so the presidential race is decided by the last gerrymandering round? That is possibly the stupidest thing I have ever heard and why there was so much outcry when they tried to do it in all the swing states.
No, the supidest thing you've heard was your own first sentence there - a complete fabrication of what I said. NOTHING about gerrymandering or last elections results - just a way to look at what some States already do (one of each went to each of the candidates) as an very Constitutional way to do things for the Presidential election. The popular vote would require a a Constitutional amendment.
But that's OK - you keep making fabrications out of whole cloth and railing against them! Stupid is as stupid does...
Freedom of speech implies that the speech is true.
Really? So any fictional statement or story is automatically not "free speech"? Meaning pretty much any editorial in any newspaper is not the exercise of "free speech"?
Or you could do what Maine and Nebraska do - each district determines its own winner, and the two EVs from the Senators go to the overall winner of the State. Rather than winner-take-all for each State, break it down by district. Eminently sensible IMHO.
Here's a hint: the Symbian stealing? That's where iOS is getting it's market share as well. Before iOS, there was really just BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, and the 900 pound monster - Symbian. iOS and Android both stole marketshare from all 3 of those. Android, however, is gaining massively in countries like India and China which had tiny markets for smartphones back in the pre-2008 timeframe. Those are new users, who for the most part never used any of those first big-3 mobile platforms.
Uh, your list of "Apple sells" countries forgets several dozen, such as China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Indonesia, India, and many others... Oh, and did you know that three of those markets are LARGER than the US, Canada, or even the EU?
Nearly flat... Yes, a bit different than Krugman's graph of flat. Logs have a great way of compressing things. Shallower increases are STILL increases. On a log graph, though, early increases always look a lot worse than later increases.
BI assigned FY2009 to President Bush; it was signed by President Obama. Seems a bit disingenuous to me... By the way, President Bush did not inherit a surplus; please see TreasuryDirect to verify this. The national debt has increased EVERY YEAR since 1957. Every year. That "Clinton surplus"? Never existed. Just a paper figment.
Any citations to back up your statement? Or just tossing them out there as flamebait? The facts are the previous administration was terrible, fiscally; the facts are the current administration are more than doubling down on the terrible fiscal bet.
And yet that is the system we have, and for better or worse - they are the legal, final arbiters of what IS Constitutional. ACs and spire3661 notwithstanding.
Much of the deficit increase in 2009 was due to existing "safety net" programs such as food stamps and unemployment insurance that kicked in in response to the depression, which was already underway when Obama took office. The rest was due to the financial bailout, in which Obama followed through on the bailout devised under the Bush administration. Obama brought an end to the growth in Federal spending
Ah, Krugman. Love that graph - on log scale! The absolute numbers are considerably different. Spending increased over the entire Bush Administration by about $900 billion; spending is up over $820 billion in just the first Obama term.
Assuming President Obama can restrain spending to just the rate of inflation (which would be a huge scale-back of his planned spending increases), he'd still end up close to twice the spending of President Bush, over his two terms.
Not quite... The facts are rather different. President Bush took Federal spending from $2.01 trillion to $2.98 trillion, a growth of $970 billion.
President Obama took spending from that $2.98 trillion to $3.8 trillion, a growth of $820 billion. And he did it in 5 years, versus the 7 of President Bush.
Your claim of double simply doesn't hold up. It's nearly equal right now, and - even if President Obama scales Federal spending back to just inflation - will out-pace President Bush dramatically, by several hundred billion dollars, by the time his 2nd term is over.
Is this an absolution of President Bush? Not at all. Rather, it is a condemnation of the squandering by BOTH Presidents. For, based on the facts, as bad as President Bush was (which was rather bad), President Obama is considerably, provably, worse.
Please read the entire second amendment. It mentions the need for a "well regulated militia"
Please read the Supreme Court ruling DC v Heller, and their ruling in McDonald v Chicago. The right to bear arms is for the individual, and is incorporated to the individual. It is not about a militia, but personal firearm ownership.
Unless, of course, you know more about case law and the Constitution than the US Supreme Court...
Of course, Bush grew the federal deficit by more than twice what Obama has...
Citation needed. The last Bush deficit - FY2008 - was $461 billion. FY2009 was signed by President Obama and had a $1.4 trillion deficit. Since then, every year (not budget - there hasn't been one for 3+ years) has seen more than $1 trillion in deficit spending. The actual facts are that President Obama more than tripled the worst President Bush deficit - and has seen those deficits hold over his entire first term.
The last time we had a REAL surplus (not just something on paper) - a surplus where the Federal Government received more revenue than it spent - was in 1957. Source.
The referenced Wiki pages are for projected, on-budget spending surpluses - not overall. It's like you balance your own personal budget by ignoring your spending on your car, or mortgage interest... Take all Federal spending together, though, and we have not had a real, cash-basis surplus since 1957, in the Eisenhower Administration.
Yeah, god forbid Congress set our tax levels back up to the high rates of the Ronald Reagan era. That Reagan dude was clearly a fucking socialist.
