I watched it. I thought it was a good press conference. Romney is going to refer all questions to his accountant, I believe.
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I watched it. I thought it was a good press conference. Romney is going to refer all questions to his accountant, I believe.
I was trying to find the video referred to earlier. If you have a link to a dazzling display of intellect, link it. Might as well reminisce, since Obama doesn't do that many press conferences anymore.
Well, for one, if the metric is "how many times do you need to put foot in mouth", he has had a much larger window than Romney and is still behind here. I'm not even counting the 47% thing (even though I should because although "blah blah blah target audience", in no conceivable metric, whether it be an expected value, regret minimization, pick whatever philosophical/game theory/etc principle you want, was that ever a good thing to say IMO)
Michael Moore is having a nervous fucking breakdown on Twitter. It's great.
Joust, the argument was that Barack Obama doesn't need a teleprompter to be impressive discussing the issues. Conservative politicians go on Real Time and liberals go on The O'Reilly Factor. Bill Maher sometimes calls it "the lion's den" and it's a challenge to really reach the audience and get your policies across in that kind of environment. I know the president has had some sit-downs with Fox, so I'll find some of those and the videos that were mentioned above.
Unrelated big news: unemployment was reported at 7.8% today, though in absolute terms it was lower in 2009.
Hah, you weren't kidding. Does this mediocre debate really warrant a conspiracy theory?Quote:
Originally Posted by Andrew
Yes. Have you seen the girth of that man? It takes a lot of money to keep that gullet full.
Maybe the president thought he only had to read The Pet Goat. He wasn't prepared for conflict.
I saw that this morning and snickered. I'm 100% skeptical of this number. I don't think it's a coincidence that we're all of a sudden seeing employment numbers dramatically improve just before the election. I'm pretty sure that 92% of eligible workers aren't employed. Labor jobs were where we saw the most losses and I haven't seen any uptick in manufacturing/housing markets - which are vital to economic recovery.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nick
A state senate candidate in Maine has been outed as a ruthless assassin . . . in World of Warcraft!
http://www.colleensworld.com/
When you can roll an orc and still be more attractive in game than in real life, that's impressive.
I bet she also listens to those men who do the raps or the hop hops!Quote:
Originally Posted by Nick
C'mon now, I've also beaten old ladies with baseball bats and killed prostitutes to get my money back in video games. I barely even do that in real life!
Hey now. I've watched Nintendo tapes before. They are murder simulators with guns and that dub walk dance. I will NOT be voting for GohanX this year.Quote:
Originally Posted by GohanX
Obama grew up as a middle class nobody, did well in college, and came out far better than he came in. He could have stopped as a successful professor of law and been a model for the American Dream.Quote:
Originally Posted by dave is ok
Romney went into finance after growing up as the son of a governor and a CEO. I'm not saying that amassing a huge fortune by 'harvesting' middle class jobs and sending them off to China isn't worthy of praise, but the whole "real world" thing kind of falls flat when the right called Bush's work on the Texas Rangers (increasing the value of the team with a taxpayer-funded ballpark) and a bunch of oil business failures "the real world."
Romney never really operated in the same "real world" as the vast majority of Americans.
Meh. I don't think Romney is dumb. I think he's pretty smart actually. He's a shameless political hack, but that can work both ways (see: his governorship). He's an entitled, out-of-touch plutocrat, but at least he's a competent one unlike the last rich, out-of-touch plutocrat the GOP put out there. In a less ideological and less polarized time I can see myself voting for him, actually. Problem is that this is a very polarized and very ideological time. I do not want him to be a rubber stamp to the Republican Congress we have today. I don't think he will moderate that Congress if he has no reason to. It has nothing to do with his intelligence.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nick
That's not what the unemployment rate means.Quote:
Originally Posted by Type Ryan
If Romney were to be voted in, isn't it likely that by the next round of elections for Congress, mostly democrats will get voted in?
