The Kennedy Curve

Can someone put into coherent English what Teddy boy was trying to say?

Liberalism is the default mode of people who can't follow a logical thought process. They usually say that their not into politics and that the GOP is just mean rich guys.

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I am not sure Kennedy is your typical liberal. Most of them are dumber and bigger stoners.

First as to the 'local Mensa', I would suggest that mainly, the liberal elite egg-heads have enough VANITY to join such a group. I suspect that the conservatives would not bother. I can only speak personally. My IQ was measured once, at age 12, at 165. That might no be enough for Mensa but my point is that I am conservative and could not conceive of a reason to join their grouop.

As to Kennedy, I wish you had let him drone on for a while and then forced him to answer by REPEATING THE QUESTION, and asking him why he did not answer it.

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Your suggested approach is, as one would expect of a highly intelligent person, simple and logical. But simple and logical are to liberals as garlic and crucifixes to vampires. Kennedy would not more have tolerated Mr. Baisley insisting he stick to the question than he did Sean Hannity when the radio host had him in a corner. You can feed them questions, but they will only answer the ones they like.

So doing what one would rationally do, i.e., repeating the question and asking him again to answer it, can only lead to either another evasion or verbal abuse. He would never have answered.

I too had a chance to speak with Sir Ted many years ago. I was an Engineer and traveled to DC pretty regular to ARI (Army Research Inst) and the DIA (Defense Intell Agency) for Sanders Assoc, a black technology development company back it those days of the late 70s and early 80s.
Kennedy flew the shuttle out of Boston to DC and we were seat mates on a flight.

I am a natural born Conservative, I never grew into it as most people do - I was born into it. My father was a natural government bureaucracy hater, which as a child amazed me, because during WWII he was a government contractor on nine different military installations on the coast of California.

Any way on our trip to DC after Sir Ted has a couple drinks we got into a conversation on my business in DC. I explained a bit about my technology and then moved the conversation to philosophy of government and the economics of the people.

Sir Ted, did not have a clue what I as talking about. He had no understanding of the history of the Nation or why the Constitution was written as it was. As far as he was concerned the Senate should be able to make any law that they saw fit to forward the desires of the party in power. If and when the other party came to power they could change everything to their way of doing business.

He felt that this was the normal ebb and flow of the politics of the Nation. And the net result would end up with a happy population.

WHAT A BOOB...

Sowell, in "Conflict of Visions" lays out the profound differences in mind sets between liberals and conservatives, He doesn't use the terms conservative or liberal, It is non partisan, doesn't take sides so would be useful for liberals to read so they understand why liberals and conservatives never understand each other. But liberals don't read such things so there is no way to get them to even understand themselves.

As a Mensa member, I can only report that Mensa is more than a group of people who are good at taking IQ tests; it is also an unwitting support group for adults with Asperger's Syndrome (q. v.)

When you have a TREMENDOUS ego, I can see where they would lack empathy with anyone else. It fits.

LHB and chicaree: You have to understand the mindset of the "money maker” a.k.a. producer of wealth AND jobs. Now, you may not have that mindset but the truth is that once you get in THAT "curve", you will always look at your "bottom line".

The much hated capitalist (which IS the natural way of any thinking human being to be) is to accumulate as much as he/she is able. The best way to accumulate wealth is investment and the highest and surest way to make your "money work for you" is to create JOBS! This was true from the earliest stone arrow-head producer to the computer chip manufacturer.

Globalism has thrown put a little "monkey wrench" in our times and the capitalist will "invest" in job creation where REGULATION AND TAXATION are "business friendly". In our overloaded regulatory system from our government plus the threat of overspending by the government followed by “inevitable” tax raise, “exporting capital” makes perfect sense.

Solution: lowering taxes for the saver/investor AND de-funding regulatory entities, chief among them the EPA! IF (and that is a BIG IF) our representatives in ALL branches of government (but mainly legislative AND executive) would understand, accept AND promote the capitalist thinking, we WOULD HAVE jobs AND the government would have enough revenue to sustain a reasonable and constitutional governance.

The socialist ideology of redistributing wealth IS contradictory to human nature that is why it failed every time it was attempted. The thinking of “taking care of the less fortunate among us” merely encourages more of us to FEEL “helpless” and rely on the government to “help”, eventually even the not so helpless realizes that it is easier to thrust out your hand to beg (eventually DEMAND) than to work diligently AND save your earnings and become wealthier within your abilities, so the ideology fails all around in a “compassionate” society.

There is a relatively small percentage of the population who is really helpless (disabled and elderly), and that is sustainable IF even those people live within their means and ACCEPT that they HAVE to rely on charity and as the old saying goes “beggars can’t be choosers” they will find ways to live as their destiny ordained them to.

