Not really. You're missing the fact that normal return nets UPS three deliveries (Amazon -> gift -> recipient; recipient gift (return) -> Amazon; Amazon -> replacement -> recipient), whereas this process only requires one (Amazon -> replacement -> recipient). UPS is still involved, of course, but not as much as before.
Maybe, but I'm wondering how often people actually bother to return something if it involves shipping it back (assuming it will even be accepted). I bet it's a pretty small percentage of cases. More likely that the offending gift gets tossed in a closet, or possibly put up on Craigslist or something.
Unfortunately this won't be anywhere near as intelligent as I'll want it to be.
As a happy medium, if it emailed me stating, "Your aunt has bought you a gift, would you like to know what it is?" and upon saying Yes I had the option to change the gift, that would be great - providing my aunt never knew the truth.
It would be really good if it would know that I'd like another wii controller instead of more socks, but it won't.
It could allow you to set up a gift queue a-la Netflix, and it could maintain a credit reserve for you until you accumulate enough to get the next gift on your list, at which point it will be shipped to you. That would be pretty sweet. Now if only I actually knew anyone that used Amazon to send gifts like this...
No, it's actually quite possible to believe that "murder is bad" for better reasons than "because an all-powerful dude who lives in the sky said so, and is going to punish you if you don't obey."
I never said otherwise. I said only that it, like the rest of the document that pertains to human-human relations, is still relevant.
Are you so sensitive to positive aspects of religion that you just trolled yourself?
He gave a religious example as well with the five precepts, so it seems that religion is not the sensitive point. More like a sensitivity to dogma that attaches such significance to a rather shoddy list of supposedly divine commandments.
The idea of a slave being one who is perpetually whipped is an American image, towards their African-decent slaves. Every the Jewish imagery of Egyptians whipping Hebrews is largely derived from that image. Americans didn't have that nice "treat your slaves well" edict.
Yeah, maybe God shoulda stuck in another commandment for that and then they would have. There are plenty of extraneous ones that could have been replaced by a more useful one like that. The three or four commandments that are relevant today existed in laws predating the 10 commandments, and in civilizations that had never heard of them. We obviously didn't need God to provide them for us.
How can an opinion be substantiated? Is an opinion not by definition an unprovable idea? If I express the opinion that Democrats are worse than Republicans, how can that be substantiated?
Ok, let me try an example. A substantiated opinion is one that has evidence to back it up, and no significant contradictory evidence. I could say something like, "My favorite team is the one to beat this season, because they've won their first seven games, and the next closest team has only won four. In the absense of contradictory information, that is a substantiated opinion. Someone else could have a different opinion, equally valid, such as, "This other team is likely better because they've had a much tougher early schedule, but still ended up winning most of their games, and their star player gets out of prison in two weeks!"
I had a taste of that when the moderation system recently decided to revoke my permanent modding privileges which I have held for the past few years. I am guessing this happened since I recently modded a few posts up which were marked troll, but I found of value, although not following major opinion here. I knew it was highly dangerous;)
So possibly the moderation system seems to self-regulate towards a majority opinion through meta moderation. I cannot say that I spontaneously can think of a way to improve the system though,./ still has one of the better moderation systems around, but this deserves some tweaking at least.
I've learned that how something is said matters as much or more than what is said. I've been in the same situation many times where a post is marked troll, but I happen to think it had some merit. The deciding factor tends to be whether they wrote a well-thought-out, flame-free post, or just tossed off something that contradicts the mainstream/. thought, but didn't provide much in the way of support or explanation. Even if I think they may have a point, I still won't mod them up if they didn't write a pretty good post to support it, preferably with citations. I like to see people challenge the beliefs of others, but if you're going to do that here, you need to be able to back it up well and do it in a calm, rational way.
You are assuming that the point is not to have it done rather then to get the ones doing it out of office. There is a time and place for the reconciliation process. Using it to advance an unpopular agenda isn't that. Using it for legislation that doesn't cost capitol expenditures- that is time sensitive and so on is why and how it should be used.
Which is exactly how Republicans have used it at times in the past as well, which is why it was so hypocritical of them to go after the dems for it. This is typical of politics. They all condemn the other side for doing exactly the same things they do. Just like Republicans spent the last couple years railing against the dems for the lack of bipartisanship, only to declare that they will be exactly the same. Must be nice to have principles that are so... flexible.
And if you get past the elect me rhetoric, you will find that the dems and republicans are pretty much identical on hey've done a lot to help with all the offshoring. As for the recession, well the democrats aren't entirely innocent on the deficit spending in the same time frame either. The dems held the senate in 2001, republicans had a 1 seat majority until 2005 which then became a 5 seat majority until 2007 where the dems took control again. The leads in the house weren't all that impressive either. In all of this, the dems and republicans had to work together on spending and you will find that a good number of both supported the overspending.
The Republicans have been calling the shots for most of the last decade and a half because the democrats can't get their shit together to save their lives. This isn't entirely their fault, as democrats run the gamut from right-leaning fiscal conservatives to wacky lefty nutjobs, and everything inbetween. Republicans have managed to exorcise practically all remnants of moderation from their party, so they generally move in lockstep anymore. Will be interesting to see what happens with the new blood in the House. I wonder how long they'll hang onto their idealism.
I don't think it's as much the magic jobs will appear, as it is that the far left dems were spouting ideas that would kill jobs like raising taxes on small businesses and taxing energy use more then it already is.