How often in the last 100 years has a party controlled both the Congress and Executive office for any great length of time?
Well, the early 2000s
The late 1970s
Most of the 1960s
The 1930s through the mid 1940s
The late 1910s
So, more often than you'd think. Even if the Republicans get booted out in 2014, a lot can be done in 2 years.
Then what happened between 2008 and 2010?
That was one Congressional session (2009-2010), similar to your hypothetical of Republicans losing Congress in 2014 if Romney wins this year and the GOP controls both houses. By "great length of time", I assumed you meant longer than one session.
Right, you said a lot can happen in two years. Based on the most recent session where one party controlled everything, it doesn't seem so.
A lot did happen, lol. I know a lot of progressives wanted a lot more done, but that doesn't mean a lot wasn't accomplished within the limitations of Congress. The right certainly never ran out of things to gripe about.
That said, if the Republicans did get the same numbers the Democrats did in 2009, they could get even more done, because the right is more ideologically unified than the left. I don't think the GOP would get to a soft 60 in Senate along with a Romney, but hey, I don't want to take that chance.
The number that actually matters is still at 14.7%. That's the unemployed, underemployed, and people who have given up looking.Quote:
Originally Posted by Type Ryan
I'll be sure to quote only the U6 number in the future, even during Republican presidential terms.Quote:
Originally Posted by Yoshi
Then what does it mean? This is how I read it: When compared to the size of the entire eligible labor force, only 7.8% of eligible workers are unemployed. I find that to be complete and total bullshit. I'm more inclined to believe the percentage Yoshi posted. That's true unemployment, imo of course.Quote:
Originally Posted by Diff-chan
The two numbers are called the "U3" and the "U6". For future referenceQuote:
Originally Posted by Type Ryan
No, that number is the U4 or even U5/U6. The U3 measures people who can't find a job and have looked in the past four weeks.Quote:
Originally Posted by Type Ryan
All are useful in different ways. The U3 is designed more to measure frictional unemployment, which is useful but probably not as useful during a downturn. The U4-U6 also measure structural/cyclical unemployment in different ways.
Related:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...in-six-charts/
U3 dropped below 8% for the first time in 3 years roughly, and here it is compared to all the other charts. So that's kind of nice.
U6 has been flat since what appears to be March. This monthly noise chasing is getting tiring.
U2
I still haven't found what I'm looking for
I believe in the kingdom come
If you want to use the U6 number to discuss trends, that's one thing, but I don't get why people like to simply point out that the U6 number is higher than the U3 number as if that somehow matters.
U6 is kind of a bullshit number. U5 or DIAF
UB40 is the most relevant.
INXS is a good standard as well, even if it chokes a bit.
When I am Emperor, my death squads will remember your name.Quote:
Originally Posted by Cheebs
You should vote for me, I will make unemployment 0.0% with slave mines.
Mao ZegohanQuote:
Originally Posted by GohanX
:lol:Quote:
Originally Posted by YellerDog
Mitt Romney is in first place (with a slight lead) for the first time in the Real Clear Politics poll average. The Childrens' Television Workshop has asked the Obama campaign to stop using Big Bird in its advertising.
The vice-presidential debate takes place on Thursday evening.
I was unaware that he used any of the sesame street characters in his shit.
The ad will fail because people are fucking morons and actually think PBS receives a sizable portion of our annual budget.
You know, if I had a $500 rent and was three months overdue, but I only had $400 to my name, I don't think I could justify spending even $1 on stickers for my cell phone.
Whoever, doesn't agree should subscribe to TNL right now. It's not like that $2.25 is "a sizable portion" of your budget.
Comparing a household budget to a federal budget is nonsensical. Even buttcheeks understands that.
People think that like half of the federal budget goes to "foreign aid", when in reality it's more like 3 or 4 percent, and the vast majority of that money goes to Israel, which most people don't think should be cut. Even a huge chunk of the rest is related to Israel ($2B to Egypt, etc.).Quote:
Originally Posted by dave is ok
How do stickers educate children?Quote:
Originally Posted by Nick
PBS is .001% of the U.S. budget or something, anyone making an issue of it is a retard - plain and simple.
