The Blue Board

Interesting theory but would these 49%ers be qualified to fill positions that were left by retired doctors, lawyers, etc? Life would prolly become hell for the 51%ers if they ever got sick or needed legal representation after they retired.

The basis of his theory was cut off foreign aid. You could come up with multiple ideas if that much money came available. Not to hijack your thread but I'd like to see an in depth study on the perceived consequences of cutting foreign aid, even temporarily.

foreigners would be forced to do without (tax dollars) instead of US tax payers (who earned it).

for as long as it took.

I understand that. I'm saying that foreign aid $ spent in the US would be huge. What are the perceived consequences of cutting the $ flow to other countries? We obviously need the $ here so I'm trying to figure out what the advantage would be to continue giving our $ away vs disadvantage to the US for keeping that money within our own borders.

Kid would offer more help to the economy if he'd change his field of study to something not so useless

Except politicians AND the welfare state can not work most respectable jobs. I wouldnt hire a politician for any job. They are yuppy, lazy, conceited and generally incompetent. They'd show up late, leave early, accomplish little and expect a raise.

The other folks would whine that they are asked to work and that they cant go to Kroger and use all their foodstamps to buy super high sugar content stuff like Mountain Dew so they can rush home and careen towards dialysis.

The math is wrong too.

Foreign aid is about 1% of the 3.8 trillion budget. So unless he is including military operations...

38 billion paid out to 51% of Americans = $230.00 a person.

That aint going to help much.

Is there a link to this "study"?

Obama and his flock have are healthcare merging as we speak. what's next ?

We will also immediately apologize to any country we've ever offended or voiced opinions to

I'm sorry, but this is just stupid. The math is wrong, the underlying assumptions are wrong, and it's simply nonsensical and infeasible. If this is the type of Econ major William & Mary is turning out, they need to start cracking down on their classes.

There is a reason why Econ is widely included in universities' Liberal Arts departments and not Science. While based heavily in math, ultimately, economics is more of a philosphy type of major. In other words, crazy ideas like this come out all the time and some fools fall for it.

Here are just 3 examples.

This is not just in government aid, but also in the private sector as well as I think one of the things that many don't realize is how much businesses do independently from government aid as well, along with a lot of people in the medical profession donating their time for free, even when the government may be providing the tangible items.

1) disease control. The US spends a lot of money and this is beginning to be supplemented by China as well in stopping the spread of disease. We have had very few outbreaks or epidemics in the past 100 years and much of that is due to this funding. If disease spreads in Asia or Africa or anywhere else, with today's international travel, any widespread epidemic would eventually make it to the US and would result in major $$ on the backend. To help prevent that, we try to stop these things from spreading and getting out of control.

2) immigration control. I admit that I am one that doesn't think this issue is as major of a problem currently as some make it out to be. Yes, in some parts of the country it is worse than others, but I think most of it is just pomp and cirsumstance that politicians parade in front of their constituency to gain favor from those that are sensitive to the topic. If we were to cut foreign aid that is used to help educate and train others in foreign countries to learn a trade so that they can help support themselves and their families, there will be even more people coming to the US illegally and the "problem" as some see it today, will actually become a major issue to deal with. This one gets difficult at the private sector though and is where politics becomes very hypocritical. Private industries (not just American) were actually once encouraged to expand to foreign countries as a way to lessen the burden on the government so that people in these areas would have more opportunities to afford them a life instead of having to come to the US, Canada, or other European countries for work. Well, then people took that as sending too many jobs overseas or to Latin/South America, so companies began to get punished with financial penalties for a certain % of their goods that are being sold in the US being manufactured in a foreign country. That is why you see all of the European and Asian car manufactures opening so many plants in the US. They don't have to pay the penalty because, in some cases, 100% of the manufacturing of the goods is done in the US. Of course, that doesn't mean that the huge profits that the companies make stay here or that the executive level managers are actual Americans either (in some cases I am sure they are though). Then, when you add the cost of shipping items here with the rising gas prices internationally, it is starting to become more profitable for these companies to bring their manufacturing back to the US. This example has a lot of positives and negatives on both side of the argument, but in the long run, it will result in more people attempting to immigrate illegally to the US.

3) research programs involving farming. This is an area that is considered foreign aid, but it absolutely benficial to the US as well. We spend a large amount of money researching and developing new farming techniques in other areas of the world so that they are able to produce more sustainable items to help make feeding the masses cheaper. This actually helps in disease prevention as well as a healthy diet is good for the immune system as well. These techniques that are being funded through foreign aid in a lot of instances have helped lead to improvements in farming domestically as well.

NOTE: There is also that little thing called terrorism, which we know costs a ton of dollars to fight. There is something to the thought process of if you are helping so many people and they are aware of where that relief is coming from, you can make more firends than enemies. Personally, I don't think it is was a coincidence at all that when the Soviet Union went under and we were no longer seen as the "good guys" which also coincided with a reduction in foreign aid in the 90's that we started seeing more terrorist activities.

I admit though that is not even close to the solution of terrorism, but it is one of the thoughts behind Globalism.