Glenn BECK: REASONABLE QUESTIONS for AN UNREASONABLE TIME

www.glennbeck.com ^ | Monday, August 24, 2009 | Glenn Beck

[Yosemitest]

Reasonable questions for unreasonable times
Monday, August 24, 2009 - 18:05 ET

Am I hateful if I ask:



- Our unfunded liability for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid is close to $100 trillion.
Is there any way to pay for these programs without bankrupting America?

- We are in so much debt,
why spend more borrowed money on cap-and-trade and healthcare programs
before we stop the flow of red-ink?

- The stimulus package funneled billions of dollars to ACORN.
How does giving billions of dollars to ACORN
stimulate the economy?

- If it was so important for congress to pass the stimulus bill
before they even had time to read it
why has only a fraction of the stimulus money been spent 6 months later?

- Bush said
he had to abandon free market principles in order to save them,
how exactly does that work?

- Why won’t member of Congress read the bills
before they vote on them?

- Why are citizens mocked and laughed at
when they ask their congressman
to read the bills before they vote on them?

- Was the cash-for-clunkers program meant to save the earth or the economy?
Did it accomplish either?

- How did Van Jones, a self-proclaimed communist
become a special advisor to the president?

- Did President Obama know of Van Jones’ radical political beliefs
when he named him special advisor?

- The Apollo Alliance claimed credit for writing the stimulus bill—
why was this group allowed to write any portion of this bill?

- If politicians aren’t writing the bills
and aren’t reading the bills,
do they have any idea what these 1000 page plus bills actually impose on the American people?

- If the ‘public option’ health care plan is so good
why won’t politicians agree to have that as their plan?

- If town hall meetings are intended for the politicians to learn what’s on our mind—
why do they spend so much time talking
instead of listening?

- Politicians are refusing to attend town hall meetings
complaining, without evidence, that they are scripted.
Does that mean
we shouldn’t come out and vote for you since
every campaign stop, baby kiss and speech you give
is scripted?

- Why would you want to overwhelm the system?

- Is using the economic crises to rush legislation through congress
what Rahm Emanuel meant
when he talked about not letting a crises go to waste?

- What are the czars paid?
What is the budget for their staffs/offices?

[JasonC]

Part of my belief in conservatism is a belief in merit and human ability. I think more than half the reason the private sector works is because it seeks out and rewards merit, and tends to use hierarchical and functional organizations that rigorously selects for it. Government that responds too much to egalitarian pressures and to sympathy pleas frequently underperforms because it violates those principles.

Well, there are parts of the federal government specifically that manage to operate that way. That have high standards and operate on merit, not pull or partisan ideology as a passport for the mediocre. They tend to be agencies with unforgiving direct responsibilities, and often jobs out of the limelight where smart staffers thrive but grandstanding pols are not welcome. Think of the officer corps, the pentagon, the government science labs for example. Well, to me the Fed is such a place. It is staffed by very smart people who do a conscientious job. Fools do not survive there.

If you want a label for it, call me an elitist conservative, a conservative based on a belief in objective merit. I think a lot of the rich got that way on merit and deserve it, that they organize things around them well and benefit those they interact with. I respect successful businessmen, I respect accomplished professionals in every walk of life, I respect real intellect and objectivity. The banes of those things, to me, are mushy sentiments, unrealistic expectations, whining appeals to pity, and also strident ideologues who think they deserve power just for agreeing to some party program.

The moral underpining of the whole outlook, to me, is graditude. A conservative is not looking to find fault with the men who make the world run (radicals are, tempermentally); he sees what they accomplish, how much it benefits himself and those around him. To me, this is the greatest country in human history, a great beacon of freedom and moral conduct, and of energy, drive, ambition, all of it creating undreamt of wealth and opportunity. I don't go through life foreseeing doom and regard those who do as both hysterical and unjust. They miss their blessings, they ignore those helping to provide them.

To me the Fed is a great working American institution doing an important job pretty darn well. People attacking it at every turn strike me as about as ungrateful as leftists spitting on Marines strike you or me. Americans are very rich and very blessed, and finance is a very big part of what got us here, and the Fed is a big part of that financial system working. I don't want to tear down any of it, I like it.

I, wait for it, wait for it --- I want to *conserve* the Fed...

[JasonC]

I sure hope so, and I believe it likely too. I am a bit put out by how little use I see us being in all of it... When we sit and hope that unarmed Iranian students will save us with their idealism, or rely on Bibi to bail us out of having elected Obama, I see a moral failing on our part.

