That’s what Zfacts is. Luckily it’s a pretty thin disguise. If you wander through the pages you’ll discover, quite quickly, that they don’t seem to have any facts concerning Democrat funding or left thought. Reams of information on Republicans and that most elusive of creatures, the Neocon.
Most damning is the views on Social Security. I’m no fan of Bush’s plan to privatize Social Security, but that doesn’t mean that SS doesn’t need fixing, or that it isn’t a ponzi scheme in its last phase before collapse (and it will, as soon as the baby boomers start collecting their checks) If you read the pages on SS at Zfacts, everything is fine and Bush is trying to rob the trust fund. Glad to hear it. I’ll be making withdrawals from that trust fund in the near future I wouldn’t want to think that there’s going to be any problems getting my money (and it is mine, at least until we get to the other end of the 40 thousand they’ve withheld over the years) from the lovable cuddly federal government and its oh so friendly bureaucrats.
Doesn’t change the fact that Social Security is a socialist program; the definition of which is a ‘gov’t managed business’. Or the fact that 40 thousand set aside by me personally would have grown to about half a million in the time the gov’t has held it.
So much for Stoft’s claim to not have a bias.
Comments already. And I haven’t even pinged Technorati yet.
Anthony,
You missed a couple of things.1) I’m an economist that believes deeply in competitive markets. I just finished designing an electricity market for New England (the agreement was just signed)which will pay generators a couple of billion $ per year more than they were getting because the present market was short-changing them. How do you figure that as left socialism?
2) Read about ethanol. There I am attacking the government subsidies and handouts.
Now the right is in power and, obviously I go after those in power. There is not much use in taking apart those without it. You will not find anywhere on zFacts that everything is fine with social security. The only claim is “not in crisis.” Check your facts.
You see many things correctly, but when you reduce a complex perspective to name calling you do conservatives a disservice.
Steve for zFacts
I’m not a conservative, nor a member of the right. Name calling tends to run both ways, apparently.
I’ve yet to see any proof that electrical markets have been made competitive, anywhere. I’ve seen a lot of talk about it, just not holding my breath on proof. California pretended to create competitive markets, and then whined about competition when their rigged market didn’t work out.
Here in Texas they did something similar, but they exempted places like Austin that have government owned electrical utilities from their competition.
…and I’ve yet to meet an economist that knew which way was up outside of the Austrian School, as the saying goes.
Markets these days are not free markets but are managed markets, which puts the government or some NGO in charge. Just another name for socialism.
Agricultural subsidies (which is what ethanol subsidies would fall under) are a political football. Either party will kick them, or hold them dear, depending on who is in power.
I submit that Social Security is in crisis, very much the same way that global warming could be seen as a crisis, except that we don’t know what’s causing global warming, just that it exists. The problems with Social Security are many and their causes known.
The complete lack of criticism of the left in politics is why zFacts is promoting the socialist left IMHO. It would be the easier to fix than replying to this message.
Postscript
I appended feedback from Zfacts and my further thoughts on the subjects raised. I don’t know why I replied in comments the way I did when I started this silly thing in the first place. Its my work, I can do what I like with it including append more thoughts to it like I’m doing now. The sacrosanct nature of original writing that I held back then baffles me now. Time enhances understanding in a healthy mind. Thoughts are not sacred.
…aside from which, who pissed in my Wheaties that morning? I don’t even remember what page on Zfacts I was responding to. The site is still up, so congratulations to Steve and his writers on keeping the thing up and running through the years since 2006. What a long, strange trip it has been, hasn’t it?
I used this article to highlight how fucking whacko I was on the subject of the word socialism when I wrote my apology letter that I named A Big Bowl of Crow. I blame Ayn Rand for this. Ayn Rand and Republican Texas, the two go hand in hand down to the river’s edge to drown themselves in their unwillingness to learn how to swim in the world of ideas.