Raising taxes on small businesses how? As for the energy issue, I assume you're referring to cap and trade. I really don't know what to make of that, as I've seen a ton of different predictions from both sides, so apparently nobody is really sure how that will pan out. I do think it's rather ridiculous to think that we can continue to pump mind-boggling amounts of pollution into the atmosphere without having a real, noticeable effect, and possibly a rather severe one. Most of the arguments against cap and trade dismiss the idea altogether though. I think it probably will cost us something, although I doubt it will be nearly the amount that the predictions from the right are claiming, but I don't believe it'll be the job-creating behemoth that practically pays for itself that some from the left are claiming either. I think anyone that claims they know how it would work out is kidding themselves, but I do think that something does need to be done to rein in the pollution.
Obama's recent comments about how losing your job to India means more jobs in the US is a brazened example of this. The people don't want to have to retrain after being employed and skilled in something for 26 years just to start over on retirement benefits and seniority at something they are entirely unfamiliar with. Then to have a callous attitude towards them on top of that is like pouring lemon juice on a paper cute that feels a lot like a knife wound in the back. At least when clinton negotiated and implements free trade agreements, he pretended to care about the misplaced workers that resulted from them. It's a lot of the reason the entire compassionate conservatism movement was st
You also have the fed up crowed. The people who are simply fed up with the government pulling tricks to get unpopular agendas moving (health care and reconciliation for instance), people who are fed up with the government saying their jobs aren't important, you have to retrain to work in the green job fields, and the people who see this massive attempt to tax and spend with no measurable or perceivable results. They were motivated more or less to just get the incumbent out.
This is what makes no sense to me. You don't like the way the democrats were doing these things, so you vote for the republicans who are worse on pretty much all counts. They've used reconciliation more, they don't do anything to keep jobs here, in fact they've done a lot to help with all the offshoring, they prefer borrow and spend to tax and spend, which is about as fiscally irresponsible as you can get, and at least we have perceivable results for the deficit spending of the last couple years. Republicans don't have a recession as a reason for their deficit spending over the last several years.
Of course jobs are always one of the last areas of improvement when coming out of a recession. Not sure what magic people think the Republicans are going to pull out of their asses to fix that. Apparently the republicans know this as well, since the back-peddling started on election night as they attempted to lower expectations after all the crap they were spewing during the campaign. They will do exactly what they were berating the democrats for doing, which is to insist that they have a mandate and that the other side should respect that and allow them to pass the legislation they want. Of course they'll conveniently forget that they never did any such thing when the shoe was on the other foot, which is why the health care bill was watered-down and the stimulus wasn't as big as the economists had recommended.
I can almost understand voting against the democrats because they're a disorganized bunch of fuck-ups, but when the alternative is an organized bunch of fuck-ups that can do even more damage, I just can't see how anyone thinks that would be better.
After the 2008 election pro-GOP posts were passionately downmodded until most posters learned to quit.
Perhaps what you have seen isn't so much a resurgence of republicans, but a downfall of agenda oriented democrats?
I don't particularly identify with any party either. I tend to be more conservative then liberal politically speaking though.
Maybe it's more of something where people didn't like X and now they decided they don't like Y even more and X is actually tolerable.
Agenda-oriented democrats? What does that even mean? Are you saying they don't like the agenda they voted for, or that they don't like agendas in general, or what? I'm an independent, and given the lousy selection of candidates for most offices, I tend to vote against candidates more than for them. I'm still rather baffled by this last election. I can only guess that the all the ads must have worked, because aside from that nothing else makes any sense.
It worries me that Slashdotters find this comment "Insightful." The whole idea of disclosing preexisting conditions is that companies know what they're getting into when they agree to insure someone. They have adjust their rates accordingly based on the likely cost of keeping that person healthy. Insurance companies are businesses that employ thousands upon thousands of people, and they can't very well keep food on the table for their employees if they lose money.
We can have reasonable discussions about what to do with those people who are basically uninsurable, but griping about 'evil corporate profits' helps no one.
When are we going to get around to actually helping those people who are considered uninsurable by the industry? This issue has been around for decades and not a damn thing has been done. It's about time that something was actually done, even if it's far from ideal.
Except pre-existing condition clauses went away right away while mandated coverage is delayed a couple years.
Only for children, not for adults.
Additionally, the fine for not having insurance is ridiculously low so it is better financially (not morally) to wait for little Timmy to get Leukemia, then buy insurance and pay the tiny fine for not having it in the first place.
I agree that it's lower than it should be, but it's not ridiculously low as you say, and it's not like there aren't other incentives to buying health care insurance, else there wouldn't be so many of us that do so of our own free will. From the bill:
White House/Congressional Leadership Reconciliation Bill
Health Care and Education Affordability Act of 2010 (H.R. 4872):
Those without coverage pay a tax penalty of the greater of
$695 per year up to a maximum of three times
that amount ($2,085) per family or 2.5% of
household income. The penalty will be phased in
according to the following schedule: $95
in 2014, $325 in 2015, and $695 in 2016 for
the flat fee or 1.0% of taxable income in 2014,
2.0% of taxable income in 2015, and 2.5%
of taxable income in 2016. Beginning after
2016, the penalty will be increased annually
by the cost-of-living adjustment.
