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Astrogirl,
I'm not saying that every parent is fit to homeschool. But, I would imagine up through elementary school a large majority of parents are fit. Well, that is if they are fit to parent children in the first place and want to spend the effort (yes there is considerable effort in it - you know like any other professional teacher) to instruct their children well, and to do research and increase their own knowledge in their problem areas.
Also, I don't remember anywhere in the declaration of indepence, the constitution or the bill of rights promising (more like forcing in my opinion) mass public education for American children. It's just not there. The federal government does not have the authority to mandate some of the things they do. The current education system is not one that I can say I'm proud of and can expect for it to be able to compete well against other nation's systems.

Oh yeah, and my daughter is not getting that new fangled herpies shot. And, I'll be remiss if my children have "sex education" (aka pornography) forced upon them when they are still just children.

RyanED wrote:

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It doesn't help that Houston, Texas is also in the running for the number one fattest city in the United States every single year, but how much of that is due to the bad air we're breathing?

Um ... really? People are fat for a myriad of reasons, but I can tell you the biggest reasons: portion control and food quality. If people stopped eating a McDonalds and Burger King (except for occasionally) and all those other fast food places and instead at something that provided nutrients instead fat and fat calories they would not get into that kind of condition. And once in that condition, (being "fat") they can solve it the same way : eat good quality foods and not too much of them.
I don't mean to sound patronizing, but I've been trained by the army to help with what we call "fat boy programs" and those two things are the two areas that make the most difference. Excersice helps (a whole lot) but you'll never spend enough time in the gym to work off a Big Mac with all the fix'uns - at least not with one session at the gym.

barzilla wrote:

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Chris, Remember what I said, "Democratically elected government". That is a far cry from a democracy.

I think I managed to address a little more than "democracy is stupid" in my posts. I also went after government that over manages syndrome a little.

I'll never be able to voice my opinions as succinctly as the economist Dr. Skousen, so I'll reference you to a piece of his work: http://www.fee.org/publications/the-freeman/article.asp?aid=4975



Dr. Skousen is an economist at Rollins College, Department of Economics, Winter Park, Florida 32789, and editor of Forecasts & Strategies, one of the largest investment newsletters in the country.


The depression . . . was endemic to the system: the economy was not self-regulating and needed to be controlled.


-David Colander and Harry Landreth[1]


The Great Depression of the 1930s may be a dim memory now, but its impact is still being felt in policy and theory. The prolonged depression created an environment critical of laissez-faire policies and favorable toward ubiquitous state interventionism throughout the Western world. The depression led to the Welfare State and boundless faith in Big Government. It caused most of the Anglo-American economics profession to question classical free-market economics and to search for radical anti-capitalist alternatives, eventually converting to the new economics of Keynesianism and demand-side economics.

Prior to the Great Depression, most Western economists accepted the classical virtues of thrift, limited government, balanced budgets, the gold standard, and Say's Law. While most economists continued to defend free enterprise and free trade on a microeconomic scale, they rejected traditional views on a macroeconomic level in the postwar period, advocating consumption over saving, fiat money over the gold standard, deficit spending over a balanced budget, and active state interventionism over limited government. They bought the Keynesian argument that a free market was inherently unstable and could result in high levels of unemployed labor and resources for indefinite periods. They blamed the Great Depression on laissez-faire capitalism and contended that only massive government spending during World War II saved the capitalist system from defeat. In short, the depression opened the door to widespread collectivism in the United States and around the world.

Fortunately, free-market economists have gradually punctured holes in these arguments and the pendulum has slowly shifted toward a re-establishment of classical free-market economics. Three questions needed to be addressed: What caused the Great Depression? Why did it last so long? Did World War II restore prosperity? Economic historian Robert Higgs had dubbed these three arenas of debate the Great Contraction, the Great Duration, and the Great Escape.