I am by governmental definition a person who is part of the “poor”, but I never went to the government for help. I learned to survive with the little I accumulated and personally I am not acquitted with the feeling of being “poor”.

My mother had a good saying: “The devil is poor, for he has no soul”. And that is so very true if one really thinks about it.

Socialism is not contradictory to those humans who are lazy and WANT to take what someone else has. It grows when more and more people see taking as an easy way to live. It fails when so many join the trough that there is not enough 'working poeple' to keep the trough full.

The French have a wonderful saying about liberals/socialist etc and it goes something like "If you are not a socialist at the age of 20 you have no heart; if you are a socialist at the age of 40 you have no brain'.

Actually, that one is attributed to Churchill, I think...

George Bernard Shaw, in his introduction to Man and Superman. The term was "revolutionary", but to Shaw that meant socialist. He assumed the goal of socialism, he meant that as you mature you should become a Fabian like himself and move on from being a revolutinary.

"I have since come to understand that the prime objective of the American liberal politician is to manage uniformity among the commoners."

A good observation, but not quite on target. The prime objective of the American liberal politician is to maintain the status quo within limits. Those dependent on government should remain dependent. Those who start out working at minimum wage should remain at minimum wage till they give up on the folly of self-betterment and become dependent on government. Those who are wealthy should remain wealthy. All others -- the hated, distrusted middle class -- must be maintained as cash cows, but they must prevented at all costs from climbing the Great Chain of Being and becoming wealthy.

I agree. Well put.

Correction-
The liberal politician must deny eugenics and continue the enslavement of the poor through welfare, acquiring votes for their agenda in return. Continued denial of the differences in abilities of the general population allows the liberal to promote hedonistic lifestyle ideals, generated because the high intelligence of the vocal leaders has convinced the wannabe intellectuals that there is no God, and no judgements can be made on the incredibly poor decisions made by the poor on an ongoing basis.

"I marveled at watching Ted Kennedy transform my engagement into a conversation that he would prefer to have. "

More like a collection of disjointed ramblings, peppered with boilerplate talking points.

That's a skill all career pols develop, as their terms start stretching out into careers.

Again, we do NOT have a revenue problem-- we have a BIG SPENDING PROBLEM!

In 2007, just before the ObaMessiah took office, we had the highest EVER federal tax revenues collected. This was well into the effects of the Bush tax cuts (which increased the share paid by the top payers, while REDUCING the token amount paid by the bottom 50% of filers):

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The top 1% of earners actually pay more federal income tax than the bottom 95% COMBINED according to IRS data.

As Margaret Thatcher noted, if you keep taxing the rich more and more, eventually you run out of other peoples' money to extract.

http://www.ntu.org/tax-basics/who-pays-income-taxes.html

In fact, the bottom half of taxpayers pay less than 3% of all federal taxes actually paid (essentially NO taxes), and their tiny percentage DROPPED in consecutive years after the Bush tax cuts, even as the percentage paid by the higher income people INCREASED-- giving lie to the much-brayed prevarication from the Left that "the Bush tax cuts benefited the rich at the expense of working people."

But some of you keep drinking that Kool-aid of liberal mythology.

The highest earners ALSO PRODUCE far more commerce and income for all than the working class.

Most of our over 1,000 new billionaires came from the middle class and made their wealth via technology, NOT on Wall Street.

Facts are indeed SUCH STUBBORN THINGS!

Whenever a conservative brings up the Laffer Curve, I always ask them why they always tend to think we're on it's downward sloping part, no matter how low tax rates get. Obviously, if the tax rate is 100%, lowering it will almost certainly increase tax revenue..

That is not always the case, however. Evidence from the OMB suggests that U.S. tax revenues as a percentage of GDP have been falling even as tax rates have been falling over the last 8 year. Hence, we've been moving along the bottom part of the Laffer curve, where there is a positive relationship between tax rates and tax revenues. If we want to raise revenues, the Laffer curve suggests that given how low tax rates currently are (at their lowest levels of the last 50 years), they should be raised.

LHB,

Your argument and conclusion are false. The Laffer Curve compares tax rates and the amount of tax dollars received by the government at that tax rate. The relevance of the % of GDP is that the economic growth has occurred at the lower tax rates, not that "we've been moving along the bottom part of the Laffer Curve." Studies of the amount of taxes collected as a % of GNP show that the amount always stays around 18-19% so your conclusion that revenues will be increased has been proven false by history. However, the impact of tax increases on economic growth is also clear as a matter of history - tax increases decrease economic growth. Not the brightest thing to do at this time.

You've gotta have money if you are going to fight wars. Ten years of war in Iraq with no tax increase to pay for it but instead there were tax cuts. Any first grader can tell you that is going to run up deficits. And the new crowd has the same mind set. Cut taxes (reduce your income) with as big a deficit as we have right now is mindless idiocy.