Reality is the health care bill was written with the sole intent of driving health insurance companies out of business so that we would get to a defacto single payer without the Dems having to actually pass legislation that way.
If that was the goal, then they failed miserably. They made a ton of concessions for the insurance industry. Single-payer would be a more cost-effective system, considering that we already have decided as a country that nobody will be refused health care when they're in need, and we already pay for it in the most ridiculously expensive way possible.
I honestly can't help but think destroying the health care insurance industry was a feature not a bug. It's the perfect excuse to come in and "rescue" us with a fully government-financed health care system.
It's the only explanation that makes sense, because despite constant assertions to the contrary (including from me), members of Congress are not _that_ stupid.
Destroying the health insurance industry? If only that were true, things would probably be a lot better right now. They made so many concessions to them that they're still going to make out like bandits. People actually believe the bullshit the insurance industry is peddling? They, like all the rest of the corporations funding campaign ads, have no qualms about lying their asses off if they can make a buck off it.
It's not about whether or not the report is accurate, it's about what people believe. They are sure as hell not going to believe the economy is improving if they just got laid off.
It doesn't matter if the report is accurate from the national perspective, it has absolutely no bearing from the individual's perspective, and the individual perspective are where voters are seeing things.
So you're saying that people can't interpret the data about the direction of the economy, and just use their own situation as their indicator? Their perspective doesn't allow them to take in all the information about the direction the economy is going (hint: it's getting better, we finally saw a net gain in jobs), and they expect the biggest recession since the Great Depression to be turned around in 18 months? So you're basically saying they're morons, right?
Yes, but what they don't know is why they can't find a job.
Of course they do. It's because the economy is in the tank. It might be improving, but until that improvement actually changes their situation they will be of the opinion that the economy is in the tank. Period.
That contradicts claims from Republican officials who say that voters were voting based on their belief about whether the economy is headed in the right direction or not, not where it currently is. They're making this claim because they know that nothing they do is really going fix the economy anytime soon, and they want to lower the expectations they set with their campaigns. It's a waiting game now, and they know it. They're hoping that if the economy stays in the tank for another couple years, they can take over completely in 2012, just in time for it to really start recovering, and thus take credit for it. It's all pretty cynical really. Just playing off the frustrations and fears of the voters. If the Democrats were even half as good at that, and more willing to do it, they probably wouldn't have seen such losses this time around.
Because Democrats are fucking incompetent spineless cowards.
And there's the biggest problem the Democrats have. They actually have a President that can speak and get a message across, but they can't come up with anything worth saying, while the Republicans have a dozen or so people out speaking on a regular basis and absolutely eviscerating them. If the Dems had a pair between the lot of them, they'd have been calling them on all the bullshit we've heard since the 2008 campaigns. They wouldn't be letting all the shit slide off the radar like they do either. They would nail them and then keep reminding people of all the ridiculous bullshit we've heard, and who was behind it every time they come out with new ridiculous bullshit.
I don't see the Dems ever getting their act together though. The Republicans have managed to sterilize their party to the point where anyone who isn't far-right-fringe can only be elected as a Democrat. So we end up with Dems that span the spectrum from moderate right to far-left-fringe, which is why they can't ever seem to get anything done right, even when they have a clear majority.
Tea Party guys, I really am halfway with you. I like the beginnings of a lot of your speeches. But somehow it always goes psycho. I'll believe you guys are sincere when you tell the Republicans to fuck off. Until then, you're the enemy that you're preaching against.
I'm with you 100%. I'm grooving with the small government thing. But the Tea Party attracts so much of the lunatic fringe it scares me. I'm tempted to try to shoot for some joke about green tea supposedly fighting free radicals, but the analogy kind of disturbs me.
For what it's worth Sarah Palin is making a great political move by branding herself as a Tea Partier. I hate that the movement is letting this happen, because she's terrible, but she's doing an excellent job of associating herself with this independently thinking small government idealogy.
The Tea Party just needs some charismatic leadership that is: sensible, not insane, and not trying to hijack the party for their own ultra-con purposes. Someone like Ron Paul, only more relevant. Once that happens I think they have the seedlings of a meaningful political party.
I could see backing them if they could drop the crazies like Palin or O'Donnell and their supporters, and if they can keep themselves from being co-opted by the Republicans and/or social conservatives. I think it's probably too late for that now though.
I vote for the Republicans not because I believe in them, but because I believe in the Democrats less. How do you fix this? I don't know. GW Bush was not my first choice and he certainly did a lot of things I disagree with, but compared to the alternatives both times he was the only choice. The one thing I do know for sure is that I am not supporting any candidates campaign unless I believe in them, not that it matters much they have enough corporate backing to ignore me and those like me.
So you hang on to your biases in spite of the evidnence that Republicans run up the deficits far more than Democrats. I think we've identified the problem. You believe the bullshit that the Republicans sell about being pro-small-government. They haven't been that since WWII, yet people like you still believe them.
There is no solution to be found in either major political party, unfortunately.
The answer is to restore the rule of law and prosecute the banksters.
That's hilarious. So instead of demanding that from the Democrats, who were actually more inclined to do it, you elect the Republicans who consider talk of prosecuting white-collar crime some kind of class-warfare heresy. Good job.
Note that I'm not necessarily opposed to "healthcare reform". But spending $12 a head to influence the people who can, on a whim, cost me $1000+ per year forever seems a bargain.
