Its funny to see Chris Matthews freak out like he did. All the MSNBC pundants were extremely disappointed in their man Obama.

Truth of the matter Obama did not deliver.

Did you miss the "sarcasm" button?>> ^mxxcon:

>> ^messenger:
Or a lame character from one of the new Star Wars movies.>> ^mxxcon:
"Reince Priebus" name sounds like some hemorrhoids condition.

you are disrespecting starwars too much.

>> ^messenger:

Or a lame character from one of the new Star Wars movies.>> ^mxxcon:
"Reince Priebus" name sounds like some hemorrhoids condition.

you are disrespecting starwars too much.

Or a lame character from one of the new Star Wars movies.>> ^mxxcon:

"Reince Priebus" name sounds like some hemorrhoids condition.

I think he was joking, too.

I also think he is -- guess what!! -- so out of touch with average Americans, that he doesn't understand the number of people in his party who would take that "joke" as fuel to the fire of their delusions.

He just cannot joke about this. Obama can, because his supporters know it is a joke. Rmoney can't, because some of his supporters don't know it is a joke.

Out. Of. Touch.



>> ^Kofi:

Reince - It's called "Obama-care"
Umm, no. The right-wing call it Obama Care. It's called The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
Plus, I do think Romney was joking. I believe that he was mocking the whole absurdity of the notion of birth certificates and hence making fun of people like Boobknight here. Its just that robots have no sense of

timing.

>> ^Kofi:

Reince - It's called "Obama-care"
Umm, no. The right-wing call it Obama Care. It's called The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
Plus, I do think Romney was joking. I believe that he was mocking the whole absurdity of the notion of birth certificates and hence making fun of people like Boobknight here. Its just that robots have no sense of

timing.


It's obvious that he was making a joke, but in no way is the target of his joke the birthers or the absurdity. His joke is that he looks and acts like a Michigander, and that he's from a powerful, wealthy family with roots there, and that everyone knows who he is. And that Obama, by contrast, doesn't look or act like an American, and no one really knows who he is.

I mean, here's the actual moment. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgxeUT6gzko

>> ^bobknight33:

Race card? There are just as much poor whites on welfare as blacks.
Democrats pull the race card all the time.
What game is being played?
Chris is such a fool. If Obama was born in America why has he spent millions to stop others from seeing a bonafide original document?


http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/rss_viewer/birth-certificate-long-form.pdf

What you mean this one, took me like 2 seconds to google obama birth certificate.

de·lu·sion/diˈlo͞oZHən/
Noun:
An idiosyncratic belief or impression that is firmly maintained despite being contradicted by what is generally accepted as reality

I can't believe I'm actually walking into this, but although the number of white welfare recipients is nearly equal to the number black welfare recipients, the overall number of blacks in America is about 6 times less than whites which makes it a much higher percentage of people in the black community receiving welfare. So issues of welfare have racial connotations. (and not to mention the fact that over 60% of people receiving welfare belong to some minority group)

And thank you for inspiring others to vote against your candidate with your last remark. Keep spreading "your truth" son, it can only help my side.>> ^bobknight33:

Race card? There are just as much poor whites on welfare as blacks.
Democrats pull the race card all the time.
What game is being played?
Chris is such a fool. If Obama was born in America why has he spent millions to stop others from seeing a bonafide original document?

It's called Goebbeling isn't it? After the WW2 Minister of propaganda?
>> ^KnivesOut:

The GOP thinks that if you tell the same lies loud enough and often enough, they start to become truth.
Get mad Chris, I fucking love it.

I thought Chris Matthews was their token sane person.

I actually have The Quantum Thief on my kindle, and started one or two chapters, but put it down for some reason. I'll have to start it again, then.

I've been reading a couple of biographies: Mao: A Life, and Chris Matthew's new book on JFK, Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero.

This.

I think a stronger host or adversary could have tripped her up. Chris Matthews would have had her for lunch. >> ^Mammaltron:

Exactly, that's her job. Question gets asked, she doesn't want to answer so she ignores it and says "what this is really about is..."
Media handling 101. Admittedly it doesn't come off too well here though, hard to dodge a simple and direct question...
>> ^kir_mokum:
she didn't "steer" the conversation, she put the parking brake on.

>> ^wax66:

Apples and oranges. What I'm talking about is freedom of speech. I can say all day long that I hate such-and-such group, and if I own a private business I would even be able to say that such-and-such group can't come in. But does that REALLY hurt them?

If "such and such a group" is a group without elective membership (e.g. a race), and the practice is common amongst those that control the means of private production (e.g. Southerners post civil war), then yes, it does hurt them.

Further, it isn't at all beyond the realm of reason to think such a confluence of circumstances could (in fact is likely to) exist again. Ron Paul's assertion that Chris Matthews was concerned about his racism was a red herring. Ron Paul's bigotry is not at issue. Saying "I don't consider myself a bigot and thus minorities are safe without these protections," is bad logic.

@NetRunner Honestly, I'm unimpressed. Peter Schiff may not be John Nash, but you sound like Chris Matthews. Do you get your economic wisdom from Mother Jones or HuffPo?


