I thought I’d engage one of our posters here at random to elicit their opinions about the world around us in this election season. I’m hopeful of getting thoughtful and honest answers. So here we go… 1) In your opinion, how is the state of the economy (unemployment, national debt, budget debt…)? Has our economy improved under President Obama? 2) In your opinion, are we taxed too much? Too little? Is our tax system “fair”? Are there taxes we collect now we shouldn’t, or, taxes we don’t collect we should? What changes would you like to see with respect to taxes? 3) Honestly, are we as a nation and as individuals better off than we were 4 years ago?
Those would be good questions for everyone. However, BP, you do understand that jlplk just posts to get a reaction, right? He's more subtle than MARIS, but posts with the same purpose.
I know, but I also know he is a very intelligent person and facade aside may offer some keen positions.
Agreed. It's obvious he's quite intelligent and thoughtful. It's too bad he won't share his actual opinions on this board. Instead, he just wants to be clever and derivative. To each his own, I guess.
I just start where I left off the previous night. So after posting to about 8 threads today, I just saw this next one. 1) The country is a dead duck. No. A Democratic president will soften our landing to about 2025. A Republican one will accelerate us over the cliff by about 10 years. Learn to speak Chinese. 2) We were fat and healthy before Reagan with the tax rates we had for the rich. Once those decreased, the deficit went to hell. We got a short reprieve from those tax cuts under Clinton, but the gluttonous fatcats oinked into the pigpen. The changes, tax by tax, I would like are too numerous to list. But see, none of this matters in the long run. All we can do is delay, not stop, China. So I'm in the warning mode, not the advocacy mode. 3) No. On Obama, see my answer to 1). Everything I just wrote I have posted here before.
I see why you needed to start a thread to communicate with me, since I tend to respond to a post many hours after it was posted, and also often late at night. China has a directed Capitalist system, kind of like Nazism without the militarism, which Occidentals (including Americans and Soviets) find so necessary to integrate into their economies. Carrying little economic burden from any large wealthy class or unproductive military (the military does a lot of work we reserve here for civilians), they would race into equality with us by 2050 even if we weren't engaging in economic suicide. Since we are, our cliff will happen about 2030. But it will be inevitable by 2020. The decade between those dates will be an interesting study in the helpless death throes of a superpower. We''ll be in overt martial law 2040; no deception needed about curtailment of rights as we see currently. As our intelligence agencies begin debating socialism around 2050, leading to big experiments in 2060 and totally letting go of the reins about 2070, China will have the bigger, more modern fleet of nuclear missiles. With our weak forces in disarray from the peaceful revolution, they will annihilate us in about 2081, costing them about 300 million Chinese dead. The ace up their sleeve will be to bomb European Russia, too. Moving half their population to a Siberia 15 degrees warmer than it is now, they will at last solve their population pressure. I don't really care about the little election this year, but the choice is between 2030 and 10 years earlier. I'd rather hit the bottom of the cliff with as much transition time as we can get.
One thing I may disagree with is that I think the dems will have us in receivership much sooner. Socialism just isn't the answer out of this mess. But I think you for the answers.
The "no" was the answer to, "Has our economy improved under President Obama?" I would offer a wager, but I won't be around to collect, and you won't have it by then.
