Take your pick:

1) US manufacturers hit 20-year record pace (AFP)
2) Factory Growth Fastest in 20 Years (Reuters)
3) Stocks End Up, Setting New Highs for Year (Reuters)
4) U.S. Troops Kill 54 Guerrillas in Iraq Firefight (Reuters)
-----------------------------------------------------------

The only people that'll be out of work now are the doomsayers.

NOYB wrote:

Take your pick:

1) US manufacturers hit 20-year record pace (AFP)
2) Factory Growth Fastest in 20 Years (Reuters)
3) Stocks End Up, Setting New Highs for Year (Reuters)
4) U.S. Troops Kill 54 Guerrillas in Iraq Firefight (Reuters)
-----------------------------------------------------------

The only people that'll be out of work now are the doomsayers.



5. Three Million Manufacturing Jobs Lost On Bush's Watch
6. US Unable to Achieve Goal of Catching Terrorists Responsible for 9-11
7. Bush Ticketed Once Again For DUI
8. US Troop Toll Exceeds 10,000 Dead & Injured in Bush's Iraq Misadventure


--
Email sent to is never read.

That NOYB is quite the little Pollyanna eh?


Harry Krause wrote in message
...
NOYB wrote:

Take your pick:

1) US manufacturers hit 20-year record pace (AFP)
2) Factory Growth Fastest in 20 Years (Reuters)
3) Stocks End Up, Setting New Highs for Year (Reuters)
4) U.S. Troops Kill 54 Guerrillas in Iraq Firefight (Reuters)
-----------------------------------------------------------

The only people that'll be out of work now are the doomsayers.



5. Three Million Manufacturing Jobs Lost On Bush's Watch
6. US Unable to Achieve Goal of Catching Terrorists Responsible for 9-11
7. Bush Ticketed Once Again For DUI
8. US Troop Toll Exceeds 10,000 Dead & Injured in Bush's Iraq Misadventure


--
Email sent to is never read.

Don White wrote:

That NOYB is quite the little Pollyanna eh?


Harry Krause wrote in message
...
NOYB wrote:

Take your pick:

1) US manufacturers hit 20-year record pace (AFP)
2) Factory Growth Fastest in 20 Years (Reuters)
3) Stocks End Up, Setting New Highs for Year (Reuters)
4) U.S. Troops Kill 54 Guerrillas in Iraq Firefight (Reuters)
-----------------------------------------------------------

The only people that'll be out of work now are the doomsayers.



5. Three Million Manufacturing Jobs Lost On Bush's Watch
6. US Unable to Achieve Goal of Catching Terrorists Responsible for 9-11
7. Bush Ticketed Once Again For DUI
8. US Troop Toll Exceeds 10,000 Dead & Injured in Bush's Iraq Misadventure


--
Email sent to is never read.




NOYB aside, I'm really astonished at the support the righties give Bush.
I mean, the man is an absolute dunce, a total failure, aside from his
handouts to his political supporters. He's pooched about everything he's
touched; he lies about important matters; he's gotten us into a war we
cannot win, and so on and so forth, ad nauseum. And yet few of the
righties will even acknowledge the man has faults or has made one bad
decision after another.

I liked Bill Clinton as president, but there were a number of policy
issues of his I disliked, and I always said so, and so did most others
who supported Clinton.

But these righties: lockstep and goosestep, they follow the Idiot Bush
who Assumed the Presidency.


--
Email sent to is never read.

"Harry Krause" wrote in message
...
Don White wrote:

That NOYB is quite the little Pollyanna eh?


Harry Krause wrote in message
...
NOYB wrote:

Take your pick:

1) US manufacturers hit 20-year record pace (AFP)
2) Factory Growth Fastest in 20 Years (Reuters)
3) Stocks End Up, Setting New Highs for Year (Reuters)
4) U.S. Troops Kill 54 Guerrillas in Iraq Firefight (Reuters)
-----------------------------------------------------------

The only people that'll be out of work now are the doomsayers.



5. Three Million Manufacturing Jobs Lost On Bush's Watch
6. US Unable to Achieve Goal of Catching Terrorists Responsible for
9-11
7. Bush Ticketed Once Again For DUI
8. US Troop Toll Exceeds 10,000 Dead & Injured in Bush's Iraq
Misadventure


--
Email sent to is never read.




NOYB aside, I'm really astonished at the support the righties give Bush.

What's truly astonishing is the level of denial and hatred that consumes
those on the left. The economy does well, and their knee-jerk response is
"it's only one month". When it happens again and again, they jump ship to
the next gloom-and-doom topic: Iraq. Should we find proof of a Hussein/al
Qaeda link, they'll say it was manufactured. They're so consumed with
bitterness, that they either cannot see...or perhaps refuse to see...the
obvious. I can only wonder what it's like to be so consumed with
bitterness, hatred, and illogical thought, that fantasy and reality have
traded places.

Harry Krause wrote:
Don White wrote:


That NOYB is quite the little Pollyanna eh?


Harry Krause wrote in message
...

