Quote from: Butcher on 04-02-2013, 14:02:31

Quote from: blue on 04-02-2013, 09:02:59

Quote from: Butcher on 03-02-2013, 12:02:15

It´s Barkmanns Panther, one of the most successful Panther commanders of the war. It´s the "401" he used in the Ardennes. With his "424" Barkmann achieved quite a victory over 14 Shermans at "Barkmanns corner" in Normandy on the 27th of July, eventually knocking out 9 M4s on his own and blowing up an allied fuel truck. Despite being attacked by fighter bombers damaging his "424" he made it back to friendly lines.

The "401" later saw action in the Ardennes where Barkmann could knock out some M4s. There the "401" also got rammed by a Sherman.

There is an argument whether the Barkmann encounter really happened since US losses in the sector did not include M4s, although a number of lighter vehicles were lost. So if it even did happen, it was not in the area he described. There is a whole debate about it at a few different places. Axis history people have been debating it for like 50 pages. Keep in mind it was also common for tankers/pilots of both sides to overrepresent kills when reporting them. Another Axis example of this would be Wittmann at Villiers Bocage, whose tally has been corrected for actual vehicle losses recorded in the sector.

Where the fuck is VonMudra when you need him?

Sleeping.  And yeah, there's quite an argument on Barkmann and Wittmann's claims.  I'm no expert on it, but I can say without a doubt that it was not uncommon to claim higher than you got with air kills, just due to being unsure or not remembering fully.  I can see the same thing happening with tank kills.

It is not a slight to tankers or pilots either. Just in hindsight there is a lot more time to analyze claims. We have the luxury of being able to compare some of them with the corresponding enemies listed positions and losses.

Quote from: blue on 04-02-2013, 09:02:59

Quote from: Butcher on 03-02-2013, 12:02:15

It´s Barkmanns Panther, one of the most successful Panther commanders of the war. It´s the "401" he used in the Ardennes. With his "424" Barkmann achieved quite a victory over 14 Shermans at "Barkmanns corner" in Normandy on the 27th of July, eventually knocking out 9 M4s on his own and blowing up an allied fuel truck. Despite being attacked by fighter bombers damaging his "424" he made it back to friendly lines.

The "401" later saw action in the Ardennes where Barkmann could knock out some M4s. There the "401" also got rammed by a Sherman.

There is an argument whether the Barkmann encounter really happened since US losses in the sector did not include M4s, although a number of lighter vehicles were lost. So if it even did happen, it was not in the area he described. There is a whole debate about it at a few different places. Axis history people have been debating it for like 50 pages. Keep in mind it was also common for tankers/pilots of both sides to overrepresent kills when reporting them. Another Axis example of this would be Wittmann at Villiers Bocage, whose tally has been corrected for actual vehicle losses recorded in the sector.

Where the fuck is VonMudra when you need him?

Sorry you take it so personally, I was just making a comment.

Some idiot is already plotting the next doomsday date; that is one of the few certainties in life.

You guys read and read, and quote and quote. It doesnt make you an expert because your good at reading and quoting. How bout sharing something you actually know about from experience. You have nothing in common because your doing some sort of academic exercise. Im sure your both real people and have come to believe in what you believe from some sort of causes and conditions. Like when rabbit said hes suffered some alienation from the religious people, I thought to myself, well I can understand then, even though I havent had that experience. If its as simple as "I was raised that way" then say so, because if thats the real reason,  all the paperwork you can find isnt gona turn it into some other more grandiose reason. You were both children once, who could have potentially been friends.

I think things have been relatively civil, even if we are both well vested in the discussion. We are trying to debate the topic, so bringing up personal experiences really only goes so far for obvious reasons. I do not have anything against Oddball, and I do not think he has anything against me; so I would not read too deeply into this.

It is becoming hard to quote within quotes so I will try to address things paragraph by paragraph.

New Deal:
The New Deal was the main force bringing the United States out of recession, and would have continued to succed irregardless of WW2. It just so happens WW2 was to become a tremendous boost to the US economy. A tremendous boost guided by strict controls on prices and wages, and government subsidizing businesses directly. Which is pretty hysterical when people start bleating on about regulation and government interference stifling growth.

Note: I am looking for some more readily available sources than wikipedia, but most of them are texts which I am not that apt to scan for a message board debate.

