Are you planning to vote in the 2012 election

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p yqe489tyhô

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I did it again

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and again, fortunately i had only typed about 3 lines. So Take 4

1. I misread the fed reserve site, it is the presidents that are appointed by the board. Didnt see how bernanke was appointed but if it is by the pres like i thought then Bush and Obama both have to take some responsability.

2. Great depression lasted longer in the US than anywhere else. basically 1929-1938-39' Keynsian economics and pump priming was the great experiment tried out by you guys. So if you guys tried the stimulous way of ending economic problems and took longer than the rest of the world to get out of it what conclusion could you draw from that? Yes economists are split on it but Historians are pretty much damning of it. And well i have more faith in historians than economists as well i rate economists on slightly higher than psychiatrists.

AS to it working:

1. Over 300K people have left the workforce (ie give up in despair of finding a job), and 120k found work. so almost 3X number of people have lost all hope to those who found jobs. Which had the larger impact on the jobless rate going down, Those Who found jobs or thos who gave up?

2. You imply that ther could be no recovery without govt stimulous, a ridiculous statment as there have been far far more recessions that have come and gone without govt stimulous than there have been with stimulous. (pre keynesian economics govts ALWAYS cut spending during recessions)

3. If in your opinion the stimulous worked why do you need another one? the recession is officially over (has been for a bit) so why? or should govt just do stimulous all the time and go into greek like debt levels?

Yes 120k gain is better than a loss despite the 300k giving up but i believe this is despite the govt interferecne not because of it.

3. I find dems just as bad but with better press. They refuse anything that doesnt include their precious class warfare tax increase on the rich despite that fact the rich already pay more. taxing them will not solve your problems. they are refusing any real cuts (except military, which i think we all agree on has to happen) The only thing ive seen the reps refuse to budge on is the increasing of ANY personal income tax. Somethign I gotta agree with. so perhaps Im more republican than Dem thjough if i was a yank id be an independant and look at the actual individuals more than the party. I am sure(hope) that ther are decent politicians down there. One advantage of your system is that politicans are far far more independant of the party than thay are here.

4. yes yes yes you have been moving to the left the passing of obama care is one of many proofs. It sucks and is stupid but it passed when other attemps have all failed. Look historically, not just last 8 years. Bush (wrong) premeptive strike against Saddam for (imaginary) weapons of mass destruction. is pretty mush inline with the Monroe doctrine. You have dialogue and economic ties with China adn Russia as opposed to armed (though non direct) confrontation. welfare expansion, medicare, pensions getting more and more generous (has to stop) Unions exist and have legal protection. Sex/violence/language on TV and radio. All these things are far more liberal than in the past and the farther back you go the more you see how far youve come. Yes the Tea party may bring the reps a bit more right than they have been last 8 years but if you look at policy they arent that far from JFK.

5. Obama didnt need 1 single republican to pass Obama care. the problems was that there was a few Dems who saw it for the disasater it is going to be. And passing this monstrosity will just make it near impossible to change it into a good system. BTW Canada has that private/public system as well. We call it a 2 tier system and officially it doesnt exist but well it does. And i agree that is the best way to go. Though ours like the UK's could use some fien tuning and a chainsaw taken to the bureaucracy.

6. I have never heard of this 4.6 trillion deficit cut but as the deficit is about 1 trillion how will he cut it by 4 trillion? seems to me you got some fudging of numbers or what you meant to say was cut 4.6 trillion in spending over 10 years and when you look at the actual numbers you will find that most of it is by not allowing automatic increase to happen not actual cutting. (Both sides do this when talking about the budget.

Here is alink that I hope will fighten you into understandign that the problem is mostly spending not income

http://www.usdebtclock.org/

please look at this linkas well to understand why i say the problem is mor espending that income

http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/us_20th_century_chart.html

the 2 spikes are the world wars. makes sense, and during the 90s it was actually trending down but there is a real spike under obama. Even Bushs wars didnt spike it that much.

GE, one of the largest companies in the world, made record profits last year, and yet they reportedly paid no income tax. In fact, they got a refund from the government because their financial services division lost money in the market crash. In a sane financial world, one would imagine that such an immensely successful company like GE wouldn't be getting a rebate check from the government. So if you are worried about "class warfare," I would say that it's already upon us. It's just a stealth campaign moving things in the other direction than the generally expected definition.

Obama is a major beneficiary of GE contributions, though they give to republicans as well they gave more to Obama that any other politician

And I reiterate that the US has been dragged to the Right, politically. When Cap and Trade and Health Insurance mandates (both conservative ideas originally) are the only remotely acceptable political position offered from the "Left," how can the political environment be described as anything but shifted to the Right? If we had shifted Left, I would expect the Republicans to be suggesting "HillaryCare" as an alternative to Universal coverage/single-payer.

Umm go back in time cap and trade would never have been considered(and it shoudlnt be) as to obama care it passed how can that not be going left? see above point 4.

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YAY I got it posted!

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sorry for the multi-posting

On an aside I went to my folks the other day and my dad was reading Manias Crashes and Panics a history of financial crises by Charles Kinbdleberger. its a book i read in college and i thought was very incitefull I am gonna read it again when my dad is finished. It should be interesting in light of the recent events. If ya get a chance its a heavy read but very interesting. If you do read it let me know as i have a very interesting story about the book.

[Guest]

Well, I'll agree that the US has moved left since WWII, but there's been a big Right counterpush since 1980 and the "Reagan Revolution." It's possible that that's winding down now (the results of the 2012 elections might make that clearer), but we've been veering right for more than 30 years now.

Obama and the Democrats tried for the better part of a year to get Republican input on the "ObamaCare" health care law, but the Republicans weren't interested in actually doing their job and governing, so the Democrats had to figure out something on their own. The health care system we had/have is stupid and capricious and it needs to change. We've been trying to update for 50 years, most notably with President Clinton's failure in the '90s. We needed to do something and because the Republicans decided to boycott the process in the hope that they could stop anything from happening, their interests were never entered into the equation (any more than what the Democrats threw in to try to appease them). It's certainly not Obama and the Democrats' fault that the bill didn't get any Republican support. They tried darn hard to get it, but the Republicans made a political calculation that if the bill failed, it would help their election prospects. So they have no one to blame except themselves for getting a "Left-wing" bill passed and signed into law.