[JasonC]

I getcha. Not my own outlook, but I understand yours.

Karl Lowith has a book called Meaning in History, which explains how all the various 19th and 20th century ideologies looking for meaning in history are copying tropes from Christian theology. He has a wonderful line in that book that your remarks reminded me of. He says, "mankind cannot be saved because mankind does not exist".

He explains - mankind is an abstraction. Human individuals exist. To look for salvation in history is to look in the wrong place for what will never be found there. It is an individual, not a collective, matter.

FWIW...

[marbren]

An attitude of gratitude and putting the best construction on things are in line with Scripture. What if God is in control and what we think is control is an illusion of control? What if common sense is the opposite of faith?

[marbren]

Is there any way China could destroy our economy?

[tacticalogic]

The figures I've seen for the unfunded liabilities of the federal government are at 59T. That's more that the net assest of the US households, and appears to be steadily increasing. I don't see how we can maintain that.

It appears that the personal assets of the citizens are being considered to be disposable assets of the federal government that can be used to balance the books. Is the state of California to be considered the same? How many levels of governemnt get to claim your assets as theirs for acconting purposes?

[tacticalogic]

"The FDIC is out of money"

Scaremongering nonsense, it has a $500 billion line of credit from the US treasury. No depositor has lost and no depositor is going to lose one dime in any of it.

When I said "the FDIC is out of money" I meant "the FDIC is out of money", not "the US treasury is out of money". If they borrow the money from the treasury it still has to be paid back, supposedly by the banks, with interest, in the form of either higher premiums or more "one time surcharges" or whatever they're calling them.

[marbren]

Hi ST, have you met JasonC? You are both brilliant people.

I am having a hard time trying to get my hands around his optimistic, pro Israel, pure conservative world view. He knows his economics. I even suspect he is a Christian. You both are leery of conspiracies. You both do not have approval needs. You both can respond in reasoned paragraphs in a few minutes. (This post has taken me about 20 minutes or so to write already)

Star Traveler I do not think you or I have discussed economics. I am not an expert. I would appreciate reading a discussion of JasonC's position with your wisdom involved. Do not get bogged down in economic theory. I am more interested if JasonC's world view is in line with our standard, God's Word. To me the issue is where do we put our faith.

[Toddsterpatriot]

The figures I've seen for the unfunded liabilities of the federal government are at 59T.

Over what time frame? Who is the money owed to?

[tacticalogic]

http://www.usdebtclock.org/

"Who it's owed to" seems to be a whole 'nother can of worms.

[marbren]

What happens to net worth if assets have no value?

[marbren]

What happens if 4 billion people die in the next 10 years?

[Toddsterpatriot]

Don't confuse debt with unfunded liabilities.

And you never said what time frame.

[Toddsterpatriot]

What is someone stalks you and asks stupid questions?

[marbren]

My question comes from my world view that we are in the end times. If I do the math in revelation it comes to about 4 billion people.

[JasonC]

Every unfunded liability is an asset to its eventual beneficiary, if paid, and not a liability to the taxpayers, if not. They cannot change the net worth of the citizenry, because they merely move it from one person to another.

One entry accounting is financial malpractice. Whenever anyone pretends that only one side of a whole class of transactions occurs, simply ignoring its other side, they deduce that money and wealth evaporate into the ether. Which transaction is picked makes no difference whatever, the effect stems purely from ignoring half the reality concerned. It is nonsense.

[JasonC]

Short of suicidal nuclear attack, no. If they were willing to lose hundreds of billions themselves, they might cause modest temporary disruption by dumping their dollar holdings on the market all at once - but if intentional, hostile, and known, the Fed could simply take every scrap of it without breaking a sweat, and reduce the pile as gradually as we please and on our own chosen timing. So no, not really.

[JasonC]

The banks over the long term future will earn out anything asked of them one off in temporary crisis. The financial sector pays $400 billion in revenue to the US treasury alone every year, without breaking a sweat.

[JasonC]

There is no math in revelation.

As the joke runs, the headlines would read, second coming at hand, world ends at noon tomorrow, stocks fall.

But it is a joke about MSM pessimism and its love of doom mongering.

[JasonC]

If assets have no value, it can only be because they have become free goods, since it is the press of scarcity on human needs that is the source of all value. So, if no asset of any kind has any value, then everyone achieves whatever they desire effortlessly.