NOYB wrote:


Take your pick:

1) US manufacturers hit 20-year record pace (AFP)
2) Factory Growth Fastest in 20 Years (Reuters)
3) Stocks End Up, Setting New Highs for Year (Reuters)
4) U.S. Troops Kill 54 Guerrillas in Iraq Firefight (Reuters)
-----------------------------------------------------------

The only people that'll be out of work now are the doomsayers.



5. Three Million Manufacturing Jobs Lost On Bush's Watch
6. US Unable to Achieve Goal of Catching Terrorists Responsible for 9-11
7. Bush Ticketed Once Again For DUI
8. US Troop Toll Exceeds 10,000 Dead & Injured in Bush's Iraq Misadventure


--
Email sent to is never read.




NOYB aside, I'm really astonished at the support the righties give Bush.
I mean, the man is an absolute dunce,

He's well educated certainly moreso than you because you have none,
despite your lies. Make up your mind Harry you were in Kansas doing 3
yrs of medicine OR working as a kid in a new paper OR getting you
"first" degree in what?? All the time driving that "old" MGA, there were
no "old" MGAs in 1960 you sad liar:-)

a total failure,

gee lets see

(i) a successful business person, from a successful business &
political close knit family; you = failed lying union lacky who has to
fabricate sad stories about his father which are an insult to whoever he
was of whatever standing, you're a disgrace.

(ii) a successful marriage over many years & a loving family; you =
chucked & alone pretending you have a smart young "bride", of course
you've admitted that your children from the first failed marriage won't
even talk to you, wonder why???.

(iii) Elected by the people as the governor of what?? the biggest
state???; you = a sad little lying grub that can't even get elected to
union positions.

(iv) Did such a good job as governor of the big(gest?) state that the
people of America elected him as the bloke in charge; you = well I can
see why you're jealous & need to lie about yourself at every turn, I
really can.

Gee sorry ol' fella I just can't see your problem; on every measure
you're a completely failed life & well he, his Dad, his brother etc are
all successful.


aside from his
handouts to his political supporters. He's pooched about everything he's
touched; he lies about important matters

Now that's a giggle you calling anyone a liar!!!! What you have a
special place when it comes to lying do you Harry?

; he's gotten us into a war we
cannot win, and so on and so forth, ad nauseum.

Well it is sickening to see what a disloyal dishonest little lying grub
you are I agree. He didn't "get you into a war" he's stopped attacks on
the innocent citizens of the US, stopped them dead bang, so objectively
his strategy has been a total & complete success.

As for "can't win" you've won!!! Get used to it, you've completely
occupied & sent them running from Afghanistan & Iraq. Yes there is some
terrorist activity left & very sadly some brave soldiers are carrying
that risk for cowardly lying grubs like you. But sorry Harry the "war"
was over in 5 minutes now if he's as smart as I think he is, he'll stay
there & NOT give Iraq back.

And yet few of the
righties will even acknowledge the man has faults or has made one bad
decision after another.

No bad decisions, all great & in very difficult times, the tech wreck &
stock implosions?? He's done the exact right thing in lessening the tax
burden as evidenced in the figures, the war?? again Afghanistan was a
doddle & so was Iraq in the mean time no US attacks despite the
terrorists blind hated of anything west.


I liked Bill Clinton as president, but there were a number of policy
issues of his I disliked, and I always said so, and so did most others
who supported Clinton.

Clinton was OK but a lefty & not strong enough to stand up to you &
your union thugs, so wet dreams ran rampant. Bush now has to get all
that back in the kitty litter, a project for his second term I'd suggest.


But these righties: lockstep and goosestep, they follow the Idiot Bush
who Assumed the Presidency.

Again so even you might understand it your nazi references are off
target, they were socialists from the left & behaved pretty much as you
do, always knowing how others "should" behave, stealing their free
choice, racist, sexist & violent at every opportunity.

K

Here's some of Harry's lies for you, just to bring back old
memories:-)

Here's just some of his prior lies (in his own words pasted);

I sold off nearly $3,000,000 in new motors and boats, depressing
the new boat
industry in southern Connecticut for an entire season. Everything was
sold...every
cotter pin, every quart of oil, 30 days after I started. For near
full-retail, too.


He had just under $1,000,000 on floor plan with a
syndicate of banks led by National Shawmut of Boston. He had been a
solid customer of that back for more than 20 years and they gave him
great rates.



As far as your other complaints, well, almost every president in my
memory,
and I *remember* Truman, Eisenhower (who cheated on his wife), Kennedy,
Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan and Bush, lied and participated in
deceit to one degree or another, and on issues far more important
than who
was giving them blow jobs.

Good lord. I met *every* president in the damned group except Bush,
and I
worked once for his father.



My father used to pray that the north shore of LI Sound would be hit by
a mild hurricane. No
one injured, no on-shore property damaged, but lots of boats sunk.
Preferably early in July.