First of all, you should be dividing by eligible voters, not total population. Second, the money coming from for-profit corporations is not money representing people's political beliefs or ideologies, it's money trying to influence legislators into helping those corporations make greater profits, period. Those same corporations that raised your premiums did so because their lobbyists managed to ensure that they were allowed to do so by Congress. Rates were going to go up regardless, but they likely went up more than they should have because when the health care law actually takes effect, they'll be limited in how much they can jack up your rates. That was either a naive oversight in the bill, or evidence of the corrupting effect of lobbyists, but I can't say for sure which.
With all the money they toss around, the insurance industry may get their wish and the health care bill will get repealed, in whole or in part, but don't expect for a minute that that will reduce your premiums. That's what lobbyists are there for. The interests of the corporations are protected and represented by lobbyists who co-opt the legislators who are supposed to be representing their constituents. Unfortunately we don't get the kind of access that lobbyist money provides.
People are swayed because they aren't experts in these subjects, so they have to listen to someone. Who they listen to depends largely on their political biases, so they end up having those biases reinforced. One has to really go looking for relatively unbiased sources, and that takes time and a certain amount of learning on top of it just so that you can know enough to know whether that source is full of crap or not. Now multiply that by all the issues out there, some of which are huge, like health care, and the average person just doesn't have nearly enough time to figure out what the truth is on any subject, even if they are inclined to do so. Many people don't even try, but just stick with whatever pundits are on "their team" essentially. It's just a bloodsport then.
I love how so many people on slashdot talk as if there's this huge intelligence gap between them and "most people". If "most people" aren't discerning enough to sort out the truth and the issues before voting, then you may as well give up on democracy. No amount of law is going to fix that, especially considering the laws would have to be created by the legislators that "most people" elect.
Now don't get me wrong, I think there's a huge laziness / apathy problem (and I include myself in that, I could certainly have done more research on the local races this time around), but I don't think it's a problem of ability.
I didn't claim it was an intelligence gap. I talk to relatives and co-workers about this stuff on a weekly basis though, and I know where they get their info because they tell me. If I ask about specifics, they usually don't know and fall back on "well so-and-so says...", so they aren't really informed on the issues, they just hear stuff from their favorite media outlets and that's what they "know" about the issues. Now I don't have time to research all these issues either, so I have to rely on other peoples' analyses for them as well. I'm just not going to rely on Fox News or MSNBC or Huffington Post as a real source of info. At best you're only getting part of the story, and if it seems mostly one-sided, then you should probably go looking for another side.
I guess that was a long-winded way of saying that I agree with your assessment of a laziness/apathy problem, but I think that the real problem is that nobody is ever really going to have time to research all the issues or candidates, and judging by what we saw in this past campaign, they have a nasty habit of letting highly partisan sources decide these things for them, and what's worse, they act as if anyone who disagrees with them is a terrible, ignorant person out to destroy America.
This was the most expensive midterm election cycle ever, even adjusting for inflation. And you can bet grandma wasn't the one forking over the dough. The corporate paymasters are going to be expecting(and almost certainly will get) a huge ROI for their investments.
I'm getting tired of that complaint. The people vote. Each CEO gets exactly the same say that you or I do. If people are swayed by corporate funded campaign trickery, then it's really the people's fault, not the corporations. I'm republican but don't think I'm saying this just because "my side" won. I'm thinking of how all the ballot issues I voted "no" on passed, and wondering how much of a factor were the misleading ads that were run about them. My son, who is approaching voting age, heard one of these radio ads and told me he didn't understand exactly what the issue was. I told him they don't really want you to understand, they just want everyone to remember "Yes on 3".
Political ads don't have to educate or even tell the truth. They are there to sow doubt, suspicion, and fear. They prey on people's pre-conceived notions, biases, and emotions. Say what you will about how we shouldn't let them influence us, but they do influence us, sometimes without us even realizing it. That's why so many billions are spent on advertising every year. That we allow for-profit corporations to spend money on political advertising seems crazy to me, but that's the way it is now.
People are swayed because they aren't experts in these subjects, so they have to listen to someone. Who they listen to depends largely on their political biases, so they end up having those biases reinforced. One has to really go looking for relatively unbiased sources, and that takes time and a certain amount of learning on top of it just so that you can know enough to know whether that source is full of crap or not. Now multiply that by all the issues out there, some of which are huge, like health care, and the average person just doesn't have nearly enough time to figure out what the truth is on any subject, even if they are inclined to do so. Many people don't even try, but just stick with whatever pundits are on "their team" essentially. It's just a bloodsport then.
But what if those corporate paymasters use all their ROI's to hire people... Like my wife. So we can keep our house? I won't really give a flying rats ass about the rest then. I have two kids and am getting TOO DAMN CLOSE to foreclosure.
Why would they need to hire people when the middle class, those people that buy stuff, don't have any money to spend because their incomes have been flat for a decade or so, assuming they even still have a job?
Slashdot Mirror
Not really. You're missing the fact that normal return nets UPS three deliveries (Amazon -> gift -> recipient; recipient gift (return) -> Amazon; Amazon -> replacement -> recipient), whereas this process only requires one (Amazon -> replacement -> recipient). UPS is still involved, of course, but not as much as before.
Maybe, but I'm wondering how often people actually bother to return something if it involves shipping it back (assuming it will even be accepted). I bet it's a pretty small percentage of cases. More likely that the offending gift gets tossed in a closet, or possibly put up on Craigslist or something.
