2012 Presidential Election Run-Up

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
261

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

[quote]Mufasa wrote:

Merely decreasing the RATE OF RISE of spending. (I think Simpson/Bowles?)

Mufasa[/quote]

I don’t know about S/B but I believe Ryan’s plan does that as well.

It isn’t a bad idea, and sort of eases the pain, but it requires consistant and some what robust growth of the private sector. Grow our way out of the problem.

The other option is an axe…

Every day that we stagnate like we are, the closer we get to “axe” is our only option.[/quote]

QFT. I’m watching what happened to Greece with more than a little tremor in my guts thinking about us. We could still conceivably grow out of it with some discomfort right now, but nobody wants to look at the problem. Nobody in Greece cared to look at the real national issues until it reached “catastrophe”. Actually, even though a lot of the EU is crashing, most still don’t want to look at the problems seriously.

262

[quote]Mufasa wrote:

Okay. Let me make sure I have this right:

  1. Conservatives should be considered “the Establishment”

[/quote]

No Mufasa, you don’t have that right. I’m guessing you don’t know who Saul Alinsky was. Saul Alinsky considered conservatives amongst “the establishment.” Alinsky was a radical leftist…

‘After Alinsky’s death in 1972, many large new community-organizing networks developed using his methods. These include Alinsky’s own Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF), along with ACORN, Citizen Action, National People’s Action, PICO, DART, and the Gamaliel Foundation.’

That’s not what I said. Never used the word “plan” either - please don’t make up quotes and attribute them to me. I was suggesting that Obama baits what Alinsky described as the establishment. It’s in the playbook afterall. Not so far-fetched is it?

263

By no means do I want to misquote anyone, SM.

So my apologies.

I simply didn’t understand the point you were trying to make as it relates to the President.(and I still don’t).

Mufasa

264

[quote]pushharder wrote:
In our lifetimes - past, present and future - it has NEVER been about insufficient taxes. It has ALWAYS been a spending problem.[/quote]

If you provide a healthy environment for growth, you will BUILD your tax base, rather than rape it, and you will have the money to do what you want. We are the best example of that.

Check out “The Great California Exodus”…

“…Since 1990, the state has lost nearly 3.4 million residents through this migration (mostly middle class).”

“…More than 70 percent of the stateâ??s net migration to Texas came from Californiaâ??s south.”

“…States with low unemployment rates, such as Texas, are drawing people from California, whose rate is above the national average. Taxation also appears to be a factor, especially as it contributes to the business climate and, in turn, jobs. Most of the destination states favored by Californians have lower taxes. States that have gained the most at Californiaâ??s expense are rated as having better business climates. The data suggest that many cost driversâ??taxes, regulations, the high price of housing and commercial real estate, costly electricity, union power, and high labor costsâ??are prompting businesses to locate outside California, thus helping to drive the exodus.”

265

[quote]Mufasa wrote:

I simply didn’t understand the point you were trying to make as it relates to the President.(and I still don’t).

[/quote]

Obama is an Alinskyite - trained in 1986 by Alinsky’s legacy organisation, the Industrial Areas Foundation Obama became a leading figure in ACORN and became the chief consultant and a trainer for the Gamaliel Foundation. If you want to understand Obama’s ideology, look no further than his mentor of 10 years(from the age of 9 to 19) Frank Marshall Davis and Saul Alinsky.

‘Alinsky’s tactics were based, not on Stalin’s revolutionary violence, but on the Neo-Marxist strategies of Antonio Gramsci, an Italian Communist. Relying on gradualism, infiltration and the dialectic process rather than a bloody revolution, Gramsci’s transformational Marxism was so subtle that few even noticed the deliberate changes…’

“Change means movement. Movement means friction. Only in the frictionless vacuum of a nonexistent abstract world can movement or change occur without that abrasive friction of conflict.” - Saul Alinsky

“In the beginning the organizer’s first job is to create the issues or problems.” - Saul Alinsky

“…we are concerned with how to create mass organizations to seize power and give it to the people.” - Saul Alinsky

“Life is a corrupting process from the time a child learns to play his mother off against his father in the politics of when to go to bed; he who fears corruption fears life.” - Saul Alinsky

“A racially integrated community is a chronological term timed from the entrance of the first black family to the exit of the last white family.” - Saul Alinsky

“Society has good reason to fear the Radical. Every shaking advance of mankind toward equality and justice has come from the Radical. He hits, he hurts, he is dangerous. Conservative interests know that while Liberals are most adept at breaking their own necks with their tongues, Radicals are most adept at breaking the necks of Conservatives.” - Saul Alinsky

“Lest we forget at least an over the shoulder acknowledgment to the very first radical: from all our legends, mythology and history (and who is to know where mythology leaves off and history begins - or which is which), the very first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom - Lucifer.” - Saul Alinsky

267

[quote]pushharder wrote:
However, lowering taxes CAN reduce the deficit:

  1. when capital thus flows back into the the US
    [/quote]

How much would you have to lower taxes to get significant capital flowing back into the US?

