Feuer Frei!
07-24-13, 02:22 AM
No, it's not swear words or what your Grandmother called her pet rabbit 67 years ago.
1. Defense: The Department of Defense:
The Dept of Defense was before 1947 called The Dept of War.
Defense is great, noble and a natural right to all people. Ther term was adopted for political reasons and given to the Dept of Defense.
From this smoky hazy screen we get things akin to:
Defense contractor, and defense spending.
Washington has on many occasions had this occur:
"What do you need this for?"
"Defense! Don't you care about defense?"
"Of course!"
Who in their right mind can argue with that.
The word defense gives us the imagination to conjure up all sorts of visuals,
missile batteries, training troops and readying fighter jets for the impending invasion of China.
And more.
The end result?
$716,000,000,000 of war spending in 2012.
Enough to pay around 20 million people $36,000 a year, which essentially means 1/7th of the American workforce is directly or indirectly concerned with making war.
Point? Call it War spending. Not defense spending.
2. Revenue: The Internal Revenue Service:
Good 'ole revenue. We all know what it means. (Hopefully).
Politicians co-opted this term of mutual benefit, and applied it to taxation. Instead of money seized at gunpoint from citizens, instead of tax-money, instead of taxpayer dollars, it becomes revenue.
Conveniently, actually, more than conveniently, Internal Revenue Service is internal (whoopdeedoo), it makes revenue (how awesome is that) and it's a service, just like the pimply-faced 14-year old serving you the Starbuck's coffee in the morning, on your way to work! Neat!
On the surface, to the average Joe, increasing revenue sounds like an awesome deal.
Same with the word tax, which is ugly in its nature, but given beauty when saying tax expenditure.
Huh? What could be worse than tax expenditure you ask?
Well, not only is it a tax, but it's also an expense.
Perfect for the Politician, don't you think?
Oh so convenient. This way they can bleat: We are reducing tax expenditures and increasing revenues. While they are really saying "We are jacking up taxes and you're not getting a refund."
All with a big cheesy grin on their faces.
Point? Call a tax a TAX!
3. Recovery: The Recession:
Recovery. Aha. Sure thing.
Haven't incomes been falling consistently since 2001?
Only the Housing bubble spendathon btw 2005-2007 gave the impression that wasn't the case at all.
Recovery is one thing.
Replacing things like full-time jobs with part-time jobs is not.
Thinking anything other than a labor participation rate being the lowest in 30 years isn't a recovery either.
Nor is falling incomes in real terms.
Point? Depression is the magic word.
Stop the Politicians dribbling crap!
Reading material:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_recessions_in_the_United_States
http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterferrara/2013/02/07/the-worst-five-years-since-the-great-depression/
http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/06/labor-force-participation-rate_n_3028135.html
1. Defense: The Department of Defense:
The Dept of Defense was before 1947 called The Dept of War.
Defense is great, noble and a natural right to all people. Ther term was adopted for political reasons and given to the Dept of Defense.
From this smoky hazy screen we get things akin to:
Defense contractor, and defense spending.
Washington has on many occasions had this occur:
"What do you need this for?"
"Defense! Don't you care about defense?"
"Of course!"
Who in their right mind can argue with that.
The word defense gives us the imagination to conjure up all sorts of visuals,
missile batteries, training troops and readying fighter jets for the impending invasion of China.
And more.
The end result?
$716,000,000,000 of war spending in 2012.
Enough to pay around 20 million people $36,000 a year, which essentially means 1/7th of the American workforce is directly or indirectly concerned with making war.
Point? Call it War spending. Not defense spending.
2. Revenue: The Internal Revenue Service:
Good 'ole revenue. We all know what it means. (Hopefully).
Politicians co-opted this term of mutual benefit, and applied it to taxation. Instead of money seized at gunpoint from citizens, instead of tax-money, instead of taxpayer dollars, it becomes revenue.
Conveniently, actually, more than conveniently, Internal Revenue Service is internal (whoopdeedoo), it makes revenue (how awesome is that) and it's a service, just like the pimply-faced 14-year old serving you the Starbuck's coffee in the morning, on your way to work! Neat!
On the surface, to the average Joe, increasing revenue sounds like an awesome deal.
Same with the word tax, which is ugly in its nature, but given beauty when saying tax expenditure.
Huh? What could be worse than tax expenditure you ask?
Well, not only is it a tax, but it's also an expense.
Perfect for the Politician, don't you think?
Oh so convenient. This way they can bleat: We are reducing tax expenditures and increasing revenues. While they are really saying "We are jacking up taxes and you're not getting a refund."
All with a big cheesy grin on their faces.
Point? Call a tax a TAX!
3. Recovery: The Recession:
Recovery. Aha. Sure thing.
Haven't incomes been falling consistently since 2001?
Only the Housing bubble spendathon btw 2005-2007 gave the impression that wasn't the case at all.
Recovery is one thing.
Replacing things like full-time jobs with part-time jobs is not.
Thinking anything other than a labor participation rate being the lowest in 30 years isn't a recovery either.
Nor is falling incomes in real terms.
Point? Depression is the magic word.
Stop the Politicians dribbling crap!
Reading material:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_recessions_in_the_United_States
http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterferrara/2013/02/07/the-worst-five-years-since-the-great-depression/
http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/06/labor-force-participation-rate_n_3028135.html