I am curious what is your alternative to increased government spending, how would you improve the economy? I really hope you do not say austerity.

Nuclear Energy:
First of all most people have a very poor understanding of nuclear energy and the actual inherent dangers. Coal has killed more people than nuclear power ever has, and will continue to do so every year. Nuclear power is actually among the safest sources of power, arguably more than wind power even if you want to tally yearly deaths. (I like wind, but it is has some solid limitations) The dangers of the radioactive materials and their storage is more fear mongering than anything else. The worst materials tend to break down the fastest, and can be stored on site for the 20-50 years it may take for them to become safe. A lot of the waste is only waste because we have immensely high standards for classifying radioactive waste, a block of granite has more radioactive content than a lot of the things we classify as waste. Three Mile Island killed no one and Chernobyl was a man made catastrophe of a terribly unsafe reactor design. Newer reactors are remarkably better designed than ones from the 60s and 70s. The dangers from nuclear exist, but they are actually far less than other more common sources of power. There just happens to be an irrational fear of 'atoms' that clouds people from being objective about it.

There is also general idiocy since we do not reprocess a lot of our spent fuel, which tends to mean we accumulate things. That and the fact that we choose a system of reactors more conducive to nuclear weapons (hurray cold war) than simple power creation. Thorium cannot be weaponized and if you run a molten salt reactor maybe one the safest power supplies possible. There is a reason the Chinese and Indians are moving fast working towards it, and the joke is will probably sell the technology back to us at a premium once they get it running.

Richard Muller has an excellent series of videos and books explaining nuclear power to lay people, aptly called Physics for Future Presidents. I linked the one entitled to Nukes, but the whole series is truly excellent.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BHdsjo-NR4&feature=relmfu

Also I never mentioned electric cars, I really do not know about them one way or another to discuss them. We should have been moving to more fuel efficient cars after the 70s, but we do not tend to learn from our mistakes here.

EPA:
You do not mention what proportion of that is EPA spending.

http://www.epa.gov/planandbudget/annualplan/FY13AnnualPlan.pdf - EPA budget

I mean I am going through here line by line, and I am not seeing any glut. The vast majority of programs seem to be reasonably funded with well defined goals.

If you want to target anything, why not our overly bloated law enforcement or military. The 'war on drugs' costs us billions a year for no appreciable gain. I agree that the TSA is another waste of money. Military spending is also out of control, since we basically outspend large portions of the world combined. Those are places that actually drain large portions of the US economy if you really want to trim the fat.

Bailouts/Debt:
The auto industry bailouts were not ideal, but at least have been paid back from what I understand. The alternative was kissing the vast majority of our auto industry and all the jobs goodbye. It probably went far to win Obama the election too since Ohio seems pretty glad that those jobs are still here.

The Banking sector literally robbed the country. This is not fiscal responsibility, it was fraud. Whether you want to talk about the derivatives, rating agencies, etc. Top down they ran themselves into the ground, and when the going got tough we all bailed them out, because they are 'too big to fail'. The best part is that there are less banks now than when we started and the remaining ones are even bigger. It is really funny since our banks even helped Greece hide the actual status of their debt within the EU. Morally bankrupt is almost being too generous, they have shown a total lack of fiscal responsibility or respect for the laws or people of the country they are lucky enough to operate in.

Personally I am aware of the country's national debt, but I strongly believe that you cannot hope to reverse it without growth; which you will not get with policies that facilitate contraction. The US is somewhat lucky being in a position where we can basically run up our debt without being essentially called on it; I agree this is not ideal but bear with me. We are better off increasing our debt (which will increase even with stimulus) under the assumption that we will balance off those expenses during the good times. It has been done in the past, and I am surprised there is such a collective will against it now in particular.

Democrat/Obama Plan:
The Democratic party does have a plan, even if me nor you are particularly that fond of it. You can boil down a lot of it to stimulus spending when necessary and tax breaks for the middle class. I have scanned through it and it is no more or less detailed than the Republican platform.

http://www.democrats.org/democratic-national-platform
http://www.gop.com/2012-republican-platform_Restoring/

"It does not help that we live in a society that pushes consumption (beyond our means) and debt." This is what I've been saying all along, and who is the biggest spender (beyond our means) in our society; that's right, the government! More complicated? This is another thing that agitated me about Obama and a lot of his supporters... the vague answers or no answers at all. Typical politician thing, throw together a bunch of BS that sounds good together and everyone eats it up like flies on shit. It's just not going to work, I want answers, not diversions.

