry Dighera >
wrote:

>On Fri, 27 Apr 2007 23:11:26 -0400, "Roger (K8RI)"
> wrote in
>:
>
>[Detailed financial and hours-worked historical analysis refuting the
>notion of the more recent increase in working hours and lower salaries
>as a possible cause of the decline in aviation entrants snipped]
>
>>I think the most important item is missing from this analysis. The
>>article also noted that the current generation appears to have an
>>aversion to risk and the general population views general aviation
>>right in there with Bungee jumping or jumping the Grand Canyon with a
>>motorcycle. IOW the conclusion which he stated in the article was we
>>may be, in general, raising a generation of cowards who want to be
>>protected and shy away from pursuits associated with risk.
>>
>>Just stop and think of how many people you know have made remarks
>>about either how risky flying is, or how they worry about you flying.
>>How many have had to give up flying due to girlfriend, wife, or
>>family?
>
>There is no question that fear plays a role in flying whether it's
>airline or personal, with the latter provoking a response several
>orders of magnitude greater than the latter. However, I doubt that
>there are studies that show an _increase_ in cowardice in GenX. I
>sure hope it's not true. Did you find any supporting information for
>that notion that you can cite?

The only place I've seen it stated in that fashion, or manner was the
article. OTOH today people do *seem* to want to be protected more
than in the past with government responding with "feel good"
legislation. There have been a number of articles about today's
society being much more sensitive to, and emotionally affected by
disasters, much of which has been attributed to instant news and
saturation about such events. We've had larger school disasters such
as the Bath School disaster (Bath Michigan 1921) and larger terrorist
actions (Black Wall Street 1927- death toll of over 3,000) than in
recent times. However that terrorist action was domestic rather than
foreign.

Each generation has believed they lived in a time of heightened danger
and fear. I grew up with "the bomb". Today we have international
terrorism which causes me very little worry. I'd gladly accept a bit
more risk for the return of the freedoms we had prior to 9/11.

[Maxwell]

"601XL Builder" <wrDOTgiacona@suddenlinkDOTnet> wrote in message
...
>
> Well I did take that into account when I quoted the 15% figure. 7.65% x2

Correct, and I should have said so. As an employer, I just resent the fact
that people are being charged double for SS and Med, and most don't realize
it.

It keeps them from realizing that their contribution to SS and Medicare is
actually greater than their Federal payroll tax deduction in many, if not
most cases.

[Larry Dighera]

On Sat, 28 Apr 2007 12:20:16 -0400, Jose >
wrote in >:

>> Just for a moment try to imagine a nation where the poor old folks who
>> have given the toil of their youth to increasing the GNP (or whatever
>> its called these days) littering the pavement of your city so thick
>> that you can't walk down the sidewalk.
>
>Imagine for a moment a nation where the young folk spend recklessly and
>go into debt instead of saving for their retirment, knowing that when
>they come of age, somebody else will take care of them. This is the end
>result of a slow creep of large organizations (including but not limited
>to government) making benevolent decisions for us.
>
>What kind of nation will that lead to? Certainly not a strong one - not
>a world leader.
>
>Jose

So you think that failing to care for the nation's poor is appropriate
for a government, and it makes the nation stronger. Interesting.

Don't get me wrong. I don't want the government telling me when it is
mandatory for me to wear my sweater. But what do you think would be
the consequences of failing to care for the poor? Do you think it
would be cheaper to police the desperate souls who are driven to crime
because they are hungry?

I give up. I hope you get a chance to live in the world you desire.
It would be fitting for people who think the way you do to have to
live in a world overrun with hungry, desperate derelicts. Or heaven
forbid, disaster should strike and disable you, so that you were
unemployable.

Neglect of those who have toiled their life away to make our nation
great may be the sign of a strong nation (I doubt it), but it sure
lacks nobility.

[Mxsmanic]

Maxwell writes:

> That's because more and more young poeple are much like yourself.

The young people have nothing to do with it, as they haven't fully entered the
economy. And young people are raised by their parents.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

[Mxsmanic]

Roger (K8RI) writes:

> Now it depends on your location. In many areas you can make more
> money by investing it rather than paying off a home. If I pay 5%
> interest, and my home gains 3% per year I'm far better off letting
> that money work at 12 to 14% return, or more

There is virtually no investment that will consistently return 12 or 14
percent, and making plans on the basis of finding one may be imprudent.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

[Mxsmanic]

Larry Dighera writes:

> There is no question that fear plays a role in flying whether it's
> airline or personal, with the latter provoking a response several
> orders of magnitude greater than the latter. However, I doubt that
> there are studies that show an _increase_ in cowardice in GenX. I
> sure hope it's not true. Did you find any supporting information for
> that notion that you can cite?

For decades, there has been a general increase in fear in the population,
driven principally by news media, and by government collusion with those
media. People are more fearful of everything nowadays than they have ever
been in the past (in U.S. history), and the trend is accelerating.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

[Mxsmanic]

Maxwell writes:

> I think that is a contributing factor, but I also think the whole world
> turning to recreation through electronic gadgets is a big part of the pie as
> well. I know several pilots that were very active 20 years ago, that now
> spend those same dollars on home entertainment, and progressively larger
> belts as well.

More bang for the buck, essentially.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

[Maxwell]

"Mxsmanic" > wrote in message
...
> Maxwell writes:
>
>> That's because more and more young poeple are much like yourself.
>
> The young people have nothing to do with it, as they haven't fully entered
> the
> economy. And young people are raised by their parents.
>

Well I doubted that you would grasp the concept. But you will see it more
clearly when you grow up.

[Matt Barrow[_4_]]

"601XL Builder" <wrDOTgiacona@suddenlinkDOTnet> wrote in message
...
> Steven P. McNicoll wrote:
>> "Roger (K8RI)" > wrote in message
>> ...
>>> Here in MIchigan we have had term limits for some time. They are not
>>> working out nearly as well as had been hoped, so we are looking at
>>> lengthening them by at least one if not two more terms.
>>>
>>> First term they ar ejust leaaarning the ropes. By the end of the
>>> second term they are just becoming efficient and able to accomplish
>>> something and they are out.
>>>
>>
>> Sounds like one term should be the limit.
>
> At which point only the senior government employees have any power at all
> because they become the only people that have a clue as to how anything
> works.

Worked well for over 100 years.
>
> I do think there is on exception to this. President. One 6 year term.

Why?

[Maxwell]

"Mxsmanic" > wrote in message
...
>
> More bang for the buck, essentially.
>

Hardly, considering the amount they spend. You could have a very active log
book with the kind of money most people choose to spend on electronics. It's
just a simple matter of choices and ambition.

