@Psychologic, I still think that's a pretty flimsy reason to completely denigrate his other views based on something as frivolous as religion. Instead, we get Obama who has done nothing (zero, zilch, nada) to squash the US Imperialism and end the wars. Which is more important when deciding on who to vote for? A man's personal view of religion or his nation-building interventionist warmongering?

This is why I'll never understand statists.

See, I'm glad the US outsourced their jobs to India. More frivolous action movies for everyone!!!

>> ^JiggaJonson:

I work in the public school system. Last week I ran out of markers for my white board. I asked my department head for some and she handed me one (literally one maker). When I asked for more, you know, in case my one marker goes missing, she said "We're being really tight with everything because of budget cuts, sorry..."
I left work and bought some markers for $5.
Good thing the Bush Tax Cuts have been extended, otherwise these companies might not be able to provide massages or fire-poles to their staff. And schools, with their frivolous spending on things like markers and paper for the copy machine (also not provided), will finally realize the errors of their ways.
Dont worry, the jobs are on the way though!!! Really!!!
TRICKLE DOWN MOTHAFUCKA!!!


My brother lives in California. Apparently the schools send a list of supplies for the parents to buy. No, not supplies for the kids, but supplies for the school. Parents are having to fund the school by buying reams of paper, etc.

At that point, you have to think that the school system is a bit underfunded, eh?

I work in the public school system. Last week I ran out of markers for my white board. I asked my department head for some and she handed me one (literally one maker). When I asked for more, you know, in case my one marker goes missing, she said "We're being really tight with everything because of budget cuts, sorry..."

I left work and bought some markers for $5.

Good thing the Bush Tax Cuts have been extended, otherwise these companies might not be able to provide massages or fire-poles to their staff. And schools, with their frivolous spending on things like markers and paper for the copy machine (also not provided), will finally realize the errors of their ways.

Dont worry, the jobs are on the way though!!! Really!!!
TRICKLE DOWN MOTHAFUCKA!!!

---
I can only work with proven results, not what others want things to be or theorize is possible. Obamanomics has failed to deliver prosperity, and this may be because increasing prosperity is not what it's designed to do. It could be working beautifully if its goal is to increase dependency on government and curtail American influence worldwide.

REAL American unemployment is currently 18%, not the BS that D.C. is spouting. 2 to 3% more wouldn't even register with the crew in D.C.
---

You cannot 'prove' anything in a social science. What you can do is historically look at past crises and see what worked and what didn't.

Financial crises historically have high levels of unemployment following them. This is because as in this case for the US, consumers have overspent and must spend years rebuilding their savings levels. As they rebuild them, demand is low, the demand for employees is low, and there is relatively higher unemployment.

This is historically accurate for Latin America's debt crisis in 1982, the 1990 asset bubble bust in Japan and so far entirely consistent for the financial crisis in the US.

The way you label fiscal stimulus as Obamanomics leads me to believe you think that his policies are idiosynchractic and unique. They are not. Virtually every country in the world hit by the global financial crisis has enacted the same combination of direct spending, lower taxes and looser monetary policy. You would be well advised to be aware of this.

Also, despite what you may claim, the fact that unemployment is high and has risen under Obama is not evidence that his policies have not worked. In fact again there is historical evidence to suggest the US has fared better than other countries. See the first graph below:

http://www.economist.com/node/17041738

Unemployment is measured by virtually all countries as the number of unemployed out of the proportion actively seeking work. Yes, this is not an accurate measure when previous employees have been discouraged from looking for work and have dropped out, but it is consistent with most measures used internationally.

---
Though the government obviously denies it, the origins of this financial crisis were largely the fault of government policies and meddling.

"We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. And I have just one interest, and if I am wrong … somebody else can have my job. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises. … I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started. … And an enormous debt to boot."

----Henry Morgenthau, FDR's Secretary of the Treasury

Keynesian economic theory does not work. It mistakes action for results. Despite enormous spending (which began as Bush was sunsetting) Obamanomics hasn't created any jobs, unless you count the temporary kick of the useless Census.

The American people have the wealth and are indeed holding onto it. There are 2 trillion dollars in assets waiting to rejoin the economy. So why don't people jump in again?