I am honestly disappointed in Nick for making that comparison. He's smarter than thatQuote:
Originally Posted by Diff-chan
Dave, teachers and families educate children. So do The Discovery Channel, National Geographic, local museums, etc. Government funding and private business support those things, and I doubt PBS itself would fold if the funding were taken away. It's a business with professional staff and a highly paid CEO and it would either survive or be replaced with something better.
But it's not just PBS subsidies. From oil to the humanities, like Romney said, if we have to borrow money from China to pay for it, we should take a second look at the funding. Obama is already doing it somewhat (cutting arts spending, for example). It's just that he's quieter about it.
In times of war, special rules apply to help ensure public welfare. (I'm not talking about the PATRIOT Act, but other historical measures both in the U.S. and other countries.) With a climbing $16,000,000,000,000 debt, why not re-examine the entire budget?
We have to evaluate why we are paying the money, and whether we absolutely need to pay it, given a free market and the power of the government to regulate children's television (the feds can require television stations to provide a certain amount of educational programming). If the Pentagon pays $7000 for a hammer, you'd probably object - not on the basis of the necessity of having a hammer, or how well it fulfills its function, but based on the fact that we can get the same thing at almost no cost.
By the way, we don't need to bring this style of political discourse here. I posted my opinion using an analogy, and the next three replies are "worse than buttcheeks," "retard," and "you're smarter than that," with only Diff adding something of substance, though it mostly did not address PBS.
If you have to immediately resort to name-calling, ask yourself why you're even pretending to be thoughtful or informed.
Except that's not happening. Look, the reason why Romney mentioned PBS is because the right has been railing against PBS for decades. "Contract with America" talked about PBS for heaven's sake. In the 20 years since the right pushed that crap, PBS funding has stayed more-or-less intact. Is PBS the cause of the budget deficit? Come on. The rhetoric against PBS is ludicrously disproportionate to what it actually costs.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nick
The idea that Romney will "examine" the entire budget is just silly. He picked PBS because it's a right-wing hobbyhorse, nothing more.
On the other hand, you can draw a direct line from the $7000 hammer to a DOD that "loses" $9 billion of US bills on pallets in Iraq. Or a DOD that gives billions to contractors to build barracks that electrocute soldiers. Guess what Romney wants to do for the military budget?
edit: read what I wrote earlier. Nobody realy cares about the deficit. Politicians use deficits as a way to shape agendas and get what they really want. If the right can use the deficits as an excuse to ruin perfectly good programs like Social Security, they will. And then they will take the money 'saved' and enact huge tax cuts for their donors. It's not like they haven't done it before.
Whatever the budget is, those at the tippy-top of the financial specturm need to pitch in and stop squeezing everyone beneath them just so they can maintain their lifestyle while everyone else adjusts. I may be off base, but the extremely wealthy (being serviced by both sides of the aisle) need to realize (lol) that the main reason they got rich in the first place was because people had money to spend on whatever they (or their investments) were slinging. Without that consumer base their current status willl not last forever. The economic circle doesn't work that way. Unfortunately, the way this country is run, telling a very wealthy person that they can't keep as much money is like telling a heroin addict you're cutting their supply.
The love for money has fucked this country (and planet) up in so many ways that I fear for the future. Big time.
PBS made for two sentences or so out of that entire debate, but its mention received a lot of attention on the left for the same reason PBS funding has received attention on the right: it's far easier to quibble over than most of the bigger issues. Subsidies of all kinds should be on the table during the election. Some will withstand honest scrutiny and some won't.
Like Type Ryan implied, it's about fear of losing your money, of being cut off. The rich should pay their share and corporations like PBS and banks should have to worry about the market more and not look to the next batch of government money.
