Hello:

I'm a businessman. You want a businessman running things don't you? Let's say I'm running a store that's not doing very well, and, I owe a lot of money, too. Is it better to let some of my GOOD people go, and stop advertising, and stop fixing my broken floor, so I can reduce my debt? Or would it be better to INVEST in my employees, fix the broken floor, and give the place a good paint job too?

It'll be much easier to pay the debt WHEN those investments pay off. No? Certainly, if I let the place go to hell, I'll have NO customers..

What's wrong the above?

excon

Quote:

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Originally Posted by excon

What's wrong the above?

excon

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Nothing. For you. Passing out an unaccountable few hundred billion here and there and everywhere by the Feds and taking care of Julia cradle to grave is just driving us "Forward" over a cliff.

Hello Steve:

Apparently, you didn't understand what I said. Otherwise, you'd see that if it's GOOD for ME to do that, it's good for the country to do it too..

excon

No, I got it fine. YOU don't have nearly the bureaucracy and can't print money you don't have. I'd give you much higher odds of being successful at it than the feds. Nearly a trillion later and unemployment is still over 8 percent. What makes you think the same people can do better with a do-over?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by speechlesstx

What makes you think the same people can do better with a do-over?

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Hello again, Steve:

It's not a do over. It's a do more. Because, I invested four years ago, has NOTHING to do with my need to invest NOW. You really SHOULD leave business to businessmen.

But, I see that you're not listening, or interested. All you got is right wing talking points.. To you, I'm talking about writing checks to all comers and even to some who didn't come.

excon

I got no talking points, we don't have the money to pay for liberal pipe dreams and no paltry Buffet tax is going to do anything but make some libs feel better about themselves.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by speechlesstx

we don't have the money to pay for liberal pipe dreams

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Hello again, Steve:

Couple things.

We DO have the money. I understand that you don't KNOW that. You're constrained within the parameters of your right wing talking points. They don't allow you to think outside the box. After all, you think hiring teachers and fixing bridges are liberal pipe dreams.

Does anybody want to talk about SOLVING our problems here??

excon

No, we don't have the money.

U.S. Debt clock

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Originally Posted by speechlesstx

No, we don't have the money.

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Hello again:

True, we don't HAVE the money. My store above doesn't HAVE the money either. Apparently you think it's fine that I borrow some, but our government shouldn't. I KNOW you think we're TOOOOO much in debt... But, THAT'S a right wing talking point, and patently NOT TRUE.

Is there ANYBODY out there who understands what money is or what to do with it?? I thought right wingers understood the free market. I thought you wanted a guy at the helm with business acumen. No, huh?

excon

Libs think if they spend a gazillion dollars we don't have and drag everyone down to the same level we'll have this utopia. What we'll have is Greece and everyone demanding where their Obama money is.

Hello Steve

Quote:

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Originally Posted by speechlesstx

Libs think if they spend a gazillion

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Right wing talking point.

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we'll have this utopia.

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Talking point.

Quote:

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What we'll have is Greece

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Fox talking point.

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demanding where their Obama money is.

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Republican talking point.

Is there ANYBODY out there who wants to SOLVE our problems?

Excon

[QUOTE=excon;3105909]Me: Libs think if they spend a gazillion

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Right wing talking point.

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Nope, Krugmanomics.

Me: we'll have this utopia.

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Talking point.

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Julia, again. By the way did you notice he quit taking care of Julia after retirement? No promises the death panel will cover her treatments, eh?

Me: What we'll have is Greece

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Fox talking point.

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Cato Institute

Me: demanding where their Obama money is.

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Republican talking point

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.



Do I want to solve this? Yes, get the government out of the way and stop coddling everyone.

P.S. We need someone inspiring and no, Romney isn't very inspiring, but Democrats are depressing - always telling us how bad things are, how we can't make without their help, how we're all victims, blah, blah, blah. And instead of giving businesses incentives they want to tax more, regulate more, just go out and crucify the first few guys you see and everyone will fall in line. How is that helpful?

P.P.S. Cabinets Gone Wild

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By Victor Davis Hanson

We've had some unusual Cabinet secretaries in past administrations -- Earl Butz, John Mitchell and James Watt come to mind -- but never anything quite like the present bunch.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has overseen some $5 trillion in new debt. To help pay for it, he wants the rich -- the top 1 percent already contributes more in income taxes than does the bottom 90 percent -- to pay more for what he calls "the privilege of being an American." Geithner, whose department oversees the IRS, should have taken his own advice: As a rich American one-percenter, he once failed to pay his own self-employment taxes, and improperly claimed his children's camp costs as a dependent-care deduction.

Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar has pulled off the near impossible: At a time when the known gas and oil reserves of the United States on public lands have soared, he has cut back on federal leasing of them to just about 2 percent of available offshore lands and 6 percent of onshore. Meanwhile, huge new amounts of oil are now found on private lands despite, not because of, the Interior Department. When he was a U.S. senator, Salazar claimed that even $10-a-gallon gas would not change his mind about voting to increase offshore drilling. And although he controls the leases of the richest oil and gas reserves in the Western world, he just recently shrugged that no one knew whether gas would hit $9 a gallon.

Then there is the even stranger case of Energy Secretary Steven Chu, whose department helped oversee millions in bad loans to green companies like Solyndra, First Solar and Solar Trust of America -- the Teapot Dome scandals of our times. Chu once infamously quipped before assuming office that he wanted U.S. gas prices to reach European levels. Apparently Chu wanted to force less fossil-fuel burning -- although he later confessed that he does not drive a car.

Chu also once warned that the California's Central Valley agriculture might disappear due to global warming. True, it could decline, but more likely due to the Obama administration's decision to divert irrigation water in hopes of helping out the 3-inch San Francisco Delta smelt. Chu should realize that private-sector California farmers create thousands of jobs, while his own Cabinet's Solyndra-like projects have done precisely the opposite.

Attorney General Eric Holder dropped charges against the New Black Panther Party for voter intimidation. That may explain why he said nothing when the same group put out a dead-or-alive bounty poster on George Zimmerman in the Trayvon Martin shooting case. Holder's department is suing the state of Arizona for passing a law to enforce the largely unenforced federal immigration law. Holder suggested that the Arizona law was racially inspired even as he admitted that he had never read it. Holder has praised the race-baiting Al Sharpton for his "partnership" and called the country "cowards" for not holding a national conversation on race on his terms. The attorney general has referred to African-Americans as "my people," and he has characterized congressional oversight of his office's failure to rein in the Fast and Furious scandal as racially motivated attacks on himself.

Labor Secretary Hilda Solis just tried -- and failed -- to draft a proposal prohibiting kids under 18 from working "in the storing, marketing and transporting of farm product raw materials," even on family farms. And she wanted to turn over some farm training programs now run by the Future Farmers of America and the 4-H to the government. Most Americans raised on a farm believe that the times spent doing chores with their parents, siblings, and neighbors were the most important and rewarding years of their lives.

Yet more worrisome, Solis is selective in her enforcement. She envisions new rules for businesses, but she first should have ensured that her family had followed old ones. When Solis was nominated, it was learned that her husband had several tax liens against his business, some of them 16 years old. And not long ago, Solis' department posted a video advising illegal aliens to call her office if they felt they were treated unfairly by employers. Abusing workers is wrong, but then so is entering and residing in the United States illegally -- as a Cabinet official should know.

The common theme with these Cabinet secretaries is loud, uninformed rhetoric; a lack of practical experience; a certain utopian zealotry -- and an expectation that there are rules for government grandees and quite different ones for the rest of us.

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What he said.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by excon

Hello again, Steve:

Couple things.

We DO have the money. I understand that you don't KNOW that. You're constrained within the parameters of your right wing talking points. They don't allow you to think outside the box. After all, you think hiring teachers and fixing bridges are liberal pipe dreams.

Does anybody want to talk about SOLVING our problems here????

excon

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I will take a stab at the solution. When we were in the 80's and the recession was hitting hard we had a situation. The company I worked for worked in co-operation with unemployment and everyone stayed working. It was a better decision then just sending people home. How it worked was you still qualified for your benefit but you still worked. When the work load fell below 40 hours per week (1 or 2 day layoff) then you were paid unemployment for those days. No waiting period no strings. When the economy bounced back everyone was still in place and everyone thrived after learning to live on less but still stay afloat.

It made a big difference. As opposed to today's times of mass layoffs and closings where you jump economic brackets so quick there is a major tendency to sink rather then swim.

