Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Les Bamburg on June 21, 2012 at 15:51

The last thing we need is more federal bureaucracy.  The people should have the freedom to choose - not have it dictated by governments. 

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Permalink Reply by Texas54 on June 23, 2012 at 9:25

I agree to much government intereference already. True Texan must have a gas well or wells that will help them but what about those people who have only oil wells. Natural gas is already in alot of homes.

 

 

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Permalink Reply by Max on June 22, 2012 at 4:30

Mailbox money drags folks all over the place.  When we get use to a check coming each month, our bias becomes cloudy.  "If only those morons in Washington would force NG on the rest of the country", it would be good for the country and good for me, we all win.  What if the government pushed for US Energy Dependence and needed all of the minerals for the "good of the people"?  Would we all be so patriotic?

The same thing is going to happen with Social Security and Medicare.  The folks receiving benefits will want to stand in two lines, one for the country, one for themselves.

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Permalink Reply by GoshDarn on June 22, 2012 at 7:48

Max, it's human nature for most folks to only talk-the-talk which they absolutely are convinced -- without any doubt -- will simply help their own pocketbooks.

Yet, quite sadly, sometimes they have been lied to and don't even know that they may be cutting their own economic throat (so to speak).

Yet, that's just the way the "world turns."

Many forget why certain regulations were put in place in the first place.  Many forget what happened in 1929.  Many forget why there were soup lines in the '30's.  Many forget why we even have food inspectors or why E. coli is in our beef or why there are USDA meat inspectors.

"Badges, we don't need no stickin' badges."

No, of course not.  And we certainly don't need the FAA to control the air-traffic flight patterns or the TSA to stop the terrorists from another 911, nor do we even need the FBI and/or the SEC to catch the Wall Street embezzlers like Madoff or Standford or the other ponzi guys or the Enron's and CHK's of the world.

No, absolutely not.

"We don't need no stickin' badges."  Us underdogs can look out for ourselves, right?

(Right.)

Regulations only clog up the system with red tape.  And our forefathers, those who survived the corrupt bubbles of the past and those who lived through the dust bowl and the soup lines of '32 -- yeah, our grandfathers and grandmothers and great-grannies surely didn't know what they were doing when they voted for FDR or when they voted for Social Security.

No, absolutely not.  Our old folks didn't learn from the Great Depression, right?

So, us youngin's must know what we're doin', right?  It's our darn pocketbooks. 

We're so smart and so sophisticated, right?

And, y'know, the old folks are way dumb.       

 

 

 

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Permalink Reply by Keith on June 22, 2012 at 15:34

In case you haven't been watching the news yes we do have food inspectors and we still have large E-Coli and other food borne illness break outs, so whats your point? Does the USDA want to stop food borne illness any more than say a cantaloupe farmer when his entire business is at stake? I think not!

 

Federal air traffic controllers were fired once and I don't remember mass chaos in the skys they could have just as well been privatized.

 

The TSA hasn't done anything except grope little old ladies and small children. The main airport in San Francisco opted out of the TSA program and they haven't been overun with Alqaeda as far as I can tell.

 

The old folks did learn from the Great Depression and they didn't need regulation to teach them not to make the same mistakes that was made during the roaring twenties. They worked hard, they saved and didn't overspend, they didn't get payday loans, they didn't get No-Doc or NINJA home loans and the banks that survived the depression wouldn't have let them anyway, because they learned too. They learned from the pain, that's why pain exist. You don't have to be sophisticated or super intelligent to understand that.

They didn't get bailed out when they failed they didn't have big brother to give them food stamps when they ran short, so even hunger pains teach a good lesson.

 

What the youngin's learned recently is that government will try to bail them out when they fail, except that government is dead broke. So what's plan B ?

 

 

Oh yeah Harry M. Markopolos first turned in Bernie Madoff and filed several complaints to regulators that went unchecked for years the SEC didn't catch him. He wasn't arrested until his son turned him in. It didn't take a stinkin badge to do anything except go put the cuffs on him.

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Permalink Reply by GoshDarn on June 22, 2012 at 19:28

Keith., the point is -- what would our lives be without the badge-carrying watchdogs -- i.e., without the protective laws that regulate the bad guys and the crooks (like some of the lying landmen who conned folks into inking bad leases with fake "free royalty" clauses?  But I guess you have no problem with what CHK did, do you?)

That's the point.

In other words, if there weren't "protective" laws on the books, Madoff could not have been arrested (even though it should've happened much sooner).  And the greed on Wall Street and the dominating laissez faire attitude of, y'know, let's vote for "less regulation" -- well, that actually helped fuel the crooked cheating of Madoff and Standford and Enron, and thus such a no-regulation attitude truly cost many hardworking folks their savings and retirement funds.

So, I guess you are for no laws to protect the little guy, right, Keith?

In other words, trying to spin the argument to fit your thinking is disingenuous.

And no, it's not about "bailing anyone out," and no one said that it was.  You broached that topic, not us. 