[Mxsmanic]

Larry Dighera writes:

> So you think that failing to care for the nation's poor is appropriate
> for a government, and it makes the nation stronger.

Governments should help the poor become rich, rather than simply hand them
money in custodial care.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

[Mxsmanic]

Maxwell writes:

> Hardly, considering the amount they spend. You could have a very active log
> book with the kind of money most people choose to spend on electronics.

How much money do "most" people spend on electronics?

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

[Peter Clark]

On Fri, 27 Apr 2007 23:48:27 -0400, Bob Noel
> wrote:

>In article >,
> Peter Clark > wrote:
>
>> >A 2006 C172 with G1000 goes for about $140. Older VFR 172's can be
>> >rented for under $100 and 152's for conciderably less.
>>
>> $125 for the 172S G1000 at BED. $90 for the 152.
>
>Aren't rates at KBED inflated because of Massport-induced
>expenses? Massport skims 2-3% of the gross. terminal rents at
>Massport are excessive. Plus the unjustified expenses associated
>with airport access.

Um, the wet rental prices I quoted are less than the ones I was
replying to.....

[Scott[_5_]]

On Sat, 28 Apr 2007 15:59:27 GMT, in rec.aviation.piloting, Larry Dighera
> wrote:

>On Sat, 28 Apr 2007 06:02:44 GMT, Jose >
>>Doling out money based on the recipient having made poor choices (not
>>saving for retirement, for example).
>
>Is that being done? It seems to me, that recipients of SSI receive a
>check commensurate with what they have paid in over their productive
>life span. SSI isn't based on poor choices; it's based on how much
>money was paid into it by the recipient.

Even if that were true (it isn't), whatever I personally get out of SSI is
very likely to be much less than I could have gotten out of free market
investments for the same contributory dollars.

SSI is a sucker's game. I can't opt out, though, because the fools who came
before me ****ed away their money on SSI contributions instead of funding
their own retirements. I have no choice but to fund the current
generation's SSI checks. On down the road I'll end up claiming SSI too, and
I'll be the next generation's fool for sending my money to Uncle Sam instead
of funding my own retirement when I had the chance.

I want out. I want to play some other game. This one is rigged!

-Scott

[Blueskies]

"Jay Honeck" > wrote in message oups.com...
>> Teacher's unions are a large lobby and can get special treatment
>> from politicians.
>
> Boy, ain't *that* the truth?
>
> Every teacher in the State of Iowa was unilaterally granted a FIVE
> THOUSAND DOLLAR PER YEAR raise this past week, with the stroke of our
> new governor's pen. No improvements required, no added work -- just
> pure, hard cash doled out to each and every teacher, regardless of
> performance.
>
> I, of course, expect my children's education to improve
> commensurately...
> --
> Jay Honeck
> Iowa City, IA
> Pathfinder N56993
> www.AlexisParkInn.com
> "Your Aviation Destination"
>


troll...

[d.g.s.]

On 4/26/2007 8:13 PM Mxsmanic jumped down, turned around, and wrote:

> How much house can you get for $60,000 (1.5 times the average salary in the
> U.S.)?

It's not hard to find a house for $60k or even less. It's simply a
matter of where one looks.

What does this have to do with aviation?
--
dgs

[d.g.s.]

On 4/26/2007 9:35 PM Mxsmanic jumped down, turned around, and wrote:

> If you can't get past partisan politics

What does this have to do with aviation?

[Larry Dighera]

On Sun, 29 Apr 2007 00:38:38 GMT, (Scott) wrote in
<4633e4c3.1621141764@localhost>:

>I have no choice but to fund the current generation's SSI checks.

Sure you have. Just find a source of income that is not wages.

[Jay Honeck]

> > I, of course, expect my children's education to improve
> > commensurately...
>
> troll...

Eh?
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

[Jose]

> The problem with income is we don't know if they include every income
> that is different than the others or if they put them into brackets.

That only matters when figuring out the mode. For the median, if the
brackets are properly weighted it will work out just fine.

Jose
--
Get high on gasoline: fly an airplane.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

[Jose]

> So you think that failing to care for the nation's poor is appropriate
> for a government, and it makes the nation stronger.

No, I think that taking care of the nation's poor creates unmotivated
people, in many ways. This makes the nation weaker. Welfare is a
disaster. I do agree that SS is not quite the same as welfare. It is
however getting dangerously close.

> But what do you think would be
> the consequences of failing to care for the poor?

Those poor would suffer. Those on the edge of poor would not be
motivated to become poor (so they could get free money).

> Do you think it would be cheaper to police
> the desperate souls who are driven to crime
> because they are hungry?

That's not what drives (most) crime. So yes.

> I give up. I hope you get a chance to live in the world you desire.

You paint a very simplistic picture. I don't think the picture is so
simple - there are =huge= unintended consequences to seemingly well
meaning government policies.

Jose
--
Get high on gasoline: fly an airplane.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

[d.g.s.]

On 4/27/2007 3:32 PM Mxsmanic jumped down, turned around, and wrote:

> Maxwell writes:
>
>> Besides, you are either to ignorant or to impatient to accept the fact, that
>> in every state - you can buy a $60k home, live in it for 10 years, and
>> usually trade up with your equity, and have a $100k to $120k home for the
>> same monthly payment.
>
> That's exactly the sort of practice that has made home ownership inaccessible
> for so many people today. It's all a matter of greed.

That's how supply and demand works, chump.

But ... what does this have to do with aviation?
--
dgs

[d.g.s.]

On 4/28/2007 12:53 PM Mxsmanic jumped down, turned around, and wrote:

> Governments should help the poor become rich, rather than simply hand them
> money in custodial care.

Whatever. What does this have to do with aviation?
--
dgs

[d.g.s.]

On 4/28/2007 10:57 AM Mxsmanic jumped down, turned around, and wrote:

> For decades, there has been a general increase in fear in the population,
> driven principally by news media, and by government collusion with those
> media. People are more fearful of everything nowadays than they have ever
> been in the past (in U.S. history), and the trend is accelerating.

Whatever. What does this have to do with aviation?

You claim to come here to discuss aviation. Why do you lie so much?
--
dgs

[Steven P. McNicoll]

"kontiki" > wrote in message
...
>
> Very true Jose. I was simply evaluating the social engineering
> that _I_ feel is societally regressive (i.e like income taxes
> and other government programs). I think some tax credits _are_
> a good idea because they encourage people or businesses to
> produce things (generally).
>

So some tax credits are good. Which ones? Do you suppose other people
might have a different idea about which tax breaks are good and which are
bad? Do you suppose this might explain in part why there are hordes of
lobbyists trying to influence Congress?

Why isn't profit motive sufficient encouragement to produce things?


