Mod parent up. Most jealous poor people just bitch and moan about their station in life and continue to do the exact same things that have kept them poor. Success stories are too numerous to mention (I'm not talking about rags to riches, just somewhat poor to somewhat well-off, like me), but if you're willing to work more than 40 hours a week, make good long term decisions, and make a sacrifice or two along the way (do I really need a 55 inch LCD TV and a PS3 from a rent-to-own store?), you can do much better than most. There was a recent study that showed that less than one-third of American millionaires inherited their wealth. How have the other two-thirds achieved this status by "luck"?
I don't think people would "give up on the less fortunate". At least I wouldn't. But I want to choose which organization it goes to. A well-run private enterprise (including charities) is an enormous improvement over any government-run program.
And government education may mean lower crime (I have never studied this), it certainly doesn't mean higher paying jobs. It means everyone is taught at the same level, and and that more jobs will be geared towards that level.
And I've read studies by multiple respected economists that claim (with actual numbers) that exactly the opposite (tax cuts vs. stimulus) is true (like we only got about $0.60 for every $1.00 we spent). I wasn't arguing who was right or wrong. I was simply stating that your use of the term, "in violation of nearly every proven economic principle", is biased since Krugman's views are not universally accepted.
Meh, my impression was that Obama wanted to tax people over 250k a year (if you're not in that tax bracket you shouldn't care)
Why not? People not in this tax bracket certainly aspire to be in it one day. And people making over this are the ones that supply jobs. Increasing their taxes makes jobs scarcer.
While the Demcrats do advocate social spending, it appears they actually make an effort to reduce the debt.
Um, what? Please point to one article that proves this.
Obama may not be the best president, but I do think he's a significant step up from Bush. I blame the fact that he has a hard time accomplishing anything on the GOP, which has adopted the policy of opposing him for the sake of recouping clout and power lost by Bush jr.
Last I checked, the Democrats controlled both houses and the Presidency, and have passed huge bills they they have wanted to pass. All of this has resulted in increased deficits, little of which can be blamed on Bush or Republicans. it also resulted in a large number of them being tossed out on their asses.
I'll agree that watching the news is certainly keeping people ignorant, but you really are misinformed if you think that this is true:
In addition, Republicans like to make big deficits in order to further weaken the state and thereby empower corporations. Democrats try to keep deficits down so that a strong state can keep corporations in check.
Just look at the last four years of Democratic control of the Congress: huge increases in our deficits. The deficits increased further when Obama took office and the Dems could virtually guarantee that their agenda was passed. I don't like either party, but the Democrats are the bigger spenders.
As far as taxes go, I never said there should be no taxes. I said no income taxes. There is a huge difference. Income taxes imply that everything I make is at the mercy of the government. I don't know how this model gained worldwide acceptance, but there's little I can do about it now except to encourage its reduction where I can.
I have zero faith in the "populace" so I do not want my taxes "invested" in them. There is no such thing because giving money away will never make it grow, as "investment" implies. Let us have all of our money and invest it as we please. If we don't have enough to survive, we're fucked, but at least we brought it on ourselves. No one should be in the position of owing anyone else because the other person fucked up. Ever.
If Paul Krugman is your ideal of an economist, then tax cuts certainly will violate "nearly every proven economic principle". Your statement is as biased as this survey.
It's a question of freedom vs. security. Although I am not a Republican, I see them as slightly less evil than Democrats because they want to steal slightly less from me. The Democrats wish to impose more social programs at a greater cost, which means that they want to steal more of the money than I earn. I realize that Republicans want to impose more personal restrictions on me, so it's a close race. In a perfect country, there would be no income taxes and everyone would have to provide for themselves. I shouldn't owe anyone any piece of what I earn. Government would exist solely so that no one could harm or defraud me without repercussions. No job guarantees, no "free" health care, no free education, etc...
Your claim that Obama is our best President in a long time is laughable, although you don't live here, so your complete ignorance is somewhat understandable. With the help of Congress he has increased our deficit much higher than Bush managed to for programs that the majority of Americans do not want. His stated intention is to raise taxes for the purpose of fairness, not for the sake of the nation's taxpayers or economy. "Best" is certainly a subjective term, but Obama doesn't even come close on any scale unless the top of that scale is bankrupting a nation.
If the universe that created ours has exactly the same laws of physics, then you can argue that it turtles all the way down. Otherwise, maybe it doesn't. Maybe that universe has always existed.
