Tonight's Debate

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
201

Obama can’t point to one Bush “economic policy” that caused all of this mortgage chaos. Not one.

The dems were the ones defending Fannie and Freddie over the yrs. Barney Frank said there was no problem with them back in 2003 when the administration was saying otherwise.

Where I fault the republicans is not screaming about it loud enough. But the dems were the ones blocking this. They were the main ones behind the big push to loan to unqualified borrowers.

The liberal group ACORN was pushing all of the interest only and 100% financing. And now the dems want to give them 20% of any profits the gov might make off this bailout.

20% PERCENT to ACORN??? Are you kidding me? How can they be allowed to get away with this?

How in the world the American people can punish only republicans for this is beyond me. Is anyone paying attention to the underlying cause of all of this?

Fannie and Freddie pushing banks to make loans to poor families to increase home ownership. Great plan. And it was mainly a democratic plan.

Now let’s go punish republicans for this.

People really are stupid.

202

[quote]dhickey wrote:

They are not needed at the price points and efficiencies they are currently at. I have all the gas I need to run my car and heat my home.

[/quote]

Same could have been said 60 years ago about computers…

difference is the abacus industry wasn’t around to keep the little guy down!

203

[quote]borrek wrote:
The minimum wage legislation kept workers from being exploited, and kept working hours reasonable, and it allows a provision to force companies to scale base pay with cost of living increases/inflation. Minimum wage isn’t perfect, but it is better than nothing. [/quote]

Minimum wage was never successful in the context that you present it. When you talk of scaling base pay, you are tacitly referring to Union scaled wages. I should be able to enter a contract with an employee at any wage we both mutally agree on-- that is true free-market.

Why not make minimum wage $40 hr? It’s not better than nothing. A good friend of mine who owns a deli/coffee shop, and is a bona-fide Left-Winger (I still love 'er), and generally supported minimum wage until our state just raised it again. She’s now forced to raise prices and lay off two workers-- a simple math problem for her. Ooops. Guess what? She still thinks it’s a good idea in principal but concedes as a business owner that in practice it’s a detriment.

It is precisely Union scaled wages in addition to corporate taxation that have driven jobs right out of this country, yet those who support gov’t control will blame ‘the corporations’ for adapting to their environment to survive.

Regardless of the media rhetoric, folks don’t have a problem with legal immigrants- they only want to kick out illegal immigrants (but, that’s another thread, eh?). Who are you (or I) to determine who’s happy with what standard of living?

[quote]It could also be argued that corporate taxes are useless because companies will only pass that cost onto the customer in a free economy. We both know it isn’t that simple and corporate taxes are important.
[/quote]

Corporate taxes are important only for Government revenue. The more Government spends and grows, the more revenue it requires. I do not support the growth of Government.

The solution is less government spending and expansion.

204

[quote]borrek wrote:
Tiribulus wrote:
I said in another thread and stand by the fact that only if Nikita Kruschev were the only other alternative would I even consider a vote for Obama. His background, education, voting record, associations, books and own words tell the story. He is interested in transforming this nation into the image of his marxist heroes.

If you want that then fine. I’m being serious. That is what you will get.

Mccain wouldn’t have been my 10th choice, but Obama is an unthinkable affront to all that this country was founded to be as is Biden actually.

If I wanted to live in a socialist nanny state country I’d move to one. I am better than that and so are you.

The days of an FDR style president coming in and reshaping the entire country are long behind us. Obama is different than any recent presidential nominee, but he is not a socialist. We need a drastic change right now though. The country isn’t on the right track, it isn’t near the right track. We can probably all agree that Social Security/Medicare is broken, the war is not going as well as it could be, and our oil dependence is slowly strangling us. These things need to change, and they need to change soon. Its a little dramatic to think we’ll wake up 4 years from now and be calling each other “Comrade”
[/quote]

The only way out is to enact wage and price controls, government takeover of essential industries like oil, all of which would allow the government to print money at will. Then, we’ll have to bring back the draft but this time put the draftees to work in the essential industries. This will ensure production of essential commodities. The Soviet Union had something like this, called the Gulag Archepelago, but they didn’t go far enough. We’ll have to turn the whole country into a gulag.