Unfortunately this won't be anywhere near as intelligent as I'll want it to be.
As a happy medium, if it emailed me stating, "Your aunt has bought you a gift, would you like to know what it is?" and upon saying Yes I had the option to change the gift, that would be great - providing my aunt never knew the truth.
It would be really good if it would know that I'd like another wii controller instead of more socks, but it won't.
It could allow you to set up a gift queue a-la Netflix, and it could maintain a credit reserve for you until you accumulate enough to get the next gift on your list, at which point it will be shipped to you. That would be pretty sweet. Now if only I actually knew anyone that used Amazon to send gifts like this...
So basically it's a system that allows you to be a jerk? You're automatically turning every gift into cash!
Presumably if you're such a jerk, you won't be getting many gifts anyway...
I see the defense for this being that Amazon is simply speeding up the return process.
Remember that gifts are sent via Amazon with a return policy for store credit, and shipping is free.
So if Aunt Mildred sent Johnny a book, Johnny can return it for a $15 credit to Grand Theft Auto: Fargo.
Amazon is just making that process faster, knowing in advance that Johnny doesn't want the book, and giving him the credit before even shipping.
It's a win for everyone except UPS.
Even UPS will win when Johnny uses that credit to get something he actually wants.
So in other words, Bozo^H^H^Hezos patented the ancient practice of bait and switch. His mother would be so proud...
No, just the practice of saving people the effort of returning products for store credit.
No, it's actually quite possible to believe that "murder is bad" for better reasons than "because an all-powerful dude who lives in the sky said so, and is going to punish you if you don't obey."
I never said otherwise. I said only that it, like the rest of the document that pertains to human-human relations, is still relevant.
Are you so sensitive to positive aspects of religion that you just trolled yourself?
He gave a religious example as well with the five precepts, so it seems that religion is not the sensitive point. More like a sensitivity to dogma that attaches such significance to a rather shoddy list of supposedly divine commandments.
The idea of a slave being one who is perpetually whipped is an American image, towards their African-decent slaves. Every the Jewish imagery of Egyptians whipping Hebrews is largely derived from that image. Americans didn't have that nice "treat your slaves well" edict.
Yeah, maybe God shoulda stuck in another commandment for that and then they would have. There are plenty of extraneous ones that could have been replaced by a more useful one like that. The three or four commandments that are relevant today existed in laws predating the 10 commandments, and in civilizations that had never heard of them. We obviously didn't need God to provide them for us.
How can an opinion be substantiated? Is an opinion not by definition an unprovable idea? If I express the opinion that Democrats are worse than Republicans, how can that be substantiated?
Ok, let me try an example. A substantiated opinion is one that has evidence to back it up, and no significant contradictory evidence. I could say something like, "My favorite team is the one to beat this season, because they've won their first seven games, and the next closest team has only won four. In the absense of contradictory information, that is a substantiated opinion. Someone else could have a different opinion, equally valid, such as, "This other team is likely better because they've had a much tougher early schedule, but still ended up winning most of their games, and their star player gets out of prison in two weeks!"
I had a taste of that when the moderation system recently decided to revoke my permanent modding privileges which I have held for the past few years. I am guessing this happened since I recently modded a few posts up which were marked troll, but I found of value, although not following major opinion here. I knew it was highly dangerous ;)
So possibly the moderation system seems to self-regulate towards a majority opinion through meta moderation. I cannot say that I spontaneously can think of a way to improve the system though, ./ still has one of the better moderation systems around, but this deserves some tweaking at least.
I've learned that how something is said matters as much or more than what is said. I've been in the same situation many times where a post is marked troll, but I happen to think it had some merit. The deciding factor tends to be whether they wrote a well-thought-out, flame-free post, or just tossed off something that contradicts the mainstream /. thought, but didn't provide much in the way of support or explanation. Even if I think they may have a point, I still won't mod them up if they didn't write a pretty good post to support it, preferably with citations. I like to see people challenge the beliefs of others, but if you're going to do that here, you need to be able to back it up well and do it in a calm, rational way.
I am a fundamentalist and to date I have never seen "finished" science conflict with the Bible.
There's a term I'm not familiar with. Could you define "finished science" for us please?
You are assuming that the point is not to have it done rather then to get the ones doing it out of office. There is a time and place for the reconciliation process. Using it to advance an unpopular agenda isn't that. Using it for legislation that doesn't cost capitol expenditures- that is time sensitive and so on is why and how it should be used.
Which is exactly how Republicans have used it at times in the past as well, which is why it was so hypocritical of them to go after the dems for it. This is typical of politics. They all condemn the other side for doing exactly the same things they do. Just like Republicans spent the last couple years railing against the dems for the lack of bipartisanship, only to declare that they will be exactly the same. Must be nice to have principles that are so... flexible.
And if you get past the elect me rhetoric, you will find that the dems and republicans are pretty much identical on hey've done a lot to help with all the offshoring. As for the recession, well the democrats aren't entirely innocent on the deficit spending in the same time frame either. The dems held the senate in 2001, republicans had a 1 seat majority until 2005 which then became a 5 seat majority until 2007 where the dems took control again. The leads in the house weren't all that impressive either. In all of this, the dems and republicans had to work together on spending and you will find that a good number of both supported the overspending.