Because "God" (whatever form that may be) will always be unexplainable. "God" could be any one of the gods from any religion that supports a Creation, or just some guy in a much different universe that spawned this one by swatting a fly or smashing atoms in a super-collider. I think the gist of a God (at least in Christianity and Judaism) is that He/She/It created this universe and is therefore outside of this universe. We'll never now what happened or happens outside of it. We should be able to understand everything within our own universe, given enough time and resources (thousands to even billions of years from now). So saying that our universe didn't just pop into existence is perfectly valid. Something caused it to happen, and if you believe in the Big Bang, it can't have come from our universe because there was no "before" the Big Bang. Whatever that something is, is God. Since we can't know the laws of the universe in which this God resides, we don't know if He/She/It popped into existence there, was just some random act, or has always existed. As hard as that last concept is to grasp, we can't rule it out completely since we can never understand that universe.
I attended both private and public schools in the U.S., and I learned far more in private schools. While the level of intellect of the students between schools was largely the same, we were all more engaged in our education at the private schools. The level of intellect and interest of all of my private school teachers (save one), was much higher than in any public school. In public school, I was basically taught how to pass a test, not taught anything relevant other than how to figure out which train would win a race from two different cities at two different speeds. The one exception was at a very small private school (~100 in the whole high school) in which an Algebra teacher was so bad at it that three of us got permission to teach ourselves and finished the book by the end of the year while the rest of the class didn't get nearly that far (and she was let go before the next school year). If there had been such an incompetent teacher in public schools (and there were in my experience), we never would have received permission to go on without the rest of the class, that teacher would have kept his/her job, and we wouldn't have learned nearly as much. The fact that the private school acknowledged the problem and allowed the best solution is astounding if you've only gone to public schools your whole life.
There is a reason that private schools exist: parents want their children to succeed in life, and the best chance that they have in the U.S. is to go to an excellent private school or to be home-schooled. Trusting your children to a government funded school ensures that they will receive the same mediocre education that the vast majority of the population receives.
I find it incredibly sad that you think that your boring years will start at 60, especially since you're reasonably fit and seem to be fairly intelligent. Trading a year or two of life for six months on Mars might be a good trade-off. Trading 20+ (expected) years just to do it seems like a waste.
What are you talking about? Aliens left the reactor that they activated at the end to make the atmosphere breathable, but no actual aliens were in the movie. There were mutants, but no aliens.
And while we're at it, the whole thing was implanted into his brain, so technically he never went to Mars and no one was trying to kill him.
"By the way, you know, when you're telling these little stories... here's a good idea - have a point! It makes it so much more interesting for the listener!"
Please review your reading comprehension as it relates to your posting.
SB
Yes, his second word is "check", as in "check" your firearm. I believe it is you who needs to "review your reading comprehension". You may be confused by the fact that he is advocating carrying a firearm every time you fly if you have valuables, whether or not you want/need to bring along said firearm. By checking a firearm (and putting your valuables in the same case), you prevent TSA from opening the bag unless it's in your presence.
Why in the holy hell do we need a separate national reconnaissance office and national geospatial intel agency outside of CIA? Why does the State Department need an intel org?
The "economic mess" was the direct result of the housing bubble, which was directly caused by Barney Frank and friends fighting any attempt to reform Fannie and Freddie because they wanted the "less fortunate" to be able to buy houses that they couldn't afford. Who was fighting to reform them? Oh yeah, the GOP.
"There hasn't been a huge increase in government employment. "
Wow, what have you been not reading? The only state/district to increase employment since Obama took office? Washington D.C.
Learn of what you speak before spouting off nonsense.
the GOP's largest expansion of government in our history
The Democrats (control of the House, Senate, and the Presidency) have managed to double the total federal debt in just two years? How exactly did the GOP do that?
If companies have more money to hire better employees to make their product better and increase their market share, then yes the money will go towards higher wages. If they choose not to use their money to pay better then someone else will to try and take their market share. To state the really really ridiculously obvious: less money in taxes means more for individuals whether it's in the form of higher wages (or dividends or bonuses) or individual tax savings.
How can money flow not terminate at a single point? Government does not create wealth, people do. Therefore money flow always begins and ends with people.
Don't twist my words - I never said that prices won't affect what customers will do. Increased costs or lost jobs (which likely means worse service). It has to be one of those. If a company operates as for-profit, they must make a profit for their shareholders or go out of business. Pursuing every legal avenue to keep their profit margin above zero should be perfectly acceptable.
How you can bring "tea-baggish" into this is absurd. Simple economics is simple economics. All costs are passed onto the consumer in one form or another. The consumer can choose not to pay those costs (thankfully), but the costs do exist.
Corporations and small businesses pay Google to place their ads. If that cost went up, the cost of virtually everything you buy online (and many B&M items) would go up since not many businesses don't advertise with Google.
All taxes are paid by individual taxpayers, no matter the form in which it goes to the government. If Google had not used any loopholes and paid, say $3B more in taxes, then $3B would be passed on to its customers in the form of increased costs, so it ends up being a tax on the customer. Be thankful that they don't pay them - keeps your costs lower and keeps the politicians from finding more useless crap on which to spend it.
