comorin From United States of America, joined May 2005, 4677 posts, RR: 17 Posted (7 months 4 weeks 1 day 4 hours ago) and read 5206 times:
Given that Romney's 47% comment was the final, fatal, self-inflicte wound, should he just give up now? Why bother with the upcoming debates when one has no chance of winning?
I am saddened to see Romney flailing around like King Lear in the rain and we should put an end to this sorry spectacle. We are not Romans who would feed him to the lions for sport. The vultures are gathered, and pecking at his entrails already.
Given the dire economic situation, I would be more interested in President Obama's plans for his second term, and also to see the composition of the House. Will he prove to be one of America's greater leaders? Only time will tell; our opinions now are moot.
jetblueguy22 From United States of America, joined Nov 2007, 2021 posts, RR: 1 Reply 1, posted (7 months 4 weeks 1 day 4 hours ago) and read 5198 times:
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Quoting comorin (Thread starter):
Given that Romney's 47% comment was the final, fatal, self-inflicte wound, should he just give up now? Why bother with the upcoming debates when one has no chance of winning?
It hurt him but I wouldn't exactly fatal. The most recent polls I've seen didn't exactly have Obama up by 20%. I guess time will tell but I don't think fat lady has sung just yet.
Blue
Professor Foltz: You push down on that yolk, the houses get bigger, you pull back on the yolk, the houses get bigger.
slider From United States of America, joined Feb 2004, 6518 posts, RR: 37 Reply 2, posted (7 months 4 weeks 1 day 4 hours ago) and read 5196 times:
Yes, he should just quit.
After all, he can't compete with free phones and F-bombs in commercials.
/sarcasm off
Not a Romney fan as I think everyone knows and detest his entire campaign management and strategy. Moreover, he's aloof at times, doesn't deliver a clear message and, while I believe him to be an honorable hard-working man who's earned his place in life, there is a major perception gap because he, to many people, represent the image of the eeevil rich white guy. I assign no value to that, just saying that's how I think he's perceived.
And he needs to let Ryan off the leash.
The Democrats play dirty and Romney won't even get in the ring.
comorin From United States of America, joined May 2005, 4677 posts, RR: 17 Reply 3, posted (7 months 4 weeks 1 day 4 hours ago) and read 5176 times:
Quoting slider (Reply 2): while I believe him to be an honorable hard-working man who's earned his place in life, there is a major perception gap because he, to many people, represent the image of the eeevil rich white guy.
That's why I mentioned about the 47% comment - after what he said, it must be really hard for a large number of those people to vote for him.
srbmod From United States of America, joined Mar 2001, 16888 posts, RR: 51 Reply 4, posted (7 months 4 weeks 1 day 4 hours ago) and read 5169 times:
One thing to remember is that all opinion polls have a margin of error and he's not out of the race just yet. Sure he shot himself in the foot with the 47% comments, but when you consider that Todd Akin despite his infamous "legitimate rape" comment has managed to recover some support in Missouri and has the potential based on most recent polls and their margin or error of winning the race
I was listening to CNN while at one of my accounts the other day and they were discussing poll numbers and they mentioned that Jimmy Carter was ahead in the polls prior to the 1980 election and we all know how that ended up. Early voting has begun (or is about to begin) in some states and that too will factor into the poll numbers. Then again, the 47% comment may have done a lot more damage then we know and won't know until Election Day. There must be something in the water in Massachusetts, as the 47% comment is probably the biggest Presidential campaign gaffe since Dukakis's tank ad in 1988.....
flymia From United States of America, joined Jun 2001, 6298 posts, RR: 6 Reply 5, posted (7 months 4 weeks 1 day 4 hours ago) and read 5169 times:
What kind of stupid question is this anyway. You do realize that in 1980 Carter was up in the polls right now. Do you think Regan should have quit? How about Bush in 2004 when Kerry was up in the polls until that night. Bush should have quit.
Honestly I guess it should not come as a surprise that a Obama supporter thinks someone should just quit.
Obama one of America greatest leaders? I don't think anyone will have that discussion yet. How about he wins his election first.
PSA53 From United States of America, joined Aug 2003, 3004 posts, RR: 4 Reply 7, posted (7 months 4 weeks 1 day 4 hours ago) and read 5126 times:
Should Romney Just Concede Now?.
Haha.Democrats would just love that.But both democrats and republicans are so fed up with Obama lies, flip-flops and failures of his 1st term that Romney will win it close.This is not 2008.
The majority of the polls poll more democrats due to their large turnout in 2008. Thing is some are polling democrats like they will have an even larger turnout. We all know that wont happen. Even democrat analysist on CNN are reminding people that the only poll that counts is the election they don't want their base to get too confident. I think with many polls the way they are polling you can make the lead for Obama at least a point or 2 smaller.
I was watching MSNBC or "MSBS" and it said in a headline Obama up 9 points in Florida, CNN had President up around 4 points and the Miami Herald actually in Florida and left leaning had it as a tie.