I gave you answers, but I will try again. Increase spending internally on stimulus orientated programs. ie: New Deal v.2. Rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure would put tremendous amounts of people in jobs, and hey it cannot be easily outsourced. It also has the added benefit of improving the country. Then there is other investment into alternate energy, which at least has been attempted, but really should be expanded more. Maybe a government sponsored expansion of nuclear energy, hell we could pull thorium off if we actually committed ourselves to it. Clean cheap energy, with the added bonus of not destroying the planets ecosystem.

Regulation is the downfall of capitalism. The EPA is a joke, and a government facility what needs to be cut.
"Hundreds of people in the EPA have spent tens of millions of dollars and have advanced their careers by busily drawing up work plans, attending meetings, making proposals, writing reports, giving briefings, conducting studies, and accomplishing nothing."
Besides, the EPA does not eliminate pollution, it just taxes it. It's all about the 'Benjamins.' Once these regulations are finally put in place, it offers potential for corruption, for those businesses and jobs it does not drive overseas. In return, we have jobs going overseas and the products coming back are junk. What makes it better for China and India to have pollution, because it does not inconvenience you? I'm sorry, but all the "green" people are going to have to realize if they want to "save everything" they are not going to be able to have all the luxuries they want. The banking sector does not need regulation, people need to learn responsibility again. Also, you misread my previous statement. I do NOT believe everyone have potential to become a CEO. Which is why these mill jobs and other low end jobs are rather vital to the US economy.

I was under the assumption that regulation was actually a fairly vital part of capitalism. Since without it you will reach monopolies, as that is generally the most likely end game for most industries; something which is detrimental to a capitalist free market. I mean it has been a long time since I have read some of the influential economists like Smith.

The EPA does far more than just waste money and have meetings. There have been countless cleanup initiatives as well as laws to prevent excessive environmental damage. Is the EPA perfect, of course not. Do you want to live in a country without one? Well I guess if you want excessive pollution again, sure. I can start linking EPA initiatives if you want actual examples of the work they do, although it really does not take that long to google.

I believe that we are reaching a post-scarcity period in regards to resources. Naturally we are going to have to cut down consumption, because we will not have a choice. I mean next year we are going to see large increases in the price of a number of staple foods, and I am fairly certain that is just the beginning of the road ahead. I think most people who are green are for less consumption than more, given that is a pretty fundamental part of trying to conserve the environment. (For the record I am not truly green in the US political sense, since I support nuclear power and such)

Also, you cannot with a straight face tell me the banking sector does not need better regulation. The group of people who literally watched as the financial sector ran itself into the ground, and had the gall to have the rest of us bail out banks because they were 'too big too fail'. The current regulations are wholly inadequate and a number of the actual checks and balances instituted after the 1929 crash were gradually rolled back. So yes, I think you can actually blame de-regulation for 2007. There are a lot of good books and documentaries on this, but I linked the frontline one since it is free, concise, and extremely well done. They have a number of the key players actually interviewed, and it is a fairly fascinating look inside the collapse. There is also Inside Job which is an excellent pop-documentary on the collapse if you are so inclined. Watch as with a straight face economists who are paid off by banks tell you they are impartial...

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/meltdown/view/

I, along with many other Americans are tired of the finger-pointing (at Bush). Yes, he came into office during a tough economical time, but he knew what he was getting into and he "had a plan." Typical politician talk again. Don't blame the people for accusing you of getting nothing done when you said you could. Personally, I knew it could not be "saved" in four years, and as I said before, I was not expecting it to. It was just another one of his lies. More stimulus spending is the last thing we need to do right now.