No sane business is going to invest heavily or hire workers with our leftists in power, threatening to tax everything in sight and "punish" profits. This current govt--even with the coming Republicans in January--also offers no stability or confidence, and I don't expect this to change anytime soon.

The current US Secretary of the Treasury is a tax cheat, and well before they installed the SOB they knew he was a tax cheat. Does it get any more obvious the lack of integrity and disdain for the public harbored by the crew in DC.
---

I agree that the financial crisis has much to do with government meddling. Policymakers in the US have historically encouraged the quintessential notion of homeownership frivolously and irresponsibly. At the other end equally though, predatory lending exacerbated the issue. Left to their own devices, banks knew full well that they could generate huge returns by lending, and then selling off those financial assets to wipe themselves clean of risk. They also knew that if worst came to worst, the government would bail them out as they were too integral to the functioning of the world economy. Both less intervention and more regulation was necessary to prevent what happened.

Either of these 2 factors in and of itself would have led to a crisis sooner than later, would you not agree?

I can't take a quote seriously that skips over text 3 times in 4 lines. For all you know, the original intent has been completely manipulated. For all you know (based on previous experience) this wasn't even SAID by who it's claimed to have been said by.

Besides, there is no evidence there. It is someone's opinion, without any facts, without any figures. Nothing to substantiate what is being said. I genuinely hope you don't rely on people's pure opinions as gospel and factcheck what you read.

Again, you are simply wrong the stimulus has not created jobs. It has created both permanent jobs by giving subsidies to industries, and temporary jobs to prevent skills loss from unemployed workers:

http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/2010-08-30-stimulus30_CV_N.htm

Read the title of the article above.

Frankly, how is it POSSIBLE that you think it hasn't created any jobs? Where do you think the money goes? Do you think it's laundered into people's bank accounts and shipped overseas? How can you possibly think that a stimulus has not created any jobs? That the only jobs it has created are for the census is a typical right wing talking point from what I hear. Again, I implore you to consult some less idealogical sources without absolutist views.

Not to go on a tangent here, but how often have these sources you rely on information for actually lauded something that Obama has done? Do you really think it is possible that Obama has done nothing good, or let alone nothing that ideologically they would agree on? Take for example the increased drone strikes in Pakistan, relative to even Bush. This seems like a clear cut policy that right wing pundits and blogs would laud. Why is there no one mentioning this?

Or do you think that possibly, just possibly, they have an agenda or an absolutist view with which they perceive the Democrats and the left-wing that blinds them to anything that doesn't conform to their predisposed views that Democrats = bad?

Why would you want to emulate and follow the opinions of someone who cannot look at things at face value?

For your comment on why investors are not investing, they are not investing because of the debt which will worsen if taxes fall - this is historically proven as fact. But let's say for argument that taxes were drastically reduced. Demand is still low in the US though. People are still rebuilding their balance sheets. What will the multinational and wealthy corporations do with this excess revenue?

They will invest it overseas in developing markets with high growth rates. Lower taxes will be paying for growth in foreign countries. Since the money will be invested elsewhere, even less of it will be reaped back in tax revenue. Growth overseas will be rising while the US is falling further and further into debt default.

I am curious where exactly you don't agree with this logic.

I have nothing cogent to say against your notion that Democrats want to punish profits.

It does not make sense.

The buy-up of bank and auto industry stocks is being relinquished. Citibank recently bought back some of these shares, and the government made a profit. The auto industry is making a profit. There is simply no evidence that Obama wants to nationalize anything. There is no public option. The independent review committee to trim Medicare will MINIMIZE government involvement, something the right quite hypocritically, is against.

How is it not obvious that punishing profits would be bad politics? How is it not obvious that doing this would not win votes? Where is your evidence that he intends to do this? The health care plan is deficit neutral. Financial reform will reduce risk.

Will taxes have to rise? Sure, because without that, the budget will never return to neutral. This is fact. Cutting social policies by that much is not feasible. Why do you blame Obama for this and not Bush who allowed this to fester during prolonged periods of economic growth? Would you rather the problem fester while taxes are kept low and imperil the whole economy in the process? There are only those two options.

Also, I think I laid out, what is a pretty simple and logical explaining of fiscal policy, and why it works.

Where do you disagree with it?

