Re: Chrysler paid....
Don't be sorry for me... I never lost a home, nor have I ever believed that housing was an investment. That, "can't lose" and "investment" verbage was commonly used by the Real Estate Industry.
About the only "investment" I see in owning your own home is that it fixes your housing costs (mostly). This is provided that local property and school taxes do not go up exhorbantly and that you were able to get a fixed rate mortgage. Other than that, homes are mainly money pits if you keep up on the maintenance. Provided home prices rise steadily over time, you may get back out what you put into a home if you keep it for tens of years. Moving around a lot makes this very hard to do.
I agree, and that is exactly what I was saying. We have too much Government, and in the wrong areas. We never needed the TSA, DHS, and dozens of other new organizations, and going back even further, we never needed the ATF. When these Agencies were enacted, they were fed Billions of Dollars, and in some cases.....the budgets are not even known. All of these duties could have been handled by the FBI, Border Agents and State or Federal Police.
Yet, some of those that complain of "Big Government" are benefitting from these Agencies through Equipment Contracts...such as Body Scanners and Failed Security systems and incomplete Border Security Systems.
If nothing else is true, one axiom that seems to rule all is that in the name of security no expense will be spared. Or at least, in the name of security theater. I think most of these "policing" organizations do nothing but infringe on our rights to go about the country and live our day to day lives. Some of them are caught up in the task of doing big businesses' dirty work such as copyright infringement *cough* FBI *cough*. Some how along the way copyright infringements got turned into "violations" and changed from common law torts to federal crimes. All because someone lobbied Congress to do so. Getting back on topic, everyone in this country thinks that they have an unalienable right to be 100% secure. The truth is, we don't. The US Constitution provides that Congress provide for defense and general welfare, but IMO, the Fourth Amendment trumps any attempt to "predict" or prevent crime if it involves infringing on my rights. If you want to be secure in your person and belongings, see the Second Amendment.
Think about this... it's a felony (in some cases) to infringe on someones copyright but it's NOT a felony for a government official to circumvent someones right granted by the Fourth.
I find this hypocrisy intolerable...just like the National Health care plan .....some claim they were against it,(Health Insurance Co.s) and yet, the big Health Insurers will stand to benefit from it when it becomes manditory for those to purchase a Health care plan.
Hammer
I'm not a fan of the National Health care plan. However, health care and all that goes along with it (medication, insurance, hospitalization, etc.) is a really hard problem. What no one seems to realize is that we all pretty much pay for the uninsured now in the form of higher costs. Federal law prohibits doctors and hospitals from refusing care, so to cover the cost, the health care providers just raise prices, which in turn results in higher insurance premiums for the rest of us.
Either we need to give priviate businesses (hospitals, doctors offices, etc.) the right to refuse care or we need a single payer system. I don't like either choice really (the compassionite side of me hates the former, the libertarian side of me hates the latter) but the current system is costly and is not the best in the world (as it once was).
However, like it or not, the rest of society bears the costs associated with supporting those that can't (or won't) support themselves regardless if the support is codified or if we just turn a blind eye to the situation. The sooner we realize that (on some topics) the faster we can make the system more efficient and less costly for the rest of us. Part of me still says that if you don't plan or save for your own health care and well being, it's no one's fault but your own. But if we all planned for the worst situation, I don't think even 5% of us could afford to save up that much money.
Not to get all moral majority on anyone here, but part of me strongly believes that our society is just broken. Most of what makes "good people" is their upbringing. Don't miscontrue this to mean that I support any one religion over another, or any religion at all for that matter. But family life just isn't what it used to be and people do not learn a sense of responsibility or self-support on their own. Left to fend for oneself, the only lesson learned is survival. Often, survival skills largely rely on taking advatage of others and/or a current situation or opportunity. If you are hungry, in the forest, with your only goal being to make it tomorrow, the last thing you are gonna think about is property rights. You are gonna kill whatever looks tasty using whatever tools or resources you can find. Society, family life, and community strips these primal urges or at a minimum hones them into useful things like drive, ambition, and work ethic. We all benefit from one another when these skills are used to their fullest. Of the three things I mentioned at the begining of the last sentence, I believe two are nearly extinct and the third (society) isn't on solid footing. In the face of this situation, greed, malice, and survivalism with begin to take root.
I'm not sure any local, state, or federal government can fix this. It's up to those of us that are adults to teach the next generation properly.
