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Originally posted by Mommy420 I just read in todays paper that the fed govt. plans to cut 39 billion dollars from social programs. It was a 216-214 partisan vote. That will affect the elderly, welfare, and student loans, and cultural commoditieswithin the next five years. My question is why are they cutting all the benefits to the people who really need them? And then my next question is why did the U.S. send 750 million dollars to Afghanastan so they could learn how to grow corn? They are the biggest supplier of Heroin in the world and we sent drug dealers money? Why? Their profit from the Heroin they produced last year alone was 56 billion dollars. So, if we are sending money do they really need it. And why aren't we killing the poppy plant while we are there, since we know that the main killer of our children is Heroin. If not in a coffin, then it destroys their lives. Has this country lost its mind? Its almost hypocritical. To me anyway. And another thing, Exxon Mobils profits this past year were 56 billion dollars. So why is gas still over 2.00 a gallon when they made all of that money. I just dont get it?

They originally sent the Taliban $43M in 2001... it was supposedly a bribe (wrapped into a humanitarian aid package) for them to curb their opium production.

Who knows, maybe they bought fertilizer with the money instead.

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On May 15, 2001, I blasted the Bush Administration for rewarding the Taliban for "controlling" the opium crop with $43 million in US aid to Afghanistan, to be distributed by an arm of the United Nations. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell announced the gift, specifically mentioning the opium suppression as the rationale and assuring that the United States would "continue to look for ways to provide more assistance to the Afghans." Five months before 9/11, I publicly challenged the wisdom of supporting a regime that backed Al Qaeda: "Never mind that Osama bin Laden still operates the leading anti-American terror operation from his base in Afghanistan, from which, among other crimes, he launched two bloody attacks on American embassies in Africa in 1998." I'm not clairvoyant, but I didn't need my own CIA to know that it's self-destructive to reward a regime that harbors the world's most dangerous terrorists. After 9/11, the column was dug up by bloggers and widely distributed and debated on the Internet. Defenders of the Administration attacked it as a distortion, arguing that because the money was targeted as humanitarian aid, the United States was not actually helping the Taliban. http://www.thenation.com/doc/20040426/scheer0413

ExxonMobil makes world's biggest profit with $36bn in a year

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Originally posted by Mommy420 My question is why are they cutting all the benefits to the people who really need them?

A bigger question is, what the hell happened that people thought they were explicity entitled to all of these free handouts in the first place? Is it your government's job to take care of you and provide you with a living?

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And another thing, Exxon Mobils profits this past year were 56 billion dollars. So why is gas still over 2.00 a gallon when they made all of that money. I just dont get it?

Exxon sold gas at the prevailing market rates. They don't dictate the price of oil/gasoline/natural gas. Their duty as a company is to make as much money for their shareholders as they possibly can, provided it is done in an honest and ethical manner. They paid out a lot of those profits to their shareholders as dividends, and probably plowed a lot of it back into R&D and E&P. And yeah, their execs probably got paid record salaries and bonuses, but that's a different argument.

One major reason that gas is still so high is that fear and emotion plays a huge role in the marketplace. With Iran being so hawkish lately, it has put a big fear premium on the price of oil. Markets are forward looking, and if there is a crisis in Iran looming in the future, there will certainly be disruptions in the supply of oil. Not to mention speculation that Saudi Arabia's oil fields are far more depleted than they are willing to admit, a hostile Venezuela, low Iraq production levels, etc, etc, etc. Exxon is a relatively minor player in all of this.

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To date, such efforts have had mixed success. For example, the United States gave $43 million to the Taliban this year to support drug eradication in return for a Taliban pledge to eliminate Afghanistan's massive opium crop. U.N observers say the Taliban followed through on their pledge by virtually wiping out opium production in the parts of Afghanistan they control. But U.S. officials say the ban had little effect on trafficking because the Taliban didn't eliminate big opium stockpiles from previous years or stop traffickers. At a briefing for the House Government Reform subcommittee on drugs yesterday, U.S. drug officials said the Taliban now appear to be dumping those stockpiles on the market, and the price of heroin in Europe dropped from $746 a kilogram to $95 immediately after the U.S. terror attacks. The subcommittee's chairman, Mark Souder, R-Ind., called the Taliban's opium cultivation prohibition "a coldly calculated ploy to control the world market price for their opium and heroin." http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/artic.../04/MN67246.DTL

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Originally posted by Shakka A bigger question is, what the hell happened that people thought they were explicity entitled to all of these free handouts in the first place? Is it your government's job to take care of you and provide you with a living? Exxon sold gas at the prevailing market rates. They don't dictate the price of oil/gasoline/natural gas. Their duty as a company is to make as much money for their shareholders as they possibly can, provided it is done in an honest and ethical manner. They paid out a lot of those profits to their shareholders as dividends, and probably plowed a lot of it back into R&D and E&P. And yeah, their execs probably got paid record salaries and bonuses, but that's a different argument. One major reason that gas is still so high is that fear and emotion plays a huge role in the marketplace. With Iran being so hawkish lately, it has put a big fear premium on the price of oil. Markets are forward looking, and if there is a crisis in Iran looming in the future, there will certainly be disruptions in the supply of oil. Not to mention speculation that Saudi Arabia's oil fields are far more depleted than they are willing to admit, a hostile Venezuela, low Iraq production levels, etc, etc, etc. Exxon is a relatively minor player in all of this.

What ever happened with Cheney's Energy Task Force, anyway? Didn't they figure out how to help us with the rising oil costs?

Oh yeah, they figured it out - and then we invaded Iraq.

http://www.judicialwatch.org/071703.c_.shtml

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Originally posted by Shakka A bigger question is, what the hell happened that people thought they were explicity entitled to all of these free handouts in the first place? Is it your government's job to take care of you and provide you with a living?