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Mod parent up. Most jealous poor people just bitch and moan about their station in life and continue to do the exact same things that have kept them poor. Success stories are too numerous to mention (I'm not talking about rags to riches, just somewhat poor to somewhat well-off, like me), but if you're willing to work more than 40 hours a week, make good long term decisions, and make a sacrifice or two along the way (do I really need a 55 inch LCD TV and a PS3 from a rent-to-own store?), you can do much better than most. There was a recent study that showed that less than one-third of American millionaires inherited their wealth. How have the other two-thirds achieved this status by "luck"?
Meg Ryan's orgasm scene in When Harry met Sally will be the sound my electric car makes.
I don't think people would "give up on the less fortunate". At least I wouldn't. But I want to choose which organization it goes to. A well-run private enterprise (including charities) is an enormous improvement over any government-run program.
And government education may mean lower crime (I have never studied this), it certainly doesn't mean higher paying jobs. It means everyone is taught at the same level, and and that more jobs will be geared towards that level.
And I've read studies by multiple respected economists that claim (with actual numbers) that exactly the opposite (tax cuts vs. stimulus) is true (like we only got about $0.60 for every $1.00 we spent). I wasn't arguing who was right or wrong. I was simply stating that your use of the term, "in violation of nearly every proven economic principle", is biased since Krugman's views are not universally accepted.
Meh, my impression was that Obama wanted to tax people over 250k a year (if you're not in that tax bracket you shouldn't care)
Why not? People not in this tax bracket certainly aspire to be in it one day. And people making over this are the ones that supply jobs. Increasing their taxes makes jobs scarcer.
While the Demcrats do advocate social spending, it appears they actually make an effort to reduce the debt.
Um, what? Please point to one article that proves this.
Obama may not be the best president, but I do think he's a significant step up from Bush. I blame the fact that he has a hard time accomplishing anything on the GOP, which has adopted the policy of opposing him for the sake of recouping clout and power lost by Bush jr.
Last I checked, the Democrats controlled both houses and the Presidency, and have passed huge bills they they have wanted to pass. All of this has resulted in increased deficits, little of which can be blamed on Bush or Republicans. it also resulted in a large number of them being tossed out on their asses.
In addition, Republicans like to make big deficits in order to further weaken the state and thereby empower corporations. Democrats try to keep deficits down so that a strong state can keep corporations in check.
Just look at the last four years of Democratic control of the Congress: huge increases in our deficits. The deficits increased further when Obama took office and the Dems could virtually guarantee that their agenda was passed. I don't like either party, but the Democrats are the bigger spenders.
As far as taxes go, I never said there should be no taxes. I said no income taxes. There is a huge difference. Income taxes imply that everything I make is at the mercy of the government. I don't know how this model gained worldwide acceptance, but there's little I can do about it now except to encourage its reduction where I can.
I have zero faith in the "populace" so I do not want my taxes "invested" in them. There is no such thing because giving money away will never make it grow, as "investment" implies. Let us have all of our money and invest it as we please. If we don't have enough to survive, we're fucked, but at least we brought it on ourselves. No one should be in the position of owing anyone else because the other person fucked up. Ever.
If Paul Krugman is your ideal of an economist, then tax cuts certainly will violate "nearly every proven economic principle". Your statement is as biased as this survey.
It's a question of freedom vs. security. Although I am not a Republican, I see them as slightly less evil than Democrats because they want to steal slightly less from me. The Democrats wish to impose more social programs at a greater cost, which means that they want to steal more of the money than I earn. I realize that Republicans want to impose more personal restrictions on me, so it's a close race. In a perfect country, there would be no income taxes and everyone would have to provide for themselves. I shouldn't owe anyone any piece of what I earn. Government would exist solely so that no one could harm or defraud me without repercussions. No job guarantees, no "free" health care, no free education, etc...
Your claim that Obama is our best President in a long time is laughable, although you don't live here, so your complete ignorance is somewhat understandable. With the help of Congress he has increased our deficit much higher than Bush managed to for programs that the majority of Americans do not want. His stated intention is to raise taxes for the purpose of fairness, not for the sake of the nation's taxpayers or economy. "Best" is certainly a subjective term, but Obama doesn't even come close on any scale unless the top of that scale is bankrupting a nation.
If the universe that created ours has exactly the same laws of physics, then you can argue that it turtles all the way down. Otherwise, maybe it doesn't. Maybe that universe has always existed.
... is that tourism is sure to go up in the area.