What was Bush's plan exactly? Outside of embroiling us in two global wars which we are still reeling from to this day. I mean the Bush presidency was riddled with poor economic planning and for a lack of better term, warmongering. During the Bush presidency economic policy continued down its neoliberal way until we hit the inevitable brick wall that was the 2007 crisis. I do not blame Bush in total for the crisis, but he sure as hell kept the foot on the gas. He also had an administration which generally led to more income disparity, mentioned in the article linked below, which is good if you are rich I guess. I covered earlier why stimulus spending is probably the only logical conclusion at this point. Austerity has been proven fairly conclusively to be counter-productive. Do not believe me, look at Greece. Clearly cutting off every service in the country has improved their economic outlook, and any day now they will balance the books and fix things since less money is coming in. Or maybe you cannot spur economic growth by literally cutting services and selling everything that is not nailed down.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F03E6DD1030F93AA15750C0A9619C8B63

Also, prepare to have your mind blown; I do not think Obama has been that much better. He has continued a lot of Bush's policies, especially in relation to foreign policy. Obama care is not a particularly great healthcare solution, and his limited stimulus spending has only slowed down economic decline, not reversed it.

Fine, it's your right to disagree. However, enough of the politically correct BS. If there is a problem with the system, I'll mention it, I do not care what sector it is in. I, too, have relatives and friends in the teaching field. "Most people have a fairly poor understanding of the difficulties involved in the current education system" Here we go again with the vagueness. This doesn't help prove anything, in fact it's a typical teacher statement. "Teachers are not paid particularly well in general" I attended public schools for a while, in which the average teacher salary was $85,000, for 10 months. Summers not included, unless they decide to do lessons plan or what not on their own time. Summer schools was overtime. They were crying about their salaries there, too. I consider that pretty well considering the job. I know this might not be the norm, but lets not be ridiculous, they aren't getting McDonald worker salaries, either. I miss the times when people decided their profession by what they enjoyed doing, rather than for the benefits. Odds our if you're going to school for a job, you've researched the job at least a little, but enough to know what the average pay is; if you find it's not high enough, and that's REALLY important to you, change your career path. Unions stand up for certain teachers, discriminate against many, too. Rarely do they stand up for the pupils. Of course teachers want their students to do well, their school gets more funding when the students "perform better" on 'standardized testing', which I think is a joke, too. This happens to backfire, too. I had a teacher who counted the homework for practically more than test. If you did all or most of your homework (not even correct) you would pass the class, even if you failed EVERY test. Please explain what required a "well funded school" in order for them to do their jobs? If you ask me, that requires one main thing, attitude. Proper attitude set by the teacher and the student. If the student wants to succeed, they will... having brand new laptops isn't going to make the lick of difference between success and failure. There are a lot of third world countries that are producing doctors... think they (initially) went to "well funded" schools? "misallocation due to all kinds of corruption and mismanagement on higher levels. Just the way school funding is done is laughable" It's a government run institution, what do you expect, they all end the same way... and guess who wants more government... "Teachers in poor neighborhoods are more like babysitters often than teachers" which, goes back to not everyone can be a CEO. Lets face it, many of these students are just going to end up jail-bait. In order for that to change, you're right, things need to change at home. Or a teacher that can guide them the right path, encourage them, inspire them; not just read to them verbatim from the text book and talk down to them like a lot of teachers do. Honestly, I must say teachers are some of the most arrogant people I've met. Now I admit, at lot of this is hard for teachers to do, which I blame one the government and it's regulations. The federal government has its nose into too much, and everywhere you look is another regulation.

Oh boy. Am I supposed to write down a complex solution plan to every problem the country faces? Especially the ones that are so massive no one really has managed to make a dent in the last 20 years?! Teachers make a great scapegoat for people since people do not consider the broader facets of the system. That is not politically correct jargon, that is fact. Perhaps we should both start citing our arguments if you want to make this more academic.

http://www.teacherportal.com/teacher-salaries-by-state/

Average salary of teachers by state. I do not see any there that reach the $85,000 mark; most of them are significantly lower. I should note that police officers can easily reach $100,000 where I live with overtime, and no one seems to have a problem with that.

Do you realize that in most schools teachers basically have to teach for whatever standardized tests come at the end of the year, so the school can hopefully retain their funding. There is not a lot of leeway in most curriculums for teachers, and they are generally harshly judged if they do anything that jeopardizes those scores. Then there is overcrowding which makes it harder for teachers to focus on individual students since their time is spread out over more children. Compound this in poor neighborhoods with poor budgeting and a lack of parental support, and you have a hopeless situation for a lot of teachers. As I said before teachers only have so much time with students, the parents are the other essential part of the equation. This is not just some excuses, and I find it funny that you think teachers can just magically become better or something to overcome these broad problems, a number of which are totally out of their hands.