We had the Hatteras for two years. Last year, out of the cold clear, a
broker approached me with an offer to buy. Our continued Florida
lifestyle was somewhat up in the air, because the two breadwinners
hereabouts were about to be offered long-term but temporary assignments
they could not refuse in the Washington, D.C., area. So, after being
romanced a little, we sold the Hatt for almost precisely what we paid
for it. Not bad, after two full years of use. And I mean full
years. So,
we didn't "make" any money off the Hatt, but we didn't lose any,
either.
The proceeds were prudently invested.

The PWC was won as
a prize in a raffle.



Never mind that. Why does he have a Bilgeliner in front of his office?
Is it a display of "Boating Don'ts?"
Yeah, when we were in the boat biz, my father always had one or two




"around the back" that he was forced to take in trade. These were sold
as "as is, where is." He made sure the engine would start and run.
Beyond that, it was up to the prospective buyer to decide if he wanted
it. They moved off the lot pretty quickly, partially because my dad's
main store was on a highly trafficked commercial route with lots of
manufacturing and machining and aerospace plants near by. In those
days,
workers at these places could fix anything.


Actually, Dipper, I don't think my father ever saw a Bayliner. But
he still
called bumpers bumpers.
--



Bayliner wined and dined my father a half dozen times to entice him
into becoming its dealer. His operation was the largest small boat
dealership in its area of New England, and for 30 years, he was the
*exclusive* Evinrude dealer in a densely populated coastal county. He
also handled Mercuries. He never liked Bayliners, and referred to them
as "jerry-built."


From 1947 until he died, he sold more than 500 outboard motors a
year from his stores, accounting for a reasonably high percentage
of *all*
outboards sold in his home state for those years.


This is a killer. My father was in the boat business dating back to
right after
the Big War. When he died and I was looking through his warehouse,
I found
wrapped in a nuclear fall-out bag (no kidding), a brand-new 1949
Evinrude 8015
50 hp outboard. The motor was a gift to my father from Evinrude for
winning some
outboard stock utility or hydroplane race.

I gave the motor to a friend of my dad's, who worked at the shop as
head
mechanic. I don't believe he ever used it and I'm sure it is still
brand-new. I
have no idea who might own it now.



He also built
boats, and I worked on a few, both wood, glass covered wood and
all fiberglass. After he died, however, we sold the biz and I've
just been an occasional boat owner.


Besides, I worked off and on in the
boat business and inherited it when he died. So, as I said, I'm
knee-deep in boat heritage.


Oh,
and I had some friends who died in the service, too, but it wasn't for
what they believed in. They were drafted, shipped to Vietnam and came
back in body bags.


During the war, he turned out experimental brass shell casings
for the
Army and hopped up outboards for the Navy, which wanted to use them on
smaller
landing craft. I had photos at one time of my father with Ole Evinrude
himself.
My mother knew one of Evinrude's wives...she was a minor movie star or
singer...I forgot which. Maybe both.



Have you ever sailed from San Francisco to Hawaii? I have.
Have you ever rounded Cape Horn? I have, twice.
Have you ever transited the Panama Canal? I have.
Have you owned more than 20 boats in your lifetime? I have.
Have you ever sailed large boats competitively? I have.
Have you ever been hundreds of miles from land in a powerboat under
your
command? I have.


My father and his chief mechanic once crossed the Atlantic in winter in
a 22'
boat powered by twin outboards. Yes, it is possible, even the fuel.
Got a
"fireboat" welcome in NYC.




Here are some:

Hatteras 43' sportfish
Swan 41' racing/cruising sloop
Morgan 33
O'Day 30
Cruisers, Inc., Mackinac 22
Century Coronado
Bill Luders 16, as sweet a sailboat as ever caught a breeze.
Century 19' wood lapstrake with side wheel steering
Cruisers, Inc. 18' and 16' wood lapstrakes
Wolverines. Molded plywood. Gorgeous. Several. 14,1,17 footers
with various
Evinrudes
Lighting class sailboat
Botved Coronet with twin 50 hp Evinrudes. Interesting boat.
Aristocraft (a piece of junk...13', fast, held together with spit)
Alcort Sunfish
Ancarrow Marine Aquiflyer. 22' footer with two Caddy Crusaders.
Guaranteed 60
mph. In the late 1950's.
Skimmar brand skiff
Arkansas Traveler fiberglass bowrider (I think it was a bowrider)
Dyer Dhow
Su-Mark round bilge runabout, fiberglass
Penn Yan runabouts. Wood.
Old Town wood and canvas canoe
Old Town sailing canoe...different than above canoe



Sometime in the early 1960s, I was driving back from Ft. Leonard
Wood to
Kansas City in a nice old MGA I owned at the time. About halfway
home it
started raining heavily, I turned on the wipers, and EVERY SINGLE
electrical accessory and light in the car flashed on, there was a large
popping sound and it all blew out at once. And the car caught fire. I
pulled over to the side of the road, watched the fire, removed my
license plate and hitched on home. For all I know, that old MGA is
still
there.

Sure was a pretty little car.