205

{{{{DRUDGE POLL}}}} WHO WON THE FIRST PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE?..

MCCAIN
68% 251,620 votes

OBAMA
30% 111,000 votes

NEITHER
2% 9,268 votes

Total Votes: 371,888

Drudge is frequented by both parties and seems to have contacts in both camps.

Fairly large sampling of people.

Most people seem to think McCain won the debate. Slow start but after about 10 mins. he had Obama on the defensive. Obama just isn’t ready for the office.

The media of course just can’t bear to say anything negative about the chosen one. The only reliable comments they made were minutes after the debate.

Obama agreed with much of McCain said. Truth be told he probably agrees with more then he admits to but lacks the conviction to say it.

206

[quote]Professor X wrote:
rainjack wrote:
Professor X wrote:
rainjack wrote:
Professor X wrote:
AynRandLuvr wrote:
If OBama wins and we get hit with a terror attack while Mr. Dither is on the watch, do we get to blame him? Nah, its all Bush’s fault.

As HH pointed out, McCain ate this little man’s lunch.

We are trying to have a discussion here without what you and your brother usually bring to the table. Please act accordingly.

Bush was president during 9/11 yet it was blamed on Clinton. Why wouldn’t it work the same here if something happens in his first days in office?

If that is true, then you need to stop sucking on borrek’s ass and call this shit both ways.

You friend is nothing but a fucking left wing sycophant, and you have not said a fucking thing about his stupid bullshit.

But I would expect nothing less from you when it comes to politics.

What stupid bullshit and claiming I am “sucking anyone’s ass” is a fucking joke. I agree or disagree with topics or issues, not people.

I call it like I see it. You most definitely cam out against a person, feigning some sort of nonexistent objectivity.

Dude, stay on topic. Until you and Aynrandfucker logged on, this thread was, for the most part, free of personal attacks.[/quote]

Personal attacks were started by you.

207

[quote]Mick28 wrote:
A few things that I’m sure others observed as well:

  1. McCains incredible knowledge of foriegn affairs. He is a walking encyclopedia of information regarding the hot spots in the world…He truly schooled Obama in this area.[/quote]

Umm, the guy thought Putin was the president of Germany.

He had good prepping before the debate. That’s all it is.

208

McCain 1 - Obama 0

209

[quote]SteelyD wrote:
Minimum wage was never successful in the context that you present it. When you talk of scaling base pay, you are tacitly referring to Union scaled wages. I should be able to enter a contract with an employee at any wage we both mutally agree on-- that is true free-market.
[/quote]

lol my brother in law is a member of the SWAT team in Kansas City. Occasionally he does undercover vice work and they see how low they can get prostitutes to agree to sex for. His personal best is negotiating a blow job for a cigarette…that’s a true free-market at work. Without some small guarantee of fair standards I think that most employee contracts would be outrageous. ESPECIALLY at the low end of pay.

Employee just wants to eat, Employer wants to make money off of Employee’s work. Employer will make as much as possible, at the expense of Employee. To me, it is exploitative to ask someone to toil, be unable to save, have no buffer against sickness or injury all so i can make an extra nickel per latte.

I get to see Union pay first hand here in detroit. Just like everyone else, I want to throw my remote through the TV when the local news interviews Billy Bob’s wife and she’s crying because he got laid off and can’t find anyone to pay him even half of the $125k he was making. That tells me that he was being paid a little higher than what the market could bear. That is an extreme case, the drama of which takes away from the true issues of a federal minimum. He was making A minimum wage, not THE minimum wage

[quote]SteelyD wrote:
Why not make minimum wage $40 hr? It’s not better than nothing. A good friend of mine who owns a deli/coffee shop, and is a bona-fide Left-Winger (I still love 'er), and generally supported minimum wage until our state just raised it again. She’s now forced to raise prices and lay off two workers-- a simple math problem for her. Ooops. Guess what? She still thinks it’s a good idea in principal but concedes as a business owner that in practice it’s a detriment.
[/quote]

Being a Left-Winger, do you think she would have kept those two employees on staff at less than the minimum just so she could not change her operation?