I would say that poorer schools are also extra hard done by the fact that they cannot even hold on to their better teachers. HBO had an interesting documentary on an inner city school, and it was horribly depressing because you have some of those good teachers that genuinely want to make a difference; a lot of them just move on because the conditions at these schools are just not conducive to their efforts, and it is simply easier to move on to a more middle class setting to teach.

http://www.hbo.com/documentaries/hard-times-at-douglass-high-no-child-left-behind/

Let me guess you want some magical solutions? I wish I had some. The best I can offer is look at someplace like Finland, which has some of the best schools in the world, at least according to the commonly accepted metrics I have seen. They manage to do it without spending more than us. There are other countries too with exemplary school systems, perhaps we should start work towards emulating them. I think it is an issue that can only be partially solved without improvements to the communities the schools are in. I can probably give you one magical solution if you really want it though. Force all the wealthy to send their kids to inner city schools; watch how magically those schools will get better in every appreciable way.

Also how would de-regulation fix schools? Outside of maybe removing some of the arbitrary standards that things like the NCLB program instated. I am genuinely curious, maybe you could provide some specific examples so I understand your point.

"This is pretty ridiculous. Most athiests are tolerant and do not particularly care one way or another about other peoples beliefs; since it is simply irrelevant to them." I'm sorry.. but do you seriously believe this? You don't have to go far to see it's simply not true. And no, I can't defend religion with it's history of tolerance, or lack therefore of... but it's a different time, and assuming that that religious people now aren't tolerable is just another stereotype... which I thought Atheists were better than?

When atheists (I never said I was one) go around trying to suppress the rights of people (gay marriage, abortion), then I will be more inclined to agree with you. I am not saying by the way all religious people are violent or intolerant, but there is a non-insignificant number who are fundamentalists that are dangerous. In general there are places in this country where you could probably get yourself badly injured for even admitting you were atheist or gay for that matter. I mean outside of some atheists being arrogant I am not really aware of any concerted campaign against the religious.

Anecdotal evidence, maybe. Although it is a legitimate example of numerous similar situations. Now, I'm not implying that that all or even most of the people on welfare are able to purchase a Cadillac on welfare... however, I am saying that a lot of people on welfare have no fiscal responsibility. In other words, they have a low paying job, but instead of using the limited income to support their family, put food on the table, pay their bills, they decide it's best to invest (a very poor investment I might add) in a new Cadillac.

I think that is largely a product of a number of different factors. It does not help that we live in a society that pushes consumption (beyond our means) and debt. I am not going to absolve poor decisions making, but it is a little more complicated than that.

You're right, labor is too expensive. Have you considered why it is too expensive? It would have nothing to do with excessive "Big Brother" regulations, "green" restrictions and penalties, and extreme taxation, would it? Lets face it; no matter how much PC the government tries to push, not everyone has the same potential to be CEO's. A lot probably wont even make it to research and development. Not to mention, in order for a country to sustain itself, it's needs to have manufacturing within its own borders. Personally, I sick of all the overseas junk. The quality is not and never will be the same as something made in a county with standards and competition. Now, I only buy anything (of significance) if it's made in the United States, England, Germany, Italy, etc.

A lot of those regulations are the only thing that stops corporations from completely running roughshod over everything. I mean take environmental regulations, prior to most EPA initiatives we had pollution on a scale comparable to China. I am talking about rivers that literally could be lit on fire. A lot of regulation is very practical and serves the greater good of everyone. If anyplace in this country needs regulation reform it would be the banking sector. Also I highly disagree that everyone readily has the potential to be CEOs. Statistically you are unlikely to leave whatever economic caste you start in, so there is not particularly great social mobility in the US on a macro level. The CEO rags to riches kinds of stories are nice, but they are not indicative of society in general where there is a great disparity with access to education, healthcare, etc.

Obama did not even stop the economical decline of the United States. I have talked to numerous people who can only agree the economy has got worse. Despite what the liberal MSM says, the facts don't lie; and the facts say the unemployment has gone UP since Obama has been in office. Everything he proposes is just going to make it even worse, especially "Obama Care", which I've already covered a dozen of times...along with the whole military issue. I do agree that Americans have a bad habit of not living by their means, and the excessive spending is going to come back to bite them. In fact it has, with the housing market collapses.