I agree. There's virtually no one really checking which family is entitled to food stamps (now that benefit card) or welfare or rent control. I mean those of us who went or go to school would know that scheming financial aid is easy as hell. Not that I do it

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My SpaceMySpaceMUSIC
Anti-Purple Alliance.

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Originally posted by Mommy420 I just read in todays paper that the fed govt. plans to cut 39 billion dollars from social programs. It was a 216-214 partisan vote. That will affect the elderly, welfare, and student loans, and cultural commoditieswithin the next five years. My question is why are they cutting all the benefits to the people who really need them?

Because cuts to the poor and needy will save us billions and reduce the welfare state whereas cuts in taxes for the wealthy promotes growth and thus trumps every other reasoned thinking on the issue. Someone let me know if I’m not caught up on the Republican talking points.

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And then my next question is why did the U.S. send 750 million dollars to Afghanastan so they could learn how to grow corn? They are the biggest supplier of Heroin in the world and we sent drug dealers money? Why? Their profit from the Heroin they produced last year alone was 56 billion dollars. So, if we are sending money do they really need it. And why aren't we killing the poppy plant while we are there, since we know that the main killer of our children is Heroin. If not in a coffin, then it destroys their lives. Has this country lost its mind? Its almost hypocritical. To me anyway.

This I actually agree with. By giving them money to grow corn we’re trying to provide incentives to not grow heroin. In other words, “hey, if we give you guys $750 million will you please grow corn instead of heroin? Please?”

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And another thing, Exxon Mobils profits this past year were 56 billion dollars. So why is gas still over 2.00 a gallon when they made all of that money. I just dont get it?

Simple supply and demand. Let’s say it’s the 60’s where free love and unprotected sex is the name of the game. Myself and one other guy are the only two condom makers in the country. Then AIDs comes along and everyone starts freaking out. Since there are only two condom manufacturers there are only so many condoms in the market. People REALLY want condoms so they can fuck so they willingly bid up the price of condoms because demand is much larger than supply. While I only spend $1 to make a condom, people are willing to pay $10 so I make a tidy profit. Now let’s say Canada wants in on the action too, so now my supply stays the same but the demand increases 5 fold. Now people are willing to pay $50 for condoms, I make even more money, and the price isn’t going down.

Now in a market of perfect competition, people would see that money is coming out of my ears so they would get into the condom making business because they could get rich too. The more condom manufacturers there are, the cheaper condoms become because suddenly supply increases and people don’t need to pay ridiculous prices for a condom. Eventually the market evens out such that it isn’t profitable to enter the condom making business and that’s the perfect price for condoms.

The problem with oil is that it’s somewhat difficult to get into the oil business. You would need billions just to try and compete. That’s why there are so few oil companies and why you don’t see a hundred oil startups trying to cash in on the bonanza. And that’s why gas isn’t getting cheaper and they’re getting richer.

There, I just saved you a week or two of going to a microeconomics class.

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Retro ...

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Originally posted by occrider Because cuts to the poor and needy will save us billions and reduce the welfare state whereas cuts in taxes for the wealthy promotes growth and thus trumps every other reasoned thinking on the issue. Someone let me know if I’m not caught up on the Republican talking points.

Yeah, seriously. Nobody needs financial help as badly as the rich do!

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This I actually agree with. By giving them money to grow corn we’re trying to provide incentives to not grow heroin. In other words, “hey, if we give you guys $750 million will you please grow corn instead of heroin? Please?”

Haven't they tried this before with only limited success?


"We are very poor here," said Ghulam Said, a 75-year-old tenant farmer. "We cannot survive on corn and wheat."

Convincing farmers to stop growing poppies will be difficult. He said farmers growing wheat, corn, cotton, rice and other legal crops earn only a fraction of what they could from poppies.

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Simple supply and demand. Let’s say it’s the 60’s where free love and unprotected sex is the name of the game. Myself and one other guy are the only two condom makers in the country. Then AIDs comes along and everyone starts freaking out. Since there are only two condom manufacturers there are only so many condoms in the market. People REALLY want condoms so they can fuck so they willingly bid up the price of condoms because demand is much larger than supply. While I only spend $1 to make a condom, people are willing to pay $10 so I make a tidy profit. Now let’s say Canada wants in on the action too, so now my supply stays the same but the demand increases 5 fold. Now people are willing to pay $50 for condoms, I make even more money, and the price isn’t going down. Now in a market of perfect competition, people would see that money is coming out of my ears so they would get into the condom making business because they could get rich too. The more condom manufacturers there are, the cheaper condoms become because suddenly supply increases and people don’t need to pay ridiculous prices for a condom. Eventually the market evens out such that it isn’t profitable to enter the condom making business and that’s the perfect price for condoms. The problem with oil is that it’s somewhat difficult to get into the oil business. You would need billions just to try and compete. That’s why there are so few oil companies and why you don’t see a hundred oil startups trying to cash in on the bonanza. And that’s why gas isn’t getting cheaper and they’re getting richer. There, I just saved you a week or two of going to a microeconomics class.

http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=52755

Maybe we should make good use of our government's efficiency to subsidize only the rich Afghani's - you know, so that they'll see a trickle down effect like here in the States.

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Agriculture/BG1542.cfm

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Originally posted by Trancer-X http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=52755

Yup that's what happens with oligopolies. If the government isn't going to regulate industries with high barriers to entry than they need to nationalize it.

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Originally posted by occrider Yup that's what happens with oligopolies. If the government isn't going to regulate industries with high barriers to entry than they need to nationalize it.

Well, what's it going to take to make regulatory changes? Obviously, letters to the Pres don't seem to get anyone anywhere.

http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/ene...d+Senator+Kerry

I guess his friends weren't cool with that idea.