WTF? You just wrote this: Seriously, do you even think about what you type? The inconsistencies in your posts are amazing. Once again, you can't follow a conversation, and are confused. Again, for the third time, you said: And I said there are more rallies against tax-and-spend. I'm not the one claiming the rallies are anti-Obama. You did. But he is doing A LOT more of what these rallies are protesting, than Bush did. It isn't about being wrapped up in money. Go ahead and trot out the "holier than thou, because I don't care about money" line. It is the simple fact that without a strong economy, our country can not accomplish anything that I would hope we would be able to. We won't cure AIDS, we won't cure cancer, we won't help the hungry, we won't help others be free, we won't be free, we won't be safe, etc... If you had any clue, you would realize that many people's biggest issue with the tax-and-spend isn't that we will lose a few more thousand each year. It is that the economy is the catalyst for anything this country hopes to accomplish. The lack of intelligence just oozes from your posts. I can only hope to grow up to be that kind of "man".
Well I edited my post while you were responding to try and keep it more on topic . . . I realize when dealing wth you that you enjoy trying to sound smart by picking apart sentences rather than trying to get the gist of what the post is about . . . and that I should watch more closely what I write rather than concentrate on the issue when responding to you . . . so I will try very hard to not only convey my thought but write it in a proper format. I see the issue being that you think the outrage of taxes are only detremined by how much is spent. Maybe I am mischaracterizing this but I get that from this statement: It doesn't take a lot of reasoning to understand that the outrage would be much larger with respect to spending that is much larger Maybe you meant to include other factors, maybe you you assumed that all spending is wasteful spending. I don't know and unlike you, I'm not trying to show how dumb you are. I just thought that statement, if it meant that outrage about taxes is determined by how much a president spends, is wrong. That's all. I would appreciate it if you stop with the wrong as usal, always confused, your a hypocrite and all the other stuff that seems to get you off. I slipped into playing taht game with you . . . but I don't enjoy as much as you (probably caause I'm bad at it). The funny thing is, for as much as you think you are teraring up my posts . . . you are missing the big picture. Outrage about taxes is not just detremined by how much a president spends, IMO.
As callous as it sounds . . . I don't think 4K deaths is a lot (for war). The question is was it worth it? If this war helped to curb terroroism and attacks on our country . . . I think it was worth it. If it was about taking out a dictator and putting in democracy, I don't. If it was about getting a foothold in the middle east because of oil, defintly not. If it was about getting a foothold in the middle east to better control terrorism, then reluctantly yes (sucks for the country, but we are talking terrorism.)
Fair enough. I accept. Sorry. But, to me, in order for a position to make sense, what you write in support of that position needs to be logical and consistent. That is why I go through each part of what you write as support. But of course taxes should be determined by how much is spent by the government. If the government started taking in more in tax revenue than they spent, and didn't give that money back to the people that paid it, then people should be REALLY upset. I think the issue is that you are assuming the rallies are purely over increased taxes. I think the rallies are due to an absolutely insane, future-crippling amount of spending, and the taxes that will have to come along, at some point, to pay for it. The scary thing is, it might not be taxes in the form of money. It could be "tax" in the form of us losing our safety, freedom and much more due to a crippled economy and China owning so much of our enormous debt. I don't think I am missing the big picture. I am looking at the big picture. Do you honestly think that how much a president spends will not, in the long run, be directly tied to taxes? Spending and taxes need to be very related. So outrage about taxes is essentially outrage about spending, and vice-verse. That is the big picture.
I guess i should take the time to respond to this: In general, I agree with that. I'm just not as convinced as you are that higher taxes or more spending means we will not have a strong economy. Like players developing, time will tell. But for many of us, Obama is a refreshing change and I do think he will make the economy stronger. But then again, I thought Bush would . . . so I could be wrong. I'm sure we both hope I am right . . .
Thank you . . . and I will try to put more thought in my posts rather than type fast and click "submit reply" (problem is I waste too much time here already as I try to whip through my responses while being a slow and terrible typer) So I can see we disagree about the rallies. I think these rallies are a bitch session for people. They are bithcing that the economy sucks, people are losing jobs, retirement funds are dwindling and to top it off there is a president in office who scares the hell out of them as they think their taxes will increase (mainly white people, IMO, looking at who attends the rallies). I don't think these people have taken it to the level you have about the spending will cripple the nation in the future . . . or if they have that is just a front to complain about current conditions. Again, I think it is more the frustration of the times. But if I'm wrong and this is about knowledgeable people ralling against future-crippling amount of spending ( I like that term) then it would actually change my perspective of these tea bagger. I do think how much a president spends will be tied to taxes. But if the nation is strong, if the working middle class is strong, if the infrastructure is strong, if health care is affordable, if the babay boom generation is taken care of, then I don't think people will be as upset about the tax rate. I think I see our difference or similarities. Yes if people are outraged about spending they will be outraged about taxes. But if the spending turns out successful and the nation is strong, then people won't be outraged about spending and then won't be outraged about taxes. OK after all that maybe we should go back to the one line insults, it's easier. (I did say we). I hate typing all this out because even after all this I'm not going to change your mind. And you know want BB, I don't know what you do, but it's clear from your posts you know more about economics than I. But just so you know where I'm coming from, I think Obama scares the hell out of a lot of people (and I'll say it, a certain cross section of white folks) and that he will be attacked on everything no matter what. So it is hard for me to distinguish when the attacks are valid or are out of hate and that is why I'm taking the wait and see approach . . . Ok I reverted to typing off the top of my ehad cause I got to go so don't jump all over this last paragraph. And BTW-after all this typing . . . feel free to jump on my posts (not tonight, I'm done), it really doesn't bother me and I tend respond to those faster. Go Blazers!