>
> But to your point, If I were a strict Constitutionalist (which
> I am not really) I would oppose all of that stuff. Some positive
> social engineering can be good but too much of it (which is
> really where we are no I believe) is a very bad thing.
>

So when should the federal government adhere to the Constitution and when
should it not?

[kontiki]

Jose wrote:
>> So you think that failing to care for the nation's poor is appropriate
>> for a government, and it makes the nation stronger.
>
>
> No, I think that taking care of the nation's poor creates unmotivated
> people, in many ways. This makes the nation weaker. Welfare is a
> disaster. I do agree that SS is not quite the same as welfare. It is
> however getting dangerously close.
>

This is what socialism does to people. Remember the Soviet Union
collapsing under its own weight? Oh yeah, Cuba is a real economic
powerhouse too. Europe is a mere shadow of its former self and
now we in the United States and following right along.

>> But what do you think would be
>> the consequences of failing to care for the poor?
>
>
> Those poor would suffer. Those on the edge of poor would not be
> motivated to become poor (so they could get free money).
>

Its called Darwin's theory... and it has worked every where it is
tried. In the first 150 years of this nations history it is what
bread a strong, hearty stock of people that built a country from
nothing to be a world power in just a few generations. Good
decision making and hard work = success.

Now that we subsidize supidity and poor decision making, we are
are breeding a large population of losers, expecting government
to bail them out if they break a hangnail.

>> Do you think it would be cheaper to police
>> the desperate souls who are driven to crime
>> because they are hungry?
>
>
> That's not what drives (most) crime. So yes.
>
>> I give up. I hope you get a chance to live in the world you desire.
>
>
> You paint a very simplistic picture. I don't think the picture is so
> simple - there are =huge= unintended consequences to seemingly well
> meaning government policies.
>
> Jose

Socialists see a utopia that will never come to pass because they
cannot see beyond a simplistic picture that refuses to hold people
responsible for their own actions (or in-actions).

[Steven P. McNicoll]

"Larry Dighera" > wrote in message
...
>
> That is how I understand it also. However no one is forcing anyone to
> support themselves through earning a wage.
>

Right. People can avoid paying social security simply by not supporting
themselves through earning wages. Why do you suppose most people don't take
that option?


>
> It's not easy, but I'm aware of them and working on changing. How
> about you?
>

I don't have any.


>
> Just for a moment try to imagine a nation where the poor old folks who
> have given the toil of their youth to increasing the GNP (or whatever
> its called these days) littering the pavement of your city so thick
> that you can't walk down the sidewalk. Isn't that what you're
> advocating?
>

No.


>
> You tell me.
>

I asked you first.

[kontiki]

Jose wrote:

>> Very true Jose. I was simply evaluating the social engineering
>> that _I_ feel is societally regressive
>
>
> ... and others may disagree on which ones are regressive and which ones
> are not. So, I'm in favor of the light touch, but I'm not necessarily
> in favor of no touch.
>
> Jose

Too much of anything tends to negate ther benefits. Right now
we have far too much "government" in every aspect of our lives,
and I'm afraid it won't get any better. There are a lot of people
like Larry out there that believe in big government solutions.

[kontiki]

Larry Dighera wrote:


>
> Are you able to articulate them? How would you address the implicit
> mandate in a Capitalistic system, that drives corporations to
> continually seek cost reductions to the point of absurdity and


Damm Larry, why doesn't government ever try to do that? Unlike
government, corporations have to make a profit... ot they go
bankrupt. Government never has to balance the books, it just keeps
taxing and spending.

> _dishonesty_ just to meet the competition's price and remain viable in

Oh, so any business that makes a profit or trims down to be
more successful is _dishonest_ ??? Maybe government should
try some dishonesty.... ooops... they already are and its still
not working.

> the marketplace? Do you believe outsourcing US jobs is good for our
> nation? Do you believe that forcing US corporations to move to other
> countries in order to escape income tax liability on income earned in
> the US is desirable? Let's see how simple you can make the solutions
> of which you speak.
>

As stated, businesss have to be profitiable or they go OUT of
business. (sort of like Darwin's theory). It is good decisionmaking
to adjust your business (downsize, move manufacturing elsewhere)
to offset increased taxation by government in order to stay
competetive and keep the shareholders happy.

If govenment doesn't want businesses to move offshore they should
LOWER the tax burdens on corporations. As a socialist you do not
understand that concept.

>
>>They're not put into action
>>because doing so would not help those in power stay in power.
>
>
> Are you also suggesting that the solution is to dismantle the US
> government?

Lets just dismantle it back to the size specified by
the Constituion, and the founding fathers. That's all that
is needed.

[Steven P. McNicoll]

"Larry Dighera" > wrote in message
...
>
> Are you able to articulate them?
>

Sure. Cease rewarding "good" behavior.


>
> How would you address the implicit
> mandate in a Capitalistic system, that drives corporations to
> continually seek cost reductions to the point of absurdity and
> _dishonesty_ just to meet the competition's price and remain viable in
> the marketplace?
>

Doesn't exist.


>
> Do you believe outsourcing US jobs is good for our
> nation?
>

Define "US job".


>
> Do you believe that forcing US corporations to move to other
> countries in order to escape income tax liability on income earned in
> the US is desirable? Let's see how simple you can make the solutions
> of which you speak.
>

Nope.


>
> Are you also suggesting that the solution is to dismantle the US
> government?
>

Just the parts that are not consistent with the Constitution.

[kontiki]

Larry Dighera wrote:

>
> You feel that way despite the fact that Halliburton earned their
> income from the US government?
>

Larry, your fixation with 'Haliburton' demonstrates
you can't think rationally.

> In your ideal world, how would the US government be funded?
>

If its functions were limited to those specified by the
Constitution it would be funded by various excises taxes
and that's it.

You seem to forget the fact the government functioned fine
without income tax for the first 150 years of its existance.

[Steven P. McNicoll]

"Jose" > wrote in message
...
>
> Well, if your employer didn't have to double it, your salary might well be
> higher by that amount.
>

And you'd be free to invest it in a better plan than social security.

[Steven P. McNicoll]

"Martin Hotze" > wrote in message
...
>
> Europe is emancipating itself from the US,
>

Good. Let them pay for their defense themselves.

[Steven P. McNicoll]

"Martin Hotze" > wrote in message
...
>
> Deal! If you stop building your anti missile project in Europe and stop
> with industry spionage (done by your government) in Europe and stop
> deploying nuclear weapons within Europe (where in some countries your are
> not allowed to place them but you ignore it) [1].
>
> Still a deal?
>

Absolutely!