The Cause of the Great Contraction

Many free-market economists had attempted to answer the first question, including Benjamin M. Anderson and Murray N. Rothbard,[2] but none had the impact equal to Milton Friedman's empirical studies on money in the early 1960s. His was the first effective effort to destroy the argument that the Great Depression was the handiwork of an inherently unstable capitalistic system. Friedman (and his co-author, Anna J. Schwartz) demonstrated forcefully that it was not free enterprise, but rather government-specifically the Federal Reserve System-that caused the Great Depression. In a single sentence underlined by all who read it, Friedman and Schwartz indicted the Fed: From the cyclical peak in August 1929 to a cyclical trough in March 1933, the stock of money fell by over a third.[3] (This statement was all the more shocking because until Friedman's work, the Fed didn't publish money supply figures, such as M1 and M2!)

Friedman and Schwartz also proved that the gold standard did not cause the depression, as some Keynesian economists have alleged. During the early 1930s, the U.S. gold stock rose even as the Fed perversely raised the discount rate and allowed the money supply to shrink and banks to collapse.[4]

The Prolonged Slump

Economic activity and employment stagnated throughout the 1930s, causing a paradigm shift from classical economics to Keynesianism. Friedrich Hayek, the Austrian economist who challenged Keynes in the thirties, was so disheartened about the state of the free-world economy that he abandoned the study of economics in favor of political philosophy.

Why did the depression last so long? Many free-market economists have picked up where Murray Rothbard's America's Great Depression left off, at the time Franklin Delano Roosevelt took office in 1933. Gene Smiley (Marquette University) attempted an Austrian perspective on the perverse role of fiscal policy in the 1930s. I summarized the causes of stagnation and persistent unemployment, such as the Smoot-Hawley Tariff, tax increases, government regulation and controls, and pro-labor legislation.[5]

More recently, Robert Higgs of the Independent Institute has made an in-depth study of the 1930s' malaise and focused on the lack of private investment during this period. According to Higgs, private investment was greatly hampered by New Deal initiatives that destroyed investor and business confidence, the key to recovery.[6] In short, the New Deal prolonged the depression.

What Got Us Out?

In another brilliant study, Higgs attacked the commonly held view that World War II saved us from the depression and restored the economy to full employment. The war gave only the appearance of recovery, when in reality private consumption and investment declined while Americans fought and died for their country. A return to genuine prosperity-the true Great Escape-did not occur until after the war ended, when most of the wartime controls were abolished and most of the resources used in the military were returned to civilian production.[7] Only after the war did private investment, business confidence, and consumer spending return to form.

Barzilla.

You missed an important aspect of Dr. Skoucen's final point,
"A return to genuine prosperity-the true Great Escape-did not occur until after the war ended, when most of the wartime controls were abolished and most of the resources used in the military were returned to civilian production.[7] Only after the war did private investment, business confidence, and consumer spending return to form."
I'll mention it again, just to try to add appropriate emphasis, " most of the resources used in the military were returned to civilian production." Once the government took their hands off the economy did money enter into the free market to be circulated by private individuals and business. That's where the health of the free market is. The power of the individuals in the market, not how the government can increase or devalue the dollar (the fed's interest rate hikes), nor in the federal government regulating all the unnecessary stipulations that they tend towards. The government's fiscal health and the free market can be in complete contrast to each other and that's just fine. Let people and businesses fail when they make horrible blunders (Bear Sterns, I'm looking at you). Keep your stink'n hands out of my pocketbook (yeah that's you I've got my eye on congress!).

Before I get off for the night, I would like to propose the idea of the fair tax federally and see what you guys think about it. If you need details, I can provide them, but it would essentially be like what Texas has now: no income tax, but a sales tax - on everything. You get taxed only on what you buy, and not how hard you work. I mean, how backwards is that? I work hard and turn a nice profit, benefit the economic climate of the country and what does the government say but, "bad boy, you make too much money, we're taking that". Anyway, good night and ... geez someone kickstart those Astros! At least Pence was productive at the plate today, perhaps he's coming out of his funk.