Competition for public funds 26 May 201126 May 2011 Ever wondered why education, research, health care and public infrastructure is being wound back across the western world? This chart, from here, on the American debt, suggests why: In the competition between various calls on the public purse, it looks like the military and the plutocracy have won out. We don’t always think of what is happening in the “democratic” west as being a militaristic and robber baron society, but on these sorts of figures, it looks like it. Politics
Politics So, Dumbledore was gay, so what? 23 Oct 2007 Much to do about the sexual inclinations of a fictional character in the most successful (and I still think, despite the lack of editorial control, one of the classic) children’s stories. PZ Mungle has this to say: I really, honestly, truly do not give a good goddamn if Dumbledore is… Read More
Accommodationism Why do believers believe THOSE silly things? 28 Jan 201420 Feb 2014 If, as I argued in the last post, believers believe silly things in order to make the community cohere in the face of competing loyalties of the wider community, why is it that they believe the things they believe? For example, you will often see Jews attempt to argue that… Read More
Australian stuff Cui bono? Health scammers 20 Aug 2009 An old legal principle in assigning guilt is the one that goes by the latinate title cui bono? Who benefits? As Deep Throat said, “follow the money”. So, ask yourself: who benefits from a broken American healthcare system, in which even those who are insured are prevented from receiving effective… Read More
Actually, the military looks like a relatively small part of it. The biggest factor is the Bush tax cut, which I suppose is what you’re counting as “plutocracy”. Second to that is the economy, stupid, which may be the fault of the plutocrats, but doesn’t make it seem as if they’re winning, especially. TARP, etc., is almost nothing. Wars are the third factor, but a distant third.
What’s happening with the U.S. Federal budget, in the short run, is that the annual shortfall in tax revenue (and the additional welfare burdens) due to the recession will flatten out and eventually decline to zero; the economic stimuluses will end over a few years and thenceforth cost nothing; the TARP, Fannie/Freddie, auto industry and other bailouts will end up costing the budget virtually nothing (because, despised they may be, bailouts always work as intended); and the costs of our foreign adventures should level out and thus take a smaller percentage of the GDP as the economy grows (though why we should continue to pay for a military designed to such a degree to fight another superpower is another matter). As the chart shows, due to the Bush tax cuts our fiscal system will be structured such that, not only will we be unable to pay for what we wish to buy, but that the shortfall in tax revenue will actually accelerate, even assuming the economy returns to health growth. In the long run, past the scope of the chart, the deficit will continue to be driven mainly by these same tax cuts, until the 2030s, when the budget will become dominated by the costs of medical care, as reflected in Medicare and Medicade. Here perhaps plutocracy may be again evoked, as no other rich country is likely to have these problems so manifestly, given their willingness to adopt economically sound tax and medical systems.