[Bertie the Bunyip[_2_]]

Mxsmanic > wrote in
:

> Maxwell writes:
>
>> Hardly, considering the amount they spend. You could have a very
>> active log book with the kind of money most people choose to spend on
>> electronics.
>
> How much money do "most" people spend on electronics?
>

Good grief.


Bertie

[Larry Dighera]

On Sun, 29 Apr 2007 09:00:30 +0200, Martin Hotze >
wrote in >:

> your kids education won't improve. Your teachers are paid below
>average. Why should they teach your kids above average?

While it might take some time for the quality of teachers to improve
in Iowa, it is reasonable to expect, that increasing the salary Iowa
pays teachers may cause fewer better-qualified teachers to overlook
Iowa as a choice for employment.

But the future generations of Iowa's (and our nation's) population
probably aren't worth attracting the best talent available to educate
them. There are probably far more worthy places for Iowa to spend its
revenue. :-(

The grasshopper-like shortsightedness of the Accountant-mentality
reveals a virtually criminal disregard for the future as is all too
often demonstrated by their almost universal obsession with the coming
quarter. Geology and Paleontology courses should be required subjects
for those students whose careers will involve policy making decisions,
so that they can begin to appreciate what can be accomplished given
adequate time.

[Larry Dighera]

On Sun, 29 Apr 2007 11:22:35 GMT, "Steven P. McNicoll"
> wrote in
t>:

>Why isn't profit motive sufficient encouragement to produce things?

Because it lacks long-range vision, and encourages sleaze and planned
obsolescence rather than durable, high quality products.

[Larry Dighera]

On Sun, 29 Apr 2007 11:27:07 GMT, kontiki >
wrote in >:

> In the first 150 years of this nations history it is what
>bread a strong, hearty stock of people that built a country from
>nothing to be a world power in just a few generations. Good
>decision making and hard work = success.

Weren't we discussing retired workers? Are you suggesting that
survival of the fittest is appropriate treatment for workers who have
contributed their productive years to our nation's GNP, and are no
longer employable?

Or were you referring to cripples? Are you suggesting that they be
left to the wolves by our great nation?

[Larry Dighera]

On Sun, 29 Apr 2007 11:28:32 GMT, "Steven P. McNicoll"
> wrote in
>:

>
>"Larry Dighera" > wrote in message
...
>>
>> That is how I understand it also. However no one is forcing anyone to
>> support themselves through earning a wage.
>>
>
>Right. People can avoid paying social security simply by not supporting
>themselves through earning wages. Why do you suppose most people don't take
>that option?
>
Because they prefer the security of a steady income? Because they
don't find paying SSI sufficient reason to? Because one would have to
think outside the box?

>
>>
>> It's not easy, but I'm aware of them and working on changing. How
>> about you?
>>
>
>I don't have any.
>

If you are a living organism, and you believe that, you are
delusional:


http://www.newscientist.com/channel/being-human/mg19325952.000-are-we-born-prejudiced.html
Psychologists have long known of our proclivity to form "in
groups" based on crude markers, ranging from skin colour to clothing
styles. Think of inner-city gangs, Italian football supporters, or any
"cool" group of stylish teenagers. "Our minds seem to be organised in
a way that makes breaking the human world into distinct groups almost
automatic," says psychologist Lawrence Hirschfeld of the University of
Michigan, Ann Arbor. Many experiments confirm this, and show that we
tend to favour our own group, even when that group is just an
arbitrary collection of individuals.

In 1970, for example, a team of researchers led by psychologist
Henri Tajfel of the University of Bristol, UK, randomly divided
teenage boys from the same school into two groups, and gave every boy
the chance to allocate points to two other boys, one from each group.
This could be done in different ways - some increasing the combined
total for both recipients, and others increasing the difference
between the two. The boys consistently chose options of the latter
kind, favouring recipients from their own group. Experiments like
these are enough to convince Tajfel and others that if you put people
into different groups, call them red and blue, north and south, or
whatever, a bias towards one's own group will automatically emerge.

This in itself does not make us racist. In fact it may not be such
a bad thing: research published last year suggests at least one useful
function of our groupist tendencies. Political scientists Ross Hammond
of the Brookings Institute in Washington DC and Robert Axelrod of the
University of Michigan have discovered, perhaps surprisingly, that it
can promote cooperation (Journal of Conflict Resolution, vol 50, p
926). Taking their cue from Tajfel's finding that in-group favouritism
emerges with minimal prompting, Hammond and Axelrod decided to try to
emulate this in a simple computer model. Imagine a population of
individuals, interacting in pairs at random, and engaging in some
activity where both would benefit from cooperation, but each was also
tempted to cheat - getting more for themselves at the other's expense.
With no insight into the likely behaviour of others, individuals in
such a world would have no way - besides pure guesswork - to maximise
the outcome of their interactions. But add one simple element, colour,
and everything changes.

People in Hammond and Axelrod's world come in four colours,
assigned randomly at birth. When interacting with others, they might
now adopt one of several basic strategies. An individual might act
randomly, as before, ignoring colour - which would make sense as the
colours say nothing about how an individual is likely to behave.
Alternatively, a person might always cooperate or always cheat,
regardless of the other's colour. Another option would be to follow a
groupist "ethnocentric" strategy - cooperating with anyone of the same
colour, but always trying to cheat those of another colour. Finally,
agents might be anti-groupist - only cooperating with someone of
another colour. The researchers randomly assigned one of these
strategies to each agent. They also gave all agents the ability to
learn from one another, so that any strategy that did well would tend
to be copied and so spread.

What happened then, they discovered, was that agents of each
particular colour began to gather together. At first, a few groupist
agents of the same colour might find themselves together by chance.
Within such a group, cooperative interactions lead to good outcomes,
causing others nearby to copy their strategy, swelling the group. In
the model, Hammond and Axelrod found that strongly ethnocentric groups
of different colours came to fill the world, at the expense of others.
Anyone who did not follow the groupist strategy tended to suffer. Even
someone ignoring colour - and remember colour initially signified
nothing about an agent's behaviour - would also get wiped out. In
short, once people begin to act on colour, it comes to matter. What's
more, it turns out that the overall level of cooperation is higher in
this world where there is in-group favouritism than in a world where
agents are colourless. "Ethnocentrism is actually a mechanism for
generating cooperation, and one that does not demand much in the way
of cognitive ability," says Hammond.

Axelrod and Hammond are well aware that their model is a far cry
from the complexities of real-world racism. Still, it is interesting
that colour prejudice emerges even though colour has no intrinsic
significance. Modern genetics has dispelled the naive notion that
racial divisions reflect real biological differences. We know that the
genetic variation between individuals within one racial or ethnic
group is generally much larger than the average difference between
such groups. As in the virtual world, race and ethnicity are arbitrary
markers that have acquired meaning. But you won't get far telling
Blacks and Hispanics in the racially charged areas of Los Angeles that
their differences are just "superficial" cultural constructs. "Race
doesn't matter because it is real," says historian Niall Ferguson of
Harvard University, "but because people conceive it to be real."