If you post something stupid, expect to be called stupid.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nick
I'd have given Romney props if he issued a blanket statement about profitable companies not being in need of subsidy. Big oil, pharmaceutical, agriculture, you name it. He didn't, he took the safer and stupider route of criticizing PBS for the 100th time.
What's stupid about not wanting to spend tax money on something the free market already does just as well? Is it stupid to question the government during economic hardship?
This is naive and wishful thinking. PBS is mentioned because the right doesn't get any donations from that organization, and it polls well with the base. It's not because it is "easy to quibble over", it's because it is what the base whats to hear. Subsidies for everyone else aren't "on the table" because they are huge donors.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nick
Yes, it would've been nice if Romney mentioned oil subsidies or corn subsidies or what have you. But he didn't, and that makes ALL the difference. You can keep pretending that he mentioned PBS as some sort of wise-man-picking-an-example routine, but again, that is just naive.
Romney did make a blanket statement. I even alluded to it earlier.
Yea, okay, I believe that craven political opportunist Mitt Romney will take on oil, financial, and agriculture subsidies when he is in office. Because he made a "blanket statement" in one debate and singled out the one subsidy the right has been railing about for two decades as an example.
You say this:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Diff-chan
then you agree with me.
We're talking about PBS because it's easier than discussing Romney's support for corporate/agricultural welfare or Obama's economic record. PBS is a no-brainer for both sides because the stakes aren't that high whether it's kept or abolished. It's a way for both Democrats and Republicans to avoid a conversation about the other programs they are wasting money on. Fluff any way you look at it.
Yes but it wasn't a good analogy and you know it. In no way can you compare a governments budget to a personal budget, they are nothing alike. So I'm going to call you out on that because I know you and I know that you know better.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nick
PBS is a small part of the budget and I think it's pretty obvious by the fact that most people were raised on the educational programs from it that it is worth the small amount of money we put in. Should the budget be worked on? Yes, obviously. But there's more important things to focus on, wasteful military spending, corporate subsidies and wasteful wars are the things that should be in the spotlight. PBS is miniscule amounts of money and worth every penny put into it.
My second "by the way" of the day is that I'm not advocating Romney's "plan." I voted for President Obama, but I am applauding Romney's language of "let's put it on the table." I'm saying, yep, I agree with defunding public broadcasting, but that's only the beginning.
Back when there were only three networks showing westerns and crime shows all day, PBS was needed. Now it's almost an anachronism. Stop funding it and stop paying farmers not to grow food. Save some money for once and put it where it's needed and where there isn't already a private-sector mechanism in place doing it better.
No, actually, because I'm not wistful at the idea of a President and Congress sitting around trying to "cut the waste" or some shit. It's not going to happen, they aren't going to do anything about the deficit unless it involves gutting important middle-class programs. And they will not use that money to "pay down the deficit" or "save it for our kids" or some crap, they will use it to give rich people more tax cuts and subsidies.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nick
This is where you are confused. For the right it's not the beginning, it's the whole point. There are no "let's cut PBS and big oil subsidies" discussions here. There's nothing to applaud because Romney's not being sincere, he's throwing out some red meat for the base.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nick
My analogy was at least as good as the ones in the Bible. ;) If you are deep in debt and are being called accountable, you look for extraneous expenses to cut. Government can print more money, but that devalues our currency and is not a long-term solution.
Nick's right. Politicians argue about less important items to distract the country from more important issues. "Let's create a mountain out of this PBS mole hill because talking about real financial issues that require real thought and real action are too tough for us to handle. That requires real work and we don't want to upset or gabillionaire donors". Guess they can continue lining their pockets while the rest of the country tries to adjust to an ever shrinking economic pie.