The Republicans have been calling the shots for most of the last decade and a half because the democrats can't get their shit together to save their lives. This isn't entirely their fault, as democrats run the gamut from right-leaning fiscal conservatives to wacky lefty nutjobs, and everything inbetween. Republicans have managed to exorcise practically all remnants of moderation from their party, so they generally move in lockstep anymore. Will be interesting to see what happens with the new blood in the House. I wonder how long they'll hang onto their idealism.
I don't think it's as much the magic jobs will appear, as it is that the far left dems were spouting ideas that would kill jobs like raising taxes on small businesses and taxing energy use more then it already is.
Raising taxes on small businesses how? As for the energy issue, I assume you're referring to cap and trade. I really don't know what to make of that, as I've seen a ton of different predictions from both sides, so apparently nobody is really sure how that will pan out. I do think it's rather ridiculous to think that we can continue to pump mind-boggling amounts of pollution into the atmosphere without having a real, noticeable effect, and possibly a rather severe one. Most of the arguments against cap and trade dismiss the idea altogether though. I think it probably will cost us something, although I doubt it will be nearly the amount that the predictions from the right are claiming, but I don't believe it'll be the job-creating behemoth that practically pays for itself that some from the left are claiming either. I think anyone that claims they know how it would work out is kidding themselves, but I do think that something does need to be done to rein in the pollution.
Obama's recent comments about how losing your job to India means more jobs in the US is a brazened example of this. The people don't want to have to retrain after being employed and skilled in something for 26 years just to start over on retirement benefits and seniority at something they are entirely unfamiliar with. Then to have a callous attitude towards them on top of that is like pouring lemon juice on a paper cute that feels a lot like a knife wound in the back. At least when clinton negotiated and implements free trade agreements, he pretended to care about the misplaced workers that resulted from them. It's a lot of the reason the entire compassionate conservatism movement was st
You also have the fed up crowed. The people who are simply fed up with the government pulling tricks to get unpopular agendas moving (health care and reconciliation for instance), people who are fed up with the government saying their jobs aren't important, you have to retrain to work in the green job fields, and the people who see this massive attempt to tax and spend with no measurable or perceivable results. They were motivated more or less to just get the incumbent out.
This is what makes no sense to me. You don't like the way the democrats were doing these things, so you vote for the republicans who are worse on pretty much all counts. They've used reconciliation more, they don't do anything to keep jobs here, in fact they've done a lot to help with all the offshoring, they prefer borrow and spend to tax and spend, which is about as fiscally irresponsible as you can get, and at least we have perceivable results for the deficit spending of the last couple years. Republicans don't have a recession as a reason for their deficit spending over the last several years.
Of course jobs are always one of the last areas of improvement when coming out of a recession. Not sure what magic people think the Republicans are going to pull out of their asses to fix that. Apparently the republicans know this as well, since the back-peddling started on election night as they attempted to lower expectations after all the crap they were spewing during the campaign. They will do exactly what they were berating the democrats for doing, which is to insist that they have a mandate and that the other side should respect that and allow them to pass the legislation they want. Of course they'll conveniently forget that they never did any such thing when the shoe was on the other foot, which is why the health care bill was watered-down and the stimulus wasn't as big as the economists had recommended.
I can almost understand voting against the democrats because they're a disorganized bunch of fuck-ups, but when the alternative is an organized bunch of fuck-ups that can do even more damage, I just can't see how anyone thinks that would be better.
Perhaps what you have seen isn't so much a resurgence of republicans, but a downfall of agenda oriented democrats?
I don't particularly identify with any party either. I tend to be more conservative then liberal politically speaking though.
Maybe it's more of something where people didn't like X and now they decided they don't like Y even more and X is actually tolerable.
Agenda-oriented democrats? What does that even mean? Are you saying they don't like the agenda they voted for, or that they don't like agendas in general, or what? I'm an independent, and given the lousy selection of candidates for most offices, I tend to vote against candidates more than for them. I'm still rather baffled by this last election. I can only guess that the all the ads must have worked, because aside from that nothing else makes any sense.
It worries me that Slashdotters find this comment "Insightful." The whole idea of disclosing preexisting conditions is that companies know what they're getting into when they agree to insure someone. They have adjust their rates accordingly based on the likely cost of keeping that person healthy. Insurance companies are businesses that employ thousands upon thousands of people, and they can't very well keep food on the table for their employees if they lose money. We can have reasonable discussions about what to do with those people who are basically uninsurable, but griping about 'evil corporate profits' helps no one.
When are we going to get around to actually helping those people who are considered uninsurable by the industry? This issue has been around for decades and not a damn thing has been done. It's about time that something was actually done, even if it's far from ideal.
Except pre-existing condition clauses went away right away while mandated coverage is delayed a couple years.
Only for children, not for adults.
Additionally, the fine for not having insurance is ridiculously low so it is better financially (not morally) to wait for little Timmy to get Leukemia, then buy insurance and pay the tiny fine for not having it in the first place.
