>Hi Mark,
>I'd say you're over-simplifying the situation but agree that politicians *do* have the power to set things back on course.

Yes but they won't because all of them have their own political agenda. Let me simplify even further --

Government == inefficiency, redundancy, waste, fraud, abuse, discrimination, inflation, cost escalation.

Private Sector/capitalism == competition, greater efficiencies, innovation, advancement, discrimination, waste, fraud, abuse.

I am not for no regulation, but the pendulum has swung way to far. Taxes do nothing but punish and inhibit innovation and risk taking. Why risk my capital when I could lose it and get no benefit from the government when I do. The converse of this is if I am successful, what do I gain? If the government tax schedules are too punitive, the risk-reward/costs-benevit is not worth it. I may have better odds in Las Vegas.

Trillions of $$ on Lyndon Johnson's "war on poverty" has done NOTHING to lessen poverty. We have wasted enough money on this to buy every poor family their own house had we just done that from the start. Billions (trillions) spent by our Department of Education formed under Jimmy Carter to pay back the Teacher Unions who helped get him elected. Our education is worse now than it has ever been leading to a multi-billion dollar home-schooling industry (including us). Our children have never been happier or better educated since we went in this direction, and it only takes half the time to accomplish daily school work than at a public or private school.

The public school our daughter was in last year was abolutely horrible to her when a teacher failed to adequately supervise a Physical Education class to the point where another boy slammed into her fracturing her leg in 3 places the second week of February. After 4 weeks in a hip cast, 4 weeks in a lower leg cast, and 8 weeks of physical therapy, she managed to keep her A/B average on half the class time and instruction, was publically humiliated at the end-of-year awards where she got NO recognitions while the teachers heaped praise on the "underprivileged" boy who made her life a living hell for 16 weeks. She could do nothing but sit there and watch.

He received NO diciplinary measures, and this year he is totally out of control and the teachers have been told to lay off. The reason? Because of his social status and is a low achiever, the school gets more $$ from the state for these kind of kids. To top it off, my wife had to endure the "good" intentions of the boy's teacher who had the gall to ask my wife how she would feel if she were the boy and had to go through seeing our daughter every day at school. Thank god she was not our daughter's teacher as well. This is what our public schools have devolved to under the Teacher Unions, and big gov't. All the families that can have pulled their good students out and either home school or send them to private school.

Don't think this is an isolated incident either. At this same school, another kid passed out on the playground during recess, and was not found until about an hour AFTER everyone was back inside. Another girl dropped a book, bent down to pick it up only to have her head slammed into the wall by some boy while she was in a vulnerable position. 2 weeks after my daughter had her cast removed, the SAME PE teacher allowed our daughter to play basketball AGAINST doctor's orders that we had on file with that school. Supposedly the PE teacher received a written reprimand, whoopti-do. In the history of this school district, only 2 kids have suffered broken legs in PE class, and both were under this PE teacher.

When it comes down to it, these administrators talk a good story. When it comes down to actually responding to bad situations, they will do only what is necessary to avoid or minimize lawsuits. We can not get an attorney to talk to us because the boy who did this is African-American and our daughter is white. If the races had been reversed, this would have already been settled. Before all you knee-jerk, bleeding hearts out there jump me for this, these are NOT our words. This is what we are being told and what we have ferreted out for ourselves.

>It's easy to blame over-regulation, unweildy tax policies and outlandish law suits, and such but I think things run a little deeper...
>OVER REGULATION
>Much (probably most) regulation has to do with workplace safety and/or public safety. It's true, of course, that this all adds costs. BUT how is it moral for corporations to go somewhere where there are no/few regulations protecting workers or the public just to save a few bucks????

This is partially true. Why do you think microchip/memory manufacturers left the 0 off the speed of their chips [i.e., engraved 7 on the chip instead of 70]? Because it saved a fraction of a penny. Since the manufacture so many of them, this savings became significant. So a "few bucks" multiplied a "few" times may make the difference beteen surviving or bankruptcy. Your mentality is akin to one of our politicians saying about OUR tax dollars, "a few million here and a few million there, and soon you are talking about real money." These cretins have lost site of reality.

>Yours (and ours) tax policies are unweildy and do have serious impacts on the costs of things, mainly to consumers but sometimes to corporations too. I heard a few month back that U.S. tax policy on sugar (to protect beet sugar producers there) got high enough that a major candy maker moved to Canada just because of that! I expect they'll be off to China soon.

Though your point was on sugar taxation is a good example, I am going to tack here and bring up farm subsidies. No one should receive any subsidy for what they grow or do not grow. This wrongly influences the market. If there is no market for a product, that product need to have its production reduced or stopped. As that happens, the price will start to go up depending on the demand. Simple and basic economic concept.

>I see outlandish law suits as a tough one. I heard some time ago, for instance, that HMOs there are not suable, aimed specifically to protect their cost structure. Yet their costs have risen way beyond inflation regardless. Why??? I believe you'll find similar in other fields or related fields.

What is the underlying reason HMOs evolved? Be honest... Escalating medical care costs? Yes. Why are they escalating? Be honest... Government meddling? Yes. So you think more government or a take over of the health care industry will solve the problem?

>When all regulation is gone and all unions are gone and all jobs are McJobs, what then??? Welcome to the third world, that's what.

Why do you think major Unions support our Democrat party? That party panders to them by promising a raise to our minimum wage? Why? Because their workers' wages are linked to the minimum wage.

Nothing is ever as simple as what ANYONE can state here, but the best we can do is make a point or two or three, give an example, and remain civil.

BTW, I saw on the SouthwestFox web site that Jim Nelson was attending that conference, and I got a little pumped. Then I saw he is from California. Oh, well. Some day...