I'm not confused nor am I on the right. Spending will go down one way or the other and I'm outlining where I'd like the cuts to start: corporate entitlements before either military or Medicare spending.Quote:
Originally Posted by Diff-chan
That's not where it's going to go if Romney is elected, I promise you that. Especially if he gets a Republican Congress.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nick
Or instead of Mittens blowing his base with their anti China lines he could explain to people that China doesn't hold a majority of US Federal debt. We could rally a "buy war bonds" mentality so we could continue to have the things we like, pay for them, AND be our own investors but it's easier to jerk off pissed off xenophobic white people with implicit fear charged rhetoric.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nick
Also, before any one wants to Chicken Little China's increasing holdings of US debt or being the largest foreign holder....... get bent.
So who does hold the majority of our debt? I've always heard China.
We do. But China is the largest foreign holder, followed by Japan IIRC.
It's a non-issue to me (and do you really, truly think that white people are any more xenophobic than, say, black people, Bojack?) which of our allies owns the most debt. Even with all the warmongering, George W. Bush ran up the debt less in eight years than Barack Obama did in under four.
Let's say Bush paid for everything on our credit card and kicked the collection can down the road for his successor, and let's say all six trillion dollars of debt since Obama took office is money well spent. There is still waste, there is still corporate and personal overentitlement, and there are still money drains and loopholes to address.
It may make you feel good to tell "retards" to "get bent" on the Internet, but you may also like to know that as long voters oversimplify issues and pretend there is only the Democrat way or the Republican way, we're going to be stuck with the same two lousy parties we deserve.
Every country has large reserves of foreign currency. For a major exporter, it's a good move for China to hold lots of US debt. Buying US debt appreciates the value of the dollar relative to their currency, which increases demand for Chinese exports.
I know that nativism is a part of every election but it's really not a nefarious thing.
How about we shrink our debt to, say, eight trillion and let China keep the same percentage. Good?
Well, that's a lot of money. I'm not sure it is even possible to shrink it without seriously affecting our economy... negatively. And no politician is going to risk the wrath of voters due to a balance sheet.
But let's say it is. It would be awesome, if any politician was serious about "shrinking the debt." They're not. It's not gonna happen dude. The deficit talk from DC is a scam. I don't know how much more simple I can phrase it.
What would have to happen in order for all this debt to matter?
I mean, it's not like we would have a global "run on the banks" right?
The debt did slow down and even fall a little in the years before 9/11. It went crazy under Reagan and again under Obama, but it can obviously come under control.
Right now the 10 year treasury rate is about 1.7%. That is insanely, historically low. Inflation and economic growth should eat up most of that over the course of the loan.Quote:
Originally Posted by Some Stupid Japanese Name
What would have to happen is that interest rates would have to shoot up. It's what did Spain, Italy, and Greece in (and cutting spending has only made those situations worse, not better). The thing is, all that seems to have done was increase demand in US debt. There is zero - zero - indication that interest rates are about to shoot up. The deficit 'hawks' have been predicting that it would since 2009 but rates have plummeted since.
Well you are talking about getting the debt down about 40% as a percentage of GDP. In 2000 it went down about 1%. You really think Congress and the President will commit to budget discipline like that for decades? Come on.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nick
Not to mention that, well, austerity doesn't work. Look at what has been happening in the UK. Every time they cut spending, the deficit goes up. What's funny is that the reason for this has been known for decades (government spending increases aggregate demand, which in turn increases real GDP) but people seem to have forgotten it. It's also happening in Greece - for years now, Germany says they need to cut the budget, Greece cuts the budget, the deficit goes up. This is why government belt-tightening doesn't work. It just doesn't. There's zero reason to believe that it would work in the US.
The "get bent" comment was to stop people from red herring-ing my comment to point out China is the largest or fastest growing owner of US debt. It had nothing to do with calling any one a retard (something I rarely if ever do in the 1st place these days) in particular. It was poorly worded tho' I'll admit.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nick
I don't think any one race is automatically more or less xenophobic than the others, I never said that. I did basically claim that Romney's base is. I do know however that making a merit test for Federal programs with the entire test being "if it's worth borrowing from CHINA" "gasp" is xenophobic in nature. Otherwise Mittens could simply have said "borrowing" but instead made it a point to single out China because he knows his base has exploitable fear of China. It's VERY likely many many people think that China owns all our debt and because of this somehow "owns" America.