Tax revenue is more than just marginal tax rates - it also includes deductions. For example, consider the "hey day" of high marginal rates, the late 50s, back when the top marginal rates were 90%+ - and we ran an actual surplus (which has not happened since 1957).
In constant 2011 dollars, federal tax receipts in 1957 were $3200 per person.
Today, with the "much lower" marginal rates, federal tax receipts in 2011 were $6600 per person.
We're collecting over twice the revenue per capita - in constant dollars - now, with huge deficits, versus in 1957 when we had actual surpluses (and paid down the debt). We had many, many more deductions back in the high marginal tax rate days than we do today, allowing for a much lower level of actual taxation (less than 50% effective of what we pay today).
The problem is not - NOT - revenue. It is spending. The Federal Government is spending over 3 TIMES more per capita, in constant dollars, than it did back in those high-marginal rate days. We have a massive spending (and scope of activity) problem, NOT a revenue problem.
That's the EXACT reason why I make sure and do a hard printout of The Internet every few weeks... When the EMP goes off, don't come crawling to me begging to use my copy!
stating that RIM is now Blackberry(RIM makes Blackberry phones, that's like saying Apple is now Mac/iPhone).
Please see sentence 3 of TFA: Well, it seems BlackBerry (the company formerly known as RIM). Heck it was all over the news in nearly all tech forums...
If you had a greater understanding of this subject, you would not have made such an egregious insinuation.
The biggest criminals in the US are rich white men.
The amount of petty theft in the history of the US pales in comparison to what the bankers got away with in 2008.
I know I'll get modded down, but consider this: the bankers you rail against were basically ignored by the two black men who could have put them away: Attorney General Holder and President Obama. Perhaps it's the fact that Obama received nearly $20 million in donations in 2007 from banks and financial institutions (compared to $11 million for John McCain)? In other words, they got off not because they were white, but because they dropped big time money into the coffers of the only person who could really do anything about their actions...
Slashdot Mirror
Dude, I saw them when they toured with Furthur. Freaking AWESOME show!
so the presidential race is decided by the last gerrymandering round? That is possibly the stupidest thing I have ever heard and why there was so much outcry when they tried to do it in all the swing states.
No, the supidest thing you've heard was your own first sentence there - a complete fabrication of what I said. NOTHING about gerrymandering or last elections results - just a way to look at what some States already do (one of each went to each of the candidates) as an very Constitutional way to do things for the Presidential election. The popular vote would require a a Constitutional amendment.
But that's OK - you keep making fabrications out of whole cloth and railing against them! Stupid is as stupid does...
Freedom of speech implies that the speech is true.
Really? So any fictional statement or story is automatically not "free speech"? Meaning pretty much any editorial in any newspaper is not the exercise of "free speech"?
Or you could do what Maine and Nebraska do - each district determines its own winner, and the two EVs from the Senators go to the overall winner of the State. Rather than winner-take-all for each State, break it down by district. Eminently sensible IMHO.
Then your point was pretty poorly made. Your ad hominem attack proving the case... Cheers!
I'm not saying Brazil isn't an interesting market, but it probably isn't in the top 5.
Brazil is the 5th most populous country in the world.
Here's a hint: the Symbian stealing? That's where iOS is getting it's market share as well. Before iOS, there was really just BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, and the 900 pound monster - Symbian. iOS and Android both stole marketshare from all 3 of those. Android, however, is gaining massively in countries like India and China which had tiny markets for smartphones back in the pre-2008 timeframe. Those are new users, who for the most part never used any of those first big-3 mobile platforms.
Uh, your list of "Apple sells" countries forgets several dozen, such as China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Indonesia, India, and many others... Oh, and did you know that three of those markets are LARGER than the US, Canada, or even the EU?
Social Security started in 1935. Medicare started in 1965. And you mention the inflationary effect on tuition from the GI Bill? Maybe Medicare has had an inflationary effect on medical care as well...
Nearly flat... Yes, a bit different than Krugman's graph of flat. Logs have a great way of compressing things. Shallower increases are STILL increases. On a log graph, though, early increases always look a lot worse than later increases.
BI assigned FY2009 to President Bush; it was signed by President Obama. Seems a bit disingenuous to me... By the way, President Bush did not inherit a surplus; please see TreasuryDirect to verify this. The national debt has increased EVERY YEAR since 1957. Every year. That "Clinton surplus"? Never existed. Just a paper figment.
Any citations to back up your statement? Or just tossing them out there as flamebait? The facts are the previous administration was terrible, fiscally; the facts are the current administration are more than doubling down on the terrible fiscal bet.
And yet that is the system we have, and for better or worse - they are the legal, final arbiters of what IS Constitutional. ACs and spire3661 notwithstanding.
Much of the deficit increase in 2009 was due to existing "safety net" programs such as food stamps and unemployment insurance that kicked in in response to the depression, which was already underway when Obama took office. The rest was due to the financial bailout, in which Obama followed through on the bailout devised under the Bush administration. Obama brought an end to the growth in Federal spending
Ah, Krugman. Love that graph - on log scale! The absolute numbers are considerably different. Spending increased over the entire Bush Administration by about $900 billion; spending is up over $820 billion in just the first Obama term.