When do you think the rest of the world got out of the Great Depression? 1936-37? That's about the time that most of Europe was gearing up for war. Was the rest of the world doing painful austerity during that whole period where the US was trying Keynesianism? The wartime spending, government spending, certainly helped to pull everyone out of the depression. In my view, the point of government policies should be to soften the pain of events beyond our control. If you have the choice between a boom and bust system and a government-damped system, I think I would prefer the damped system, even if that that kept the peaks lower than they could potentially rise, just so long as it also kept the troughs from getting as low as they could go.

I would rather have an economy like this:

   _______

  /	  \	   /

	   \_______/

than like this:

	/\

	/  \

   /	\

	  \  /

	   \/

Codebox is being really stupid, but I hope you get the idea.

[gvg]

Quag:

1. Eh, i dunno. The fed is too damn complicated. But they are now apparently giving cash to Europe's banks to support the Euro (which is at danger of failing if i remember correctly, so that's quite the investment, although i understand that it's to make sure s*** doesnt hit the fan in Europe).

2. I think Dawh answered this right. Europe was at war in 1939 (notice, right when you say the US ended it. I always thought that WW2 was an underrated helper of getting rid of the depression, though obviously war isnt the answer now) and they were preparing well in advance as everyone knew it was pretty inevitable. War, to put it frankly, kills of unemployed (and employed) people, and creates many military jobs. Thus, I'd say that were it not for WW2, the depression would have continued. And I dont trust economists much either, but historians dont specialize on the economy. So, i wouldnt trust them either on that matter. (Oh, and Hoover didnt do squat, and what happened? EVERYTHING got worse. So, doing nothing isnt helpful either apparently).

I'd like to know where you got your numbers. I dont necessarily think they're wrong (and that article did say 140 k jobs created), but id like to see the source of that claim of yours about the 300k giving up.

Also, i didnt say it was impossible to recover from a crisis without government involvement, that's obviously stupid. I think its more to do with what Dawh said, involving the charts he made. I learned in AP Euro this past week about the Dutch Economy of the 17th century. It was completely unregulated. What happened? There was, like clockwork, extreme (worse then great depression extreme) recessions and depressions (over stupid things like tulips sometimes) that lasted for years, and one recession lasted a decade. Dawh's graph is accurate, and I agree: It is far better to have more moderate peaks then to have large peaks and crashes, which are much more devastating.

And i dont think we need another stimulus, now seeing the new data about the 140k jobs created. The stock market is back on its feet and, barring a crash in Europe of epic proportions (which is of course still possible), everything seems to be uphill from here. I dont think stimulus's and things like TARP should be designed to artificially send economies into the stratosphere. I think they're there to prevent it from heading deep into the bowels of hell. I stand by my claim: were it not for TARP and the stimulus, we would have gone into a depression, instead of being where we are now, out of a recession and climbing. You saw the graph i put: it was a dramatic turn-around when Obama hit office. That's what it was there for. Now its time to help business back on there feet, with things like cutting the corporate tax rate (while at the same time closing loopholes and ending subsidies), keeping middle class rate low (they're the main consumers after all), and dealing with the debt, but not in such a dramatic way that the fragile recovery we are in blows up.

3. No. Class warfare is not an issue, for either side, no matter what the other says. You are now listening to pundits like Bill Maher, MSNBC, etc. I promise you, alll the dems are proposing is ending the bush tax cuts, sending the rich rate to 39-40%( which they wont pay anyway cause of loopholes, but its a start). THere's no proposing 60% rates or higher, nor 50 even. 40 is the highest ive heard from the dems, which would come about by ending the bush tax cuts for the rich. Is that such a bad thing? Saying, Quag, 'no raising the tax rate, just cut', is just the same as me saying, 'forget cutting, tax em all to hell.' both are stupid ideas. Mixture is needed, compromise is key. Cuts to defense should begin to help, a better system of healthcare (which we'll see if obamacare is when it takes effect in 2013 or 14, whichever it is), etc. These will cuts costs. Ending the wars, fixing up entitlements (although medicare adds a negligible amount compared to things like defense, but that'll change if we dont act soon), etc, while at the same time ending the tax cuts. This cuts the debt as well.

4. Dawh answered this well i think. But hold on, how in any way is a preemptive strike on Iraq moving left???? Not at all. Monroe doctrine isnt liberal, unless the meaning of the word has change dramatically in the last 60 years.

5. Yeah, private public is good (and unregulated private in this case i might add, no need to spend money on regulating the private aspect when there the public system to worry about). And i think its unfair to call obamacare a disaster when it hasnt taken effect yet, and wont for a couple of years.

6. It was 4.6 tril over 10 years, my bad on that. And to quote the very same Bill Maher i just put down earlier, '[he spent money] fixing what that other a**hole (bush) messed up.' Again, unfair to blame Obama. Medicare part D expenses are kicking in strong (thats unpaid). The wars were really at their peak when he entered, and cost a LOT obviously.

I think this is a good video of whats being left out btw: interest.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8JlK6k29uQ

Ignore the obvious anti-repub rhetoric btw, just focus in his main point.

again, a combination is necessary.

Dawh: Have to say i agree, but im not so sure about the thing you said about the dems because, well, i just never heard about that. Not saying its wrong, but im not sure.

[gvg]

http://sanders.senate.gov/petition/?uid=f1c2660f-54b9-4193-86a4-ec2c39342c6c

This is why i do love Bernie. he's proposing an amendment similar to what i said earlier (though not entirely the same, but whatever, its close enough and is progress).

I read the whole thing, and I think its great (the link is there in red on the site). I put myself as a co-signer.

[gvg]

I read this, and I thought I'd place it here: http://gawker.com/5866375/gentlemen-we-shot-a-judge-and-other-tales-of-blackwaters-rampage-through-iraq?utm_source=Gawker+Newsletter&utm_campaign=bcbcded4eb-UA-142218-2&utm_medium=email

Its worth noting that this is just one firm, and in fact there were more private mercenaries in Iraq than there were soldiers (and the mercenaries did most of the civilian killing).

[Quag]

Dawh I still disaagree you are heading more left.

Again Obama care could never ever have been passed before now, the real estate bubble was caused largely due to govt interference in the mortgage buisness to try and get more peopel into homes. food stamps (EBT cards) are getting used more and more, amnesty for illegals, though it didnt pass is still kicking around. there is more talk of more open borders. again the sex/violence on tv stuff. Remember the seinfield show with the bet? remember they never actually said what it was about. that was because they couldnt. but now NP they can do that.

I would like to know why you think it is moving right? tax rates are higher than they were with Regan. you have (crappy) health care (sorta), govt is exponentially larger than it was, gay marriage is allowed in many states(yes i know california referendum, but 20 years ago it wouldnt have even have been brought up as an issue.)