So your answer is put everyone on parttime work, you forget that the basic problem is you have exported your jobs to other places in exchange for lower prices and no amount of parttime work will compensate for the difference in wages. Your government needs to give incentives to industry to reestablish itsself in your own nation and that will mean you will have to make massive productivity gains or pay third world wages. You have managed to retain certain industries, auto, aircraft, arms you need to work harder at saving other industries

Personally I think protectionism wasn't as big a problem as it was made out to be

Hello again,

Industry is a problem unto its own. I'm simply talking about hiring BACK all the teachers, and hiring builders to fix roads and bridges.. Ok, we could rehire a few firemen and cops too. That, alone, would drop the unemployment rate a full point.

That's are our seed corn.

excon

Quote:

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Originally Posted by paraclete

so your answer is put everyone on parttime work, you forget that the basic problem is you have exported your jobs to other places in exchange for lower prices and no amount of parttime work will compensate for the difference in wages. Your government needs to give incentives to industry to reestablish itsself in your own nation and that will mean you will have to make massive productivity gains or pay third world wages. you have managed to retain certain industries, auto, aircraft, arms you need to work harder at saving other industries

personally I think protectionism wasn't as big a problem as it was made out to be

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I didn't say put everyone on part time. You just try to be flexible with the industries that are having the trouble. That way they can make more money then just unemployment and the economy can recover faster. There are always going to be industries that will fall in the wake of progress but it is a way to deal with the situation rather then upset the balance of an entire economy.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by califdadof3

I didnt say put everyone on part time. You just try to be flexible with the industries that are having the trouble. That way they can make more money then just unemployment and the economy can recover faster. There are always going to be industries that will fall in the wake of progress but it is a way to deal with the situation rather then upset the balance of an entire economy.

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The key to recovery is an increase in orders, no amount of keeping staff can help if there are no orders. Reality is you can paint so many rocks white and that goes for maintenance in factories too before you just have to close the doors because it just isn't efficient to run plants half speed or a couple of days a week. . The same can be said for roads and bridges. What you say is great but it should have been thought about before NAFTA, etc. What you are paying now is the price of imperialism, the price of influence pendling and it is much harder to undo than to put in place. We went though it here although on a smaller scale and there is a lot of retraining and a lot of letting go to be done. In fact we are still doing it thirty years on. Whole industries just vanish and people over a certain age may never be employed again. Now I know you have seen it for different reasons like the gulf shrimp and fishing industry, its gone and it won't be back in a generation and it takes a government to buy those people out and retrain them not have them put to sea a couple of days a week for a subsistence income.

You see the balance of the economy was upset by the greed of a few bankers, and when the bubble burst it took the whole economy with it, now there is no money for investment and no orders to get the whole thing started again and no money to pay the workers. It might take a reversal of policy to kick start the economy again but who is brave enough to do it

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Originally Posted by speechlesstx

What he said.

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Hello again, Steve:

What THIS says.

excon

Come on ex, I've mentioned that piece of nanny state propaganda enough times, including the very first response to THIS post. You can't fix things with cartoons and clichés. Besides, under Obama this is more like the real Julia.

P.S. What she said.

Oh wonderful attitude, I'm all right Jack, and screw you, and for every one of them there are ten in the unemployment quque. Some people do need help, impoverished areas need a push to attract industry, business need finance and that includes bank loans and a cutting away of regulation and red tape

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business need finance and that includes bank loans and a cutting away of regulation and red tape

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I would say that's the 1st step. Then when those businesses are thriving ,the additional tax revenue from the expanded tax base pays the debt obligations to do infrastructure.

It should be clear that stimulant policies have been a big bust... why we would continue with them is beyond me.

And Ex's business ? Well I bet if he did maintenance work ,it wouldn't be putting solar panels on his roof in cloudy Seattle. Maybe in Seattle his busiiness is constantly facing bureacratic hurdles that eat away at that seed corn so has neither the funds for employee retention or maintenance . Maybe he is paying an inflated tax rate to pay for public service employees who's benefits are better than he could ever hope to offer his employees . Maybe he has a business that the community leaders for some reason or another have decided they don't want in their neighborhood . Maybe he would move that business to a place that was more business friendly ;in a different state perhaps ?
Office of the Governor Rick Perry - [Press Release] Gov. Perry Meets with Delegation of California Leaders to Discuss Economic Development

maybe Ex would benefit from putting in wind generators instead of solar, must be some wind up there. Reality is stimulation only works for a while and if it isn't put in the right place it doesn't work at all. If an industry can't stand alone because it is what the public want, then it will eventually go. Where I live the pizza industry is a case in point. Ten years ago it flourished and it should have, university town, lots of opportunity and then it went into decline and is still declining and indian restraurants appear to have risen in its place. What happened, the GFC happened and suddenly people didn't have that little extra to spend, healthy diets happened, changed community attitude, should the government have stepped in with a stimulation package? It couldn't because like some many businesses this was small business, its gone before you realise its going. Solar is another case in point, heavily stimulated and then the winds of change blew and government stepped back, the community only wanted it because it was subsidised, not because they saw intrinsic value in the product. Another small business down the tube.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by excon