I picked up the phone for a poll. They asked me general questions and then once I said Hispanic they asked me what type Central America, Mexico? Etc.. When I said Cuban they hung up. They don't want to have a Hispanic support Romney as most do in South Florida. Shows how great some of those polls are.
727LOVER From United States of America, joined Oct 2001, 5723 posts, RR: 20 Reply 9, posted (7 months 4 weeks 1 day 4 hours ago) and read 5101 times:
Quoting srbmod (Reply 4): One thing to remember is that all opinion polls have a margin of error and he's not out of the race just yet. Sure he shot himself in the foot with the 47% comments, but when you consider that Todd Akin despite his infamous "legitimate rape" comment has managed to recover some support in Missouri and has the potential based on most recent polls and their margin or error of winning the race
I was listening to CNN while at one of my accounts the other day and they were discussing poll numbers and they mentioned that Jimmy Carter was ahead in the polls prior to the 1980 election and we all know how that ended up. Early voting has begun (or is about to begin) in some states and that too will factor into the poll numbers. Then again, the 47% comment may have done a lot more damage then we know and won't know until Election Day. There must be something in the water in Massachusetts, as the 47% comment is probably the biggest Presidential campaign gaffe since Dukakis's tank ad in 1988.....
And also, a very important factor is this Republican cheating with the ID laws. We don't know how that will affect the outcome.
Quoting flymia (Reply 5): How about Bush in 2004 when Kerry was up in the polls until that night.
Actually, Kerry was behind in the polls until the first debate. That debate got him back in the race.
Quoting flymia (Reply 5): You do realize that in 1980 Carter was up in the polls right now.
mt99 From United States of America, joined exactly 14 years ago today! , 6354 posts, RR: 7 Reply 11, posted (7 months 4 weeks 1 day 3 hours ago) and read 5078 times:
Quoting dtw9 (Reply 10): Like the Liberal leaning news media never skews any polls, do they.
Fox News is liberal now?
"
New Fox News poll released Thursday shows Obama winning 3 key swing states
"Or at least that's what their "unskewed" polls had been showing up until yesterday when Fox News released its latest survey, which showed Obama up by 5 points, 48 percent to Romney's 43.'
dtw9 From United States of America, joined Sep 2003, 1049 posts, RR: 2 Reply 12, posted (7 months 4 weeks 1 day 3 hours ago) and read 5057 times:
Quoting mt99 (Reply 11):
"Or at least that's what their "unskewed" polls had been showing up until yesterday when Fox News released its latest survey, which showed Obama up by 5 points, 48 percent to Romney's 43.'
With a plus or minus 3 percent error. So Obama's either up by five percent , down by one percent,or tied with Romney You tell me, because you seem to be a firm believer in polls
flyguy89 From United States of America, joined Feb 2009, 1618 posts, RR: 9 Reply 13, posted (7 months 4 weeks 1 day 2 hours ago) and read 4980 times:
Absolutely not. No matter what the pundits on either side of the aisle are saying, it's going to be a close race. Mark my words, come the second half of October we're going to see the polls "suddenly" tighten up. I could easily see Obama winning, but I could just as easily see Romney winning unless he just completely flops in the debates.
The issue with a lot of the current polls is that they're estimating Democrat voter turning being even greater than it was in 2008, which I think any level-headed Democrat or Obama supporter would acknowledge definitely won't be the case. Both candidates are far from having it in the bag at this point as, if Obama were truly so far and away in the lead in Virginia, Ohio, etc, why is he continuing to spend so much time campaigning there?
2707200X From United States of America, joined Mar 2009, 6945 posts, RR: 1 Reply 14, posted (7 months 4 weeks 1 day 2 hours ago) and read 4971 times:
Of course he should stay, he had the best chance to win a general when the GOP picked him against others like Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Michele Bachmann nine-nine-nine and others but now since he is starting to sound like the earlier candidates who say only they could win a general by going full tilt right, Mitt is finding himself between a rock and a hard place to win a general.
Quoting dtw9 (Reply 12): With a plus or minus 3 percent error. So Obama's either up by five percent , down by one percent,or tied with Romney You tell me, because you seem to be a firm believer in polls
Find a poll that's in your favor, can you find one or do you think FOX News polls are in the along with reliability conservative Rasmussen Reports polls are just in the tank for Obama and is all like what Rush Limbaugh says It''s all voter suppression on the left.
"And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by." John Masefield Sea-Fever
pvjin From Finland, joined Mar 2012, 549 posts, RR: 0 Reply 15, posted (7 months 4 weeks 1 day 2 hours ago) and read 4949 times:
Yes he should, world doesn't need another Republican as US president. George W Bush already showed what it leads to, growing inequality, war, greed, terror.
Revelation From United States of America, joined Feb 2005, 10494 posts, RR: 20 Reply 16, posted (7 months 4 weeks 1 day 1 hour ago) and read 4944 times:
Of course, Romney shouldn't concede now. He should help the economy by spending even more of his personal fortune buying advertisements, and then lose in a landslide!