Health care:

Democrats didnt need 1 single republican to pass it so dont blame them for the disaster the dems have foisted on you!

Ok here is why it is a disaster and stupid.

1 mandatory health care. so if ya got no $ the govt can fine you for not buying health care?? what insane world is that? (already happend in Mass.)

2, it WILL increase costs. By forcing insurance companies to provide coverage regardless of preexisting conditions they will have no choice but to increase premiums to make up the shortfall. An insurance company makes money because it charges a large population base a small (relaively speaking) amount of $$ to insure them against health care costs (or anythign else) they calculate that it will gross X$ based on number of peopel/premiums. costs to them is Y or payouts for health care. Z is leftover profits. Some people will cost the insurance company more $ than they give in, but even more peopel will pay more$ than they take out. By adding peopel with preexisting conditions you have increased the % of people who take out more$. (often much more$) thus forcing an increase in premiums to make up the difference and increasing health care costs to all. Now I agree telling someone well tough luck you have aids and are therefore screwed is wrong your system with actual health care insurance is set up that it has to work that way. if you had an actual universal health care system paid from taxes not insurance premiums then the poor would be helped by the rich. Obama care however leaves the poor to be screwed as health care costs WILL increase using a greater % of disposabel cash of the poor than the rich. STUPID STUPID STUPID

Then of course you have Nancy Pelosi saying ya gotta pass the bill to find out what is in it. Come on you guys how can you elect such obviously incompetant politicians!

The recovery started in 1933. well before the war. Though you guys had to wait for the war to get GDP back to where it was. basically i agree with freidrich Hayek on the depression as opposed ot Keynes, basically too much credit (ie money) floating around led to a buble and the collapse of that bubble and contraction in available money resulted in the depression. hauntingly similar to what was happening with the real estate bubble and way way too easy credit in the mortgage industry.

Yes i agree with your diagrams on the economy however keynsian economics makes the troughs last longer than they should and tops them off too low. resulting in a much worse diagram overall. Super high peaks and valleys no good but low peaks woth loooooong low valleys are bad too.

gvg

1. Seems like way too much cash and its still a good bet that the Euro coudl fall resulting in a complete waste

2. recovery in Europe began earlier than that see above but yes i think without WW2 america would have taken even longer ot get out but Europe was already well on its way without war.

As to the unemplyment numbers look here

http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/business&id=8452309

http://news.yahoo.com/unemployment-rate-drops-lowest-since-2009-190428198.html

for better ideas of the unemplyment rate look at these (the differences again are based on how you calculate it

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/wonkbook-the-real-unemployment-rate-is-11-percent/2011/12/12/gIQAuctPpO_blog.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/wonkbook-the-real-unemployment-rate-is-11-percent/2011/12/12/gIQAuctPpO_blog.html

basically the govt is manipulating the numbers to make it look like unemplyment situation is better than it is, whats new there?

3. yes it is class warfare what else can you call it when you want to increase taxes but only on the higherst income earners? they already pay too much! yeah cut loopholes i agree with that but the uber rich who pay 0 taxes will pay 0 taxes under a 25-30-40-90% rate why punish the wealthy who dont manage to hide their income with tax loopholes because you are mad at those who do? saying we wont pass diddly squat without increasing the top rate which is what the Dems are saying is worse than the reps because the reps are looking at alternative the dems refuse to.

ending tax cuts will not help the deficit because the govt like every goct in history will just spend the extra $$ they always have and always will why do you think they wont? and why shoudl the wealthy who already pay more than the rest pay an even greater % why why WHY! answer me that sprry but it is class warfare iot is a way of the dems to try and get peopel mad at the reps and to think yeah the dems are on my side. BS dems liek the reps are on their own side that is they want to get elected as it is the primary goal of any politician.

4. I used the monro doctran as an exampe of an exception not as an example of movement ot the left see above.

5. See above on why Obama care is a disater it has already started to cause a rise in premiums that will only continue. What you dont want private health system regulated? Govt should regulate more and operate less is my motto. Now of course govt can over regulate as well as under regulate and the regulations MUST be intelligent (i know intellegence and govt dont usually go together) but there has to be some kind of oversight or youll end up with non sanitary hospitals resuing single use medical equipment etc.

6. Please dont quote Bill Maher, as i said before he is jsut a political comedian adn a very very partizaan one at that he will ignore anything not in line with his (Democrat) party and over inflate the importance of anything he sees as being positive to his (again Democratic) party. Heck Even Rush Limbaugh attacks the republican party when hes not happy with them (no im not advocating rush as a reliable source of info either)

[Quag]

gvg ref Bernie

Sorry that is why i despise the toad. He is soo completly 1 sided. If you notice he wants to stop corporations from dontating $ but of course he get pretty much nothing from them. He has NOOOOOO problem with Unions giving cash and guess where nut job Bernie gets his largest donations from? If he was really concerened with campaign financing he would try and stop unions from donating as well but of course he is not actully concerened with fair and equittable campaign financing only with denying his opponents from getting $ while trying to get as much for himself.

let me help you out

http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=n00000528

he is just another self serving politician who is using left wing rhetoric to get elected as opposed to right wing rhetoric. he doesnt give a crap about fair elections only about stopping his opposition from having any advantage.

He has been a politican for 40 years now. can you say career politican or what?

I live in Montreal, Vermont is next door to us so ive unfortunately heard far far too often and far far to long crap from Bernie to give the guy 1 ounce of slack on any subject

[Guest]

Dawh I still disaagree you are heading more left.

Again Obama care could never ever have been passed before now, the real estate bubble was caused largely due to govt interference in the mortgage buisness to try and get more peopel into homes. food stamps (EBT cards) are getting used more and more, amnesty for illegals, though it didnt pass is still kicking around. there is more talk of more open borders. again the sex/violence on tv stuff. Remember the seinfield show with the bet? remember they never actually said what it was about. that was because they couldnt. but now NP they can do that.

I would like to know why you think it is moving right? tax rates are higher than they were with Regan. you have (crappy) health care (sorta), govt is exponentially larger than it was, gay marriage is allowed in many states(yes i know california referendum, but 20 years ago it wouldnt have even have been brought up as an issue.)