The tea parties were started after a CNBC guy ranted about how he was doing the right things, like paying his mortgage and taxes and so on, and especially paying taxes to bail out people who didn't do the right things. It caught on.
How did a thread about the objectivity of a news reporter turn into an Obama thing? Newspapers in general are in trouble and the internet is a place people get their news. How are we to trust the information we get if we don't have television reporters who follow the ethics they were taught in journalism school? It is getting to the point where I don't trust ANYTHING I see or hear on tv now.
Its a red herring. Everyone who is a conservative...anything they believe automatically means they hate Barack Obama ergo they are racist hicks.
It is just sad, I don't think I know a person who really believes everything either party preaches but people still automatically take sides for the most part. I watch Hannity and Oreilly and Maddow and Olbermann and laugh my ass off at all of them at times.
Did it ever occur to you that perhaps one complains because one disagrees with President Obama's policies? Are you in favor of this expansion of government? Are you in favor of spending money that the current generation cannot possibly repay? Future generations will have to pay off this ridiculous "stimulus" package. Do you have kids? Can you look them in the eye and tell them they're responsible for tens of thousands of dollars of debt for the benefit of Obama's supporters? Oh, and I ripped President Bush for his profligate spending as well. But I guess for you it's all about personality. You hate Bush and you love Obama. I'll credit Ed O. for bringing it up, but I suggest you listen to the song "Cult of Personality" by Living Colour.
So President Obama had nothing to do with spending $787B? President Obama has nothing to do with starting the greatest expansion of government since Franklin Roosevelt? Do you really believe there's nothing to complain about? Do you really believe he's blameless? It's stunning what a Svengali this President is.
Bingo. So, you acknowledge his responsibility in tripling the national debt. That's a step in the right direction. That's because providing for the common defense is job #1 of the President as defined by the Constitution. For me it's not about the increased taxes as much as it is the increased spending without a comparative increase in tax rates. If we're going to move toward socialism, the top 5% of taxpayers can't fund it completely. I've seen studies that to fund what President Obama wants to do, to pay for it you would have to tax at a rate of 100% everyone who makes over $75K. Does that seem like he could pass a bill like that? Of course not. It should be acknowledged that the election of President Obama means the majority of the American people want a radical expansion of the role of the Federal Government and that we as Americans should share the burden of paying for it. However, something tells me that it's being sold to the middle class that they'll get more benefits and lower taxes, because "the rich" will pay for it. All you need is a calculator to know that's a lie. We're being hoodwinked. That should make every American angry.
Most economists will tell you that the reason the dollar is strong is because our total debt-to-gdp ratio is better than many advanced countries. Now... Obama's budget is projecting to push our debt to over 82% of our GDP. This will give us one of the highest debt-to-gdp ratios in the world. That will destroy our dollar, destroy our economy, and have us owing trillions, upon trillions of dollars to communist China.
Allow me to offer you an illustration of how the "stimulus" money is being spent "wisely". My wife is the Chief Financial Officer for a firm that turns around defunct Head Start programs. Her firm has the sole contract with the Federal Government and 38 states. Last week, she was told to allocate $1.1B among the programs her firm currently manages. The problem for her is that currently she's trying to RETURN over $1.7MM of unspent money to the Office of Grants Management. In other words, the projects When she called the Office of Head Start for instructions, she was told to just apropriate it regardless of need and they would giver her guidance later. Because right now the goal of the OHS was just to get this money locked into their budget appropration so they would get an increase off that amount in 2010. In other words, the 100M taxpayers just took $11.00 each, waded it up and threw it in the garbage. Worse yet, we'll ask our children to repay a multiple of that figure in the future to waste that money today. That's just one small example of what is happening all over the government. That result should scare people shitless.
I hold several different graduate degrees in the field of economics and finance, and I have yet to figure out how the way to get out of debt is to incur more debt in negative alpha proposition investments.
A classic example of this blatant lying and "hoodwinking" American people... In Obama's "Interactive Town Hall Meeting" he says this: WTF? Do people honestly believe this garbage? So we should invest $1 trillion in early childhood education, and we'll get $10 trillion back. We can pay off our debt!! These are lies to the American middle class. Eventually we are all going to pay big-time for it. And I'm worried we won't be paying for it with higher taxes.
It's much worse that that scenario. Right now, we're able to live beyond our means because we can finance our debt by issuing US Treasuries. The US Dollar is thought to be the safest, strongest currency in the world and is the one that is used as the world common currency. If President Obama's plan goes through, the US Dollar will be replaced by the Euro or some other currency, because we will have lost our "safe haven" status as we simply won't be creditworthy anymore. That doesn't sound like a big deal, but it would shake this economy to the core. It would be like you live a $75K lifestyle on a $40K salary and finance the rest on credit cards by paying the minimum. One day, the bank cancels your credit cards and you can't get access to any more debt. At that point, we become a Second World country. I honestly can't fathom what this Administration is thinking. There's a catastrophe out there that anyone with rudimentary math skills can understand.
This era is eerily reminiscent of early 30s Germany. We're looking for a savior and we don't seem to care on which path he leads us.