Puh-lease, Karen. You've not seen nor have I ever posted one example of
my professional writings on building structure and the effects on it of
hurricane-force winds and seismic activity. I haven't done any of these
in at least 10 year, but at the time I was field researching,
photographing and writing these reports, they were quite accurate,
topical and well-received by their intended audiences.


A small fleet of Polar skiffs were purchased by an inshore bait, tackle

and boat rental business on the ICW in NE Florida. These boats
were not
used on open waters. Within 90 days, cracks developed in the
liners that
also served as the deck over the flotation in the bottom of the
hulls. A
guide I know, one whose boats and engines are supplied to him by
manufacturers, also had a Polar skiff go bad on him for the same
reasons
-liner and then hull fractures.




Harry has claimed to have a 20 yrs his junior beautiful wife, he even
put a fake pic of a beautiful woman on a website once claiming it was
his "young bride", he may have a wife, although I doubt it, we don't
like nor tolerate misogynists for long.

Needless to say he's made up many "dramatic" over the top stories
over the years about this lie to feed his ego & pretend he's the centre
of attention, but as with his boat claims & other crap, there's never
once been even a shred of independently verifiable material.

After he stalked Madcow in real life, which was most frightening,
I do suspect he's very very dangerous & that this "bride" story is his
delusional appropriation of his, probably court ordered, treating
psychotherapist as "wife" (it seems he was under lock & key for what??
over a year??? a sexual deviant maybe??), have a read of just a small
part of his BS & make up your own mind, it's all about free choice:-)


1. She *is* my bride. There are no rules that determine the end of
"bride-hood." If I want to refer to her as my bride, I may.

2. As a professional writer, I know the rules of language and am
entitled to
break them in exercise of my license.

3. I doubt many married women would object to their husbands lovingly
referring to them as brides. The connotations are pleasant.

4. She's 20 years younger than I am.



Naw. What happened was that I handled a couple of "political" consulting
jobs funded out of the DC area to help a few candidates and defeat a
couple of ballot issues. Through no fault of mine, we won each of the
races, so some of the deep pockets types based in the DC area think I
actually *know something* about the process. I was offered a contract
that requires my presence in DC quite frequently. My bride also was
offered a job up here that represented a significant professional career
move. So, we're "up here" much of the time and "down there" the rest of
it, except when we're "somewhere else." I've been back to Jax (well,
really south of Jax) five times since coming "up here" late last summer
and my bride just returned from a business trip there.

I swear this is true.


Here's a funny. My bride had to fly out to San Diego Wednesday and
hitched a ride on her company's corporate jet. They landed in Salina,
Kansas, which is due north of Wichita and Skippy's suburb of Derby.

So when she gets to San Diego, I get a call asking, "What the hell did
you do in Kansas...we didn't fly over one significant patch of
water...?"

Harry, you make over 500 posts a week to this group and you don't own
a boat?
And why are you so crabby?
Maybe these two factors are related?



One has to own something to use it? Hmmm. My bride drives off in her car
every day, but she doesn't own it.

I'm not crabby. You asked for advice I gave you some. I questioned your
wanting to take a very small boat out into high seas and suddenly you
turned sour. It's your pot; you are the one stewing in it.

No, it is the boat of a friend. It is a 24' ProLine center console with,
if I recall, a 225 hp Merc on it. It was a dark and stormy day in
January (1997) when we went out, but the sky cleared once we got out to
the Gulf Stream.


Bride and I caught and released:

1 white marlin
12-15 yellowtail snappers, maybe two pounds each. Pretty, pretty fish.
Assorted red snappers
1 amberjack
2 jack crevalle jacks
1 snook
Nondescript sharks

Did you spend a year as a line psychotherapist at a 650-bed state
hospital for forensic patients?
Did you spend a year as senior psychotherapist at a county facility for
substance abusers?
Did you spend two years as chief of therapy at a private, 200-bed
facility for the mentally and emotionally ill, at which approximately
half the patients were trying to beat drugs or alcohol?
Are you currently chief of therapy for a for a multi-practitioner
practice of some 825 patients, about a third of which are seeking help
for substance abuse problems?


Licensed psychotherapist
Screening as to character and background for each degree earned
On-going screening by faculty while in educational system
Interviews and screenings for required years of internships, plus, at
the same
time, supervision by a licensed professional.
Close professional and personal supervision by a licensed therapist
for two years
of employment before being allowed to apply for licensure
Licensure background check, submission of recommendations by licensed
practitioners
Four hour written examination on state laws
Five hour written examination on diagnosis, procedure and practice

My wife went through this before becoming licensed. Her final
internship was as a
psychotherapist at a 600-bed high security state psychiatric hospital
where, on a
daily basis, she was exposed to more danger than your average soldier.

My wife worked for a year as psychotherapist in a Florida 600-bed state
mental institution for forensic patients. She saw and treated numerous
sexual deviants who do a bit more than expose themselves. Such
"treatment"
is part of being in the mental health professions.