It's a Republican meme that government interference caused the real estate bubble. There are certainly instances where the government policy encouraged risky loans, but the industry went far and above what the government was requesting in terms of bad investments. I think that encouraging home ownership for everyone is wrong-headed. Many people have jobs that require them to move a lot (or they lose their jobs and have to move to find new ones), so owning a home is not always a good investment (and it's most certainly an investment). So the government shouldn't have been encouraging loans for people who weren't in a position to support the loan. But even if the government hadn't been urging some of these loans, the industry was making plenty of loans of their own volition. If anything, proper regulation from the government should have been able to stop them from making and bundling the loans, but the Republicans spend the '00s defanging all of the government's regulatory authority.

And more to the point, it wasn't the creation of the risky loans that crashed the system. It was the bundling and reselling of "toxic assets" such that no one knew who was holding the hot potato of bad mortgages that really caused the market to crash. Real estate investors were allowed to bundle groups of loans and sell their stake in the loans to third parties who then resold them farther up the chain. So the people who offered the initial bad loan were no longer responsible for the loan to be repaid. Since they could make a profit selling the loan to someone else, they had no incentive to make sure the loan could be supported for the long-term. If they had been forced to hold onto the loans they made, they would have made sure that the loans were reasonably safe, but because they could just pass the buck some other poor schmuck, they didn't worry about it (not thinking about the fact that everyone else was doing the same thing to them).

More people are on food stamps because more people are poor. That's not evidence of moving left.

There wasn't even a concept of "illegal" immigration for the first half of the country's existence, so it's hard to justify the hysteria over it. And the only people who are really worried about "amnesty" are xenophobic nativists (who, unfortunately, are dominating the Republican party in the current climate). But in any case, only the "far Left" is pushing for any form of "amnesty" and it's not getting any traction from the Democratic leadership anyway, so it's hardly a reason to label the country as moving left either.

Reagan exploded the size of the government and while government continued to expand under Clinton, it did it at a slower rate than under Reagan or GWB. Obama hasn't appreciably increased the size of government outside of the "typical" growth that has become the norm. And again, I would say that the size of government is not a Right/Left determiner either. Reagan was part of the "Conservative revolution," but he brought "Big Government" conservatism to the fore. I would be perfectly happy with a small government if I felt that it could maintain the necessary functions of government. I don't care how large or small it is, I just want it to work. So again, that doesn't mean left or right.

I will admit that the country is moving culturally Left, but it's been moving economically Right, which has always been my focus. Supporting gay marriage and opposing censorship are frankly supporting libertarian ideals, which I think is good in this case. Part of the problem is that Left/RIght is binary, when there are really four states, not two:

1. Cultural (Big Government) Conservative: Reagan, Bush

2. Cultural (Small Government) Liberal: anti-censorship, pro-gay rights

A. Economic (Small Government) Conservative: Ron Paul libertarians

B. Economic (Big Government) Liberal: environmentalists, regulation of industry

People can be anywhere on the scale between 1 and 2 and between A and B, so there are really four broad categorizations (1A, 1B, 2A, 2B) that get lumped into two in American politics (1, B). Libertarians would generally fit into 2A. Mainline Republicans fit into 1A. There really isn't a good break in mainstream Democratic circles for 1B and 2B. Different politicians are in different places on different issues for 1B and 2B.

And it's demonstrably false that taxes are higher now than under Reagan. They were high under Reagan for much of his term and he raised taxed five times (after lowering them briefly immediately upon entering office). Tax rates have only come down in the last decade.

This was longer than expected, so I'll continue my response in a new post. I would say that I'm more of a 2B.

[Guest]

Health care:

Democrats didnt need 1 single republican to pass it so dont blame them for the disaster the dems have foisted on you!

Ok here is why it is a disaster and stupid.

1 mandatory health care. so if ya got no $ the govt can fine you for not buying health care?? what insane world is that? (already happend in Mass.)

2, it WILL increase costs. By forcing insurance companies to provide coverage regardless of preexisting conditions they will have no choice but to increase premiums to make up the shortfall. An insurance company makes money because it charges a large population base a small (relaively speaking) amount of $$ to insure them against health care costs (or anythign else) they calculate that it will gross X$ based on number of peopel/premiums. costs to them is Y or payouts for health care. Z is leftover profits. Some people will cost the insurance company more $ than they give in, but even more peopel will pay more$ than they take out. By adding peopel with preexisting conditions you have increased the % of people who take out more$. (often much more$) thus forcing an increase in premiums to make up the difference and increasing health care costs to all. Now I agree telling someone well tough luck you have aids and are therefore screwed is wrong your system with actual health care insurance is set up that it has to work that way. if you had an actual universal health care system paid from taxes not insurance premiums then the poor would be helped by the rich. Obama care however leaves the poor to be screwed as health care costs WILL increase using a greater % of disposabel cash of the poor than the rich. STUPID STUPID STUPID

Then of course you have Nancy Pelosi saying ya gotta pass the bill to find out what is in it. Come on you guys how can you elect such obviously incompetant politicians!

The mandate is the integral part of reducing costs. It creates a bigger pool of money flowing into the system and with everyone paying in, the higher costs incurred by people with pre-existing conditions is supposed to be negated (and surpassed). So premiums go down.

Premiums were already sky-rocketing before the healthcare bill was passed and the predictions were expecting them to only go higher. The healthcare law has tempered the rise by some accounts (sorry no links, I'm being lazy). In any case, premiums have just started to come down as a new part of the law has gone into effect requiring 80% of money from premiums to pay for claims, rather than overhead or administration. Since the administrators can no longer pad their paychecks with premium money (above 20%), they can't justify the higher premiums of the past. If the law works as expected, premiums should level off now or go down a little as they balance out with the 80% requirement.

A lot of people on the Left wanted a single-payer system, but with the Republicans refusing to play ball, they Democrats only had input from 1B and 2B in my chart. They asked for ideas from 1A and 2A, but they weren't interested in dealing, thinking that the bill could be defeated by pure obstruction. If they had participated in the governing process, I think they could have had a better bill. But the political calculation for the Republicans was that if the bill failed, Obama and the Democrats would look weak and that would result in Republican gains in 2010 and 2012. As more components of ObamaCare kick in, I think that they public will continue to warm to the idea. I don't know the specifics, but I think there are mitigating circumstances and subsidies in the law for the truly destitute.

Republicans made the word "taxes" so toxic that the Democrats couldn't put it in the bill for fear of scaring vulnerable Democrats away, so that's one reason the bill didn't include them in the reform. If people were willing to discuss taxes in a reasonable manner, rather "TAXES: EVILLLLL!!!!!" we could have had a better bill.

