Oh really? Got a source?
...according to his website www.RonPaul2008.com.
Posted on 05/31/2007 12:11:35 AM PDT by The_Eaglet
LOL Sounds like something you'd see on DU.
They love him over at DU. ;)
Oh, man.
The post I originally responded to did indeed invoke "neocons" and you did indeed step into the conversation to defend that poster's thesis from my critique.
Spare me the parsing.
The salaries of the troops accounts for some of it, but they'd get paid anyway
Troops are paid more in wartime, more reservists are activated in wartime, and troops pay less taxes in wartime so the net increase in payroll is further magnified.
It goes to the government contractors and defense industries as well as a host of other government "service providers" most of whom are based in the USA, so some people get rich.
Who "gets rich"? Executives for defense contractors weren't rich to begin with? Is there a theoretical group of previously poor investors who bet the farm on defense stocks in the runup to the Iraq intervention? If so, they went bust, since the ASE Defense Index dropped from 682 in the summer before we went into Iraq down to 436 three months after we took Baghdad.
I'll also point out that the CEO of Halliburton - who, if there were a list of the top 10 people who were likely to make money off increased defense spending, he would surely have to place - made 43% of his 2000 salary in 2006. That's right - he made more money the year before Bush came into office than he did in the year where the Bush administration spent the most on military intervention.
Kongress and EL Presidente are taking our money and spending it with their friends - the same way it's been done for decades.
How much money, in round figures, has the President made off of the Iraq intervention? Please quantify. Of if you are arguing that he is only enriching his friends - which friends, and how much money have they made?
But while we're on the topic
Perhaps you are perpetually on the topic of illegal immigration. This conversation wasn't.
How should we refer to Neo-cons?
Irving Kristol's self-description does not give you license to describe others with a label they do not recognize and which does not fit them.
He did not want to be mistaken for a conservative, whose views about small, limited government he despised.
You mischaracterize Kristol. He never said or implied that he despised limited government.
Being Jewish has nothing to do with it. Fred Barnes if a neo-con, and he's not Jewish.
Those who have a particular animus against those they consider neoconservatives - like Patrick Buchanan, Paul Craig Roberts, Paul Findlay, Joseph Sobran, Justin Raimondo, Alexander Cockburn, etc. - routinely characterize the staunch support of our Israeli allies as a distinguishing mark of the neoconservatism they dislike.
Since you have personally rejected Irving Kristol's label of Neo-con, just how would you have us refer to the people who self-idenitfy as Neo-cons?
The precise issue at hand is one of people being called neo-cons who do not self-identify as neocons.
No sorry I just corrected the absymally ignorant statement that government waste and making moeny were mutually exclusive. I don't care what silly theories you have about who is doing it.
Spare me the parsing.
Words mean something, and your expanding my statement to means something that wasn't there so you can argue about it demands parsing.
Who "gets rich"? Executives for defense contractors weren't rich to begin with?
You either have a remarkably uneducated view of how corporations work. Or as I suspect you're trying to obfusticate to defend a tenuous position. Profits got to stockholders after paying expenses (duh)
Is there a theoretical group of previously poor investors who bet the farm on defense stocks in the runup to the Iraq intervention? If so, they went bust, since the ASE Defense
Ok where does the tax money go? it is REDISTRIBUTED. That means that it goes from those who worked for the money (the waste part) to those who lobbied for it (the get rich part). It really isn't a difficult concept. How do you think all of those "consulting firms" that infest the Washington area make money? Do you think they do their consulting for the guys who flip burgers at MacDonalds? Or even for the people who own the MacDonalds? No they wax fat off the government who in turn bleeds the hard working taxpayer to support its "addicton" to the fruits of other peoples' labors.
When you start trying to claim they are in some way anti-semitic, damn straight people are going to call you on your attempt at slander.
Exhibit "a" speaks.
So you are arguing that CEOs are not allowed to own shares of their companies' stock?
Or are you arguing that all profits are paid out to shareholders and that there is no such thing as retained earnings?
That means that it goes from those who worked for the money (the waste part) to those who lobbied for it (the get rich part).
So let me get this straight:
(1) John Q. Public has $0.28 from his $1.00 deposited in the public treasury.
(2) That $0.28 is paid as salary to a soldier. Or it is paid as salary to a technician who designs body armor for the soldier.
So that soldier or that technician deserve no recompense for their effort? Is a soldier fighting in Iraq just an addict bleeding people who work?
After all, 100% of a soldier's compensation is derived from taxpayers, while only 25% of the average Halliburton employee's wages come from that source.
The two are not mutually exclusive. Some people gain great power and make big bucks selling out freedom. The biggest shame on FR is that it has become a showcase for how many statist fascists think they are conservatives just because they wave a flag and support our troops.
Where did I say that? I am coming rapidly to the conclusion that you are so busy trying to change the point of my original post because you have no counter argument that you're grasping at strawmen and wildly trying to change the subject to something that you can disagree with .
You think "our man" is OBL???? That is who he was quoting.
I tried to tell a certain pro-war person that and he's done everything except use a random number generator to try and change the subject.
Your candidate appears to believe it. He quoted OBL to back up his position.
I understand, but I DON’T put it down to malevolence. Raw stupidity explains much more in government than shrewd and brilliont conspiracies. Politicians can be shrewd in the sense that they see a river of money and figure out how to purloin a few king’s ransoms from it. However, I believe most of them are not bright enough to figure out how to set up something like that. I think they rather stupidly and blindly wallow into it, the way we have into the Iraq debacle.
Oh really? Got a source?
...according to his website www.RonPaul2008.com.
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