As far as education goes, dumping more federal dollars into education is not going to help until you change the style of teaching. All these teaching unions crying they're under payed and under funded are driving me absolutely bat shit insane. I've had numerous teachers who simply couldn't teach. Of course, they'll all use the excuse, blame it on the students... which may be true in some cases, but I was in honor courses with a bunch of responsible students; it was unanimous, the teachers could NOT teach. I practically schooled myself in calculus. It was a wast of time going to school.

Obama came into office during one of the greatest economic collapses in recent history. I am not painting him as a tremendous savior, what I am saying is that he bailed enough water to keep the ship afloat. There have been global shocks with this recession and I think if Obama is to be criticized it is for not doing enough stimulus spending. Especially when you consider the conservative alternative which is austerity, which even the IMF no longer thinks is a good idea.

 I do not like the current implementation of 'obama care' but I think a public option for healthcare is the only reasonable way forward. We are one of the only western nations without a healthcare system and it is a detriment to our society on many levels. Companies and single payers pay more for healthcare proportionally than people in other countries and we do not get any better service for it. The only people who make out well are the health care companies and drug companies. Think about the savings even from a corporate level if companies no longer had to pay large amounts for inferior coverage.

Also I strongly disagree about the teaching bit. I have relatives who are teachers and most people have a fairly poor understanding of the difficulties involved in the current education system. Teachers are not paid particularly well in general, and unions tend to stand up for the rights of teachers and students. Teachers want their students to do well, they want well funded schools where they can do their job properly. Naturally they want to be paid a reasonable wage too (not to mention with low pay what kind of people do you think will be attracted to teaching?!). The problem is not all funding, but misallocation due to all kinds of corruption and mismanagement on higher levels. Just the way school funding is done is laughable. Most problems with the education system go hand in hand with other social problems. Teachers in poor neighborhoods are more like babysitters often than teachers. You are only with students a certain amount of hours a day, naturally good parenting is vital towards cementing any kind of progress. If you want to fix education we will need a shift on many fronts. I think picking on teachers is kind of a low blow given the thankless nature of the job anyway. I am not defending bad teachers by the way, an improved system would find ways of rooting those people out, naturally.

Religion is not necessarily a bad thing, what I happen to find ironic is all the people preaching LOVE and PEACE and claiming to be Atheist and everyone is equal and blah blah blah are tossing derogatory comments and hate towards those who are religious. How about "those" self-righteous people start by practicing what they preach.

This is pretty ridiculous. Most athiests are tolerant and do not particularly care one way or another about other peoples beliefs; since it is simply irrelevant to them. I am trying to stay civil here and not turn this around too much, but are you honestly going to act like religious people have a good record of being tolerant of other people (gays, athiests, etc), or even other fellow religions for that matter.

The Republican have painted themselves into a corner on social issues. White Christians do not win the election for them anymore, and I'd predict that the number of Christians will shrink even more in the future. Already a third of young Americans identify themselves as Atheists or nothing in particular and you're not going to get their vote with the same trite religious bullshit.

Spot on. Every four years that go by the traditional republican base becomes smaller and smaller. I think the only hope for them is some sort of refocus, but the big fear is that they would alienate core contingents of their base. Right now Hispanic Americans are the largest growing demographic, and a lot of them would vote conservative if the party was not actively out to get them. Either way it will be interesting to see how they adapt.

Also with all do respect, I do not think we are going to be able to reconcile anything. We are pretty strongly on opposite ends of the spectrum, and while I do not have a problem continuing to debate, we are probably going to end up talking past each other. To be fair I will read whatever you respond with, but I think it is just the nature of discussions like this sometimes.

You guys wanna hear what its really like in a welfare neighborhood? What it does to the families after being on it for generations? Its not pretty. I can look out the window and enlighten you. When I went to the poles the other day, I couldnt help but think all these people, dependent people, they have no choice but to vote a particular way, because they are utterly dependent. They would never vote to cut off any sort of assistance. 
People from their removed vantage points dont really know what its really like.

Are you suggesting just cutting them off, or something else? They are on welfare, because for the majority of them there is no other viable option. The best way to fix these neighborhoods would be to actually invest in them. The real debate is how to actually improve things, whether you take a tact like mine for greater public spending, or maybe if you believe in letting the free market do its magic.

edit: I was a little harsh on something.