You see, I'm a nautical psychotherapist, and for only $125 an hour,
until their health insurance runs out, I help Bayliner owners
overcome their
feelings of boatable inadequacy.


She is a licensed, practicing
psychotherapist and often tells me I am the sanest person she sees each
day. Which can be taken any way one likes.


1. I'm married to a psychotherapist. Live-in therapy, dontcha know?
And much of
Freud is passe.

My ex-wife surpassed the anti-Christ at least a decade ago.

They're not actually "free" moments. I go to boat dealers to round-up
Bayliner owners who are trying to find one who will take their own
version of flotsam and jetsam in on trade.


1. The address listed is not a home address. It is an office.

2. I have three phone numbers. The phone number listed is not one of
mine. It has never been one of mine. The phone number *did* belong to an
after-hours message recording hotline my wife maintained for her most
mentally disturbed patients. Some of these troubled souls were
court-ordered referrals. *Every* call to that phone number--every
call--was recorded AND because of the nature of the line, my wife had
the ability to alert the telephone company to trace the phone number of
every incoming call to that line, *even* if the person making the call
tried to block his number.

Why, you might ask? Because when you are dealing with suicidal people,
they'll liable to tell their therapist over the phone that they are
planning to take their life. If the therapist believes the threat is
real, she or he will want to dispatch emergency srvices and perhaps the
police.

In the years my wife has provided this pro bono service, she has never
received a threatening or abusive call from a mentally ill patient or
court-ordered referral. However, after the ranking Flaming Ass of this
newsgroup posted the hotline number in this newsgroup, she received a
number of abusive, foul-mouthed AND life-threatening calls. These were
mostly directed at me but, of course, I never received them BECAUSE
(duh!) the phone is not mine and I've never answered it.
Naturally, my wife alerted the authorities, with whom she works closely
because of her court-referred patients. The authorities are
investigating the callers and have involved both the FBI *and*
authorities in other states, including Florida, Georgia, California and
Texas. Working with the telephone company, the authorities have been
able to trace the origin of virtually every abusive call. And, of
course, they have the tape recordings of the abusive messages. Several
suspects have been identified. I really don't know what the outcome of
all this will be. We haven't had an update in several weeks, nor are
either of us here that interested in the sleazeballs that would make
such calls.


The phone number, of course, is "wired," so when the obnoxious calls
came in
from the idiot rec.boaters, the numbers were easy enough to trace.
The local
police handled a complaint, the local telco was involved and when it was
discovered the point of origin was out of state, the FBI got involved. At
least one of the idiots was caught and prosecuted. As far as I can
tell, he
has not posted here again.

Should we find proof of a Hussein/al
Qaeda link, they'll say it was manufactured.

Some lyin' sack already claimed to have proof. Remember?


The economy does well, and their knee-jerk response is
"it's only one month".


Since you think liberals are full of sh*t on the economy, perhaps you'd like to
consider the opinion of Peter Petersen. Lifelong Republican and Chariman of a
Federal Reserve Bank:

BILL MOYERS: Those of you who are faithful to NOW will recognize this clock,
the deficit clock, just a few blocks from our office here in New York silently
measuring how fast the United States government is spending money it doesn't
have. Standing there you get the impression you're looking at the digital
Doomsday deficit clock and you have the urge to talk to Peter Peterson.

So here he is. Mr. Peterson is chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York
as well as of his own investment firm, the Blackstone Group. He's a lifelong
Republican who served as Secretary of Commerce in Richard Nixon's cabinet.

A dozen years ago when the deficit clock was also going haywire he helped to
found the non-partisan Concord Coalition whose members set out to alert their
fellow citizens to a crisis in the making. Now he's back, déjà vu all over
again. Welcome to NOW.

PETER PETERSON: Thank you, Bill.

BILL MOYERS: What do you see when you look at that clock?

PETER PETERSON: Well, I see both a fiscal economic crisis in the making. I also
see a moral crisis. And maybe that doesn't come very convincingly from an
investment banker. But let me explain that to you. The fiscal crisis is both
domestic and foreign. We are now facing a situation during a decade when we
should have been saving for the Boomer revolution that's coming and the
retirement costs. Instead of saving during that decade we're squandering it.
The Concord Coalition, Goldman Sachs, the Committee for Economic Development
predict that over the next ten years we're going to be adding $5 trillion of
deficits. So we have a domestic fiscal crisis. Much less understood, Bill, is
the foreign deficit, what we call the Current Account Deficit, that's caused by
the biggest trade deficit we've ever had. Plus--

BILL MOYERS: We're buying a lot more overseas than they're buying from us.

PETER PETERSON: Precisely. And we have a lousy savings rate, the lowest in the
world. And we are now going to be importing-- something like $500 billion to
$600 billion in foreign capital. We've become hooked, we've become addicted to
foreign capital.

BILL MOYERS: You mean they are paying for our deficit?

PETER PETERSON: They're paying for our deficits, our various deficits.

BILL MOYERS: Somebody watching says, "But why don't we want them to pay our
debt? The foreigners, why don't we want them?"