3. yes it is class warfare what else can you call it when you want to increase taxes but only on the higherst income earners? they already pay too much! yeah cut loopholes i agree with that but the uber rich who pay 0 taxes will pay 0 taxes under a 25-30-40-90% rate why punish the wealthy who dont manage to hide their income with tax loopholes because you are mad at those who do? saying we wont pass diddly squat without increasing the top rate which is what the Dems are saying is worse than the reps because the reps are looking at alternative the dems refuse to.

ending tax cuts will not help the deficit because the govt like every goct in history will just spend the extra $$ they always have and always will why do you think they wont? and why shoudl the wealthy who already pay more than the rest pay an even greater % why why WHY! answer me that sprry but it is class warfare iot is a way of the dems to try and get peopel mad at the reps and to think yeah the dems are on my side. BS dems liek the reps are on their own side that is they want to get elected as it is the primary goal of any politician.

My point was, "Sure it's class warfare, but the other side is making the rules forbidding calling it that and they are waging it against the poor and middle class already." So I don't see it as a bad thing. It's an attempt to balance the advantage the rich have already taken from the current system. And the Dems have been more than willing to compromise and they have done it on multiple occasions, but the Reps never moved an appreciable amount on anything. Offering "alternatives" is not saying that they moved to the left on their proposals. They scattershot a bunch of bills that shifted some things to the left in some small ways, only by pairing it with a further skewing of something else to the farther right. Democratic proposals can only be started in the Senate right now since the Republicans control the House, but because of the ridiculous filibuster rules in the Senate, none of the Democratic bills can even make it to the floor to be discussed.

And since Gingrich came to power, the Republicans have been demonizing the Democrats at every turn, so it's a problem stemming from him in terms of decency and decorum. The Republicans have been working hard to get the public mad at the Democrats ever since 1992.

[Quag]

i agree that PROPER govt regulation could have prevented the bubble and subsequent meltdown. We had such regulations here and did not have the problems. But the fact was that the govt modified the rules and encouraged banks and mortgage brokers to lend to peopel who would never in a million years get a loan her ein canada. So no govt interference was A MAJOR FACTOR! it is not a republican meme it is a fact. Republicans are at fault for this as well as democrats.

No it was the risky loans in the first place. When you give interest only variable rate mortgages to people and then let them refinance every year as the "value" of the property rises to peopel who shouldnt qualify for a loan in the first place you get the bubble you saw. The repackaging of the loaans merely let the bubble grow bigger before bursting but it would still have been a bubble and bursted in any case. The whole thing came apart when interest rates rose and people statrted to default. The ball just stated rolling on its own after that gathering momentum.

As to food stamps. Despite the (i will use it slightly imprperly but with purpose) class warfare crap comming out of the democrats the poverty rate is not really changing it goes up and down between about 11 and 15% highest ones seem not surprisingly to coincide with recessions.

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0104525.html

http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/data/census/1960/cphl162.html

the EBT program is just getting more generous. I am not saying this is a bad thing only that is going to more people and that the poverty rate is not changing much.

Yes the amnesty thing is relatively new but both REPs and DEMS are onside/against depending on where they are from and whether they are ideologically bent a certain way to begin with.

What does regan making the govt bigger have to do with anything? republicans can do more left wing things just as democrats can do more right wing things.

REPUBLICAN does not equal RIGHT wing

DEMOCRAT does not equal LEFT wing.

perhaps i shoudl define what i consider right wing and left wing. because if we are not using the same language we cannot begin to have an intelligent conversation

RIGHT = small govt, personal responsability

L:EFT = large govt, social responsability

please demonstrate regans taxes being higher than they are now?

http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=213

yeah when he came in they were high but he brought them down continually under his presidency untill they were lower than they are now.

So basically you say culturally to the left we agree but why economically to the right? taxes have done nothing but go up since regan, except under 2nd bush but still above regan levels govt is bigger than ever. where is the economic right wing stuff happening?

[Quag]

The mandate is the integral part of reducing costs. It creates a bigger pool of money flowing into the system and with everyone paying in, the higher costs incurred by people with pre-existing conditions is supposed to be negated (and surpassed). So premiums go down.

Premiums were already sky-rocketing before the healthcare bill was passed and the predictions were expecting them to only go higher. The healthcare law has tempered the rise by some accounts (sorry no links, I'm being lazy). In any case, premiums have just started to come down as a new part of the law has gone into effect requiring 80% of money from premiums to pay for claims, rather than overhead or administration. Since the administrators can no longer pad their paychecks with premium money (above 20%), they can't justify the higher premiums of the past. If the law works as expected, premiums should level off now or go down a little as they balance out with the 80% requirement.

Yes that is the theory but unfotunately it doesnt actually happen that way. for the reasons i stated above

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/27/us-health-insurance-costs-climb

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/health/2009-09-15-insurance-costs_N.htm

I have only seen reports of the increases gaining in speed, not slowing down. Please find me where they are coming down?

As to the 20% law please tell me you dont think that politicians are smarter making a 2000+page bill than insurance company executives who will invariable find loopholes and other ways around this? The red part is where it WILL fall apart as it will never work as expected!

But lets assume that this insane thing "works as planned"

Guy A 20k income

Guy B 200K income

Guy C 2kk Income

all pay lets say 2k for new obama care (i know is low but easy math)

A=10% salary

B= 2% Salary

C= .2% salary

How is that remotely fair? even flat taxers would never propose a regressive tax system!

plus A risks fines if he chooses to feed and house his family at the expense of health care is that insane or what??

Left didnt need 1 single republican stop naming them for this monstrosity they didnt need them for this they wouldnt have needed them for a decent health care bill providing some sort of universal coverage either!

Republicans made the word "taxes" so toxic that the Democrats couldn't put it in the bill for fear of scaring vulnerable Democrats away, so that's one reason the bill didn't include them in the reform. If people were willing to discuss taxes in a reasonable manner, rather "TAXES: EVILLLLL!!!!!" we could have had a better bill.

Taxes are not a toxic word Obama hasnt stppoed talking about raising them since he got into office! again its not the republicans fault the dems made a stupid bill!

My point was, "Sure it's class warfare, but the other side is making the rules forbidding calling it that and they are waging it against the poor and middle class already." So I don't see it as a bad thing. It's an attempt to balance the advantage the rich have already taken from the current system. And the Dems have been more than willing to compromise and they have done it on multiple occasions, but the Reps never moved an appreciable amount on anything. Offering "alternatives" is not saying that they moved to the left on their proposals. They scattershot a bunch of bills that shifted some things to the left in some small ways, only by pairing it with a further skewing of something else to the farther right. Democratic proposals can only be started in the Senate right now since the Republicans control the House, but because of the ridiculous filibuster rules in the Senate, none of the Democratic bills can even make it to the floor to be discussed.