Hello again, Steve:

What THIS says.

excon

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http://crankytrex.blogspot.com/2012/...-julianne.html

What a lovely phantasy land you live in

Quote:

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Originally Posted by paraclete

what a lovely phantasy land you live in

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You mean the dystopian vision of the President that portrays women as being completely dependent on the Leviathan nanny state to succeed ?
As Denis Miller says ;"The Left believes in cradle to the grave assistance, it's just sometimes really tricky making it to the cradle". What the President's narrative doesn't mention is that Julia may not make it to birth .

Quote:

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Originally Posted by tomder55

you mean the dystopian vision of the President that portrays women as being completely dependent on the Leviathan nanny state to succeed ?
As Denis Miller says ;"The Left believes in cradle to the grave assistance, it's just sometimes really tricky making it to the cradle". What the President's narrative doesn't mention is that Julia may not make it to birth .

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Tom just as an aside let me ask you which side of politics put in place positive discrimation?what did you call it; affirmative action? which allowed women and blacks to rise and play more important role in the economy. Shouldn't have been necessary in a fair minded place such as where you live but your republican friends hadn't thought of it and wouldn't have thought of it. It took the state in the form of democrats to do it. So he is right, women and minorities need the government to succeed, to create an environment where they can succeed, where they are lifted out of the oppression of rabid capitalism and exploitation

Quote:

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Originally Posted by paraclete

Tom just as an aside let me ask you which side of politics put in place positive discrimation?what did you call it; affirmative action?, which allowed women and blacks to rise and play more important role in the economy. Shouldn't have been necessary in a fair minded place such as where you live but your republican friends hadn't thought of it and wouldn't have thought of it. It took the state in the form of democrats to do it. So he is right, women and minorities need the government to succeed, to create an environment where they can succeed, where they are lifted out of the oppression of rabid capitalism and exploitation

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You really do need to brush up before speaking Clete. It was Nixon ( Republican President) that sign much of that into law.

It was republicans that got rid of slavery while fighting the democrats that wanted to keep it.

The democats have a poor track record when it comes to what actually gets done.

You completely lose me when you equate equate structural and historical discrimination that of course needed reform to rabid capitalism and exploitation (a phrase I completely reject) . If you read the tripe on the President's fictional (or composite character which we now know he loves doing for creative literary license) Julia ,he is not talking about programs targeting gender discrimination ,or race discrimination . He is speaking of programs that he believes the general population need for success.
Without Head Start ;Race to the Top she can't succeed in school. The truth is that government funding has tripled in my life time while comparative learning of math ,science and literacy has seen no comparable positive results . These government planned solutions have not succeeded in creating a better educated population.The opposite has occurred . United States spends more money on education than any other country, yet our test scores for important core curricula keep falling.
There is a plan that was working however . It is one that targets a failed school system populated largely by minorities... the DC school system .The DC Opportunity Scholarship Program gives parents the opportunity for choice in their children's education . It works.. so of course the President has tried to shut the program down in his term.

Without government assistance she can't move on to higher education, The irony being that the rise in school costs have followed the rise in government assistance to attend colleges and that they have been a key factor in the cost increases .

His site talks of Julia getting covered under Obamacare until she's 26 . That is true of all yutes age 26 . What he doesn't say is that under Obamacare ,many employers will drop healthcare coverage for their employees because it will be cheaper to pay a fine ,and transfer their employees into government exchanges. (which is the goal of those who want single payer systems anyway) . What he fails to mention is that under the system before Obamacare ;she would've been eligible to stay on her parents plan while attending college anyway.

He talks of her being free of wage discrimination when the real problem right now is access to any job. We have had 39 straight months of over 8% unemployment with no end in sight ;and the figure would be higher if so many people weren't dropping out of the labor pool altogether . The trend now is for people to file for disability so they can permanently feed off the government trough .

Her life goes on and on dependent on the government for her health and wellbeing . She has a child too (maybe those free contraceptives weren't effective... we never do learn if she is married or even who the father is... I guess he disappears from the child's life in Obama's world ) .The son is swiftly shoved into the government school system and never heard from again.
She takes a loan for a web design business . Fine ;thousands of businesses have started that way before Obama.
She is next heard from when she is eligible for Medicare and Social Security . I guess we can presume that all the necessary reforms have happened to make them solvent by the time she retires .I kind of doubt it.

