Pat Robertson Denounces Rush Limbaugh

[idrankwhat 0]

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Any monies controlled (over the mins outlined by the Constitution) by this government are just going down a big corrupt hole. And it matters not which party is controlling the spending.

But America needs the money hole!!!
Certainly an overstatement, but I agree with you.

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I cant beleive you really think this will have any chance at being honest at all. But you can believe it if you want to.........

I think it's a step in the right direction. Any attempt at transparency is a good thing. I'd love to see something similar for the Pentagon's budget. Certainly not the full monty, but open accounting for most of it should be available. It might help us find those folks who bill us $1,000,000 shipping for a few cents worth of washers faster.

[piper17 1]

How about posting the budgets of the Departments of Education, Health & Human Services, HUD, State, NEA, EPA, etc.

"A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition"...Rudyard Kipling

[rushmc 23]

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Any monies controlled (over the mins outlined by the Constitution) by this government are just going down a big corrupt hole. And it matters not which party is controlling the spending.

But America needs the money hole!!!
Certainly an overstatement, but I agree with you.

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I cant beleive you really think this will have any chance at being honest at all. But you can believe it if you want to.........

I think it's a step in the right direction. Any attempt at transparency is a good thing. I'd love to see something similar for the Pentagon's budget. Certainly not the full monty, but open accounting for most of it should be available. It might help us find those folks who bill us $1,000,000 shipping for a few cents worth of washers faster.

IF I thought there was any chance of any admin not monkeying around with the numbers to make something look better or worse (depending on the agenda at the time) I would agree with you. But we have all seen what past admins have done with those kinds of numbers.

The CBO has already issued a report on TARP 1 and the costs of the porkulas bill. I dont see that being incorrect in the end. And I dont see the web site showing the truth either.....

but, I will give it a chance.

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[idrankwhat 0]

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How about posting the budgets of the Departments of Education, Health & Human Services, HUD, State, NEA, EPA, etc.

That would be awesome. Post 'em all.


But so you know, I was only exaggerating a teeny bit in my earlier reference.

[jcd11235 0]

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> While different kinds of life insurance are suited for different needs of different customers, none are really inherently better or worse than others.


Couldn't disagree with you more. Variable Life / Variable Universal Life are some of the most dangerous policy a family could own. But were off topic.

I would suggest you take some classes on life insurance underwriting and pricing before making such statements. There is nothing inherently better about one type of life insurance compared to another. Different people have different needs, but the expected return per dollar paid in premium is roughly equal among all of them.

Math tutoring available. Only $6! per hour! First lesson: Factorials!

[piper17 1]

This says a lot of the inefficiency of the federal government's acquisition system. I worked in sales/marketing for a number of defense contractors over the years. I was astounded (at least until I realized it was the rule rather than the exception) of the incompetence of the government employees with whom I came in contact.

I was also surprised how the specifications that the government stipulated drove up the cost of the simplest items not to mention buying parts in such small quantities that the cost to manufacture went through the roof. We had to buy materials in small quantities (we didn't want the cost of inventorying stuff we might not use again for years), plus special manufacturing set up charges for a special, low quantity run etc. Parts that should only have cost a few hundred dollars at most had specs so tight that the cost turned into tens of thousands of dollars.

To get it into terms the layman can understand, the government wrote their own spec for A-1 steak sauce...something they should have purchased off the shelf for a couple of dollars a bottle. That is why we see the $500 dollar hammers, $1,000 toilet seats etc.

This is not meant to deny there are crooked contractors...there are, big time, but often the government is too stupid to check things out...witness the Bernie Madoff financial boondoggle. Financial people on Wall Street were telling the SEC that something crooked was going on and the SEC personnel were too stupid or lazy to do their due diligence....just like the investors.

"A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition"...Rudyard Kipling

[billvon 3,118]

>Financial people on Wall Street were telling the SEC that something
>crooked was going on and the SEC personnel were too stupid or lazy to
>do their due diligence....just like the investors.

Yep. At end of the day there's really very little difference between government and private industry when it comes to waste, fraud and mismanagement. The government has its boondoggles, its "per diem for living at home" and its $500 toilet seats; private industry has Enron, the S+L scandal, Madoff and Chrysler.

[idrankwhat 0]

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Yep. At end of the day there's really very little difference between government and private industry when it comes to waste, fraud and mismanagement. The government has its boondoggles, its "per diem for living at home" and its $500 toilet seats; private industry has Enron, the S+L scandal, Madoff and Chrysler.

At least the private industry folks don't have to know COBOL to do their jobs. Then again, they may have to use Vista. I'm not sure which is worse.
http://www.portfolio.com/news-markets/national-news/portfolio/2008/04/14/Pentagons-Accounting-Mess

[BikerBabe 0]

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This says a lot of the inefficiency of the federal government's acquisition system. I worked in sales/marketing for a number of defense contractors over the years. I was astounded (at least until I realized it was the rule rather than the exception) of the incompetence of the government employees with whom I came in contact.