Because "God" (whatever form that may be) will always be unexplainable. "God" could be any one of the gods from any religion that supports a Creation, or just some guy in a much different universe that spawned this one by swatting a fly or smashing atoms in a super-collider. I think the gist of a God (at least in Christianity and Judaism) is that He/She/It created this universe and is therefore outside of this universe. We'll never now what happened or happens outside of it. We should be able to understand everything within our own universe, given enough time and resources (thousands to even billions of years from now). So saying that our universe didn't just pop into existence is perfectly valid. Something caused it to happen, and if you believe in the Big Bang, it can't have come from our universe because there was no "before" the Big Bang. Whatever that something is, is God. Since we can't know the laws of the universe in which this God resides, we don't know if He/She/It popped into existence there, was just some random act, or has always existed. As hard as that last concept is to grasp, we can't rule it out completely since we can never understand that universe.
I attended both private and public schools in the U.S., and I learned far more in private schools. While the level of intellect of the students between schools was largely the same, we were all more engaged in our education at the private schools. The level of intellect and interest of all of my private school teachers (save one), was much higher than in any public school. In public school, I was basically taught how to pass a test, not taught anything relevant other than how to figure out which train would win a race from two different cities at two different speeds. The one exception was at a very small private school (~100 in the whole high school) in which an Algebra teacher was so bad at it that three of us got permission to teach ourselves and finished the book by the end of the year while the rest of the class didn't get nearly that far (and she was let go before the next school year). If there had been such an incompetent teacher in public schools (and there were in my experience), we never would have received permission to go on without the rest of the class, that teacher would have kept his/her job, and we wouldn't have learned nearly as much. The fact that the private school acknowledged the problem and allowed the best solution is astounding if you've only gone to public schools your whole life.
There is a reason that private schools exist: parents want their children to succeed in life, and the best chance that they have in the U.S. is to go to an excellent private school or to be home-schooled. Trusting your children to a government funded school ensures that they will receive the same mediocre education that the vast majority of the population receives.
I find it incredibly sad that you think that your boring years will start at 60, especially since you're reasonably fit and seem to be fairly intelligent. Trading a year or two of life for six months on Mars might be a good trade-off. Trading 20+ (expected) years just to do it seems like a waste.
What are you talking about? Aliens left the reactor that they activated at the end to make the atmosphere breathable, but no actual aliens were in the movie. There were mutants, but no aliens.
And while we're at it, the whole thing was implanted into his brain, so technically he never went to Mars and no one was trying to kill him.
Department of Education. No rise in student's test scores in any category since the department's inception and billions of dollars wasted.
She could have been Australian and just wanted to feel at home. I'm sure she ordered the Alice Springs Chicken and a Foster's to celebrate.
"By the way, you know, when you're telling these little stories... here's a good idea - have a point! It makes it so much more interesting for the listener!"
His "second word" is: "check"
Please review your reading comprehension as it relates to your posting.
SB
Yes, his second word is "check", as in "check" your firearm. I believe it is you who needs to "review your reading comprehension". You may be confused by the fact that he is advocating carrying a firearm every time you fly if you have valuables, whether or not you want/need to bring along said firearm. By checking a firearm (and putting your valuables in the same case), you prevent TSA from opening the bag unless it's in your presence.
Why in the holy hell do we need a separate national reconnaissance office and national geospatial intel agency outside of CIA? Why does the State Department need an intel org?
Jobs.
The "economic mess" was the direct result of the housing bubble, which was directly caused by Barney Frank and friends fighting any attempt to reform Fannie and Freddie because they wanted the "less fortunate" to be able to buy houses that they couldn't afford. Who was fighting to reform them? Oh yeah, the GOP.
"There hasn't been a huge increase in government employment. "
Wow, what have you been not reading? The only state/district to increase employment since Obama took office? Washington D.C.
Learn of what you speak before spouting off nonsense.
the GOP's largest expansion of government in our history
The Democrats (control of the House, Senate, and the Presidency) have managed to double the total federal debt in just two years? How exactly did the GOP do that?
If companies have more money to hire better employees to make their product better and increase their market share, then yes the money will go towards higher wages. If they choose not to use their money to pay better then someone else will to try and take their market share. To state the really really ridiculously obvious: less money in taxes means more for individuals whether it's in the form of higher wages (or dividends or bonuses) or individual tax savings.
How can money flow not terminate at a single point? Government does not create wealth, people do. Therefore money flow always begins and ends with people.
How you can bring "tea-baggish" into this is absurd. Simple economics is simple economics. All costs are passed onto the consumer in one form or another. The consumer can choose not to pay those costs (thankfully), but the costs do exist.
Corporations and small businesses pay Google to place their ads. If that cost went up, the cost of virtually everything you buy online (and many B&M items) would go up since not many businesses don't advertise with Google.
All taxes are paid by individual taxpayers, no matter the form in which it goes to the government. If Google had not used any loopholes and paid, say $3B more in taxes, then $3B would be passed on to its customers in the form of increased costs, so it ends up being a tax on the customer. Be thankful that they don't pay them - keeps your costs lower and keeps the politicians from finding more useless crap on which to spend it.