I think he's saying that the present tax system is inefficient, because when a person is taxed too much, they don't spend as much (reducing sales tax and business tax revenue), and they focus on how to get the most refund (reducing the amount the government gets to keep).
If we all had lower tax rates across the board, the government would profit from it in the long run, because people would spend more and businesses would profit, as would the economy, thus would the government.

Actually, any 1st grader will ask, "Daddy, what are taxes?"

Any rational adult with enough knowledge to read a pie chart will tell you that 90 years of economic data shows that reducing tax RATES leads to an increase in tax RECEIPTS.

The leftists deliberately confuse the two to keep you, chicaree, as in the dark as you remain- like a mushroom.

Economics 101 says that you don't raise taxes in a recession.

True, but given the size and scope of today's government, and the massive waste and inefficiency involved, I would say that we simply need to cut taxes as a matter of policy, and starve this government into submission. If liberals didn't have government money to throw around, they wouldn't be able to implement policies that are destructive to the economy and the American way of life.

The Marx Brothers were Groucho, Chico, Zeppo, and Karl. :)

Harpo is dumbfounded at being left off the list of brothers.

So is Gummo.

Did anything Kennedy said make anything remotely resembling sense?

no, I think that point should have been explored further. The article seemed to end suddenly leaving a lot of points and explanations left unsaid. The problem is that taxes do drive buying decisions, they do drive where companies locate, they do impact the economy in more ways than just raising revenue. The left just seems to think that there is an endless tap for money to spend on their re-distribution ideas.

I don't know if any one else raised that question here but I'm glad you did. That's exactly what I was thinking. More gobledy gook from the left. Thank you.

Ted Kennedy was a smug and ignorant elitist. I came to that conclusion in 1976 when I was assigned to prepare a critique of SB 10, a criminal justice bill co-authored by Kennedy and Edward Brooke (D-Conn). My boss was a witness at a hearing on the bill which ultimately was defeated.

SB 10 would have violated several provisions of the Constitution. That was bad enough. But what I found most appalling was its implied contempt for state courts, prosecutors, and police. The bill's provisions would have permitted, and in some cases compelled, federal courts and agencies to usurp the functions of state authorities in utter disregard of our system of divided powers. In short, your smarter and more virtuous Big Brother is taking over, and you little redneck people must get out of the way. Kennedy's whole life proved he was not as smart or as virtuous as most people.

The power to tax is the power to destroy, quite boring concept, but obviously it is about control as you pointed out. That's what leftists want more than anything else: control over our lives, through such things as Obamacare, EPA, BATF, and printing money until it becomes worthless.

The Kennedy Curve reminds me of the liberal whose prayer was answered. "Dear God", he said, "Why did you give me a bum leg and my conservative brother 2 good ones?"

WHAM, ZAM a bolt of lightening came out of the blue and struck the conservative brother in the leg, crippling him for life.

"Thank you for your fairness, Lord", said the liberal.

You learned a lesson that day. It is simply this: If a liberal cannot answer a question with a rational explanation then they change the conversation by bring up another topic.

Only when enough interviewers do not allow this feint to the left will productive interviews occur.

The interview would go something like this in the Kennedy interview: When Teddy changes the topic you should have said that you are not answering the question. Teddy would try to intimidate you at this point. You should have said at that point,"Senator, you apparently don't want to answer my question so this interview is over. I will write an article on your lack of understanding of the problem or your selfish bias." Now this would put you at peril to get very few interviews in the future but it has to be a concerted effort by what few journalists that are left. In my estimation this could be a way to finally have some constructive dialogue and not the propaganda that we are being fed.

“If a liberal cannot answer a question with a rational explanation then they change the conversation by bring[ing] up another topic.”

You got that right . . . . also, (if you quote a reliable source) they attack the messenger . . . or, they segue into the party politics blame game . . . anything to take the conversation down some rabbit trail.

Pay attention. This is a test. You will have as much time as you need to answer the only question in this test.

Why do Liberals change the subject whenever they are asked a direct question about any topic that requires actual proof rather than just an opinion?

Dale Hogue is the author of the book "Email Connectors and Mr. Hogue's Wisdom"

Ted Kennedy was the ultimate liberal. However, he never held a real job. He never had to "make it" in the real world. He coasted thru life on the Kennedy name and was born to wealth and died with wealth (that he never earned). It's the same with all the Kennedys. They consider themselves the elite of the world and regular Americans not smart enough to govern themselves freely. They know what's best for us.

Liberals come in all sizes and shapes and economic stations in life. Most regular Americans who are liberal wish to be thought of as intellectually superior and ape 90% of all university professors. They don't take the time to reason thru the Robin Hood theory of taking from workers and giving to non-workers. The American people don't realize that they are paying for half the births in this country of reckless and irresponsible sexually active women and men.