PETER PETERSON: Well-- because at some point we're going to have to pay it
back. And in the meantime they end up owning a great deal of America. And the
interest costs get to be very terrific.

One of the crisis scenarios, of course, is we have this mammoth debt. The
foreigners lose confidence in us. The dollar fall, the-- stock markets fall,
the bond markets fall, the interest rates go way up. Then the debt burden goes
up astronomically.

And the foreign deficit-- Bill, is at five percent of the GDP heading towards
six. And the previous record during the Reagan Years was only 3 1/2. So we have
this fiscally speaking, we have this dual crisis in the making. Now--

BILL MOYERS: The deficit and the foreign deficit.

PETER PETERSON: And the foreign deficit. Now the moral crisis. There's a German
philosopher named Bonhoeffer who said the ultimate test of a moral society is
the kind of world it leaves to its children.

When we sit around here and talk about all these tax cuts and we say it's our
money, your money and mine, I think we ought to be honest with the American
people. In the first place, it's also our debt and it's our children's debt.

But secondly, a tax cut isn't really a tax cut long-term unless you reduce
spending. Because then it becomes a tax increase on your children. So we're
inflicting this awful bill not simply on ourselves but most importantly on our
kids. And it is that phenomenon that is very troublesome when we have to
consider that ten years from now 77 million Boomers are retiring.

All of those liabilities are not funded. The Trust Fund is one of the ultimate
fiscal oxymorons of our time. There's nothing in it that's not funded and you
shouldn't trust it. And whether you had it or didn't have it, you'd still have
to go out and do the same thing. Increase payroll taxes to pay for Social
Security and Medicare.

You realize, Bill, at the present time, the Social Security Administration
believes that my children and grandchildren will have to pay between 25 and 35
percent of payroll to fund these programs. So when we say you and I, fat cats
that we are, are getting tax cuts, I prefer to think of it as a tax increase on
my own kids and grandkids. And I find that a fundamentally unacceptable immoral
proposition.

BILL MOYERS: The national debt could increase by the Year 2000-- 2013 to $14
trillion. That's a tripling of the debt today. What does that mean in practical
terms?

PETER PETERSON: That number is roughly correct for the so-called official debt.
But we have not told the American people is there's $25 trillion of unfunded
liabilities for Social Security and Medicare. $25 trillion--

BILL MOYERS: That we don't know about.

PETER PETERSON: And it's off the books. We don't even talk about it. So that's
a gross understatement of the amount of liabilities that we now have.

BILL MOYERS: You know, these are breathtaking numbers Pete Peterson. Help us to
translate them into their impact on my team here in the studio, on the people
watching, on our individual lives.

PETER PETERSON: I want to present a picture to you. There's 77 million Boomers
we're talking about. A doubling of the elderly. Half of the people getting
Social Security make less than $20,000 and they depend enormously on Social
Security as part of that. It's over half of it. Unfortunately, our country has
staggering amounts of elderly that have no savings at all, about 20 percent.

Imagine politically 77 million Boomers. They don't have savings. They depend on
Social Security and somebody's saying to them, "Sorry, folks, we're out of
money. You're not going to get your benefits."

And they've been told-- they've been misled by politicians all their lives that
this Trust Fund is going to take care of them. My father went to his deathbed
thinking that there was real money there. And he said, "My son, I don't know
what you're talking about because it's like a savings account."

And I kept saying, "Dad, there's nothing in there. It's just liabilities." So I
think that political-- implications would be devastating. But more than that,
the social implications. It's the richest nation in the world. And you're going
to sit there and tell me we're going to throw tens of millions of Americans
into a destitute situation without advanced notice? I don't think so.

BILL MOYERS: And what about tax increases? I mean don't we have to cancel
President Bush's tax cuts to the wealthy?

PETER PETERSON: I think we ought to look at an entire package, Bill, that
includes spending and...

BILL MOYERS: Oh, I agree with that. I agree--

PETER PETERSON: You see in private--

BILL MOYERS: I thought George W. Bush I felt the first President Bush did a
brave thing when he unzipped his lips and called for taxes.

PETER PETERSON: Yeah, but at that time, they put in spending caps. You see, the
dirty, little secret is neither party is not talking. They're all talking about
tax cuts. What they're not talking about is they have permitted a major
increase in spending during this period of time.

BILL MOYERS: And these tax cuts are not pulling the economy out of this
recession.

PETER PETERSON: Well, you see I don't wanna sound as though I didn't think
under certain circumstances a tax could be a good idea. But why don't we do the
following:

#1) Don't make it long-term. We should not add to the long-term problem. It's
already serious. #2) Give the money to the people who are going to spend it.

BILL MOYERS: Middle class, working class.

PETER PETERSON: And now look at what's happened here. They're now advocating,
not only these tax cuts, a lot of which does not go to the people who spend it,
but they're greatly adding to the long-term problem, and they further insist,
they further insist that they be made permanent, you see.

