???? Is No one going to mention the nose dive clinton took at ground zero?

[Mister Agenda]

Chad, I wonder if there is a scale of government anywhere in the world you think is 'doing it right'?

As regards the movement toward automation and the off shoring of jobs, these are the reasons to my mind why we need to move toward a more intrusive style of government.  Wide open capitalism which leaves a zombie horde of homeless and impoverished unemployed is not in anyone's best interest, not to mention that we already make way too much use of incarceration in this country.  I'd like to see us move toward a socialist democracy of the sort you see in some northern european countries.  Sadly, we don't have the history of mutual concern they have.  Of course, we're a melting pot of immigrants so it isn't too surprising that we have less concern for each other.  We find it far too easy to discount the suffering of others exactly because we see them as 'other'.

We could have our cake and eat it, too. 500 billion dollars is enough to give the 41 million poorest Americans a thousand dollars a month, no strings attached. It would transform poverty in America, for hundreds of billions of dollars less than we spend on welfare now (nearly a trillion dollars); without touching Medicaid, Medicare, or Social Security.

It's not that we don't spend enough money, it's that we're obsessed with controlling the lives of the poor to make sure they never do something with a benefit that we don't approve of. It costs a lot of money to oversee the disadvantaged.