Ok were you admit class warfare good. Now i just need you to admit the dems are much more inflexible than the republicans. I never said the republicans moved to the left i said they are trying to come up with compromises but the dems are saying NONONONONONO and offer NONE of their own except the same old thing give us 100% of what we want. Reps want NO tax increase and speding cuts, dems want tax increase no cuts. republicans have moved and accepted some tax increases dems havent moved at all! Now i dont think the reps are being slightly malleable out of niceness but politics. the dems are being inflexible for same reasons. They have tied their horse to tax increases on the "rich" and cant back down. Obama got a lot of flack for the extension he already gave and fear of pissing off the base will not let them budge. NEITHER side does things because the believe them 100% they both do things for political reasons.

And since Gingrich came to power, the Republicans have been demonizing the Democrats at every turn, so it's a problem stemming from him in terms of decency and decorum. The Republicans have been working hard to get the public mad at the Democrats ever since 1992.

actually the DEMS and REPs have been demonizing each other since well the beggining of your nation. it si Niave to think that this is relatively new. They did a survey here and found the guy l;eading the NDP (now deceased, evil cancer) who was constantly demanding a return to civility ion our house of commons was by far the most rude and insulting of all the politicians in parliment. I know its an aside but jsut pointing out this has been going on forever and peopel have been decrying it forever saying if only we could get back to the civility of yesteryear, unfortunately it never existed

[Guest]

actually the DEMS and REPs have been demonizing each other since well the beggining of your nation. it si Niave to think that this is relatively new. They did a survey here and found the guy l;eading the NDP (now deceased, evil cancer) who was constantly demanding a return to civility ion our house of commons was by far the most rude and insulting of all the politicians in parliment. I know its an aside but jsut pointing out this has been going on forever and peopel have been decrying it forever saying if only we could get back to the civility of yesteryear, unfortunately it never existed

Just quickly, I did oversimplify that point. Yes, politics has always been a dirty business, but it was Newt and his ilk who codified it and condensed it to its current toxic form. Up until the 1980s, Congressmen from both sides of the aisle spent a lot of time together. They ate lunch together in the Congressional cafeteria and they generally had cordial relations off the House floor (which helped to ease sticky legislation through in backroom meetings). But it was Gingrich and his supporters who started pushing backbenchers to stick to party lunches and to consider their opponents "the enemy" in all things. I don't think that there are very many Democrats or Republicans in Congress who maintain strong friendships now that the political class of Ted Kennedy and Orrin Hatch is retiring/dying (though Hatch fought off a potentially tough primary challenge by blatantly pandering to the far right in the last year).

So I think that I was half-right in saying that cordiality has disappeared from the halls of Congress since the current crop of Republicans came to power. Up until that point, most contentious floor debates were on the content of the bills, not on the content of the other side's character. Gingrich helped change all that with his list and general bomb-throwing mentality. Gingrich basically said that decorum and precedent didn't matter: The ends justify the means. So even if we abuse 100 year House and Senate rules to get what we want, it's okay. Because getting what we want is all that matters.

The filibuster and cloture rules in the Senate are archaic rules intended to slow truly egregious legislation that a significant portion of the Senate (the supposed "most deliberative body in the world") has problems with. It had become routine to use it (and secret holds) to stop any and all legislation from passing, even if that legislation ends up getting 96-0 votes once cloture is finally obtained. Cloture is designed to be invoked only rarely, but the Senate rules don't provide any limitations on it, so it could have been used the way that it currently is for the entirety of the rule's existence, but only now that they must obstruct "the enemy" from passing any legislation, no matter how trivial, it has become common place. The Dems should have modified the rules when they had the chance to try to bring it back to its original purpose, to slow down monumental legislation that really does need a second look, not for routine appropriations bills that gets passed almost unanimously after cloture passes. In particular, Republicans are using it right now to hold up all of Obama's appointments to various posts, even ones that they wouldn't find controversial in the slightest, just because they don't want the government to be able to do the job it is paid to do. I don't think any other President has had as few of his appointees passed (or failed) by the Senate as the President has because of Republican obstruction.

[Quag]

Nope the personal attacks are as old as the congress. ill have to disagree with you there. as to fillibusters dems did the same thing there really is no change.

i can remember the republicans accusing the dems of the exact same dirty tricks during the bush era, then the dems accusing the reps under Clinton. then reps accusing dems under bush the elder (heheh sounds more polite and old world britishy than bush 41) and regan and dems accusing reps under Carter, before that i was too young but if you look at the historical material it is all the same. only in old timey times they used pamphlets and newspapers not tv radio and the internet

Not that i think Newt is a nice polite politician or anything but he hasnt invented squat.

[Guest]

Nope the personal attacks are as old as the congress. ill have to disagree with you there. as to fillibusters dems did the same thing there really is no change.

i can remember the republicans accusing the dems of the exact same dirty tricks during the bush era, then the dems accusing the reps under Clinton. then reps accusing dems under bush the elder (heheh sounds more polite and old world britishy than bush 41) and regan and dems accusing reps under Carter, before that i was too young but if you look at the historical material it is all the same. only in old timey times they used pamphlets and newspapers not tv radio and the internet

Not that i think Newt is a nice polite politician or anything but he hasnt invented squat.

I didn't say that the personal attacks weren't age-old. I said that rather than having attacks in public, while maintaining some level of friendship off the floor (as odd as that sounds), Newt and Co. institutionalized the idea of demonizing the other side all the time, no matter what. Even if you really agree with them, you demonize them anyway and say they don't go far enough.

I think the graph in this article from Talking Points Memo shows that the Democrats and Republicans are not the same when it comes to filibuster use. Both sides have been using it for more things, but the Republicans have been far more cavalier with it. And accusing someone of doing something is not the same as that person doing it.

[Quag]

I think the graph in this article from Talking Points Memo shows that the Democrats and Republicans are not the same when it comes to filibuster use. Both sides have been using it for more things, but the Republicans have been far more cavalier with it. And accusing someone of doing something is not the same as that person doing it.