I agree that it's lower than it should be, but it's not ridiculously low as you say, and it's not like there aren't other incentives to buying health care insurance, else there wouldn't be so many of us that do so of our own free will. From the bill:
White House/Congressional Leadership Reconciliation Bill Health Care and Education Affordability Act of 2010 (H.R. 4872):
Those without coverage pay a tax penalty of the greater of $695 per year up to a maximum of three times that amount ($2,085) per family or 2.5% of household income. The penalty will be phased in according to the following schedule: $95 in 2014, $325 in 2015, and $695 in 2016 for the flat fee or 1.0% of taxable income in 2014, 2.0% of taxable income in 2015, and 2.5% of taxable income in 2016. Beginning after 2016, the penalty will be increased annually by the cost-of-living adjustment.
Reality is the health care bill was written with the sole intent of driving health insurance companies out of business so that we would get to a defacto single payer without the Dems having to actually pass legislation that way.
If that was the goal, then they failed miserably. They made a ton of concessions for the insurance industry. Single-payer would be a more cost-effective system, considering that we already have decided as a country that nobody will be refused health care when they're in need, and we already pay for it in the most ridiculously expensive way possible.
I honestly can't help but think destroying the health care insurance industry was a feature not a bug. It's the perfect excuse to come in and "rescue" us with a fully government-financed health care system.
It's the only explanation that makes sense, because despite constant assertions to the contrary (including from me), members of Congress are not _that_ stupid.
Destroying the health insurance industry? If only that were true, things would probably be a lot better right now. They made so many concessions to them that they're still going to make out like bandits. People actually believe the bullshit the insurance industry is peddling? They, like all the rest of the corporations funding campaign ads, have no qualms about lying their asses off if they can make a buck off it.
You completely missed the point.
It's not about whether or not the report is accurate, it's about what people believe. They are sure as hell not going to believe the economy is improving if they just got laid off.
It doesn't matter if the report is accurate from the national perspective, it has absolutely no bearing from the individual's perspective, and the individual perspective are where voters are seeing things.
So you're saying that people can't interpret the data about the direction of the economy, and just use their own situation as their indicator? Their perspective doesn't allow them to take in all the information about the direction the economy is going (hint: it's getting better, we finally saw a net gain in jobs), and they expect the biggest recession since the Great Depression to be turned around in 18 months? So you're basically saying they're morons, right?
Yes, but what they don't know is why they can't find a job.
Of course they do. It's because the economy is in the tank. It might be improving, but until that improvement actually changes their situation they will be of the opinion that the economy is in the tank. Period.
That contradicts claims from Republican officials who say that voters were voting based on their belief about whether the economy is headed in the right direction or not, not where it currently is. They're making this claim because they know that nothing they do is really going fix the economy anytime soon, and they want to lower the expectations they set with their campaigns. It's a waiting game now, and they know it. They're hoping that if the economy stays in the tank for another couple years, they can take over completely in 2012, just in time for it to really start recovering, and thus take credit for it. It's all pretty cynical really. Just playing off the frustrations and fears of the voters. If the Democrats were even half as good at that, and more willing to do it, they probably wouldn't have seen such losses this time around.
Because Democrats are fucking incompetent spineless cowards.
And there's the biggest problem the Democrats have. They actually have a President that can speak and get a message across, but they can't come up with anything worth saying, while the Republicans have a dozen or so people out speaking on a regular basis and absolutely eviscerating them. If the Dems had a pair between the lot of them, they'd have been calling them on all the bullshit we've heard since the 2008 campaigns. They wouldn't be letting all the shit slide off the radar like they do either. They would nail them and then keep reminding people of all the ridiculous bullshit we've heard, and who was behind it every time they come out with new ridiculous bullshit.
I don't see the Dems ever getting their act together though. The Republicans have managed to sterilize their party to the point where anyone who isn't far-right-fringe can only be elected as a Democrat. So we end up with Dems that span the spectrum from moderate right to far-left-fringe, which is why they can't ever seem to get anything done right, even when they have a clear majority.
Tea Party guys, I really am halfway with you. I like the beginnings of a lot of your speeches. But somehow it always goes psycho. I'll believe you guys are sincere when you tell the Republicans to fuck off. Until then, you're the enemy that you're preaching against.
I'm with you 100%. I'm grooving with the small government thing. But the Tea Party attracts so much of the lunatic fringe it scares me. I'm tempted to try to shoot for some joke about green tea supposedly fighting free radicals, but the analogy kind of disturbs me.
For what it's worth Sarah Palin is making a great political move by branding herself as a Tea Partier. I hate that the movement is letting this happen, because she's terrible, but she's doing an excellent job of associating herself with this independently thinking small government idealogy.
The Tea Party just needs some charismatic leadership that is: sensible, not insane, and not trying to hijack the party for their own ultra-con purposes. Someone like Ron Paul, only more relevant. Once that happens I think they have the seedlings of a meaningful political party.
I could see backing them if they could drop the crazies like Palin or O'Donnell and their supporters, and if they can keep themselves from being co-opted by the Republicans and/or social conservatives. I think it's probably too late for that now though.
I vote for the Republicans not because I believe in them, but because I believe in the Democrats less. How do you fix this? I don't know. GW Bush was not my first choice and he certainly did a lot of things I disagree with, but compared to the alternatives both times he was the only choice. The one thing I do know for sure is that I am not supporting any candidates campaign unless I believe in them, not that it matters much they have enough corporate backing to ignore me and those like me.
So you hang on to your biases in spite of the evidnence that Republicans run up the deficits far more than Democrats. I think we've identified the problem. You believe the bullshit that the Republicans sell about being pro-small-government. They haven't been that since WWII, yet people like you still believe them.