[quote]SteelyD wrote:
I don’t see how anyone living around immigrant labor (and we all do) can say that those guys have a decent standard of living. If we kick out immigrants, prices will shoot through the roof, but it still doesnt make it right for us to take advantage of their situation.

Regardless of the media rhetoric, folks don’t have a problem with legal immigrants- they only want to kick out illegal immigrants (but, that’s another thread, eh?). Who are you (or I) to determine who’s happy with what standard of living?
[/quote]

I apologize I should have clarified, I did mean illegal immigrants. Legal immigrants are subject to the same labor laws as the rest of us.

Standards of living are only relative up to a point. Do I feel bad for K-Fed for getting $50k a month from Britney Spears to keep up his standard of living? (answer is no. I feel bad for him for being a douche)

Do I feel uncomfortable seeing 12 men live in a single bedroom apartment so I have cheaper produce? Yes, I do.

210

[quote]hedo wrote:
Drudge is frequented by both parties and seems to have contacts in both camps.

Fairly large sampling of people.[/quote]

[i]The Drudge Report is a conservative,[2][3] U.S.-based news aggregation website run by Matt Drudge.

[…]

According to the online advertising company linked to his site, the Drudge Report audience is 78 percent male, 60 percent Republican, and 8 percent Democratic.[16][/i]

Assuming all the above figures are accurate, there’s almost a 1:7 ratio between loyalists on both sides. 68% against 30% on a website that does 60% GOP and 8 Democrat. The poll you quote is telling alright, just not what you want it to say.

But hey, don’t let that get in your way.

211

I feel a lot better about this presidential election than I did when it was Kerry vs Bush. I think both men are qualified and capable to be President.

Obama clearly won the debate according to all major polls (not including stupid polls on the internet that are biased towards whoever visits the website), and even Fox News reported this to be true.

On economic issues, Obama clearly had a better grasp of what the average american is thinking. The polls reflected this.

On foreign affairs, McCain was very impressive with his in-depth knowledge of intricate details, as you would expect with his experience. However, Obama did a good job of pointing out that that experience did not help him to reach the correct decision with regards to Iraq and how we would be greeted, or how it would be paid for with oil profits. McCain’s strong point was the success of the surge.

If foreign policy was McCain’s strong suit, and Obama was about a draw in this area, then the overall debate clearly was a win for Obama.

213

[quote]bald eagle wrote:
Obama can’t point to one Bush “economic policy” that caused all of this mortgage chaos. Not one. [/quote]

He doesn’t need one. EVERYBODY knows that Bush and the Republicans have singlehandedly ruined everything in the universe.

[quote]
How in the world the American people can punish only republicans for this is beyond me. Is anyone paying attention to the underlying cause of all of this? [/quote]

Nope. Paying attention to to the cause of it will only make people have to THINK. People are tired of thinking, that’s why they love Obama so much! Remember kids, say it with me: “It all Bush’s fault! It’s all Bush’s fault!”

[quote]Fannie and Freddie pushing banks to make loans to poor families to increase home ownership. Great plan. And it was mainly a democratic plan.

Now let’s go punish republicans for this.

People really are stupid. [/quote]

Well, not really. They are just too apathetic and complacent. No one wants to do the homework on this one, it is so much easier and rewarding to just blame it all on Bush and the ReTHUGlicans! LOL! I’m so clever!

214

[quote]borrek wrote:
Do I feel bad for K-Fed for getting $50k a month from Britney Spears to keep up his standard of living? (answer is no. I feel bad for him for being a douche)

[/quote]

On this we can agree. No one can help a douche-bag but themselves :wink:

215

[quote]Mick28 wrote:
One more thing, if politics didn’t get in the way and you guys were reading about real T Men in a bio on this site you would all be very smitten with McCain.

Naval Acadamy grad…Wrestler…Fighter Pilot…survived 5 1/2 years in a POW camp under conditions that would have mentally broken most of us. This guy is the real deal. He’s cocky, smart and has a solid working knowledge of world affairs. Really, if it were not for the whole “I hate politicians, they’re all the same” attitude you guys would be thinking McCain is great.

