Second Short Quiz

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johnkarls
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Joined: Fri Jun 29, 2007 8:43 pm

Second Short Quiz

Post by johnkarls »

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1. Bob Herbert, though jumping around quite a bit, basically addressed only three problems = infrastructure, poverty/education, and the cost of war (including both the human cost and what economists would call the “opportunity cost” of not employing the same resources on other pressing problems). The question = has Bob Herbert even addressed all of the important problems facing our nation including any which should probably have made the Top Three, if not No. 2 or even No. 1???

[Questions 2-7 deal with issues for which we have launched Six-Degrees-Of-Separation E-mail Campaigns, all of which are (or at least might be) more important that Bob Herbert’s Top 3. (No inference should be drawn from the order in which they appear regarding the relative importance that Yours Truly would attach to them.)]

2. Should bringing thorium fission on line ASAP have made the Top Three because it, inter alia, (A) produces no greenhouse gases; (b) eliminates the dependence of the U.S. and its allies on members of OPEC (the long-standing Organization of Petroleum-Exporting Countries) and, in the case of Europe, natural gas imports from Russia (in addition to oil & gas imports from OPEC); and (c) eliminates the gaping U.S. balance-of-payments deficit and resulting piling up of our foreign national debt?

3. Should 1968 Executive Order 11387 be revived in order to halt the export of American jobs, to reduce if not eliminate American unemployment and to increase the standard of living of American workers?

4. Should U.S.-based multinational corporations be able to capture virtually all of their worldwide profits from exporting American jobs in tax-haven subsidiaries, typically non-resident Singapore corporations?

5. Since as we have studied several times in the past, contrary to conventional wisdom the 2008-201? economic meltdown was caused by Congress permitting the U.S.-based multinational companies to pull the $5 TRillion of profits from exporting American jobs that had piled up in their tax-haven subs, to be repatriated from the tax-haven subs to the U.S. parents at a one-time special rate of 5.25% (vs. the normal U.S. corporate tax rate of 35%) because the tax-haven subs immediately forced the CHUMP American companies that had NOT exported American jobs to repay the $5 TRillion that had been loaned to them by the tax-haven subs of the American companies that had exported American jobs, and the resulting $5 TRillion reduction in the American payrolls and American capital expenditures of the CHUMP American Companies would have caused the 2008-201? economic meltdown whether or not there had ever been any sub-prime mortgages!!! SO SINCE ANOTHER $5 TRILLION OF PROFITS FROM EXPORTING AMERICAN JOBS HAS PILED UP SINCE 2008 IN THE TAX-HAVEN SUBSIDIARIES, ARE WE WILLING TO PERMIT CONGRESS TO PRODUCE ANOTHER $5 TRILLION REDUCTION IN THE AMERICAN PAYROLLS AND AMERICAN CAPITAL EXPENDITURES OF THE CHUMP AMERICAN COMPANIES THAT HAVE NOT EXPORTED AMERICAN JOBS, AS HAS BEEN PROPOSED BY PRESIDENT OBAMA’S SIMPSON-BOWLES COMMISSION, MITT ROMNEY DURING HIS PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN, AND (INCESSANTLY) BY THE FOX BUSINESS NETWORK?

6. Should America go to war, if necessary, to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons since failing to do so will probably result in 50% of the world’s 7 billion population becoming unsustainable virtually overnight?

7. Should America do whatever is necessary to prevent Al Qaeda and its affiliates from executing the fatwā of their Spiritual Leader, Osama bin Laden, to nuke 10 million Americans (about which the Founding Dean of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government wrote a famous book about how to deal with that fatwā but whose recommendations have been ignored) -- especially since now that Osama is dead, his fatwā can NOT be revoked?

[Back to issues on which we have yet to focus, but which are (or at least might be) more important than Bob Herbert’s Top 3.]

8. Is the American media the bedrock cause of all of America’s problems? What can be done to replace the media “talking heads” who are “regurgitatators” with real “thinkers” since the American education system (K-12, university and grad school) is only designed to produce “regurgitators” rather than “thinkers”?

9. Should the nearly-universal movement beginning in the 1980’s of American corporations that offer any retirement benefits, AWAY FROM traditional pension plans TO Sec. 401(k) plans have made Bob Herbert’s Top 3?

10. What is a traditional pension plan?

11. What is a Sec. 401(k) plan?

12. Even when employers offer to match (often at less than dollar-for-dollar) employee contributions to Sec. 401(k) plans, how miserable are the employee participation rates?

13. How much more miserable are the participation rates for low-level workers than high-level?

14. Did Congress pass the so-called Pension Protection Act of 2006 which protected corporations from the prohibition of offering tax-exempt plans that benefit disproportionately high-wage employees (typically the corporate officers), if the tax-exempt plans comprise Sec. 401(k) plans that provide for automatic enrollment subject to opting out (vs. “opt in” plans) even when all of the low-wage employees do in fact opt out?

15. Who bears the risk that employees will continue to live longer than their predecessors -- With traditional pension plans? With Sec. 401(k) plans?

16. If, as expected, American workers who begin to retire in the next few years do NOT have anything at all saved for retirement, or have an inadequate amount saved, or face the dire prospect that they will “outlive their savings” -- THEN IN ORDER TO BE HUMANE, WILL THE 5 STATES THAT CURRENTLY PERMIT ASSISTED SUICIDE FOR TERMINAL ILLNESSES CAUSING GREAT PAIN, HAVE TO EXPAND THEIR CRITERIA TO INCLUDE THE ORIENTAL HONOR TRADITION THAT ONE MUST COMMIT SUICIDE WHEN S/HE BECOMES A BURDEN TO OTHERS?

17. Are Sec. 401(k) plans just one more example of the inability of the American media to think?

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