Secure in her government provided retirement ;she is free to volunteer at a community garden . Her life's goals fulfilled .

Tom don't you think it is time we left fiction and dealt with reality. I understand Julia and Julianne and both stories are absolute crap, pure and unadulterated phantasy. Now I note that dad wants the republicans to take credit for civil rights, etc but they might have freed the slaves but they did nothing for them not recognising that education and opportunity was also important and a hundred years on, it took an uprising to do what should have been done long ago. What ever hand the republicans had in it was pure political opportunism so let's not give tricky richard any more credit than is due

But back to the little problem you now have which is how to remove a somewhat successful if inept President out of office with a mediocre candidate. Surely the electorate knows they were fooled once in the person of Bush and will not be fooled so easily again. Overreaction gets you more nightmares than you want to know and that devil you know might just be better than the one you don't

Quote:

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Originally Posted by tomder55

As Denis Miller says ;"The Left believes in.....

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Hello again, tom:

And, a few years ago, when his living depended on them, he LOVED the left...

I LOVE it when you guys cite losers like Dennis Miller and Mark Furhman... It doesn't CONVINCE anybody...

excon

So let me get this straight .You think Miller switched to conservatism for economic opportunism ? Yeah conservatives fare so well in the Hollywierd and celebrity culture .

It is inconceivable that he like me had a genuine conversion...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by tomder55

It is inconceivable that he like me had a genuine conversion...

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Hello again, tom:

When somebody totally flip flops on their politics, I for one, wouldn't have the vaguest clue what they truly believe... You think you do, huh? Okee doakee.

excon

Don't worry Ex Tom will be back come the revolution

Quote:

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Originally Posted by excon

Hello again, tom:

When somebody totally flip flops on their politics, I for one, wouldn't have the vaguest clue what they truly believe... You think you do, huh? Okee doakee.

excon

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I'll keep that in mind when the President comes out of the closet and announces that his evolving position has led him to embrace gay marriage.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by tomder55

I'll keep that in mind when the President comes out of the closet and announces that his evolving position has led him to embrace gay marriage.

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Did you have some advance notice of the policy shift Tom?

No and I suspect he won't . But he is walking a tightwire on the issue because one of his constituencies would be upset if he told them that in fact ;he doesn't approve a gay marriage.

So over the weekend ;he sent out VP Biden to appease the base . Biden said It's a matter of "who do you love" . During a press conference yesteday Obama's butt monkey Jay Carney was confronted because he gave the standard Obama reply that the President's position was "evolving " .
Jake Tapper: Why not just come out and say it? | Campaign 2012 | Washington Examiner

Not a good night for Obama and the Dems last night. The traditional marriage amendment in NC won by a wide margin, 20.8 percent of Democrats expressed "no preference" in the Democratic presidential primary where Obama ran unopposed.

In Wisconsin Tom Barrett crushed his heavily union backed opponent 58/34 and will face Scott Walker who already beat him once and received more votes than both Democrats.

The biggest insult? A prison inmate came within 20 points of beating Obama in West Virginia. Obama doesn't stand a chance in WV anyway, but how embarrassing.

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In Wisconsin Tom Barrett crushed his heavily union backed opponent 58/34 and will face Scott Walker who already beat him once and received more votes than both Democrats.

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Barrett is Mayor of Milwaukee. It is said that his town benefitted greatly by Walker's reforms .

Whereas Falk ,the unions preferred candidate ,would've restored collective bargaining for public sector unions by fiat ;Barrett says he would introduce it in a special legislative session. That means that even if he wins ;there is no guarantee of a return to the days before Walker .

Exit polling also shows that the general population is no wheres near as worked up over the issue that brought the recall ,as the mob that occupied the state capitol. Issues in the election will more resemble the boiler plate issues ,like jobs and unemployment, the environment,education spending and the phony war on women that will probably dominate the fall campaign. (good luck to Barrett on that war on women issues. He has a bunch of skeltons in his closet on that issue) .

Quote:

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Originally Posted by tomder55

Exit polling also shows that the general population is no wheres near as worked up over the issue that brought the recall ,as the mob that occupied the state capitol..

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Hello again, tom:

Down goes Walker.. I'll betcha $10,000.

excon