There is no solution to be found in either major political party, unfortunately.
The answer is to restore the rule of law and prosecute the banksters.
That's hilarious. So instead of demanding that from the Democrats, who were actually more inclined to do it, you elect the Republicans who consider talk of prosecuting white-collar crime some kind of class-warfare heresy. Good job.
Note that I'm not necessarily opposed to "healthcare reform". But spending $12 a head to influence the people who can, on a whim, cost me $1000+ per year forever seems a bargain.
First of all, you should be dividing by eligible voters, not total population. Second, the money coming from for-profit corporations is not money representing people's political beliefs or ideologies, it's money trying to influence legislators into helping those corporations make greater profits, period. Those same corporations that raised your premiums did so because their lobbyists managed to ensure that they were allowed to do so by Congress. Rates were going to go up regardless, but they likely went up more than they should have because when the health care law actually takes effect, they'll be limited in how much they can jack up your rates. That was either a naive oversight in the bill, or evidence of the corrupting effect of lobbyists, but I can't say for sure which.
With all the money they toss around, the insurance industry may get their wish and the health care bill will get repealed, in whole or in part, but don't expect for a minute that that will reduce your premiums. That's what lobbyists are there for. The interests of the corporations are protected and represented by lobbyists who co-opt the legislators who are supposed to be representing their constituents. Unfortunately we don't get the kind of access that lobbyist money provides.
People are swayed because they aren't experts in these subjects, so they have to listen to someone. Who they listen to depends largely on their political biases, so they end up having those biases reinforced. One has to really go looking for relatively unbiased sources, and that takes time and a certain amount of learning on top of it just so that you can know enough to know whether that source is full of crap or not. Now multiply that by all the issues out there, some of which are huge, like health care, and the average person just doesn't have nearly enough time to figure out what the truth is on any subject, even if they are inclined to do so. Many people don't even try, but just stick with whatever pundits are on "their team" essentially. It's just a bloodsport then.
I love how so many people on slashdot talk as if there's this huge intelligence gap between them and "most people". If "most people" aren't discerning enough to sort out the truth and the issues before voting, then you may as well give up on democracy. No amount of law is going to fix that, especially considering the laws would have to be created by the legislators that "most people" elect.
Now don't get me wrong, I think there's a huge laziness / apathy problem (and I include myself in that, I could certainly have done more research on the local races this time around), but I don't think it's a problem of ability.
I didn't claim it was an intelligence gap. I talk to relatives and co-workers about this stuff on a weekly basis though, and I know where they get their info because they tell me. If I ask about specifics, they usually don't know and fall back on "well so-and-so says...", so they aren't really informed on the issues, they just hear stuff from their favorite media outlets and that's what they "know" about the issues. Now I don't have time to research all these issues either, so I have to rely on other peoples' analyses for them as well. I'm just not going to rely on Fox News or MSNBC or Huffington Post as a real source of info. At best you're only getting part of the story, and if it seems mostly one-sided, then you should probably go looking for another side.
I guess that was a long-winded way of saying that I agree with your assessment of a laziness/apathy problem, but I think that the real problem is that nobody is ever really going to have time to research all the issues or candidates, and judging by what we saw in this past campaign, they have a nasty habit of letting highly partisan sources decide these things for them, and what's worse, they act as if anyone who disagrees with them is a terrible, ignorant person out to destroy America.
This was the most expensive midterm election cycle ever, even adjusting for inflation. And you can bet grandma wasn't the one forking over the dough. The corporate paymasters are going to be expecting(and almost certainly will get) a huge ROI for their investments.
I'm getting tired of that complaint. The people vote. Each CEO gets exactly the same say that you or I do. If people are swayed by corporate funded campaign trickery, then it's really the people's fault, not the corporations. I'm republican but don't think I'm saying this just because "my side" won. I'm thinking of how all the ballot issues I voted "no" on passed, and wondering how much of a factor were the misleading ads that were run about them. My son, who is approaching voting age, heard one of these radio ads and told me he didn't understand exactly what the issue was. I told him they don't really want you to understand, they just want everyone to remember "Yes on 3".
Political ads don't have to educate or even tell the truth. They are there to sow doubt, suspicion, and fear. They prey on people's pre-conceived notions, biases, and emotions. Say what you will about how we shouldn't let them influence us, but they do influence us, sometimes without us even realizing it. That's why so many billions are spent on advertising every year. That we allow for-profit corporations to spend money on political advertising seems crazy to me, but that's the way it is now.
People are swayed because they aren't experts in these subjects, so they have to listen to someone. Who they listen to depends largely on their political biases, so they end up having those biases reinforced. One has to really go looking for relatively unbiased sources, and that takes time and a certain amount of learning on top of it just so that you can know enough to know whether that source is full of crap or not. Now multiply that by all the issues out there, some of which are huge, like health care, and the average person just doesn't have nearly enough time to figure out what the truth is on any subject, even if they are inclined to do so. Many people don't even try, but just stick with whatever pundits are on "their team" essentially. It's just a bloodsport then.
But what if those corporate paymasters use all their ROI's to hire people... Like my wife. So we can keep our house? I won't really give a flying rats ass about the rest then. I have two kids and am getting TOO DAMN CLOSE to foreclosure.
Why would they need to hire people when the middle class, those people that buy stuff, don't have any money to spend because their incomes have been flat for a decade or so, assuming they even still have a job?