Hmm graph seems to show that the trend is up regardless of who controlls the senate. but i still dont see how that makes your country more right wing. i see it as showing the 2 parties going farther apart, something i said in the very beggining of this thread before it got all crazy anarchist then morphed into what it is now. I still maintain your county is moving more to the left. it is not linear but the general trend is moving to a more liberal society. Politicians being politiicans will use whatever they can to get themselves elected. Lying, imploring, yelling, scaring, bribing, whatever they think will work. This is not new it is as old as well human civilization.

Being a fiscal conservative/social liberal I applaud the social mouvement towards the left but lament the fiscal imprudence shown by well so darn many of your politicians of all stripes.

[Guest]

gvg ref Bernie

Sorry that is why i despise the toad. He is soo completly 1 sided. If you notice he wants to stop corporations from dontating $ but of course he get pretty much nothing from them. He has NOOOOOO problem with Unions giving cash and guess where nut job Bernie gets his largest donations from? If he was really concerened with campaign financing he would try and stop unions from donating as well but of course he is not actully concerened with fair and equittable campaign financing only with denying his opponents from getting $ while trying to get as much for himself.

let me help you out

http://www.opensecre...p?cid=n00000528

he is just another self serving politician who is using left wing rhetoric to get elected as opposed to right wing rhetoric. he doesnt give a crap about fair elections only about stopping his opposition from having any advantage.

He has been a politican for 40 years now. can you say career politican or what?

I live in Montreal, Vermont is next door to us so ive unfortunately heard far far too often and far far to long crap from Bernie to give the guy 1 ounce of slack on any subject

I admit I'm not the best informed on Bernie Sanders, but my impression is that most of the policies that he supports to stop corporations from spending money on elections would also affect unions. I don't think he's being inconsistent in this regard. Sure, he's getting union money now, but that's because his views align more closely with union goals than with the views of many corporations. The unfortunate fact of elections in this country right now is that you need an exorbitant sum of money to run and have any chance of winning. Bernie Sanders could probably run with less money than a lot of politicians now since he's been there for 40 years as you said and has the name recognition, but the point of entry is almost prohibitively expensive, so everyone has to get money from somewhere, be it corporations, unions, yourself or lots and lots of individual donations.

You seem to be very cynical regarding all politicians, believing that they are all craven publicity seekers, uninterested in actually making the world a better place. I'm just a little miffed because you demonize Sanders and Pelosi in particular and in my opinion, while there are certainly a lot of craven politicians, those two seem to be two of the more earnest ones. Being a career politician isn't necessarily a bad thing. It means you know the game and that you know how to get things done efficiently and one hopes that you know what works and what doesn't work when crafting legislation.

Efforts to curtail "career politicians" by imposing term limits have usually been bad in my view because it prevents good, effective politicians from staying in their job as long as the voters want. It also limits the amount of experience in the government body. If your politicians can only hold a particular position for 2 terms of 4 years, then they can only get a limited amount of experience before they become ineligible to hold the position again, meaning you get stuck with relative neophytes in the job because there is such a high turnover rate (by design).

Sure there can be abuses by being a career politician, but I think it's worse when they are forced to "retire" after a certain amount of time because the "bad" politicians just become lobbyists anyway now, so they're hardly out of politics and they're even less accountable than if they were in an elected position. (Term limits aren't quite germane to the US Congress as it's been ruled that the states don't have the power to limit the number of terms of a federal elected politician. Only the Federal government could impose term-limits on Congress by means of a Constitutional amendment like the one for limiting the president to two terms(22nd).)

Hmm graph seems to show that the trend is up regardless of who controlls the senate. but i still dont see how that makes your country more right wing. i see it as showing the 2 parties going farther apart, something i said in the very beggining of this thread before it got all crazy anarchist then morphed into what it is now. I still maintain your county is moving more to the left. it is not linear but the general trend is moving to a more liberal society. Politicians being politiicans will use whatever they can to get themselves elected. Lying, imploring, yelling, scaring, bribing, whatever they think will work. This is not new it is as old as well human civilization.

Being a fiscal conservative/social liberal I applaud the social mouvement towards the left but lament the fiscal imprudence shown by well so darn many of your politicians of all stripes.

I'm thinking that you didn't intend to imply that, since we are becoming (in your view) a more liberal society, politicians are lying, yelling, etc. more. Because I'm pretty sure that those two ideas are non sequiturs. Being a liberal society does not indicate that politicians are more aggressive than other types of societies. And politicians "[l]ying, imploring, yelling, scaring, bribing, whatever they think will work" to get elected does not require society (or the politicians) to be liberal. There can be just as much browbeating in conservative societies as in liberal ones.

[Quag]

2nd point first

I was replying to what i thought was your attempt to equate rebublican fillibusters to the USA moving to the right. I was trying to point out that "Lying, imploring, yelling, scaring, bribing, whatever" was neither right nor left and has always been around. Obviously i didnt get my point across very well. So if you didnt mean to imply that conservatives are the only ones who act like this and it isnt a move to the right then i misunderstood and well am still confused on what your actual point was, Please elaborate.

Bernie:

If Bernie had wanted to include Unions he would have, the fact he didnt speaks volumes! Actually i doubt it really matters anymore. thanx to the internet any group can base activities outside the USA and spam the internet with whatever they want. There is no way for the govt to effectively regulate this. I am not saying this is a good thing, i think it is terrible! i just dont see any way around 3rd party interference in elections in modern times. Thus money will always be a factor. having said that at a certain point it makes little difference. If politician A spends 100 million and politician B 200 they have both pretty much saturated the market. Presidential elections have reached this level, though i do not believe senatorial or lower have yet.

You seem to be very cynical regarding all politicians, believing that they are all craven publicity seekers, uninterested in actually making the world a better place. I'm just a little miffed because you demonize Sanders and Pelosi in particular and in my opinion, while there are certainly a lot of craven politicians, those two seem to be two of the more earnest ones. Being a career politician isn't necessarily a bad thing. It means you know the game and that you know how to get things done efficiently and one hopes that you know what works and what doesn't work when crafting legislation.

Yes i am cynical. I believe most (i hope) enter for the right reasons but they soon learn if you dont get elected you cant do squat and even then unless you are chair of a commitee leader of the house/senate/opposition few peopel listen to you. they only want to influence you not let you influence them. Thus the old adage the primary job of a politician is to get elected becomes a self fulfilling prophesy of sorts. I agree a career politician isnt necessarily bad but Bernie has done nothing NADA SQUAT of any use and i see him as a fraud who doesnt give a crap about the little guy but spends all his time pretending he does. I do not see Bernie even remotely capable of working outside his extreme left wing ideology on any matter under any sitiation and thus is EXACTLY what you are accusing the reps (partialy rightly partially wrongly) of doing. This complete waste of time of a petition is just another example as far as i am concened.