BILL MOYERS: So that if you make tax cuts permanent when this big baby-boomer
crisis hits--

PETER PETERSON: You're making it much worse.

BILL MOYERS: You'll not be able to pay for it.

PETER PETERSON: You're making-- you-- it was already unsustainable. You're
making it worse.

Now, the other thing that bothers me about the tax cut business is the
following: We are told we have a war in Iraq. We're told that the transcendent
threat to America, and I agree with this, is the terrorism threats at home, the
possibility that people could bring in to our ports, you know, or our tunnels
or wherever weapons of mass destruction.

Every time we state a priority, it seems to me the tax cuts win out. For
example, Warren Rudman chaired a great taskforce at the Council on Foreign
Relation. It showed we're $100 billion short at least on what we're doing to
prepare the first responders. We've done--

BILL MOYERS: Here in this country. Homeland Security.

PETER PETERSON: And we've done very little on ports. And-- they're highly,
highly vulnerable. Well, if that is a national threat, and I believe it is a
serious national threat and we are at war, why then shouldn't we be willing to
sacrifice to meet those threats?

PETER PETERSON: The President does not ask and me to sacrifice.

BILL MOYERS: No. Hardly. The main sacrifice is accepting another tax cut at
the-- at the moment. Did you need the big tax cut President Bush gave you?

PETER PETERSON: I think this is-- I'm really almost embarrassed by the idea.
I've got nine grandchildren and five children. That some guy-- I'll include you
in the category.

BILL MOYERS: I've got...

PETER PETERSON: You and I are going to be getting tax cuts, so that my six year
old, nine year old, five year old, etcetera, grandchild can pay bigger taxes in
the future. I just find it unthinkable a proposition.

Is morality about it after all, if it doesn't include fairness to the future
and fairness to our own children and grandchildren. And I think we're being
unfair. You know, I hear these people say that Social Security is a social
contract. And therefore, we must pay everything to everybody, including you and
me. We can't consider any changes.

The Democrats in particular are do-nothing guys. I only had one course, Bill,
in commercial law, and the assumption was that you didn't have a contract until
you have a meeting of the minds of the parties.

I'd like to say to these people, have you talked to my six year old grand
daughter, Chloe? And does she understand how much debt you're passing on to
her? And does she understand how much her taxes are and has she agreed to do
it, so that her relatively well-off grandfather and father can be sure they get
all their benefits? I don't think so.

BILL MOYERS: So, what do we do, Peter Peterson?

PETER PETERSON: Well, we're going to have to reform these programs.

BILL MOYERS: You mean...

PETER PETERSON: The entitlement Godzilla. It's the Godzilla. And the
fascinating thing about this, Bill, is Bill Clinton formed a commission on
entitlement. Twenty Democrats-- I mean 20 Senators and Congressmen and ten of
us from the private sector. None of these people have not really looked at the
numbers. We had a bi-partisan staff.

By the time they looked at the numbers, these entitlements for the senior
citizens consume the entire budget. So everybody said it's unsustainable. Well,
Herb Stein who's a Nixon humorist that-- You probably find that an oxymoron--

BILL MOYERS: No, no, I like Herb Stein--

BILL MOYERS: He was the chairman of the Council of Economic advisors--

PETER PETERSON: Now I chaired with, I was in the White House with Herb. He's a
great guy. Used to say, "If something's unsustainable, it tends to stop." So
they signed a unanimous report, all of those 20 guys, that said, "It's
unsustainable

Now, I asked Lady Thatcher who is the only person of the big country leaders
who made major reforms in the 1980s and faced the music and now Great Britain
in this respect is in much better shape than anybody. And I said, "Lady
Thatcher, what do you guys talk about at these G-7 meetings? Do those leaders
know that this problem is unsustainable, because your Europe's bill is in far
worse shape than we are, because they had many fewer babies than we did."

BILL MOYERS: France is in crisis today over their health and unemployment.

PETER PETERSON: And Italy has the lowest birth rate in the world. So, I said--
She said, "Oh my yes, Mr. Peterson, they all understand this." Well, I said,
"Why don't they do something about it?" And she says, "Well, the theory is it
isn't going to hit on my watch, and why should I take pain for somebody else's
gain?" So make no mistake about it, the changes are going to involve giving up
something.

BILL MOYERS: So, let's hear specifically. You would reform entitlement. That
is--

PETER PETERSON: I'll give you several possible suggestions. A menu. Very
gradually increasing the retirement age, because we're living much longer. If
we had indexed retirement to the way life spans have gone up, we'd be getting
Social Security now at 73, not at 65.

A second thing is what I call an affluence test. I don't like the word "means
test," because it sounds mean. And Bill Moyers and Pete Peterson would lose
some of their benefits, because we don't need them.

A thing Lady Thatcher did that I find very promising, she said, "How do we be
fairer to the current retirees and to our children? How do we do that?" And she
came up with the idea of indexing benefits only to inflation. And that meant
that my kids would get the same benefits in dollar-- real dollar terms, but
they wouldn't grow.

Now those are the kinds of things we're going to have to seriously look at.