---
Well, like you or anyone else, I'm just as likely to vote to stop the other side as promote my own. Where you live, govt is seen as a benevolent force for good. And as you can probably attest, you pay through the nose for the government services provided.

Individual > State = America

State > Individual = everywhere else

If the Republicans don't repeal or de-fund obamacare they are finished.
---

The funny this is, if I were making the same as I am not in the US, I would be paying nearly the same in taxes.

I'm a recent university grad and make 60K/year.

I pay 15% between 6-35k, and 30% between 35-60k. (4350 + 7500 = $11850)

The US income brackets are very similar.

For me they would be, 10% between 0 - $8375, 15% between $8376 - $34,000 and 25% between $34,000 - $60,000. (838 + 3844 + 6500 = 11182)

So let's see. I'm paying roughly $700 more (a bit more actually, say $1000 for argument considering the exchange rate of 0.95, but close enough) for free universal access to hospital treatment and subsidized out of hospital expenses; for generous unemployment benefits if I ever lose my job. For university cost assistance, despite the fact that I could easily pay off my university debt if I lived at home with minimal expenses in one year (It's ~25k from 5 years of study with nothing paid back yet). I hear that in the US for Ivy league schools it can be 20-30K US A YEAR. I mean that last point alone MORE THAN makes up for the difference. Frankly any of those do by themselves. I also have great job prospects being in an economy that never officially went into recession (only one quarter of negative growth) with a private sector one lined up for next year.

To sum up, I'm actually paying only 1.7% more in taxes for a WHOLE HEAP of benefits.

How is that a bad deal?

Incidentally much of our (Australia's) economic success can be attributed to good bank regulation than anything else. If you are curious I can elaborate on this.

some interesting points on both sides. some of the things people can sue over seem pretty frivolous though.

the bathroom mirror being a couple inches too high? is there a law that all bathrooms must provide mirrors? i've been in public bathrooms where the mirror been removed/destroyed. it's not discrimination for the handicapped in that case.

I just re-installed Diablo II last week - So I'm in head deep in that as well

>> ^marinara:

actually i started up a world of warcraft membership last week. shamans have no time for frivolous political quests.

actually i started up a world of warcraft membership last week. shamans have no time for frivolous political quests.

I think it is possible she left office as she was being harassed legally with frivolous lawsuits and in order not to go into debt she had to make some money. Currently she is being forced to return checks to contributors who are trying to help her out.

It is undoubtedly difficult to govern a state when you are constantly preparing responses to legal suits and in the best interest of the citizens of Alaska, she turned it over to someone else.

>> ^bobknight33:

I am sad that there are people like her. Sad that there is a MSMBC
GE is a pathetic left wing liberal Company. Disgusting.


I like her actually, she seems like a decent person. I don't see eye to eye with her ideologically, and she does a bit of pandering, even so, she is a decent human being in my mind.

"So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities, that where no substantial occasion presents itself, the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts."

-James Madison

On the other hand, O'reily is an patronizingly, mean bastard. Even Glenn Beck is a nice guy even though he panders to a different audience, I wouldn't mind having a beer with him or her, but O'Reily can bask in the radiance of his own piousness.

>> ^Porksandwich:

From third party experience and personal observations of the system, the checks and balances need to be returned into the system. Like I stated earlier, the police department refused to comply with written orders from a judge. And this same judge when shown the paperwork the police department wanted signed said that he'd never seen that paperwork before and that he himself wouldn't have signed it under any circumstance.
There's just too much complication to the system, each part of the 3 wanting to take the powers of the other two upon itself while being completely kept out of the loop as to the other branches goings on. No handful of people have the time to check out the other goings on when they are so busy trying to get more power for themselves.
They need to implement a system in which laws that are reviewed and thrown out when a new law takes over it's function, or if the law is outdated with the times and requires an update to create an update that doesn't require broad interpretation of every word in it. Lots of interpretation slowly becomes the new "spirit" of the law that was never intended to be used in such ways.

I guess I see a problem with both of these suggestions. First, how do you restore checks and balances? If the police refuse to comply with written instructions from a judge, what's supposed to happen? If the police refuse because the judge didn't use a particular form the police expect for a particular type of legal request, who settles the dispute? For that matter, who's supposed to take action to resolve the dispute?

I'd also point out that isn't really a question of checks and balances so much as trouble with inefficient communications.