So the response to "I doubt he's really paying 50% in taxes" is not to recount even a hypothetical example of how someone could wind up paying a sum total of 50% in taxes, but instead to just argue that the dubious statement might feel true because there are many various taxes someone might be paying?

Hypothetical example (which I thought I outlined for you): Peter Schiff owns/runs a business as his primary mode of income. That business pays a 35% corporate tax rate on their profits. The remaining profits translate into capital gains, which are then taxed at 15%. While obviously the tax rates aren't perfectly additive (15% of 65% is smaller than 15% of 100%), you can still see how one could quickly approach 50% in taxes. I haven't even included any local taxes or consumption taxes. These aren't dubious statements. These are facts about the tax code which progressives should learn to wise up to. There is a valid point there about streamlining the tax code. Like you said... Meh.


The response to my argument about the impact of marginal tax increases on employment is to make some argument about Schiff's personal labor/leisure preferences? That has nothing to do with it at all. If Schiff is the entrepreneurial capitalist he claims to be (and not just the F-list media personality he seems to be), then he doesn't really do any direct labor, he just makes choices about allocations of capital -- he makes investment decisions, and business deals where all the real work is done by other people.

He's making the case that if he has to pay a few more percentage points in taxes, he's going to start walking away from making investment deals that would have made his company money and employed people. Hell, he goes so far as to say that he would dissolve his ostensibly profitable business and fire all his employees, rather than sell it to someone else who still likes making money, even if they have to pay taxes.

Making investment deals and business decisions isn't quite like arguing on the internet and playing video games. You have to meet people, negotiate, spend basically all day on the phone or in a plane. You don't have much time for your family (though I don't know if he has one). While it may not be coal mining, it's certainly work. It's at least as much work as the people typing things into excel between trips to the water cooler are doing. It's quite possible that if he were to decide to leave, or cut back his hours worked (because of government disincentive), the firm would downsize or even fail. All those workers whose paychecks depended on his profitable decision making could be out of work. Now like I said, someone else might hire back those same workers (e.g. if he sold the firm), however there is no guarantee the business will be as profitable without their greatest profit engine (Schiff himself). Like I further argued, if there were someone equally capable of running the firm as profitably, they would likely already be a competitor.


As for the "buying labor low" argument, which sector is doing that? Right now what they're doing is shedding lots of employees, not paying out raises, cutting health benefits, and hoping that if/when they need more labor, the extended period of unemployment will provide them with a pool of desperate talent willing to work for far less than they would have pre-2007.

Right, because the government won't let the labor market correct. They keep propping everybody up with prolonged unemployment (I've known somewhat skilled people that wouldn't take jobs because unemployment pays better), and direct government employment. It is happening within some sectors, particularly highly skilled labor. Perhaps you've heard of the skills gap in the current employment picture? For example, the university I'm at is shedding lecturers, and poaching high-valued researchers from struggling institutions. There have been plenty of proposals to bridge this skills gap in more industrial sectors as well, e.g. turning unemployment benefits into vocational training. But instead you took a left turn towards "the mean corporations won't do things that are against their interests."


It's true that once upon a time, back when we had a lot of unionization, a lot of companies hoarded talent in exactly the manner you describe, so they could potentially enter into the expansion with a competitive advantage. But that's the old way of thinking, back when labor was broadly considered a valuable company resource, and not simply a fungible commodity to be purchased or discarded as needed. Offshore contractors, anyone?

Now you're a protectionist? Have you heard of "cost centers" and "profit centers?" Profit centers (valued labor) don't get outsourced. Cost centers (commoditized, fungible, unskilled, expensive labor) do. With regard to unions, it has often been their own inflexibility with their contracts (not that executives aren't equally guilty with bonuses) that has resulted in layoffs as opposed to shared pain (evenly spread hour reductions).


Lastly about the "leave the money where the market put it" -- that's a good one! You seamlessly pivoted from "economics as a theory for understanding the world" to "economics as a system of moral justice". Nicely done, you're pretty good at talking like a conservative!

Thanks. I think it's important to be able to see all sides rather than just cheerlead. Also, "economics" is theory, "the market" is the most efficient system for allocating resources with respect to individual preferences known to man. We can talk about our favorite flawed microeconomic assumptions if you want, but it's a tough case that "because I said so" is going to be more efficient than voluntary exchange.


Still it doesn't address my basic economic argument at all -- that our high unemployment is fundamentally a function of a lack of demand. Lots of people don't have money to spend, even on things they desperately need. The handfuls of people who do have money don't see any way to employ that money in a profitable way, so they're just sitting on it. There's a few ways to try to solve that problem, but cutting (or maintaining existing) taxes on the top income earners won't help.

(I get nauseous arguing against the Keynesian point so I won't directly). What I'll say is that it isn't clear drastically raising taxes on the rich will help either. What might help is a more efficient allocation of the government revenue we already have (like the vocational training instead of unemployment I outlined above). The other thing that I, and I think many others would like to see is an increase in the standard of living of individual business proprietors. They've been doing worse than "traditional labor" over the past few decades in case you haven't noticed.