What's more, this misconception seems to be deeply ingrained in
our psyche. For example, Hirschfeld found that by the age of 3 most
children already attribute significance to skin colour. In 1993, he
showed a group of children a drawing of a chubby black child dressed
up as a policeman, followed by photos of several adults, each of whom
had two of the three traits: being black, chubby and dressed as a
policeman. Asked to decide which person was the boy as a grown-up,
most children chose a black adult even though he was either not
overweight or minus a police uniform. "Kids appear to believe," says
Hirschfeld, "that race is more important than other physical
differences in determining what sort of person one is."

“By the age of 3 most kids already attribute significance to skin
colour”More recent brain imaging studies suggest that even adults who
claim not to be racist register skin colour automatically and
unconsciously. In 2000, a team led by social psychologist Allan Hart
of Amherst College in Massachusetts found that when white and black
subjects viewed faces of the other race both showed increased activity
in the amygdala - a brain region involved in grasping the emotional
significance of stimuli. Yet consciously, these subjects reported
feeling no emotional difference on seeing the different faces. In
another study of white subjects, in the same year, neuroscientist
Elizabeth Phelps of New York University and colleagues found that
those individuals whose amygdala lit up most strongly also scored
highest on a standard test for racial prejudice.

Does this mean that our species has evolved to see the world in
terms of black and white? Not necessarily. After all, our ancestors
would not normally have met people whose skin was a different colour
from their own: neighbouring ethnic groups would have looked pretty
much alike. So, it's possible that our tendency to classify people by
colour might simply be a modern vice, learned early and reinforced
throughout our lives - even, paradoxically, by anti-racist messages.
That seems unlikely, however, when you consider our attitudes to
ethnicity. In fieldwork among Torguud Mongols and Kazakhs,
neighbouring ethic groups living in central Asia, Gil-White
investigated ideas of ethnic identity to find out whether people link
it more with nurture (a child being brought up within a group) or
nature (the ethnicity of biological parents). The majority of both
groups saw ethnicity as a hidden but powerful biological factor,
unaffected by someone being adopted into another group. "They perceive
the underlying nature as some kind of substance that lies inside and
causes the members of an ethnic group to behave the way they do," he
says. Like race, ethnicity has no biological significance, yet this is
exactly how we perceive it.

Many researchers now believe that we have evolved a tendency to
divide the world along ethnic lines. For example, anthropologist Rob
Boyd from the University of California, Los Angeles, argues that our
ancestors, given the rich social context of human life, would have
needed skills for perceiving the important groups to which individuals
belonged. Being attuned to ethnic differences would have allowed
individuals to identify others who shared the same social norms -
people with whom it would have been easiest to interact because of
shared expectations. It would have paid to attend to cultural
differences such as styles of clothing, scarification or manner of
greeting, that marked one group out from another. In the modern world,
colour is simply mistaken as one such marker.

That might explain why we tend to divide the world into groups and
why we use ethnic differences and skin colour as markers to help us do
this. It even gives a rationale for in-group favouritism. But what
about out-group animosity? Is prejudice part of the whole evolved
package? Gil-white believes it is. He argues that within any group of
people sharing social norms, anyone who violates those will attract
moral opprobrium - it is considered "bad" to flout the rules and
benefit at the expense of the group. This response is then easily
transferred to people from other ethnic groups. "We're tempted to
treat others, who are conforming to their local norms, as violating
our own local norms, and we take offence accordingly," says Gil-White.
As a result we may be unconsciously inclined to see people from other
ethnic groups not simply as different, but as cheats, morally corrupt,
bad people.

Natural but not nice
"I think all this work refutes those naive enough to believe that
if it weren't for bad socialising, we would all be nice tolerant
people who accept cultural and ethnic differences easily," says Daniel
Chirot, professor of international studies at the University of
Washington, Seattle. That may sound disturbing, but being biologically
primed for racism does not make it inevitable. For a start, what is
natural and biological needn't be considered moral or legal. "The
sexual attraction that a grown man feels for a 15-year-old female is
perfectly natural," Gil-White points out. But most societies forbid
such relations, and all but a very few men can control their urges.

“Being biologically primed for racism does not make it
inevitable”Besides, if ethnocentrism is an evolved adaptation to
facilitate smooth social interactions, it is a rather crude one. A far
better way to decide who can be trusted and who cannot is to assess an
individual's character and personality rather than to rely on
meaningless markers. In today's world, that is what most of us do,
most of the time. It is only when it becomes difficult to judge
individuals that people may instinctively revert to the more primitive
mechanism. Hammond and Axelrod argue that this is most likely to
happen under harsh social or economic conditions, which may explain
why ethnic divisions seem to be exaggerated when societies break down,
as a consequence of war, for example. "To me this makes perfect
sense," says Chirot. "Especially in times of crisis we tend to fall
back on those with whom we are most familiar, who are most like us."

Knowing all this, it may be possible to find ways to curb our
unacceptable tendencies. Indeed, experiments show how little it can
take to begin breaking down prejudice. Psychologist Susan Fiske from
Princeton University and colleagues got students to view photos of
individuals from a range of social groups, while using functional MRI
to monitor activity in their medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), a brain
region known to light up in response to socially significant stimuli.
The researchers were shocked to discover that photos of people
belonging to "extreme" out-groups, such as drug addicts, stimulated no
activity in this region at all, suggesting that the viewers considered
them to be less than human. "It is just what you see with homeless
people or beggars in the street," says Fiske, "people treat them like
piles of garbage." In new experiments, however, she was able to
reverse this response. After replicating the earlier results, the
researchers asked simple, personal questions about the people in the
pictures, such as, "What kind of vegetable do you think this beggar
would like?" Just one such question was enough to significantly raise
activity in the mPFC. "The question has the effect of making the
person back into a person," says Fiske, "and the prejudiced response
is much weaker."

It would appear then that we have a strong tendency to see others
as individuals, which can begin to erode our groupist instincts with
very little prompting. Perhaps this is why, as Chirot points out,
ethnocentrism does not always lead to violence. It might also explain
why in every case of mass ethnic violence it has taken massive
propaganda on the part of specific political figures or parties to
stir passions to levels where violence breaks out.

If the seeds of racism are in our nature, so too are the seeds of
tolerance and empathy. By better understanding what sorts of
situations and environments are conducive to both, we may be able to
promote our better nature.