PETER PETERSON: It's going to take Presidential leadership. It's not going to
happen in an election year. It's going to take some bi-partisan commitment of
some sort. It may take some leading citizens to step up to the plate and tell
the American people the truth.

You see the problem I have with this lack of truth-telling is that the American
people keep getting told the trust fund is going to keep this thing solvent
till 2037. Why should we expect them to get worried about this problem or
concerned about it? So, somebody has to stand up and explain to them the
magnitude of this fiscal crisis that's about to hit us. That's all.

BILL MOYERS: Peter Peterson, thank you very much.

PETER PETERSON: My pleasure, sir.

K Smith wrote:

Harry Krause wrote:
Don White wrote:


That NOYB is quite the little Pollyanna eh?


Harry Krause wrote in message
...

NOYB wrote:


Take your pick:

1) US manufacturers hit 20-year record pace (AFP)
2) Factory Growth Fastest in 20 Years (Reuters)
3) Stocks End Up, Setting New Highs for Year (Reuters)
4) U.S. Troops Kill 54 Guerrillas in Iraq Firefight (Reuters)
-----------------------------------------------------------

The only people that'll be out of work now are the doomsayers.



5. Three Million Manufacturing Jobs Lost On Bush's Watch
6. US Unable to Achieve Goal of Catching Terrorists Responsible for 9-11
7. Bush Ticketed Once Again For DUI
8. US Troop Toll Exceeds 10,000 Dead & Injured in Bush's Iraq Misadventure


--
Email sent to is never read.




NOYB aside, I'm really astonished at the support the righties give Bush.
I mean, the man is an absolute dunce,

He's well educated certainly moreso than you because you have none,
despite your lies. Make up your mind Harry you were in Kansas doing 3
yrs of medicine OR working as a kid in a new paper OR getting you
"first" degree in what?? All the time driving that "old" MGA, there were
no "old" MGAs in 1960 you sad liar:-)

Ahh, a perfect example of how badly your twitty little mind doesn't
work, Karen.

Yes, I was in Kansas for three years, and yes, I was in a pre-med course
of study. Not med. Pre-med. And yes, after being beaten into the ground
by P-chem, I switched majors to English. In my fourth year, I was hired
by a newspaper as a reporter while I was still in college as an
undergrad, getting my first degree. And I celebrated by buying a
well-used MGA, probably a '56 or '57. It was *old* by the time I got it,
meaning it had lots of miles and lots of mileage-caused problems.
Clapped-out, as it were. Just like you, eh? Oh, and I moved from Kansas
to Kansas City. One's a state and the other's a city, and it is a city
in two states. I lived in the Missouri one, but it was right next door
to the Kansas one. Got it now, crap-for-brains?

But, I suppose a mis-intentioned bitch like you could find a way to
twist facts into different meanings, eh? Just as you have with all your
"claims" about my statements.

You really are a loser, Karen. If I were you, I'd find myself a stout
piece of rope, tie it around a rafter and hang myself. Better that than
face my remaining few years as a fat, unloved, unemployed, ugly lump of
offal like you.

Thank you, and I hope you have another miserable day. Just like the one
you had yesterday. Oh...how's that diesel outboard you claim to have
invented and manufacture? Still a crack pipe dream, one assumes? You
couldn't put together a cardboard box with a role of packaging tape.

Ta-ta.







--
Email sent to is never read.

On Mon, 01 Dec 2003 20:27:05 -0500, Harry Krause wrote:

NOYB aside, I'm really astonished at the support the righties give Bush. I
mean, the man is an absolute dunce, a total failure, aside from his
handouts to his political supporters. He's pooched about everything he's
touched; he lies about important matters; he's gotten us into a war we
cannot win, and so on and so forth, ad nauseum. And yet few of the
righties will even acknowledge the man has faults or has made one bad
decision after another.

I don't understand it either. To me, he's not even true to conservative
principles. Deficits are growing. Government is growing. He's gotten us
involved in nation building on a massive scale in multiple countries. I
just don't get what the right sees in this bozo.

Harry Krause wrote:

NOYB wrote:

Take your pick:

1) US manufacturers hit 20-year record pace (AFP)
2) Factory Growth Fastest in 20 Years (Reuters)
3) Stocks End Up, Setting New Highs for Year (Reuters)
4) U.S. Troops Kill 54 Guerrillas in Iraq Firefight (Reuters)
-----------------------------------------------------------

The only people that'll be out of work now are the doomsayers.



5. Three Million Manufacturing Jobs Lost On Bush's Watch

Man drowns on boat while Harry fishes nearby. About the same relevance.


6. US Unable to Achieve Goal of Catching Terrorists Responsible for 9-11

For all we know OBL is dead. No one has seen him since we bombed the
heck out of Afghanistan.


7. Bush Ticketed Once Again For DUI

A lie. You really are a man with an obscesion.


8. US Troop Toll Exceeds 10,000 Dead & Injured in Bush's Iraq Misadventure

Where? More lies?

Dave