I dont like Bernie if you cant tell yet!

As to Pelosi Well i just consider her a moron not fit for any office. Certain remarks make me dismiss politicians as being unfit. The we must pass the bill to see whats in it is a prime example. For a politician to be against a bill I do not believe they have to read it all if it is opposite to their political views but to be for a bill you damn well better read it and understand it! It could be very very different than what you think. (again the Bernie Sanders petition doesnt mention Unions and that IS on purpose) I would attack republicans liek Newt but i see no need as you and gvg are doing a fine job.

having said all that if a politician does the right thing for the wrong reasons i will dislike him/her but will be more inclined to vote for them that someone who does the wrong thing regardless of reasons.

Efforts to curtail "career politicians" by imposing term limits have usually been bad in my view because it prevents good, effective politicians from staying in their job as long as the voters want. It also limits the amount of experience in the government body. If your politicians can only hold a particular position for 2 terms of 4 years, then they can only get a limited amount of experience before they become ineligible to hold the position again, meaning you get stuck with relative neophytes in the job because there is such a high turnover rate (by design).

i dont think ive ever said i was for term limits. i am actually very divided on them opposed for reasons you say but see soem use at often politicians get elected because peopel remember their name not because of anythign they have ever done (often remembering the name because they have actually been in the news for being so incredibly bad at what they do)

[gvg]

Quag:

First off, on Bernie:

Yes, you are right, not including unions is stupid, but not doing this petition at all just because of that is even more dumb. So i signed it. Not the best, but certainly better than nothing.

For your other points:

1. I doubt it'll fail. It was that or for sure it would fail, and actually, considering the fact that they are separate from the gov., i dont think taxpayers (i was gonna say way we but im dont pay them yet =)) will have to pay this back. I could be wrong, but the Fed pumped a lot more money into the economy then the gov did, and we dont have to pay it, so.

2. Yeah, i know they count it differently. They used full non-working numbers during the depression, then at some point stopped, i dunno when. Which is why I'm skeptical of any 'drops' in unemployment. But then, think of it this way: if it looks like unemployment is going down, that gives people more confidence, giving the economy more confidence, and ultimately improving it. it's not like the government is hiding these numbers, otherwise no one would know about them without a leak. So slightly misleading, yes, but i think with good intention.

3. OK, this is where we disagree, as we know. But notice that the biggest players in the dems are only talking about letting the bush tax cuts expire, which had no reason to exist in the first place. No doing more then that, nor should they. And of course its obvious that unless we look at capital gains taxes, we are going to miss the Steve Jobs and Bill Gates type billionaires. Now, whether or not we should raise the capital gains tax is an issue in and of itself (which truthfully, although there is no evidence of an effect on investment when capital gains taxes go up or down, im not sure enough to have an argument on that). Also, the whole point of ending the tax cuts is because its supposed to combine with spending cuts to reduce the deficit. And of course the rich pay more in taxes, they have more money! Even if we taxed a guy making 50k 50% (which is of course ridiculous) and taxes a guy making 1 mil 10%, the rich guy will pay more taxes because he has more money. So that is irrelevant. Consider this video:

http://www.thedailys...ee-ride-is-over

I think he says it best. Think: the rich got there with help from his or her countrymen. Why is it wrong in a time of crisis to ask them to give back and help? The middle class spend the most, so of course raising taxes on them would be dumb and would have the wrong effect. Taxing the poor more would be negligible and again pointless. This leaves one source of revenue income tax wise: closing loopholes and raising the rate of the rich a little. No one is calling for 90% taxes, and if they are, they should be ignored like the idiots they are. Ending the bush tax cuts bumps it up to the 39.5% it would be anyway were it not for the Bush tax cuts. Whats the matter with this? someone making 1 million (the rich threshold for me, don't give me this ridiculousness of 250k Obama) with that kind of tax (without the loopholes of course, because there would still be some legitimate ones that remain) would pay (rounding up to 40%) 400k dollars. A big amount, dont get me wrong. But that leaves that individual 600k. And thats an individual too, because if im not mistaking, taxes are different for spouses with or without kids. I dont know about you, but give me 600k as an individual and im set for the year. It doesnt even need to go this high, but currently the rich pay mid 20's% in taxes. Raising this to even 35 or 30% would help when combined with other things. Most of the money may need to come from cuts, but a large amount needs to be increased revenue as well. (By the way, i feel this is worth reading actually, because it discusses middle class taxes: http://www.politifac...r-middle-class/).

4. My Mistake.

5. These are estimates. Obamacare hasnt even taken effect yet. It will right around the time these issues will be more then just intellectual talking points for me (i think it goes into effect 2013-14, ill be 17-18 by then).

6. Thats not Bill Maher. Thats a guy explaining why Bill Maher is wrong. Very different. And thats completely incorrect. He attacks the democrats almost as much as the republicans for being spineless, leaderless crybaby's. Almost every show i've seen involving discussion of the two parties garners the same result. He hates both parties, and actually agrees with republicans on some things, like the death penalty (he's praised Bill O'Reily before).

Now to agree with you somewhat: We've been moving left culturally for sure, thankfully. Left economically? I dunno about that, although we havent been moving right (that is, conservatively/liberterienly) either. So i dunno. Quag might be right on that one.

And i actually praised Newt by the way, but from what i saw in the debate yesterday, good god i was wrong. Of them all, Ron Paul was doing good early on, and i still agree with him on many (though not all) of his social and military ideas. but then he remembered he was Ron Paul, and the crazy left me breathless. Thus, my current favorite is still Huntsman, but he's got some things i dont agree with either.

There are good republicans. Indeed. And Dawh, Pelosi is a dumba**. I'm no fan of big corporations, but Pelosi kisses up to unions (again, not necessarily horrible, but big unions and big corporations are the same: they compete for government attention and favors, sell a product (for the unions its high (sometimes ridiculously) wages and other things good and bad), and dont have my love or even my respect. so.)

Oh, and term limits are dumb too.

Edited December 16, 2011 by gvg

[peace*out]

I dont know if you guys posted this already, but i just thought id post this...

[gvg]

Oh, that LOVELY commercial.

Funniest thing about it though: I don't know who pointed it out, but that jacket looks like the one from brokeback mountain =) Irony, how I love you.

[gvg]

http://nolabels.org/work#ways

THAT is something i signed right when i saw it.