When the name Kennedy surfaces in any conversation, I automatically disregard the participant and conversation. Silver spoons and real life cannot make sense.

The Kennedy's were embarrassing up close...they believed that the Kennedy ends justified the Kennedy means.

Teddy was kicked out of college for cheating and got off on a TOTALLY (drunken driving, leaving the scene, lying about the facts) irresponsible homicide.

Jack was a drug addict who lied about his dangerously poor health to get elected. He was as hooked on amphetamine shots from Dr. Feelgood (who secretly flew in from NYC to administer them to him) as Hitler came to be in his latter days. His judgment may well have been compromised during the VERY dangerous Cuban Missile Crisis, made worse by JFK's indecisiveness...like Obama's today about Libya, only with FAR MORE at stake with the world on the brink of WWIII.

Bobby was ESPECIALLY ruthless-- like the Dad who made his fortune via bootlegging and other corruption. The mob helped Old Joe steal the 1960 election because the Mafia considered Joe one of their own. Nixon, a patriot, learned of this union and mob corruption, but decided not to contest the election results thrown in Illinois, against the advice of many aides-- he said that it would tear the country apart.

They were ALL sexually obsessed pigs...the sons had to protect their dates from the old man seducing them...JFK opined: I am not satisfied until I have had a woman all 3 ways. Bobby and JFK passed Marilyn Monroe back and forth like a cheap toy. JFK had an affair with mob moll Judith Campbell Exner right there in the W.H. All the while, the liberal media compliantly looked the other way.

Still sound like "Camelot," anyone?!

they also had a compliant press... sounds a bit like Billy Clinton as well... he certianly felt that he was taking on the mantle of the Kennedy's

After AZ passed 1070, the Milwaukee County Commission was debating a resolution denouncing it. One Dem stated that she thought the law was unnecessary since AZ was not a border state.

In a Congressional hearing on a pixie dust energy source, a witness testified that the source in question would not work because it violated the laws of physics. A Dem then asked "Can't we just repeal those laws?"

M.E.--
You do write some sardonic, cogent, sagacious, literate posts! Just like I do!

... a good reason why there should be term limits and some type of requirement that people that run for public office have to work in the private sector prior to running for office. We need smart people in congress and the whitehouse, not the idiots that we seem to get stuck with.

After much study and consideration, I came to the decision that Liberals simply aren't very smart, and lack motivation. They have found that a mediocre education can replace the need for thought and the pursuit of common sense. Politically, they have no position, they simply are opposed to the other side because they can't be in the other side. They lack moral standing because moral standing is hard to obtain and they prefer easy things. They have assumed a morally and intellectually superior position because we allowed it.

In other words, discussion and pursuit of insight into Liberalism is a waste of time--similar to navel-staring.

Actually, if the liberals and "intellectuals" of my acquaintance are any indication, this is more a factor of the lack of common sense normally found in people of high intelligence. While I have been a member of MENSA (I dropped out after attending a few gatherings and meeting a bunch of people who were immensely impressed with THEMSELVES but who showed not one iota of normality or common sense), I rarely mention this to others. I listen to the political arguments of those who consider themselves "oh, so much smarter" than the rest of us and marvel that these people are also allowed to vote and drive cars. I guess the biggest factor here is that they look at the world from an inherently flawed perspective. Therefore, their views are formed based on a flawed perspective.

If you see the economy, for example, as a finite basket of resources to be divided among all of the people and nations of the world, it is easy to spin the argument that if one person or nation has a LOT of those resources, it is at the expense of others who will have less. It doesn't matter how hard the HAVES worked to acquire the resources, it still means that if YOU have MORE, I have LESS. From this flawed perspective, they spin the concept that wealth redistribution is the only FAIR way for the world to operate, and that it should naturally fall to the government (which they would like to see devolve into a ONE-WORLD government) to ensure that the finite basket of resources is divided fairly and evenly among the peoples of the world (except that THEY, as the intellectual superiors, should get more and have more say as to that distribution.)

Now anyone with a ounce of common sense knows that there is an INFINITE basket of resources (even though specific resources may have finite amounts, man is amazingly clever about finding or inventing substitutes when the original source runs out) and each man or nation should have the right to use or exploit or create new resources to the limits of their imagination/creativity/willingness to work. Each man or nation should be "rewarded" based on their imagination/creativity/willingness to work. All men should be free to decide how s/he wants to use whatever resources are available to him/her. But no resources should be taken from one in order to help fill the basket of another, except through willing donation.

MJ--

A TRULY cogent, cognitive post...I am willing to believe that you have the intellect to have been in Mensa.

As Margaret Thatcher said, if you keep taxing "the rich," eventually you run out of other peoples' money to spend.