>
>>
>> Just for a moment try to imagine a nation where the poor old folks who
>> have given the toil of their youth to increasing the GNP (or whatever
>> its called these days) littering the pavement of your city so thick
>> that you can't walk down the sidewalk. Isn't that what you're
>> advocating?
>>
>
>No.
>
>
>>
>> You tell me.
>>
>
>I asked you first.
>

[Steven P. McNicoll]

"Larry Dighera" > wrote in message
...
>
> Because it lacks long-range vision, and encourages sleaze and planned
> obsolescence rather than durable, high quality products.
>

It doesn't.

[Jose]

> Why isn't profit motive sufficient encouragement to produce things?

It is. It's just not sufficient encouragement to clean up afterwards.
Generalized, that's why we have government in the first place.

Jose
--
Get high on gasoline: fly an airplane.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

[Jose]

> While it might take some time for the quality of teachers to improve
> in Iowa, it is reasonable to expect, that increasing the salary Iowa
> pays teachers may cause fewer better-qualified teachers to overlook
> Iowa as a choice for employment.

Did the cost of living stay the same while teacher's salaries were going up?

Jose
--
Get high on gasoline: fly an airplane.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

[Larry Dighera]

On Sun, 29 Apr 2007 11:38:15 GMT, kontiki >
wrote in >:

>Larry Dighera wrote:
>
>
>>
>> Are you able to articulate them? How would you address the implicit
>> mandate in a Capitalistic system, that drives corporations to
>> continually seek cost reductions to the point of absurdity and
>
>
>Damm Larry, why doesn't government ever try to do that?

The topic was Capitalism, not government.

>corporations have to make a profit... ot they go bankrupt.

That is my point. Today's Capitalism demands that producers meet the
lowest price in the marketplace, or face insolvency. That means that
if one producer is willing to reduce the cost of production through
unethical or immoral means, all the other producers are FORCED to do
the same or go broke. The cost-cutting efficiency of Capitalism is
commendable, but Capitalism's continual dive to the bottom begins to
cause problems after a certain point. That issue should be addressed.
Surely, even you can see the truth in what I'm saying.

>
>> _dishonesty_ just to meet the competition's price and remain viable in
>
>Oh, so any business that makes a profit or trims down to be
>more successful is _dishonest_ ???

I'm sorry if I failed to make myself clear enough for you to
understand. That is not what I said at all.

I have restated what I said above. Hopefully you'll take the time to
read and COMPREHEND it.

>
>> the marketplace? Do you believe outsourcing US jobs is good for our
>> nation? Do you believe that forcing US corporations to move to other
>> countries in order to escape income tax liability on income earned in
>> the US is desirable? Let's see how simple you can make the solutions
>> of which you speak.
>>
>
>As stated, businesss have to be profitiable or they go OUT of
>business.

I for one, would be willing to pay a little more for goods produced in
the USA, wouldn't you? I would be willing to pay a little more for
goods that are produced responsibly, and I think there is a
significant segment of the marketplace that would also. The concept
I'm trying to get across, is that the cost of a product shouldn't be
the sole criterion for purchasing decisions.

The change in consumer's spending decisions is slowly gaining
momentum, such as locally grown produce over supermarket fair supports
local agriculture, and Southern California Edison subscribers are able
to choose "green" sources of power:
http://www.poweryourway.com/pages/greenpower.html

>(sort of like Darwin's theory). It is good decisionmaking
>to adjust your business (downsize, move manufacturing elsewhere)
>to offset increased taxation by government in order to stay
>competetive and keep the shareholders happy.

How do you determine at what point the price of lowering the cost of
production further is not worth its non-monitory impact?

[kontiki]

Larry Dighera wrote:

>
> Or were you referring to cripples? Are you suggesting that they be
> left to the wolves by our great nation?
>

Basically yes Larry. As has been stated MULTIPLE times here, if
the money stolen from workers were actually _invested_ on their
behalf instead being stolen and used to buy votes there would
be precious few people in _need_ of government assistance when
they retire.

There is plenty of aid for people actually _deserving_ of it
(as you say, 'cripples' or whatever). The problem is that FAR
too many people get paid rather well (with money taken from
other people who worked for and earned it) and who do not
deserve it.

They only real money any person could deservingly receive is
that which they have earned through work or investment. Anything
else is mere income re-distribution (the 'Robin Hood' effect:
i.e. buying votes).

If the money is given freely to those in real need it is called
charity. Charities usually take care to insure those receiving it
are really deserving... and demonstrate behaviors that indicate
they will eventually climb out of their situation. Government
just robs from Peter to buy a vote from Paul.

"A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the
support of Paul."

- George Bernard Shaw

[kontiki]

Larry Dighera wrote:

>
> Because it lacks long-range vision, and encourages sleaze and planned
> obsolescence rather than durable, high quality products.

Oh, I see. If it isn;t something that "government' envisions as
a 'good" thing then it lacks long range vision. You think Hillary
or someone like that *really* cares about people, or that her
"long range thinkin" is about anything other than getting elected?

You have just factually illustrated your irrational thinking.

I rest my case.

[kontiki]

Larry Dighera wrote:

>
> That is my point. Today's Capitalism demands that producers meet the
> lowest price in the marketplace, or face insolvency.

And that, my friend, is exactly how it is supposed to work. MArxism
see things totally differently... the way you do in fact.

[Larry Dighera]

On Sun, 29 Apr 2007 11:42:39 GMT, kontiki >
wrote in >:

>Larry Dighera wrote:
>
>>
>> You feel that way despite the fact that Halliburton earned their
>> income from the US government?
>>
>
>Larry, your fixation with 'Haliburton' demonstrates
>you can't think rationally.

It's a valid question that illustrates what you are advocating.

You're dismissal of it in a thinly valid personal attack demonstrates
very clearly, that you are unable to respond to it without admitting
that it is your reasoning that is faulty, and emotionally based on
subjective self-interest.

>
>> In your ideal world, how would the US government be funded?
>>
>
>If its functions were limited to those specified by the
>Constitution it would be funded by various excises [sic] taxes
>and that's it.
>

What amount of excise tax, expressed as a percentage of sale price,
would have to be charged to fund the military, NAS, maintain the
nation's infrastructure (roads, courts, national parks, ...)?

If producers were paying such an excise tax on the raw materials they
used in the production of their products, could they be competitive in
foreign markets?

If such an excise tax as you advocate meant that there would be no
escaping the payment of taxes by any person or entity, I would
consider supporting it. But if you're going tell me you advocate
certain exclusions, it betray's your hidden agenda.

>You seem to forget the fact the government functioned fine
>without income tax for the first 150 years of its existance.

I'm not advocating any increases in any taxes. Where'd you get that
idea?