I'm not really debating spending merit right now. More that using Red China scare tactics is total horseshit and Romney should prolly be DQ'ed for this comment alone because it's such shit. I don't like oversimplifying issues either but that's exactly what Mittens did with the China test.
Hey retard. Get bent.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nick
George W. Bush destroyed a quarter of the worlds wealth on his way out - that's why Obama's deficit is so much higher.
Did you read the rest of what I wrote? And the part you bolded is true, unless I'm mistaken. Going from memory, I think the figures are about five trillion from George Washington through Bill Clinton, 5.6 trillion for Bush II, and six trillion so far for Obama. The Bush tax cuts are a huge factor in skyrocketing the debt and they're still in place. A hostile Congress, a capitulating president, and the desire not to raise taxes in a low economic period are all contributing factors. This is not a situation where we can truthfully point our fingers and say, "There's the bad guy. It's all his fault."
Also, the deficit under Obama is lower not "so much higher."
Romney is ahead in the poll averages for the first time in over a year.
National polls are so meaningless. Rasmussen has Romney up by one point, so that should mean it's about even or a slight Obama lead.
meaningless and unsustainable
how much will gas cost come election time, boom
Well in that case, Ohio and Virginia went from 'Leans Obama' to 'Toss Up'Quote:
Originally Posted by dave is ok
Fox has the only true electoral map:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/A4yGFEBCMAA28bl.jpg
Lets take two "low information voters". One of them can only use Fox News as their information source for a week, and the other can only use The Onion. Who knows more at the end of the week? I don't even think it is close.
That map is just mindblowing in it's disregard for accuracy. Like, why did they give Nevada to Obama? I really want to know. He has much better chance of losing Nevada than PA or MN or something
That map is the funniest thing I've seen all week. Wow.
What's the source on that map? It's so far-fetched that I went to Fox News to check out the reasoning behind it, but the maps there look nothing like this one. See for yourself: http://www.foxnews.com/topics/electi...ctoral-map.htm.
I took a screen shot of the page with my phone. I tried to capture one from the video, but it didn't work.
They aired the other one on TV, not sure who made it. I'm guessing they just told an intern to paint the entire middle of the country red except for the state Obama is from.
So you captured it from a video?
I got it from the internet. I have no reason to doubt it's legit. It's not exactly out of character
http://s15.postimage.org/7joognmaz/f..._cut_Chart.jpg
But I just showed you the Fox electoral projections. You didn't even tell me what site you got your map from so I can read more about it.
The screen tells you what time and date it aired. Go check up if you doubt it's authenticity
Great, I not only have to prove what I post, I also have to prove what you post. I'll have a look.
I think I'm gonna vote for Romney after reading Dave's recent slew of posts.
This should be Obama's campaign slogan.Quote:
Originally Posted by dave is ok
You shouldn't contribute to the downfall of the country out of spite for Dave.Quote:
Originally Posted by Thief Silver
Which direction has it been going the last four years?
I like how Nick keeps pretending that he is some sort of above-the-fray concerned citizen.
I didn't find the map on any of the mainstream sites I checked, including some that would have been all over that story, so it's in the junk column for now. Evidently, Matt Vasilogambros, who writes for National Journal, posted it on his Twitter account with an "LOL," but he didn't bother to write about it for his site. That leads me to believe it's probably a fake.
So back to the earlier "uninformed voter" post: even worst off than the person who gets all his news from Fox and the person who gets all his news from The Onion is the person that just mindlessly reposts pictures from the Internet and expects everyone to take them as Gospel.
One step above that is the person that looks down on everyone else and assumes everyone's motives but his own are suspect, who would rather tear down everyone else than actually admit he was even a little wrong about anything.