Mafia, are you saying that people are not motivated by self-interest? Because money is just a synecdoche for consumption it allows, having more money means one can afford higher consumption, something an absolute majority of people finds pleasure in. The aim of socialist reforms is to raise the welfare of lower classes after all and for good reason.

Perhaps you are saying that people are not motivated solely by self-centered welfare to use Sen's term, that is one's welfare is not solely dependant on her consumption bundle but one also takes into account sympathies and antipathies to other people as well as their consumption bundles? Well, economic theory as a whole doesn't deny that, the game theory explanation of pension plans can be used as one of many examples.

I'm sure socialism believes that people are motivated by self-interest, just not that that self-interest is necessarily monetary. Any system that doesn't believe people are motivated by self-interest is... optimistic.

I'm surprised that the Caine fans in here aren't jubilant over their candidate's shocking drubbing of Perry and Romney in Florida. LOL. Republicans are in disarray.

@ Lopt

"Guns do kill people, people only motivate them to do it.."

Nope. If I put my pistol on the sidewalk, someone would have to decide to pick it up. They would have to decide to pull back the hammer. They would have to decide to aim at another human being. They would have to decide to pull the trigger. My gun is completely harmless unless someone decides to do all of those things.

@ Putin33

"Seriously gunfighter? You can't be that obtuse. Social Security is a damn government program. You can't get government out of it."

Yes you can. It's called privatization.

"And how is it a Ponzi scheme?"

You pay into it for your whole life and you're fooled into thinking that the money is just sitting there waiting for you. It's not. It may not be a pure Ponzi scheme, but it sure is a scheme of some kind.

"Social Security is the most successful and popular government program ever."

If it was so successful, then it wouldn't need reform or privatization. If it was popular, not that many people would be opposed to it. Saying that it's the most successful and popular government program ever isn't saying a whole lot because most government programs are very unsuccessful and very unpopular.

"Of course, cops have no problem with rightwingers bringing guns. But if leftists so much as bring a handkerchief they're rounded up as "rioters"."

I'm not a fair representative of the entire law enforcement community. You know that. Besides, I keep politics out of my job. I would never arrest a demonstrator for carrying a handkerchief to a demonstration.

"I'm surprised that the Caine fans in here aren't jubilant over their candidate's shocking drubbing of Perry and Romney in Florida"

I'm not jubilant because I'm not surprised. Herman Cain is very popular when people are given the opportunity to hear his ideas. Perry and Romney are just the front runners because they're the only ones that get media coverage.

"Republicans are in disarray."

How did you come to that conclusion? Republicans aren't in disarray at all. They're just trying to decide who they want running the country. Actually, Democrats are in disarray. They're still reeling from 2010, and they're battening down the hatches for 2012. The left is finally on the defensive.

"If it was so successful, then it wouldn't need reform or privatization. If it was popular, not that many people would be opposed to it. Saying that it's the most successful and popular government program ever isn't saying a whole lot because most government programs are very unsuccessful and very unpopular. "

I already provide a poll on Social Security. Even tea partiers don't want to eliminate it. Social Security has a surplus. The problem is it is raided by Republicans to pay for tax cuts and wars. It is absolutely solvent. Social Security has reduced the elderly poverty rate to below 10%. That's an astounding success. Just try to privatize Social Security. Bush proposed that in 2005, it was one of his few failures in getting his agenda passed before the debacle in 2006. You think the reaction to Ryan's medicare privatization plan was hostile, just try it with social security. You rightwingers always overreach and think you have a mandate for everything.

And keep telling yourself the Cain victory isn't a reflection of total malaise which grips the Republican Party about their horrid coterie of candidates. Perry is a bumbling buffoon who can't debate himself out of a paper bag, but they hate Romney. Cain's win is just a protest vote.

Self interest doesn't necessarily have to be defined in terms of money, and no, for the record I don't think complete and total self interest is the only thing that motivates people at all. I'm going to say something completely crazy; the reasons why people do things are actually rather complicated, and cannot be distilled down to "what will get me the most money?". Of course self interest is part of that, but is anyone completely, and totally motivated by self interest all the time? I suspect not.

Also in terms of inept Republican politicians, what about Rick Santorum, who seems to be under the impression that Google controls the content of the internet.

@ Putin33

"I already provide a poll on Social Security. Even tea partiers don't want to eliminate it."

Alright, fine. You have me on its popularity.

"Social Security has a surplus."

Can you please cite that?

"The problem is it is raided by Republicans to pay for tax cuts and wars."

The real problem is that it is raided by Democrats to pay for healthcare reform and failed stimulus packages.

"Social Security has reduced the elderly poverty rate to below 10%."

You can't attribute that to Social Security. You even bitched about how it doesn't pay enough.

"Just try to privatize Social Security."

We will.