And secondly, are businesses currently strapped for capital? None of the businesses in my industry (Tech) are having trouble getting loans.

Basically, I am wondering how much of the job crisis is due to lack of capital vs lack of demand?

[quote]pushharder wrote:
2) the economy roars back as a result, generating more revenue
[/quote]

Couldn’t it also result in significant inflation?

268

I’m sure that the California problems are a spending one more than a tax one. People are willing to pay the taxes if they get something in return. We pay high taxes and have shitty roads, shitty public schools, etc. If we had great roads and great schools then the taxes would seem warranted.

The only way to really get spending under control is to limit medicare and SS. That means either cutting benefits or making the system really efficient to reduce overhead. I don’t see us realistically make the system more efficient and we aren’t going to cut the benefits for all of the baby boomers. So we aren’t going to be able to save our way out of this problem. I saw somewhere that our SS surplus in the past has masked much of our debt and our spending/revenue ratio has actually been a lot worse than it appears.

I’ll vote for any president willing to stand up to the baby boomers and cut the benefits for those who don’t really need it. And that’s not Rommney and it’s definitely not Obama.

james

269

[quote]phaethon wrote:

How much would you have to lower taxes to get significant capital flowing back into the US?[/quote]

It is currently 35%… I would say a reduction to 15-20% would gather a decent inflow of cash.

But logically thinking, even 5% of something is better than 35% of nothing.

No, they are sitting on massive cash reserves due to the shit economy that the newspapers and politicians try and fluff up to increase consumer confidence, so people spend money they don’t have.

Loans and equity are two very different things. Balance sheet health is of utmost importance to investors right now. Adding debt isn’t in the best interests these days, even if you are solvent. It isn’t 2006 anymore, people are weary of large debt to equity ratios.

demand is part of the problem, and yes if comapnies turned around and gave everyone a 10% bonus tomorrow, there would be an increase in market demand for goods and services, therefore increasing revenues.

But in a period where everyone is saving, the return in revenues is a fraction of the expense.

And this would ignore the need to have returns for investors, ie: profits.

[quote]

Couldn’t it also result in significant inflation?[/quote]

If QE1, 2 & 3 aren’t putting us into hyper-inflationary conditions, the return of earning to the the US isn’t going to either.

270

“…The only way to really get spending under control is to limit medicare and SS…”

and Big Bird…

(You guys have to admit that the guy probably eats a HELLUVA’ lot of Bird Seed…)

Mufasa

271

[quote]Mufasa wrote:
“…The only way to really get spending under control is to limit medicare and SS…”

and Big Bird…

(You guys have to admit that the guy probably eats a HELLUVA’ lot of Bird Seed…)

Mufasa[/quote]

Speaking of big bird… When Chris Mattews calls out his boy for deflection and intellectual dishonesty for running those ads and harping on big bird, you know it isn’t winning over voters.

272

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

Speaking of big bird… When Chris Mattews calls out his boy for deflection and intellectual dishonesty for running those ads and harping on big bird, you know it isn’t winning over voters.[/quote]

Obama Vows to Protect Big Bird, U.S. Ambassadors Not So Much

Ouch.

273

The point is that with millions of Boomers reaching retirement age each and every day; NO politician for the next 30 years is going to make any substantial change in Medicare and Social Security.

What they WILL do is pander to their bases; giving the “illusion” of Cost Cutting; by “taking it to” programs that have a FRACTION of the impact on the deficit that SS and Medicare have.

Mufasa

274

[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

Speaking of big bird… When Chris Mattews calls out his boy for deflection and intellectual dishonesty for running those ads and harping on big bird, you know it isn’t winning over voters.[/quote]

Obama Vows to Protect Big Bird, U.S. Ambassadors Not So Much

Ouch.[/quote]

I’m shocked at how bad Obama’s campaign is coming into the home stretch. Yeah, it’s like he’s still trying to win the last debate. So there he is, still talking about Big Bird, trying to score zingers in a debate already gone by, when everyone else is starting to wonder what the hell actually happened in Benghazi. Where, you know, people died and stuff. Seriously, who the heck is making the decisions at Obama HQ?

