Obama Announces Re-election Bid

[BigV]

Hey mercy

Do you understand that the Federal Reserve doesn't work for "Obamy"? He doesn't permit or prohibit any of the actions of the Federal Reserve.

It's true, they both have the best interest of the country at heart, so, often their interests and actions are aligned.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by BigV

Hey mercy

Do you understand that the Federal Reserve doesn't work for "Obamy"? He doesn't permit or prohibit any of the actions of the Federal Reserve.

It's true, they both have the best interest of the country at heart, so, often their interests and actions are aligned.

Absolutely.

You do realize that the governers are appointed by the President. And if you don't think they choose people who think like minded about their ideas of the direction they want to see currency regulation go then you have been fooled.

[TheMercenary]

All of them are biased to some degree. Everyone should read as much as they can and make their own decisions based on the information they can gather. IMHO Obamy Rhamed through a program that favored the insurance companies.

[Fair&Balanced]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

All of them are biased to some degree. Everyone should read as much as they can and make their own decisions based on the information they can gather. IMHO Obamy Rhamed through a program that favored the insurance companies.

How is the specific wording of the law, as it relates to the Unearned Income Medicare Contributions Tax, biased? Please explain.

Your subjective opinion of the overall law is one thing.

An opinion column that states that the Unearned Income Medicare Contributions Tax "covers all income levels" is a misstatement of fact.

[TheMercenary]

The sooner we close Gitmo the better. Send every swinging dick back to the country where they were captured. Carry on.....

[BigV]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

All of them are biased to some degree. Everyone should read as much as they can and make their own decisions based on the information they can gather. IMHO Obamy Rhamed through a program that favored the insurance companies.

Man, tha's a cop out and you know it. Certainly everything written by man can be variously interpreted by man. For cryin out loud, we had a fucking MATH problem carry on for fifty pages last week. I'm not asking are they biased or not. I'm asking you which one you consider the best source for facts about the law.

I'll go first, you might or might not follow. I consider the .gov site the most reliable source of the three listed as the best source for facts about the law. The others is are opinion pieces about the law, emphasis on opinion.

[Jill]

Originally Posted by infinite monkey

2008 gas prices?

The reason gas prices of $4.00+ a gallon in 2011 feel so painful, is because wealth disparity has been widening exponentially over the past several decades, where the rich are getting filthy rich and the poor and middle class have seen their incomes stagnate or even be lowered. Incomes aren't keeping pace with inflation, so even though today's gas prices are on par with 1970s gas prices in equivalent dollar value, the middle class don't have as many dollars to spend.

When I started driving in 1977, gas was between $0.35 and $0.45 a gallon. When gas rose to over $1 a gallon in the 90s, no one complained because everyone could afford it. Look at the chart on this site. Note that gas prices didn't start exploding until we started 2 wars in the largest oil-producing region in the world. And so it continues now with Libya, not to mention all the political unrest in several countries throughout the region.

Now look at the graph showing wealth disparity here, and scroll through the next 15 screens. This one is the most sickening.

If it doesn't blow your mind and/or piss you off, you have no concern about the future of this nation.

Guns, abortion, homosexuality -- those are all nothing more than distractions from the real problem this country faces, and that's ensuring that we have a strong and solid middle and working class. The more the wealthy Republicans fight to strip workers of their piddly benefits by comparison to what they're raking in, the more people will be forced into reliance on Government programs. The more people relying on Government programs, the more the Republicans fight to eliminate those programs as too costly. The only place this can lead us is into Third World status, as poverty rises and the government leaves people to fend for themselves on the streets. Don't tell me it can't happen. It's happening right now!

It's an ugly, vicious attack on the very people who have literally built this nation with their blood, sweat and tears. Real Average Earnings have not increased in 50 YEARS! But the best compensated 400 Americans earned on average, $345 MILLION per year!

Republican tax cuts have SIGNIFICANTLY increased the wealth gap.

And it should be no surprise that income inequality is worst in the areas around Wall Street and oil producing states.

This path is unsustainable. Cutting and gutting government services is a make-believe "solution" that will actually only make the problem worse, leading to increased poverty, more unwanted babies whose mothers cannot afford to feed them and nowhere to go to find food or shelter. Private charities could never hope to raise the kinds of funds needed to take care of the volumes of indigent families that will need these services, mostly because there'll be far fewer people with enough disposable income to give.

We need someone in the White House with some common sense on this issue. I'm deeply disappointed that President Obama has fallen prey to the machinations of the Republicans, who have been guiding the narrative in the wrong direction. If we want to stop the bleeding, we need to participate in our government by calling and writing our Representatives and making it clear that we want them and the President to stop being dragged around by the nose and to start exposing the destructive path Republicans are taking us down.

I don't give a shit about guns. Keep all you want. Shoot all the Bambis you want. I don't care if you hate gays, just don't expect our laws to enshrine your personal hatred in it. I don't care if you want to teach and preach abstinence and "the right to life" (even if I find it grossly hypocritical), just don't elevate it to the level of distraction from what's really endangering this country in the here and now.

We have to get real, people!

