On 3 Jan 2008 16:54:02 -0600, Dave wrote:

On Thu, 03 Jan 2008 13:42:15 -0600, cavelamb himself
said:

The cost of the rescue was Zero because we ALREADY planned
to pay the crew, maintenance, CG budget even if they never rescued Joe.


And the cost of driving a Ferrari 15 miles is about $4.00, right?


What is your problem, Dave?

I'm surprised I have to explain it to you. And apparently you're not alone.

Larry makes the common error of equating "cost" with marginal cost. You
might use only $4.00 of gas to drive the Ferrari 15 miles, but only a fool
would say that the costs of driving a Ferrari are just $.27 a mile. Fully
allocated costs of rescues would be enormous.

The point you seem to be missing is that the Coast Guard has an annual
budget, which I can assure you that they spend. Now, whether some
portion of the budget is used to rescue someone or to make training
cruises is immaterial - the money is used. So "allocating" some
portion of the Coast Guard's budget to a rescue and then saying "the
rescue cost "X" dollars" is not accurate.

If, for example, the C.G. is out on a "training cruise" to burn up
their diesel budget (and I can assure you that the various members of
the US Government do strive mightily to use ALL their budget) and
diverts to rescue someone the C.G. does not immediately apply for
additional budget to cover the cost of the rescue. Therefore there is
not additional cost to the US Government and the Taxpayer.


Bruce-in-Bangkok
(Note:remove underscores
from address for reply)

Bruce said this:
If, for example, the C.G. is out on a "training cruise" to burn up
their diesel budget (and I can assure you that the various members of
the US Government do strive mightily to use ALL their budget) and
diverts to rescue someone the C.G. does not immediately apply for
additional budget to cover the cost of the rescue. Therefore there is
not additional cost to the US Government and the Taxpayer.

Then Dave replied:
My point is that it's silly to talk about the "additional cost" as the
cost
of the rescue. By your reasoning the multimillion salary GM pays its
CEO, as
well as the costs of its production facilities, interest on its debt,
salary
of accountants, etc. contribute nothing to the cost of the car you buy
from
them, because the company would pay a CEO, hold onto the facility pay the
accountants, etc. no matter how many cars it sells. The only cost of a
car
under that reasoning is the cost of materials and the variable hourly
cost
of labor producing the particular vehicle.

Gummint can perhaps fool its citizens with that kind of sloppy
thinking. In
business it leads straight to the bankruptcy court.

Hey Dave,
My first semester buisness professor taught us that analogy as the
erroneous argument that it is. Military organizations do not produce a
product to sell. They are not in business to make a profit. They only
spend money, because they are a 100-percent total-loss system. So your
argument using this analogy is flawed.
Red

On Sun, 06 Jan 2008 02:33:44 -0500, Red said:
My first semester buisness professor taught us that analogy as the
erroneous argument that it is. Military organizations do not produce a
product to sell. They are not in business to make a profit. They only
spend money, because they are a 100-percent total-loss system. So your
argument using this analogy is flawed.

And Dave responded thusly:
Glad to hear that the cost of those soldiers, ships and planes is
nothing,
Red. Now can I get a check back from the gummint for all that money I
sent
them to pay for them?

I'm a bit confused by your response Dave. I was referring to your use of
an analogy to compare what is two completely different things. Your
response makes no sense. Business is in business to make a profit,
offset by expenses. Government does not make profit, it isn't designed
to make profit, and no idiot we have elected wants it to make a profit.
Comparing business to military expenditures is a falacious argument.
Red

On Mon, 07 Jan 2008 23:19:14 -0500, Red said:
I'm a bit confused by your response Dave.
Along with a response that Dave has no rational answer for, and so he
cut it out to make the following pseudo response...

You got that right.

Well Dave at least we can all see you really don't have a clue about
what you were arguing about.

Red

If you want to throw barbs at one another, please resort to e-mail so that
the rest of us don't have to watch your childish behavior.

-- Geoff
www.GeoffSchultz.org

On 2008-01-08 12:13:02 -0500, Dave said:

Mark Twain was a wit. You rise, on occasion, to barely half that at best.

An utterly pedestrian effort, Charlie. Surely you can do better than that.

Frankly, I found that to be a bit more than pedestrian.

'Twas a well aimed shot in my book.

--
Jere Lull
Tanzer 28 #4 out of Tolchester, MD
Xan's pages: http://web.mac.com/jerelull/iWeb/Xan/
Our BVI trips & tips: http://homepage.mac.com/jerelull/BVI/

In article ,
Dave wrote:
On Sun, 06 Jan 2008 19:01:28 -0500, said:

I know, Charlie. When money goes out the door in business, it's called a
cost. When it goes out the door in guvmint, it's called an "investment."

LOL.

That's also wildly incorrect.

Guess you haven't been listening to all of the things the Dems want to
"invest" in. Like throwing more money in the direction of the teachers'
unions.

I don't think that anyone in the Dem party is throwing money at the unions. Perhaps throwing money at teachers, who are vastly underpaid.

Jonathan Ganz wrote:

I don't think that anyone in the Dem party is throwing money at the unions. Perhaps throwing money at teachers, who are vastly underpaid.

You're missing the purity of Dave's logic. In his little world, the quality of the education system
is inversely proportional to the salary of teachers, ergo if we pay them nothing, we'll have the best
damn education system in the world and our taxes will go down, leaving deep-thinkers like Dave with
more disposable income to spend on the important things in life, like cheap beer and tickets to pro
football games.

In article , the_bmac wrote:
Jonathan Ganz wrote:

I don't think that anyone in the Dem party is throwing money at the unions. Perhaps throwing money at
teachers, who are vastly underpaid.

You're missing the purity of Dave's logic. In his little world, the quality of the education system
is inversely proportional to the salary of teachers, ergo if we pay them nothing, we'll have the best
damn education system in the world and our taxes will go down, leaving deep-thinkers like Dave with
more disposable income to spend on the important things in life, like cheap beer and tickets to pro
football games.

Or, maybe I didn't miss it. LOL

On 6 Jan 2008 21:44:02 -0600, Dave wrote:


In Jon's world, on the other hand, the quality of the education system is
directly proportional to the money you throw in the direction of teachers.

S'funny - I thought that it was a tenet of free market economics:
the more valuable an occupation, the more competition to fill a slot?

But I've been wrong before.

Brian Whatcott Altus OK