A simple, but radical solution would be for the Fed to simply buy up everyone's mortgages, and then release the leins on everyone's deeds. In other words, just have Uncle Sam pay off everyone's mortgage with freshly-printed money. I suspect consumer spending would return if we did that!

I do too! I bet everyone would go leverage themselves to the gills buying houses knowing full well that when they can't cover the debt the government will bail them out! Sure, stopgap coverage, renegotiation, all that would be great (much better than bailing out the banks directly IMO), but a full fledged free money party only exacerbates the delusion. It's a recipe for currency debasement. People need to be allowed to demonstrate and feel the consequences of their lack of creditworthiness. Also, those that were creditworthy should be appropriately rewarded. It's sort of like the OWS girl that wants rich people to pay back her 100gs in student loans, but all those people that saved for college, worked for scholarships, held a job through school, well they're probably just fine the way they are.


As for my closing quip, I'm quite serious -- Schiff doesn't deserve any respect or deference. It's not classy to be deferential to the expertise of people who don't actually have any; it's foolish.

You don't find common ground, build coalitions, or change minds with ridicule.

The Hate-GOP Machine
By Brent Bozell
7/27/2011


The latest polls show the people are not happy with President Obama's handling of budget matters, but Republicans look even worse. And yet, while the GOP delivers one idea after another, Obama has offered nothing, instead just attacking, attacking, attacking, blaming everyone but himself in utter denial of the reality that no man on the face of this Earth is more responsible for our debt catastrophe than he.

Why then is the public blaming Republicans more? It is because of the ceaseless, shameless and oftentimes utterly dishonest attacks on them coming from Obama's media hit men. A day doesn't go by without a leftist "news" media outrage. They come in all shapes, too.

First, there is the asinine. Think MSNBC anchor Mika Brzezinski. There she was broadsiding the Republicans for having refused Obama's proposal. "I think the Republicans look stupid and mean," she declared. "This is stupid. This is a no-brainer in terms of a deal. This is a no-brainer, and they look mean, and they look difficult, and they're going to lose this." But what is "this"? What was Obama's proposal? There was none, just nebulous language about the "wealthy" needing to pay their "fair share," of "revenue," which in the English language means a massive tax hike, which the GOP, correctly, rejects.

There is the inaccurate. MSNBC daytime anchor Thomas Roberts loudly complains that the party of the "super-rich" is to blame. "We haven't had tax increases over the last 10 years. We've had a recession; we've had two wars to fight. Why do you think the top 2 percent of America has a chokehold on the other 98 percent?"

That's almost exactly upside down. The Tax Foundation has estimated that the top 1 percent pays 38 percent of the entire income-tax burden, and the top 5 percent pays 58 percent. The bottom 50 percent pays nothing in federal tax. With these numbers, it could be argued that the bottom 50 percent has a chokehold on the top 5 percent.

There is the "I've lost all sense of sanity and class" crowd, and yes, we're talking Chris Matthews here. On "Hardball," Joan Walsh of Salon.com said the Republican resistance to new taxes is "deadly and it's wrong and it's hostage-taking, and you shouldn't negotiate with hostage-takers." Matthews had a chance to step in with a gentle, "Whoa, cowgirl." Instead it just carried him away, and he could only add: "I agree. It's terrorism!" A pundit who looks at the debt talks and sees deadly terrorism doesn't need a math class. He needs psychological help.

There is the obsequious. Obama is painted as the perfectly reasonable negotiator who has bent over backward. NBC's Matt Lauer wants to know, "Where is the shared sacrifice going to come from on the Republican side?" CBS's Bob Schieffer insists Obama talks compromise, but "I don't hear any concessions from people on the other side. They just say no taxes, and that's their negotiating posture."

No one, but no one in the media (outside of Fox News, of course) is calling this double-talking president of ours on the carpet. This president who now tells us we must raise taxes to save the Republic is the same president who just seven months ago was telling us that everyone agrees the worst thing one could do during a crisis is raise taxes. Republicans agreed then and hold to that position now. That makes them unreasonable, unbalanced.

And where did this sudden spurt of media fiscal discipline come from, anyway? Where were they when America needed someone to ask Obama, Pelosi and Reid how they were going to pay for TARP? Where were the media demanding to know where the trillion bucks for the anti-stimulus program was coming from? How about the trillion for Obamacare?

They went along for the ride on all these budget-busting disasters. And now they have the temerity to lecture us on fiscal discipline?

There is the oblivious. Some journalists refuse to acknowledge that spending has soared under Obama. When Grover Norquist factually noted Obama's binge, CNN anchor Ali Velshi erupted in protest. "Wait a minute! 'He created with his spending'? You didn't just suggest that our budget problem is because of President Obama, did you, Grover?" Norquist said yes, he wasn't kidding. Velshi dismissed this concept as unreasonable: "OK, we're going to pass by that question because that's an unreasonable position."

In round numbers: In fewer than four years, Obama has increased the debt by $4 trillion. He proposes we raise it another $2.3 trillion. This makes Obama responsible for almost half the debt of the United States. But it is "unreasonable" to say so.

The leftist news media aren't coming to this debate to be an honest broker. They're just trying to break one side apart, and never mind that it's their vision that is driving us right over a cliff.