Assuming President Obama can restrain spending to just the rate of inflation (which would be a huge scale-back of his planned spending increases), he'd still end up close to twice the spending of President Bush, over his two terms.
Misremembered the citation - Bush grew federal spending by more than twice what Obama has, not the deficit. My apologies. Here's the citation: http://www.businessinsider.com/whos-responsible-for-budget-deficit-2012-8
Not quite... The facts are rather different. President Bush took Federal spending from $2.01 trillion to $2.98 trillion, a growth of $970 billion.
President Obama took spending from that $2.98 trillion to $3.8 trillion, a growth of $820 billion. And he did it in 5 years, versus the 7 of President Bush.
Your claim of double simply doesn't hold up. It's nearly equal right now, and - even if President Obama scales Federal spending back to just inflation - will out-pace President Bush dramatically, by several hundred billion dollars, by the time his 2nd term is over.
Is this an absolution of President Bush? Not at all. Rather, it is a condemnation of the squandering by BOTH Presidents. For, based on the facts, as bad as President Bush was (which was rather bad), President Obama is considerably, provably, worse.
Please read the entire second amendment. It mentions the need for a "well regulated militia"
Please read the Supreme Court ruling DC v Heller, and their ruling in McDonald v Chicago. The right to bear arms is for the individual, and is incorporated to the individual. It is not about a militia, but personal firearm ownership.
Unless, of course, you know more about case law and the Constitution than the US Supreme Court...
Of course, Bush grew the federal deficit by more than twice what Obama has...
Citation needed. The last Bush deficit - FY2008 - was $461 billion. FY2009 was signed by President Obama and had a $1.4 trillion deficit. Since then, every year (not budget - there hasn't been one for 3+ years) has seen more than $1 trillion in deficit spending. The actual facts are that President Obama more than tripled the worst President Bush deficit - and has seen those deficits hold over his entire first term.
The budget was balanced and had a surplus in 1999 and 2000 (I think in 2001 too but I can't find the information). See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_United_States_federal_budget and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_United_States_federal_budget
The last time we had a REAL surplus (not just something on paper) - a surplus where the Federal Government received more revenue than it spent - was in 1957. Source.
The referenced Wiki pages are for projected, on-budget spending surpluses - not overall. It's like you balance your own personal budget by ignoring your spending on your car, or mortgage interest... Take all Federal spending together, though, and we have not had a real, cash-basis surplus since 1957, in the Eisenhower Administration.
Yeah, god forbid Congress set our tax levels back up to the high rates of the Ronald Reagan era. That Reagan dude was clearly a fucking socialist.
Tax revenue is more than just marginal tax rates - it also includes deductions. For example, consider the "hey day" of high marginal rates, the late 50s, back when the top marginal rates were 90%+ - and we ran an actual surplus (which has not happened since 1957).
In constant 2011 dollars, federal tax receipts in 1957 were $3200 per person.
Today, with the "much lower" marginal rates, federal tax receipts in 2011 were $6600 per person.
We're collecting over twice the revenue per capita - in constant dollars - now, with huge deficits, versus in 1957 when we had actual surpluses (and paid down the debt). We had many, many more deductions back in the high marginal tax rate days than we do today, allowing for a much lower level of actual taxation (less than 50% effective of what we pay today).
The problem is not - NOT - revenue. It is spending. The Federal Government is spending over 3 TIMES more per capita, in constant dollars, than it did back in those high-marginal rate days. We have a massive spending (and scope of activity) problem, NOT a revenue problem.
When even the left calls you on your claim of "transparency" you know that's a bogus argument...
Then my carefully planned trip - from which I do not deviate - better not have a traffic jam involved, or I'm SOL...
2. Open up each page where your name appears.
3. Apply White-Out.
Problem solved!
That's the EXACT reason why I make sure and do a hard printout of The Internet every few weeks... When the EMP goes off, don't come crawling to me begging to use my copy!
stating that RIM is now Blackberry(RIM makes Blackberry phones, that's like saying Apple is now Mac/iPhone).
Please see sentence 3 of TFA: Well, it seems BlackBerry (the company formerly known as RIM). Heck it was all over the news in nearly all tech forums...
If you had a greater understanding of this subject, you would not have made such an egregious insinuation.
Good advice. You should heed it yourself...
The biggest criminals in the US are rich white men.
The amount of petty theft in the history of the US pales in comparison to what the bankers got away with in 2008.
I know I'll get modded down, but consider this: the bankers you rail against were basically ignored by the two black men who could have put them away: Attorney General Holder and President Obama. Perhaps it's the fact that Obama received nearly $20 million in donations in 2007 from banks and financial institutions (compared to $11 million for John McCain)? In other words, they got off not because they were white, but because they dropped big time money into the coffers of the only person who could really do anything about their actions...