275

Case in point:

?State Department documents obtained by NBC News list 230 separate security incidents in Libya over 11 months, indicating that the environment was fragile,? NBC?s Andrea Mitchell reported on NBC Nightly News.

So, Big Bird? Are you serious?

276

From the same article:

?The owners of the children?s show ?Sesame Street? have asked the Obama campaign to pull down an ad released Tuesday that shows an image of Big Bird and mocks Republican nominee Mitt Romney for holding up the popular children?s character as a symbol of unnecessary government spending,? the Wall Street Journal writes, adding, ?Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt said the request was under review.?

Romney on the Big Bird attack: “You have to scratch your head when the president spends the last week talking about saving Big Bird. I actually think we need to have a president who talks about saving the American people and saving good jobs.”

277

[quote]pushharder wrote:
Muf, do you believe Obama’s background has no freaking bearing on his present policies?

How can you have this much stuff thrown at you including SM’s posts and yet still just shrug it off?

What kind of convincing do you need in order to come to the conclusion that maybe, just maybe, Bam is cut from a different bolt of cloth? A bolt that does not intend “good” things for this republic?[/quote]

Don’t you guys ever…and I mean EVER talk to me about “blindness” or not seeing things.

You know who has had a MUCH more negative impact on MY Life (and most likely yours) than some obscure “psuedo-Revolutionary” whose influence probably doesn’t extend much beyond a handful of adherents in the Ghettos of America’s large Cities (if that)?

DEM-ites/GOP-ites/Congressional Liberal-ites/Conservative-ites/TeaPublican-ites

Big-Business/Banking-Lobby-ites

Base-Pandering-ites

I’ll-Get-Mine-You-Get-Your-ites in Government

The list goes on…and on and on…

Alinsky is a total non-issue to me. The guy hasn’t committed a whole Generation of Americans to seemingly endless War…or put the Country on a path of financial ruin, with no desire whatsoever to act because you want your side to be “right”.

You guys look in the mirror the next time you want someone to “wake up”.

Mufasa

278

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

Speaking of big bird… When Chris Mattews calls out his boy for deflection and intellectual dishonesty for running those ads and harping on big bird, you know it isn’t winning over voters.[/quote]

Obama Vows to Protect Big Bird, U.S. Ambassadors Not So Much

Ouch.[/quote]

I’m shocked at how bad Obama’s campaign is coming into the home stretch. Yeah, it’s like he’s still trying to win the last debate. So there he is, still talking about Big Bird, trying to score zingers in a debate already gone by, when everyone else is starting to wonder what the hell actually happened in Benghazi. Where, you know, people died and stuff. Seriously, who the heck is making the decisions at Obama HQ? [/quote]

I give romney credit for this. I mean, it is working like… Like magic.

While Obama’s focus is on big bird, all the while ignoring the entire point of romney’s statement, Mitt is on the trail talking about libya and real issues.

He left big bird out on the table like a slice of cake, and obama is eating it up like a fat kid.

279

[quote]Sloth wrote:

I’m shocked at how bad Obama’s campaign is coming into the home stretch. Yeah, it’s like he’s still trying to win the last debate. So there he is, still talking about Big Bird, trying to score zingers in a debate already gone by, when everyone else is starting to wonder what the hell actually happened in Benghazi. Where, you know, people died and stuff. Seriously, who the heck is making the decisions at Obama HQ? [/quote]

It is baffling. I mean, I know left-wwing hipsters like smug, ironic humor and they think it wins political arguments (it doesn’t), but that aside, this is self-immolation and gives Romney a bucketload of talking points.

How easy is it for Romney to skewer over and over the lack of seriousness on the part of the President? No pressers in 16 days, despite the new information we have on Benghazi, and the death of an ambassador (and others)? And Obama wants to keep trying to trash-talk with the Big Bird bit?

Forget liberal or conservative - Obama’s actions from the debate forward show something bigger than basic political ideology: they show the incredible smallness of the man occupying the biggest seat in the world.

And as for his campaign - why haven’t there been mass firings?

280

Edit:

This was supposed to be in response to Mufasa…

Do you have any comments about the 2007 Obama video, where he lies his ass off, in an act of total hypocrisy, in order to agitate by income and race, against Bush and his administration?

How about the completely nonsensical response by the administration concerning Benghazi? Is Obama too stupid to understand intel briefings? Is he that dangerously stupid? Or, was it likely political ass covering. Do you have ANY comments about a response that even CNN, CBS, and NBC are now tearing apart? A response that wasn’t informed by the State Department? Any comments?

How about Fast and Furious? Where Univision broke the story that the program was much larger than we had been ALLOWED to know? Anything there?