"You think the reaction to Ryan's medicare privatization plan was hostile"

Are you kidding? The majority of Americans supported the Ryan plan.

"You rightwingers always overreach and think you have a mandate for everything."

That's funny. The left wants to overreach by banning guns, gasoline powered cars, CO2, private healthcare, and public displays of religious symbols.

"And keep telling yourself the Cain victory isn't a reflection of total malaise which grips the Republican Party about their horrid coterie of candidates."

Fine. You can keep telling yourself that America still loves President Obama. Most people would vote for a tree stump over Obama. At least an inanimate object wouldn't make our problems worse.

"Perry is a bumbling buffoon who can't debate himself out of a paper bag"

I agree with you. I'm astonished that some people actually took him seriously.

"but they hate Romney"

I don't care for Romney either. He's a moderate that's playing dress-up to win the Tea Party vote, and it's kind of pathetic.

"Cain's win is just a protest vote."

You heard that on the Today Show. I was watching it this morning, and the host said basically the same thing.

Cain won because the delegates at the straw poll actually got a chance to hear his ideas. He's not a front runner because he hasn't gotten the media exposure he deserves.

Cain. He'd be the 1st black black president.

Does America have third party politics?

Sorry Gunfighter06, but Cain's victory was something of a protest vote. Not the wail of desperation which Putin33 makes it out to be, but certainly not the show of confidence in Cain you think it is.

Republicans are realizing Perry isn't the saving knight they thought he was, and they still don't really like Mitt Romney. I think either of them would be fine presidents, but they are far, far from ideal. To show their dissatisfaction with Perry and continued wariness about Romney they latched on to Cain's 9-9-9 plan, which is certainly sounds great if you don't think about it too much (mostly due to the last 9). It shows how rallied the GOP is to push for the tough decisions on bedrock fiscal reform just as much as it shows a level of disappointment that the field lacks a true statesman to get behind.

And one must also remember that straw polls are the primaries of primaries. Only the most strung-out political junkies vote in these things, so it's quite wrong to read too much into them.

Are you drunk?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/06/paul-ryan-medicare-plan_n_872008.html

A conservative district in NY went blue because the Republican supported Paul's medicare scheme. If the scheme was so popular, why did all the Republicans run away from it? Why didn't McConnell allow it to come from a vote? Why did Reid *want* to vote on it?

"You even bitched about how it doesn't pay enough. "

I said the idea that it's a Ponzi scheme is ludicrous. The amount is enough to pay rent and food.

"At least an inanimate object wouldn't make our problems worse."

Which is why he has a 40% approval rating. Your buddy Bush had an approval rating in the 20s. Obama is still more popular than the Republicans in Congress, and his jobs plan is overwhelmingly popular, even among Republicans. There is much more enthusiasm among Obama's supporters than there is behind any Republican candidate.

Paul Ryan made a plan which has a chance of saving our entitlement programs. It's flawed, but it could work. The current trajectory will not work. Instead of using this as the beginning of a process to enact the reforms necessary to keep things going, Democrats used the Republican proposal for pure demagoguery. In one ad they literally had an old woman being thrown out of her wheelchair over a cliff.

It's simple. You can either reform entitlements so future retirees get something, or continue the current system for a few years and then have no one get anything (or, equally troubling, have ALL government money go to entitlement spending). If Obama wanted to guarantee his reelection he'd deal with this issue and go down as one of the greatest presidents ever, even despite everything else he's done. I hope somebody gets around to saving the Republic...

Surplus of 69.3 billion for 2011. $807.7 billion in revenue and outlays of $738.4 billion. This brings total surplus to 2.7 trillion.

http://www.strengthensocialsecurity.org/media/press-release/release-of-social-security-trustees-report-shows-program-again-has-large-surplus

Oh how rich, Republican partisan hacks whining about demagoguery. The same people who use the tea party, the birthers, the death panel crowd, etc to attack Obama's every move. You're the same guy who just praised a man who threatened to beat up the Fed Chair (and called him a traitor) and did a press conference undermining our Middle East peace policy, and you're complaining about "demagoguery". You're beyond absurd.

He dealt with the healthcare issue that no President has been able to touch for decades and your ilk made him out to be Vladimir Lenin. Get real. Ryan's "plan" wasn't a plan at all, it was the abolition of Medicare for the benefit of insurance companies with these vouchers that pay for nothing.

You people have been use fear mongering about deficits which you never cared about when you were passing tax cuts which put us in a 1.7 trillion dollar hole (much larger than the stimulus you keep bitching about), prescription drug boondoggles (another trillion) and supporting wars of aggression to force the elimination of entitlements you've always opposed. You tank the economy, rack up deficits, and then because of your incompetence demand cuts to social services. All while insisting that your rich corporate buddies never have to pay a penny. Despicable.