(Whew! How's that for a first post following my long hiatus? )

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Jill

The reason gas prices of $4.00+ a gallon in 2011 feel so painful, is because wealth disparity has been widening exponentially over the past several decades, where the rich are getting filthy rich and the poor and middle class have seen their incomes stagnate or even be lowered. Incomes aren't keeping pace with inflation, so even though today's gas prices are on par with 1970s gas prices in equivalent dollar value, the middle class don't have as many dollars to spend.

When I started driving in 1977, gas was between $0.35 and $0.45 a gallon. When gas rose to over $1 a gallon in the 90s, no one complained because everyone could afford it. Look at the chart on this site. Note that gas prices didn't start exploding until we started 2 wars in the largest oil-producing region in the world. And so it continues now with Libya, not to mention all the political unrest in several countries throughout the region.

Now look at the graph showing wealth disparity here, and scroll through the next 15 screens. This one is the most sickening.

If it doesn't blow your mind and/or piss you off, you have no concern about the future of this nation.

Guns, abortion, homosexuality -- those are all nothing more than distractions from the real problem this country faces, and that's ensuring that we have a strong and solid middle and working class. The more the wealthy Republicans fight to strip workers of their piddly benefits by comparison to what they're raking in, the more people will be forced into reliance on Government programs. The more people relying on Government programs, the more the Republicans fight to eliminate those programs as too costly. The only place this can lead us is into Third World status, as poverty rises and the government leaves people to fend for themselves on the streets. Don't tell me it can't happen. It's happening right now!

It's an ugly, vicious attack on the very people who have literally built this nation with their blood, sweat and tears. Real Average Earnings have not increased in 50 YEARS! But the best compensated 400 Americans earned on average, $345 MILLION per year!

Republican tax cuts have SIGNIFICANTLY increased the wealth gap.

And it should be no surprise that income inequality is worst in the areas around Wall Street and oil producing states.

This path is unsustainable. Cutting and gutting government services is a make-believe "solution" that will actually only make the problem worse, leading to increased poverty, more unwanted babies whose mothers cannot afford to feed them and nowhere to go to find food or shelter. Private charities could never hope to raise the kinds of funds needed to take care of the volumes of indigent families that will need these services, mostly because there'll be far fewer people with enough disposable income to give.

We need someone in the White House with some common sense on this issue. I'm deeply disappointed that President Obama has fallen prey to the machinations of the Republicans, who have been guiding the narrative in the wrong direction. If we want to stop the bleeding, we need to participate in our government by calling and writing our Representatives and making it clear that we want them and the President to stop being dragged around by the nose and to start exposing the destructive path Republicans are taking us down.

I don't give a shit about guns. Keep all you want. Shoot all the Bambis you want. I don't care if you hate gays, just don't expect our laws to enshrine your personal hatred in it. I don't care if you want to teach and preach abstinence and "the right to life" (even if I find it grossly hypocritical), just don't elevate it to the level of distraction from what's really endangering this country in the here and now.

We have to get real, people!

(Whew! How's that for a first post following my long hiatus? )

Good post. Although your agnst for one party while ignoring what the other has done or not done over the last 15 or 20 years is a bit over the top.

We can fix a lot of these problems with a flat or fair tax. You could take 100% of the money from the top 1 or 2 percent and it would not finance us out of our problems for a month. Spending has to be cut, period. The deficit needs to be addressed for the long term but not the short term. First cut spending.

[Jill]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

Good post. Although your agnst for one party while ignoring what the other has done or not done over the last 15 or 20 years is a bit over the top.

We can fix a lot of these problems with a flat or fair tax. You could take 100% of the money from the top 1 or 2 percent and it would not finance us out of our problems for a month. Spending has to be cut, period. The deficit needs to be addressed for the long term but not the short term. First cut spending.

There have been some Democrats who have contributed to many of the problems we face. I would never deny that. I don't think I'll ever forgive Bill Clinton for signing Graham-Leach-Bliley and destroying Glass-Steagall. But my recollection is that Republicans had a veto-proof majority in Congress, so his signature was moot anyway (though I'm happy to be corrected if that memory is incorrect).

However, what I contend is that it has consistently been Republican policies that have historically done the most significant damage to our economy. We have suffered economically under Republican leadership to a far greater extent than under Democratic leadership in the last 50 years.

I don't think you'll find a Democrat who doesn't agree that spending needs to be cut. The Bush Administration and 6 years out of 8, of Republican majority in Congress, destroyed our economy by racking up spending on a gargantuan social program that wasn't paid for in the budget and two wars that have lasted damn near a decade now, also not paid for.

And although President Obama had to continue the Republican bailout programs, unfortunately to a greater degree, as more and more devastation to our economy was exposed, it was an absolute necessity to avoid a massive Depression. If John McCain had been elected, he would have been forced to do the exact same thing, and make no mistake, he absolutely would have.

But in spite of agreement that cuts need to be made, Republicans aren't acting in good faith or with any honesty on what needs to be cut and where those cuts will be most effective. They're cynically using the universally understood need for spending cuts to promote their social agenda, and offering up cuts to programs that are not only seriously needed in this country (and ultimately save our government money in the long run), but don't amount to a hill of beans on the side of Mount Everest when it comes to actually affecting the debt or deficit.