[Larry Dighera]

On Sun, 29 Apr 2007 11:43:49 GMT, "Steven P. McNicoll"
> wrote in
et>:

>
>"Jose" > wrote in message
...
>>
>> Well, if your employer didn't have to double it, your salary might well be
>> higher by that amount.
>>
>
>And you'd be free to invest it in a better plan than social security.
>

But the nation wouldn't be guaranteed that you wouldn't become a
bourdon in your years of retirement, if your choice of retirement plan
turned out the way it did for Enron employees.

[kontiki]

Larry Dighera wrote:

>
> But the nation wouldn't be guaranteed that you wouldn't become a
> bourdon in your years of retirement, if your choice of retirement plan
> turned out the way it did for Enron employees.
>

They are only a burden (on taxpayers) because politicians have
made it a policy to hand out money to everybody.

Social Security is a huge problem Larry, it is not a good program.
It hasn't worked... its a pyramid scheme full of fraud and destined
for failure withouth continual bailouts from hard working Americans.

If it were a private business it would have gone broke years ago
and far fewer people would be hurt in the long run.

[Larry Dighera]

On Sun, 29 Apr 2007 14:03:57 GMT, "Steven P. McNicoll"
> wrote in
>:

>
>"Larry Dighera" > wrote in message
...
>>
>> Because it lacks long-range vision, and encourages sleaze and planned
>> obsolescence rather than durable, high quality products.
>>
>
>It doesn't.
>

What does?

[Larry Dighera]

On Sun, 29 Apr 2007 14:40:04 GMT, kontiki >
wrote in >:

>Larry Dighera wrote:
>
>>>Why isn't profit motive sufficient encouragement to produce things?
>
>> Because it lacks long-range vision, and encourages sleaze and planned
>> obsolescence rather than durable, high quality products.
>
>Oh, I see. If it isn;t something that "government' envisions as
>a 'good" thing then it lacks long range vision.

I am at a loss to understand why you insist on bringing government
into the discussion. You were talking about PROFIT MOTIVE, not
government.

>You think Hillary or someone like that *really* cares about people, or that her
>"long range thinkin" is about anything other than getting elected?

I have very little esteem for today's Congressional representatives.
And I have no clue how that is germane to the subject of PROFIT
MOTIVE.

>You have just factually illustrated your irrational thinking.

Or you have just demonstrated your inability to comprehend the written
word. :-)

>I rest my case.

For some unknown reason, we seem to be talking past each other.

[Larry Dighera]

On Sun, 29 Apr 2007 14:42:42 GMT, kontiki >
wrote in >:

>Larry Dighera wrote:
>
>>
>> That is my point. Today's Capitalism demands that producers meet the
>> lowest price in the marketplace, or face insolvency.
>
>And that, my friend, is exactly how it is supposed to work. MArxism
>see things totally differently... the way you do in fact.

Unfortunately, you seem to be unable to understand my point of view at
all. I don't know how to make it any clearer for you.

[Larry Dighera]

On Sun, 29 Apr 2007 14:49:51 GMT, Larry Dighera >
wrote in >:

bourdon == burden

[Larry Dighera]

On Sun, 29 Apr 2007 14:57:10 GMT, kontiki >
wrote in >:

>Larry Dighera wrote:
>
>>
>> But the nation wouldn't be guaranteed that you wouldn't become a
>> bourdon in your years of retirement, if your choice of retirement plan
>> turned out the way it did for Enron employees.
>>
>
>They are only a burden (on taxpayers) because politicians have
>made it a policy to hand out money to everybody.
>

Wouldn't you characterize streets awash in homeless retirees a burden
on society?

[Maxwell]

"Larry Dighera" > wrote in message
...
> On Sun, 29 Apr 2007 14:57:10 GMT, kontiki >
> wrote in >:
>
>>
>>They are only a burden (on taxpayers) because politicians have
>>made it a policy to hand out money to everybody.
>>
>
> Wouldn't you characterize streets awash in homeless retirees a burden
> on society?
>

Many companies today allow there workers to opt out of health care, and
receive the dollars saved, by furnishing some type of certification of
insurance elsewhere. Usually a working spouse with family benefits.

I see no reason why anyone that can supply adiquate investment information
on their tax return, should not be allowed to receive a refund of all SS and
FICA monies, or simply avoid the deduction to begin with. Yes, these
investments would have to "insured or qualified" by the FDIC or some such
entity, but it's very workable. There would be dozens, if not hundreds of
investment opportunities tailored to suit with in weeks.

But the problem is, the fed has let the SS system get well behind the curve.
If they don't "tax us today", the system supposedly funded by today's
receipents long ago, would colapse. So in reality, money invested by today's
receipents long ago, has been spent by the fed, the people that were
supposed to be insuring their furture. And the only way they can keep their
promise, is to tax us today.

[Maxwell]

"Mxsmanic" > wrote in message
...
> Maxwell writes:
>
>> Hardly, considering the amount they spend. You could have a very active
>> log
>> book with the kind of money most people choose to spend on electronics.
>
> How much money do "most" people spend on electronics?
>

Apparently you are just not old enough to simply look around yourself to
answer that question junior. In the last 20 years, nothing has changed our
buying habits more than electronics. And it has nothing to do with "bang for
the buck" as you like to suggest. It's just trends. Everyone is always
looking for something new and different.

[Bob Noel]

In article >,
Larry Dighera > wrote:

> >> But the nation wouldn't be guaranteed that you wouldn't become a
> >> bourdon in your years of retirement, if your choice of retirement plan
> >> turned out the way it did for Enron employees.
> >
> >They are only a burden (on taxpayers) because politicians have
> >made it a policy to hand out money to everybody.
>
> Wouldn't you characterize streets awash in homeless retirees a burden
> on society?

it's not an either-or situation...

--
Bob Noel
(goodness, please trim replies!!!)

[kontiki]

Larry Dighera wrote:

>
>
> Wouldn't you characterize streets awash in homeless retirees a burden
> on society?
>

Again Larry, if you were to be intellectually honest you would find
that 'homeless' people are largely that way because of decisions
they have (or have not) made. It is not my responsibility to comphensate
others for their failure to be responsible. For some reason you
do... and so does socialistic governments. THIS is where we differ.

For example, if I, as a respinsible parent were confronted by my
child wanting to quit school, I would let them do it only if they
signed a legal document that stated they could make no claim
against me for future benefits. They voluntarily decided to
SQUANDER a free education for themsleves and I do not feel
responsible for the consequences of their actions.

This is never required of welfare recipients in this country...
but it should. Most of the ones I see drive a car (albeit an old
gas guzzler [which we subsidize]) and have a cell phone and several
children, more than likely cable or satellite TV etc. etc. They
are NOT poor.

People who live on the street CHOOSE that life Larry. How can you
argue that they can not find work when ILLEGALS who can't even speak
english risk their lives to cross a border to come here work?