And yes, it is about stopping the lying crooks and preventing the corruption and changing the idiotic thinking so as to circumvent such problems from happening in the first place.  Indeed, that's what the lesson of history teaches, Keith.  That's what my parents learned from the Great Depression, having suffered through the very hard times which were caused in part by Herbert Hoover and the wild speculators on Wall Street back in the roaring '20's.  It wasn't the dirt-poor dust-bowl farmers who cheated folks.

No.  It wasn't the little guy who ran the economy off the cliff and caused the greatest banking crisis in the 20th century.

No.  Most all of it was caused by those who didn't want any regulation, nor did they want any laws to stop the fast-talking crooks from doing what they were doing.

So, go 'head.  You get on a plane without the TSA.

Feel free.

And you eat non-inspected beef.

That's your right.  I agree.  You don't need no "stickin' badges."  No one is stopping your from tearing up your passport and leaving the country and going wherever, going where there are no protections by our military personnel (who are paid by tax money).

Go 'head, Keith.

Oh, "we" are the government, and we are not dead broke.

Sorry, that dog don't hunt. 

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Permalink Reply by Krkyoldhag on June 23, 2012 at 3:14

My daddy always said "Give everybody a million dollars and in five years 10% of the folks would have all the money and the other 90% will be broke"..

I think in some part he was right.

But in all his wisdom he never advocated more govt regs.  He did say that the Roosevelt WPA program kept a lot of young boys from starving to death.  But he also said it kept the upper class folks safer by keeping marauding gangs of them off the streets.  He also said it was grooming an army.

I never have heard or read of anybody else looking at the WPA program as a kind of copy of Hitler's youth programs of indoctrination.  But still, those were the boys who went to war, who enlisted first.

He also joked that if a laborer drank a beer every night he was a drunk.  If a banker drank every night at the country club he was a social drinker.  But that they both went home soused every night.

I think govt can help in some cases..But harm more.  IF the highway funds were released (had they not been dipped in to for other programs) then that money going into road construction across the country would create a lot of jobs.  If grants were given to cities and used for infra structure rebuilding that also would create jobs.

Had there not been water system programs from the feds in 1950's most rural communities would not have water piped to their homes today.  Same with electricity.  Think REA.

So govt support is historical.  Govt just giving away billions to private companies is NOT.

But so far as Natural Gas I cant' see how any govt regs added would help.  I can see many ways it could harm.  such as obama taking over the industry and making it nationalized.

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Permalink Reply by Krkyoldhag on June 23, 2012 at 3:24

Oh Keith you ask what it would be like without the badges and law enforcement. There would first be small clans (much like the street gangs in LA) then they would merge by encountering stronger gangs, those merging into larger ones..with a leader..the system would become one with a Lord and Serfs and the justice would be meted out by the Lord or big honcho as he saw fit.

Read any history book about the 15th and 16 th century and you pretty much have what we would become.

But think I will hold on to my passport.  Its good for a few years more. 

So far as the scams you mention, Madoff and so on...again follow the money.  If it sounds too good to be true..there's your first clue that you best walk away.  Greed brought down those "investors" just as greed caused little investors to lose their money in market in 1929.

Any gambler will tell you that the downfall of a gambler is that he has no goal.  He just plays on.  Those wall street guys were gamblers. 

And that's what happened to the housing market..it was too good to be true.  If you can buy a quarter million dollar house with nothing down and no income to support the loan and you do it you are either crazy, greedy, or can't do the math.

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Permalink Reply by Keith on June 23, 2012 at 7:13

I get your point but you seemed to overblow it, so I did the same to make a counter point.

If you look at the national debt per person and add personal debt you would see that we aren't just broke we are in debt up to our eyballs so we are worse than broke!

I flew before the TSA and after, I'll take the before. The TSA is proof that you always get caught fighting your last war.

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Permalink Reply by Krkyoldhag on June 23, 2012 at 11:36

I agree..  It would have to be a dire emergency for me to fly again any time soon.  Flying used to be fun.  TSA is not law enforcement..its a bunch of goons.  Law enforcement is the Texas Rangers, the Sheriff department..

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Permalink Reply by Keith on June 22, 2012 at 15:41

I agree Max and let's not forget that Natural Gas is the new darling only because it's the obvious choice and Washington needs a win. Our leaders in Washington tried to make the market with subsidies for Ethanol and it failed, Obama then went solar and they went bankrupt, so do we want that same good treatment for the nat gas industry. I don't think we need it.

 

If we let government take credit for creating a natural gas market, then we'll be beholden to them as long as we believe that B.S. 

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Permalink Reply by Keith on June 22, 2012 at 16:07

True Texan, what exactly would you have the TRRC do to natural gas prices? Because if you want them to cause prices to rise then you would be undermining the logic of your sentence about switching to natural gas because its "so cheap right now".

I can't imagine you want the TRRC to cause prices to go lower? But low prices of an energy commodity that's abundant and easy to transport has once before proven to not need any government help at becoming the dominate choice of energy customers. Yeah at the turn of the century oil was taking it's place as the energy choice for transportation, because it was obvious. It was cheap, easily transportable, and abundant in America. Natural Gas is at the same point now that oil was in the early 1900's. So why bother begging government for more of the same when natural gas is going to take it's place anyway?

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