[/quote]

McCain is no doubt an impressive guy and a type-A personality. No one will get as far as he has in life otherwise. One of my favorite answers from a politician ever was from when he ran for the Arizona seat and someone accused him of being a carpetbagger. He said:

Listen, pal, I spent 22 years in the Navy. My father was in the Navy. My grandfather was in the Navy. We in the military service tend to move a lot. We have to live in all parts of the country, all parts of the world. I wish I could have had the luxury, like you, of growing up and living and spending my entire life in a nice place like the First District of Arizona, but I was doing other things. As a matter of fact, when I think about it now, the place I lived longest in my life was Hanoi.

(My second favorite bit of politician straight talk was when Schwarzenegger was asked about how Tommy Chong said they smoked pot. He laughed and said “He’s right! We knew how to have a good time!”)

Problem is, a T-man with the same “swagger” isn’t in charge of my financial and possibly physical security. I just can’t get on board with their platform

216

[quote]ryanjm wrote:
On economic issues, Obama clearly had a better grasp of what the average american is thinking. The polls reflected this.[/quote]

Really? If you mean that Obama has a better grasp of the economy by blaming everything on Bush, than I guess you are right. Because the average American surely thinks that everything wrong in the world is all because of Bush.

Obama didn’t shine at all during the “economy” part of this debate. He was just repeating tired old rhetoric that we have heard time and time again…

“Bush did it”

“Republican leadership won’t compromise”

“McCain voted 90 percent with Bush”

“Republicans ruin everything”

“Last eight years have been a failure”

People LOVE this shit because it fills them up with hatred and vitriol. People LOVE to hate. People LOVE having someone, or something to direct their hatred to.

This morning I was watching the Washington Journal on CSPAN, and just about every Obama supporter that called up was SCREAMING about how much they hate Bush and the Republicans and how evil they are and how they MUST BE STOPPED AT ALL COSTS! THE FUTURE OF OUR GREAT NATION IS AT STAKE! None of them could put a coherent sentence together, it was just screaming and vitriol and hate.

217

[quote]borrek wrote:
Tiribulus wrote:
borrek wrote:
<<< I think the free market will add a check/balance.

OMG… Listen to yourself friend.

You know how people who smoke can’t smell smoke on other people…

let me fill you in. The government awards contracts for research, contractors bid services. If a contractor fails to produce, their funds are “deobligated” and the money is filtered to where it needs to go.

A company who can produce cheaply and create serious results is going to get the contract over competitors.

The days of the manhattan project are over. These days we’d be dropping a bomb made by the cheapest providers that could meet the goals. The performance still has to be there though. No boom, no paycheck.

It is not a terribly efficient process, and it needs as much overhauling as anything else gov’t related, but small companies cannot put it all on the line to research techs that don’t pan out. There has to be a buffer and that buffer is gov’t.

[/quote]

If there’s a reason to produce it somebody with the money will come through. Profit is the most powerful motive there is and if there is no profit then there is no reason to produce it.

However since you mentioned the Manhattan Project, that is a different story. Government is supposed to invest in defense technology, even our government, even that is a misnomer. The buffer is not gov’t. The government has no money. It’s the productive members of society that provide that revenue and I contend that except in a very few areas those productive citizens will in all cases make better uses of that money than a bureaucracy.

It’s theirs, they worked for it and they want it to grow into more.

My comment was on how you look to government first and then declare what a wonderful addition a bit of free market might be.

218

[quote]borrek wrote:

The minimum wage legislation kept workers from being exploited, and kept working hours reasonable, and it allows a provision to force companies to scale base pay with cost of living increases/inflation.
[/quote]
The question that needs to be asked is how effective is it and at what cost.

Minimum wage puts people out of work. No company in their right mind is going to hire someone for minimum wage if that person cannot produce that much value.

Minimun wage, along with welfare, ensures that people will chose not work. If one could work, pool thier resourse with others in the same situation, and make just enough to take care of their critical needs, or just collect a check from the gov’t to take care of those same needs, what do think most will do? And who has to pay for them to make that choice? There are much better solutions but that is neither here nor there for this discussion. Milton Friedman and Charles Murray have outlined reasonable solutions.