I'm sorry, but your bleeding heart liberal-socialist ideas do NOT
work and do NOT hold water. They are not rationally justifiable.

-----
"In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as
possible from one party of the citizens to give to the other."

-Voltaire (1764)

[Larry Dighera]

On Sun, 29 Apr 2007 12:38:04 -0400, Bob Noel
> wrote in
>:

>
>> Wouldn't you characterize streets awash in homeless retirees a burden
>> on society?
>
>it's not an either-or situation...

What is your rationale for that statement? That's not the way FDR saw
it.

[kontiki]

Larry Dighera wrote:
> On Sun, 29 Apr 2007 00:38:38 GMT, (Scott) wrote in
> <4633e4c3.1621141764@localhost>:
>
>
>>I have no choice but to fund the current generation's SSI checks.
>
>
> Sure you have. Just find a source of income that is not wages.
>
He could sell crack... that seems to work pretty well.

[kontiki]

Larry Dighera wrote:
>
>>Larry Dighera wrote:
>>
>>
>>>>Why isn't profit motive sufficient encouragement to produce things?
>>
>>>Because it lacks long-range vision, and encourages sleaze and planned
>>>obsolescence rather than durable, high quality products.
>>
>>Oh, I see. If it isn;t something that "government' envisions as
>>a 'good" thing then it lacks long range vision.
>
>
> I am at a loss to understand why you insist on bringing government
> into the discussion. You were talking about PROFIT MOTIVE, not
> government.
>
>
In the absence of government mandating the taking of money from
people who work and giving it to people who do not, what other
entity would we be discussing?

>>You think Hillary or someone like that *really* cares about people, or that her
>>"long range thinkin" is about anything other than getting elected?
>
>
> I have very little esteem for today's Congressional representatives.
> And I have no clue how that is germane to the subject of PROFIT
> MOTIVE.
>

You say that as if 'profit motive' were a HORRIBLE thing. You would
still be using candles and crapping in a hole in the ground if it
were not for profit motive Larry. Businesses that make profits
benfit _all_ that work for or invest in that business.

>
>>You have just factually illustrated your irrational thinking.
>
>
> Or you have just demonstrated your inability to comprehend the written
> word. :-)
>
Irrationality is difficult to comprehend Larry.

>
>>I rest my case.
>
>
> For some unknown reason, we seem to be talking past each other.
>

I know the reason.

[kontiki]

Larry Dighera wrote:

> On Sun, 29 Apr 2007 11:42:39 GMT, kontiki >
> wrote in >:
>
>
>>Larry Dighera wrote:
>>
>>
>>>You feel that way despite the fact that Halliburton earned their
>>>income from the US government?
>>>
>>
>>Larry, your fixation with 'Haliburton' demonstrates
>>you can't think rationally.
>
>
> It's a valid question that illustrates what you are advocating.
>
> You're dismissal of it in a thinly valid personal attack demonstrates
> very clearly, that you are unable to respond to it without admitting
> that it is your reasoning that is faulty, and emotionally based on
> subjective self-interest.
>

The reason is that I do not want to engage in a tit-for-tat
regurgitation of government scandal Vs. private scandal. I
would FAR rather deal with a private scandal than a government
scandal because it make me less cynical of why money is taken
from my paycheck every two weeks.

>
>>>In your ideal world, how would the US government be funded?
>>>
>>
>>If its functions were limited to those specified by the
>>Constitution it would be funded by various excises [sic] taxes
>>and that's it.
>>
>
>
> What amount of excise tax, expressed as a percentage of sale price,
> would have to be charged to fund the military, NAS, maintain the
> nation's infrastructure (roads, courts, national parks, ...)?
>
This has all been detailed by people far mor learned than I. Don't
be juvenile and make me research the information that will result
in a proper rersponse to that basic question.

> If producers were paying such an excise tax on the raw materials they
> used in the production of their products, could they be competitive in
> foreign markets?

BINGO you nailed it... except it is called income tax and other
types of taxes that are being paid now that cause companies to seek
foreigh shores to try and remain competative.

>
> If such an excise tax as you advocate meant that there would be no
> escaping the payment of taxes by any person or entity, I would
> consider supporting it. But if you're going tell me you advocate
> certain exclusions, it betray's your hidden agenda.
>

Well now you are beginning to see the light... the fact is that
despite your desires, corporations do net really pay taxes. They
pass it along to customers in higher prices... or they lay people off.
Pretty underhanded way for the government to increasae taxes on people
don't ya think? But it works if you can control the economic
education of society.

>
>>You seem to forget the fact the government functioned fine
>>without income tax for the first 150 years of its existance.
>
>
> I'm not advocating any increases in any taxes. Where'd you get that
> idea?
>

But how do you feel on increases in government spending? Because
like it or not they have been happening at an alarming rate.

And let me stipulate that I am not partisam about this... BOTH
paries (all politicians) have been intoxicated by the drug of
being able to take money from people at the threat of prison
time in order to further their goals to remain in power.

[Larry Dighera]

On Sun, 29 Apr 2007 17:42:34 GMT, kontiki >
wrote in >:

>He could sell crack... that seems to work pretty well.

Ah, the voice of experience... :-)

[Scott[_5_]]

On Sun, 29 Apr 2007 17:42:34 GMT, in rec.aviation.piloting, kontiki
> wrote:

>Larry Dighera wrote:
>> On Sun, 29 Apr 2007 00:38:38 GMT, (Scott) wrote in
>> <4633e4c3.1621141764@localhost>:
>>
>>>I have no choice but to fund the current generation's SSI checks.
>>
>> Sure you have. Just find a source of income that is not wages.
>>
>He could sell crack... that seems to work pretty well.

If you'd ever seen my crack, you'd understand why nobody's buying.... :)

-Scott

[Mxsmanic]

Maxwell writes:

> Apparently you are just not old enough to simply look around yourself to
> answer that question junior.

I have, and I don't see any indication that people are spending large sums of
money on electronics. Most people have a standard complement of electronic
gadgets, but their total cost still isn't very significant.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

[Larry Dighera]

On Sun, 29 Apr 2007 11:18:11 -0500, "Maxwell" >
wrote in >:

>But the problem is, the fed has let the SS system get well behind the curve.
>If they don't "tax us today", the system supposedly funded by today's
>receipents long ago, would colapse. So in reality, money invested by today's
>receipents long ago, has been spent by the fed, the people that were
>supposed to be insuring their furture.

The way I understand it, Congress has used the money generated by SSI
payments to fund other federal spending. And now government is faced
with the issue of a shortfall in funding SSI recipients as a result of
the "baby-boom" bulge in the retirement aged population.