Be careful you don't confuse "incompetence" with "hamstrung by the 7,000-page FAR and other accompanying rules documents". Most of the government employees (myself being one of them as a member of the AF acquisition corps) were far from incompetent. we just weren't allowed to use common sense to get anything done.

To play devil's advocate, the FAR and all those rules were originally written in response to the contractors suing, complaining, and otherwise raising issue with any sort of government actions. They were written to try to keep things "fair" for every competitor involved.

It's kinda ironic, how a huge book of government regs was written to try to keep things as "capitalistic" as possible (promoting fair competition, etc)...and in the end all it led to was more SOCIALISTIC actions, mainly by people trying to get around the rules.

As for the government not checking things out...when they try, all you get is screams by businesses of "OH NOES! SOCIALISM! GET OUT OF OUR AFFAIRS!" And we end up where we are now.

Yes, i'd argue that sometimes, a little "socialism" can also be a good thing...

Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

[Channman 2]

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> While different kinds of life insurance are suited for different needs of different customers, none are really inherently better or worse than others.


Couldn't disagree with you more. Variable Life / Variable Universal Life are some of the most dangerous policy a family could own. But were off topic.

I would suggest you take some classes on life insurance underwriting and pricing before making such statements. There is nothing inherently better about one type of life insurance compared to another. Different people have different needs, but the expected return per dollar paid in premium is roughly equal among all of them.

Well I've been licensed in the field for more than 20 years. But what the hell do I know. A Varible Universal Life policy should work for you just fine. This is a conversation we should have over a beer while looking at individual contracts which speak for themselves. But once again we're off topic.

[jcd11235 0]

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Well I've been licensed in the field for more than 20 years.

There's a big difference between being licensed to sell insurance and understanding how present value and premiums are calculated. Do you also think that car salesmen are qualified to design and engineer automobiles?

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But what the hell do I know. A Varible Universal Life policy should work for you just fine. This is a conversation we should have over a beer while looking at individual contracts which speak for themselves. But once again we're off topic.

The contracts won't have the relevant information to support your assertion. If you want to support your claim, you'll need to break out some life tables and brush up on your calculus. (My experience has been that drinking and calculating probabilities and present values don't always go well together if one wants to do either properly.)

Math tutoring available. Only $6! per hour! First lesson: Factorials!

[Channman 2]

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Well I've been licensed in the field for more than 20 years.

There's a big difference between being licensed to sell insurance and understanding how present value and premiums are calculated. Do you also think that car salesmen are qualified to design and engineer automobiles?

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But what the hell do I know. A Varible Universal Life policy should work for you just fine. This is a conversation we should have over a beer while looking at individual contracts which speak for themselves. But once again we're off topic.

The contracts won't have the relevant information to support your assertion. If you want to support your claim, you'll need to break out some life tables and brush up on your calculus. (My experience has been that drinking and calculating probabilities and present values don't always go well together if one wants to do either properly.)

> The contracts won't have the relevant information to support your assertion

The contracts won't have the relevant information to suport my assertion. Damn, the contract is the most relevant item in this discussion, hell dude its the legal binding contract between the policy holder and the insurance company.

It is the contract that lays the Insurance company bare, it's the document that provides the policy holder in how they are going to get an ASS Kicking if they decide to accept it without reading it.

I've come to think you must be an Actuary for an Insurance company that prides itself in profiting from a family trying to do the right thing by placing them into a contract that makes no financial sense. Once again im refering to Cash Value Life Insurance policies (Contracts) not your caculator.

I will accept that we do not agree. For now I must leave to go replace a cash value policy with a 30 year level term policy, its the right thing to do, not to mention it save the family 81.00 per month while giving them alittle more than twice the coverage.

[jcd11235 0]

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The contracts won't have the relevant information to suport my assertion. Damn, the contract is the most relevant item in this discussion, hell dude its the legal binding contract between the policy holder and the insurance company.

If you believe that, then you really don't understand what the necessary information would be. Insurance companies pay actuaries to determine the proper premium for a unit of benefit of a particular policy specifically to be able profit as much from one type of policy as another.

I never claimed that every type of life insurance is equally well suited for any given family. Different families have different needs. They buy life insurance for different reasons. However, with respect to pricing, you get what you pay for, regardless of which type you choose (exception being if a healthy person renews a term life policy without changing companies, they can generally expect to pay more than they would pay had they switched). One type of policy is not an inherently better financial investment than another, even if the payment and benefit structure of one type may be better suited than another for a particular family. That's why there's different types of life insurance to begin with.

Math tutoring available. Only $6! per hour! First lesson: Factorials!