Second, the problem with all law is that it's still written in English, which is not a formal language, free of all ambiguity. I mentioned in another thread that so-called "legalese" is usually about trying to make law more precise, so that it reduces the ambiguity of its meaning. But even then, there's often still room for interpretation, because legalese is still just technical English, and is therefore bound to include ambiguous elements.

For example, if you're going to ban "drunk driving" you have to come up with rigorous, objective standards for what constitutes being "drunk", and also what constitutes "driving". Is a separate law needed for boats and aircraft, for example? What about farm machinery? Is drunkenness determined by a test for impaired function, or by some sort of biochemical standard? In either case, you need to set a standard for what constitutes a valid test, how you verify the authenticity of the test, and how you document the test.

If the law defines "driving" as operating a gasoline-powered vehicle with 2 or 4 wheels, and someone is driving around with an ethanol-fueled car or a trike, should he be exempt from the law?

As for legal precedent, a lot of times that comes into play because the law was intentionally written to leave room for judges to make their own interpretation on the meaning of things that could never be exhaustively defined (e.g. "reasonable suspicion"). Over time you do start building up a more regular definition of "reasonable suspicion" by the way cases have been decided in the past, and so you'll find that the topic of precedent will naturally come up whenever a prosecutor or defense wants to challenge (or defend) the way one of those ambiguous standards was applied.

As for the way the courts tend to screw you if you try to file claims, I think part of that is because the court system is perpetually starved for resources, and they want to try to stave off frivolous lawsuits by making the process a pain in the ass.

Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme liberty.

-Plato

Anybody can become angry - that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way - that is not within everybody's power and is not easy.

-Aristotle

So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities, that where no substantial occasion presents itself, the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts.

-James Madison

people really keep a tally in their head?
man..let that shit go...
if i offer to buy you lunch or whatever it is due to a few factors:
1.i have the extra cash
2.i like spending my extra cash on friends.
3.i really have no affection for money other than its ability to buy me things.
a.this is why i rarely have cash,maybe if i cared more i would have more but i dont..so screw it.
4.when i spend this extra cash on you it makes me happy and there is no invisible balance sheet in my head tallying who did what for whom.so while YOU may have the tally sheet in your head crunching the numbers i have already forgotten about any frivolous purchase on made for you with my extra cash.
5.could i borrow some cash?seems i am a bit short....

The Tea Party thing is simple. At the top of a bunch of very rich republicans who proclaim they are not part of the Republican Party (even though they often share offices) that simply do not want their taxes raised. They like the fact that their tax rate was lower than someone who makes about 150k a year, even if such tax cuts for the rich is largely what drove up the national debt. So they have a few loud talkers (beck, etc) who scare the right-wing, largely uneducated, masses into buying overpriced gold and being spoon-fed lies about the democratic party.

Throw in a good spoonful of racism and you have the T-Party. A bunch of uneducated people who have been fear-mongered to the point that they are willing to believe anything told them by a number of very rich sons-a-bitches who don't like having their tax rate increased. It's that simple.

I mean come on.. $14 trillion is our debt? Were do you think he heard that number. These people don't have a leg to stand on because half their arguments were more serious issues during the Bush administration.

I actually know someone like this. She watches Glenn Beck like he is her savior and if you even mention anything political around her you best be prepared for a shouting match. Her 'facts' are completely frivolous and she is deaf, dumb and blind when it comes to any actual fact or argument that goes against her very hardcore political beliefs.


Frankly another issue is that they are in the media so much these days (you practically cant go a day without a report on them, even on the lefty channels) that you'd think they were everywhere. With 'polls' showing something like 65% of people 'agree' with them you'd think they were a HUGE movement in this country. But the fact is less than 10% of Americans are actively a part of the Tea Party.

Bill Maher was right. The Tea Party isn't a movement. It's a cult.

I love how we pretend we have 50 states when this seems to be an issue of one massive state with 50 subsections. If the federal goverment wanted to ban gay marriage, medical marijuana, and command police to whip gays in the face with chains, then every state would be required to follow those laws. Yes, the courts would throw all those laws out as discriminatory or frivolous, except not all those laws have been thrown out. Great to know nothing can protect us from those types of laws.

When only one branch has power (the federal government,) we are all less powerful.