If there standard of living is so bad, why are they here? Is it our responsibility to ensure some default standard of living? Who decides what a reasonable standard on living is and how much to force people to provide that standard of living?

Let prices fall where they may. I would rather pay three times what I pay now for lettuce if my taxes go down from not having to support those that broke the law to be here. At least this way I know what I am paying for and why. If they come here legally, who are we do decide what they can sell their labor for? No one regulates my salary and I wouln’t have them.

I find it funny that the same people (not you) that complain about jobs going over seas also claim illeagals are doing jobs legal citizens or guest workers won’t do. Either their is a shortage of jobs or there isn’t.

quite true. The question is are corporate taxes the most efficient way of funding gov’t. I beleive they are one of least efficient methods. Write now we are either number 2 or number 3 in the world for corporate tax rate. Couple this overbearing regulation, the cost of compliance to overbearing standards, requirements for unemployment and medical insurance programs, and is it any suprise that companies may find it more attractive to base their business elsewhere? Not to me.

The bottom line is that the gov’t has to collect the funds necessary to balance their spending. What that number is and how necessary the spending is is really irrelavent to the dicussion. The fact is there are far more effective and fair methods of collecting the necessary funds. If you feel the need to overhaul anything, it should be the ways we fund our gov’t. Right now the money being taken is largely invisable to a majority of the voting public. This is not by accident. They will take as much money from as few people as they can to ensure they don’t tip off a majority of the voting public. why people don’t realize they are still footing the bill baffles me.

I don’t believe this should be that difficult. Do not back firms that are not within an “acceptable” debt equity ratio. Require them to report their debt equity ratio. Stand back and let the market work.

To think our elected officials had no idea what was going on with the economy and these firms is the definition of naive. To belive that they are now on top of things is insanity. What’s changed since then? Have they fundementally become more reliable public servants? I say no. The same people that fucked us this time will fuck us again. The key is to give them as little power as possible and limit the fucking. Or continue to give them more power and bend over. You might as well find a stool to lean on becuase you are going to be in that position often.

219

[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
If there’s a reason to produce it somebody with the money will come through. Profit is the most powerful motive there is and if there is no profit then there is no reason to produce it.

However since you mentioned the Manhattan Project, that is a different story. Government is supposed to invest in defense technology, even our government, even that is a misnomer. The buffer is not gov’t. The government has no money. It’s the productive members of society that provide that revenue and I contend that except in a very few areas those productive citizens will in all cases make better uses of that money than a bureaucracy.

It’s theirs, they worked for it and they want it to grow into more.
[/quote]

I worked at Air Force Research Labs for 8 years and as an example we were heavily into alloy development. There was plenty of need for advanced lightweight alloys (outside of golf clubs even) and the aerospace companies were more than happy to sit back and let the gov’t research and test new alloys. The government doesn’t retain licenses, or patents. Unless it is a confidential material like low-observables, the alloy is out there published for all to use. There is absolutely no profit for someone like Boeing to create a lighter stiffer alloy but it is still needed. GE aircraft engines has to wait for at least 10 years for the development of a new engine to break even on the books, and that is something with a pretty large market. Something like an alloy would certainly never break even, but alloys are the difference between the baddest Air Force in the world and the second rate crap that we fly circles around.

It isn’t only alloys, its sensors, software, ceramics, lubricants, fuel, electronics etc. Things that make all of the difference but would probably never be feasible for any company to fund. Energy is the same. Renewable energy is just that, renewable. Once we become saturated with the technology there is no money to be made on consumables.

[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
My comment was on how you look to government first and then declare what a wonderful addition a bit of free market might be.[/quote]

That was taken out of context, as I meant the quasi free-market already in the current government research paradigm. Its a little off topic though so I’m gonna just let it go.

220

[quote]borrek wrote:

Problem is, a T-man with the same “swagger” isn’t in charge of my financial and possibly physical security. I just can’t get on board with their platform
[/quote]

Makes sense. How about we at least try and limit the impact they have on our day to day lives? I don’t want anyone in charge of my financial future. The only way to get there is smaller gov’t.