Cut oil subsidies. Cut farm subsidies for people who aren't even farming! (Michele Bachmann, I'm looking at you!) Root out waste and fraud. Cut the Pentagon budget (which is the single biggest slice of the pie). Stop no-bid contracts that cost billions of dollars in wasteful spending. Then dig into the tax code. Eliminate tax loopholes that allow U.S. businesses to offshore their income and pay no federal taxes on it. Roll back the Bush/Republican tax cuts that were never paid for and were intentionally set to expire in 10 years in order to get away with not having to pay for them (thereby leaving the issue of "raising taxes" in the lap of Democrats - nice political maneuver there!) and then give tax incentives to SMALL businesses to start hiring, thereby getting more people not only off the unemployment rolls, but back into the tax-paying pool, which will naturally raise revenues.

I want our government to get SERIOUS about the debt and deficit and stop playing these fucking games of demonizing the poor and targeting programs that are perceived as anti-Republican. Stop "playing politics" with where those cuts need to come from and just do it!

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Jill

And although President Obama had to continue the Republican bailout programs, unfortunately to a greater degree, as more and more devastation to our economy was exposed, it was an absolute necessity to avoid a massive Depression. If John McCain had been elected, he would have been forced to do the exact same thing, and make no mistake, he absolutely would have.

I can't agree. Look what we got for our money. How many jobs were created? At what cost? Many went to pet projects for the Dem majority. Look at the millions spent and the product we got from them.

http://stimuluswatch.org/2.0/

Pelosi, Reid, and Obama rammed programs through without being to explain their costs to the people, and when they did so, they used smoke and mirrors. They controlled congress for 4 years and the spending has gone up astronomically. They bailed out Goldman, gave out the bonus money to the top execs and then Obama hired a bunch of them into the government. Fannie and Freddy were pushed by the dems and pressure came down for them to make more and more loans. But I would agree that no one party is to blame for the housing mess. They should have taken all that money and just paid off the banks for the bad loans, then re-vamped the whole thing. Obama forced large banks to take bail outs they did not want or need, why? So they could impose greater regulations on them. And then when they tried to pay back the money the administration refused it. Why? because they want control. Obama and this administration are not to be trusted any more than people didn't and shouldn't have trusted what went on when Bush was in office. There is enough duplicity to go around when you attack one party over the other. And don't get me wrong, I don't give Bush a pass...

[Fair&Balanced]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

Good post. Although your agnst for one party while ignoring what the other has done or not done over the last 15 or 20 years is a bit over the top.

Sorta like you forgetting that the biggest deficit spenders over the past 30 years were Bush (#1) and Reagan (#2)

We can fix a lot of these problems with a flat or fair tax. You could take 100% of the money from the top 1 or 2 percent and it would not finance us out of our problems for a month. Spending has to be cut, period. The deficit needs to be addressed for the long term but not the short term. First cut spending.

I havent seen any flat or "fair" tax proposal where the numbers work or that is not highly regressive.

In fact in the few highly industrialized countries where they were attempted, they failed miserably in meeting revenue projections.

If you have the details of proposal that dosnt rely on voodoo economics, I'd love to see it. Most of the proposals are short on details and heavy on ideological (and unsubstantiated) assumptions.

But, in the meantime, both the CBO and the Joint Econ Committee have found that extending the Bush tax cuts on the top bracket will cost $3-4 billion over the next 10 years.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Fair&Balanced

Sorta like you forgetting that the biggest deficit spenders over the past 30 years were Bush (#1) and Reagan (#2)

Look at the graph.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_public_debt

I havent seen any flat or "fair" tax proposal where the numbers work or that is not highly regressive.

That is progressive talking points for "make everyone pay something" towards the Federal Income tax.

But, in the meantime, both the CBO and the Joint Econ Committee have found that extending the Bush tax cuts on the top bracket will cost $3-4 billion over the next 10 years.

Cut spending.

[glatt]

Originally Posted by Fair&Balanced

But, in the meantime, both the CBO and the Joint Econ Committee have found that extending the Bush tax cuts on the top bracket will cost $3-4 billion over the next 10 years.

Really? That's all? I though it was much more than that.

[BigV]

come on, don't be shy. You're among friends.

tell us how you *really* feel.

[infinite monkey]

I love it jill!

Wow..."insuring that we have a strong working and middle class" and "this path is unsustainable."

So what I've said and thought for so long.

It makes me sick that robots don't see this to be true.

I don't even think I love my country anymore. It's just a bad relationship, abused by the more powerful and expected to love it because I "love my country." While the powerful sip congnac and do whatever the hell they want.

It's NOT sustainable, and I really don't even want to be a part of it anymore.

Hallelujah troops and all that aside. You've been snowed.

As to this:

If it doesn't blow your mind and/or piss you off, you have no concern about the future of this nation.

Many are way more concerned about being "correct." Bring on the breadlines and the starvation, just so they can stand with some sort of "I told you so" that they won't even remember ever actually telling us.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge.

Welcome back jill.