Quoting dtw9 (Reply 12): With a plus or minus 3 percent error.
I looked at the various cited links and didn't find the margin of error quoted anywhere, and am having a hard time following your math.
If it's 48 to 43 and the error is plus or minus three percentage points, then Obama's number could be between 51 and 45, whereas Romney's number could be between 46 and 40. Thus Obama could be up as much as 11 points and down at most by 1 point.
If we're talking percentage instead of percentage points, of course, the error would be 48% * (1 +/- 0.03) but I doubt that's what you meant.
Just because that is the margin of error is three percent, it doesn't mean all outcomes in that 3 percent range are equally likely. The given numbers are the most likely, with decreasing probability of the other values occurring the further you get away from the given numbers:
Klaus From Germany, joined Jul 2001, 20861 posts, RR: 55 Reply 17, posted (7 months 4 weeks 1 day 1 hour ago) and read 4935 times:
Quoting flymia (Reply 8): The majority of the polls poll more democrats due to their large turnout in 2008. Thing is some are polling democrats like they will have an even larger turnout. We all know that wont happen.
As far as I'm aware the pollers don't first select a given number of registered Democrats or Republicans according to some dubious numbers and then ask for their likely decision, they just select likely voters and then check how many of those are registered D or R, so the latter is just for information, not a selection criterion.
In other words: There is no such bias, there just happen to be more registered Ds than Rs.
Biases have more to do how with the actual polling is done, such as some polls only doing phone polls via landline numbers, thus skewing towards older and more R-leaning people.
flyguy89 From United States of America, joined Feb 2009, 1618 posts, RR: 9 Reply 18, posted (7 months 4 weeks 1 day 1 hour ago) and read 4929 times:
Quoting Klaus (Reply 17): Quoting flymia (Reply 8):
The majority of the polls poll more democrats due to their large turnout in 2008. Thing is some are polling democrats like they will have an even larger turnout. We all know that wont happen.
As far as I'm aware the pollers don't first select a given number of registered Democrats or Republicans according to some dubious numbers and then ask for their likely decision, they just select likely voters and then check how many of those are registered D or R, so the latter is just for information, not a selection criterion.
No, but you weight your data accordingly. Currently many of the polls are weighing Democrat voters greater than Republican voters, assuming as said that Democrat voter turn out will be greater than in 2008.
EA CO AS From United States of America, joined Nov 2001, 12562 posts, RR: 64 Reply 19, posted (7 months 4 weeks 1 day 1 hour ago) and read 4894 times:
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 18): Currently many of the polls are weighing Democrat voters greater than Republican voters, assuming as said that Democrat voter turn out will be greater than in 2008.
Not only are they over-sampling Democrats, they're assuming record Democrat turnout. Not only will that not occur (many in Obama's base are disenchanted with him and aren't as eager to vote), but you have a VERY whipped up Republican base that will almost certainly end up with a huge Republican turnout.
Romney's going to win.
"In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem - government IS the problem." - Ronald Reagan
stasisLAX From United States of America, joined Jul 2007, 3267 posts, RR: 6 Reply 20, posted (7 months 4 weeks 1 day 1 hour ago) and read 4890 times:
Yes, Rob-Me should just concede. And the Republican Party should concede that they are attempting to disenfranchise millions of voters in total nationwide with their sleazy voter ID laws in numerous states - although some state voter ID laws are now being overturned by their state supreme courts.
Do the Republicans realize that attacking minority and senior voters is NOT the way to broaden their base. The policies of divisiveness will haunt them in the future, as the population of the United States become less white - and much more diverse - the voters affected by this attempted voter "lock-out" will be highly unlikely to vote Republican if the future. Very stupid and highly short-sighted, just like the robber-barons on Wall Street that support the GOP....
"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety!" B.Franklin
Ken777 From United States of America, joined Mar 2004, 7469 posts, RR: 5 Reply 21, posted (7 months 4 weeks 1 day 1 hour ago) and read 4886 times:
Quoting slider (Reply 2): Moreover, he's aloof at times, doesn't deliver a clear message and, while I believe him to be an honorable hard-working man who's earned his place in life, there is a major perception gap because he, to many people, represent the image of the eeevil rich white guy.
The guy simply isn't comfortable out in the wild with the middle class. His entire life has been in the wealthy levels. He's not a bad man, but he is a bad option for President. Or a President who works for all Americans.
Quoting slider (Reply 2): And he needs to let Ryan off the leash.
Well, seems to me he has done all the damage he can. Wants to kill Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid. What else do you want him to do?
And the Republicans never did? Not even Nixon? What about the Swift Boaters?
Quoting slider (Reply 2): and Romney won't even get in the ring.
Romney can't. His entire campaign is to deflect simple questions on issues, like the economy. He only has a "secret plan" for helping the economy.
Quoting srbmod (Reply 4): the biggest Presidential campaign gaffe since Dukakis's tank ad in 1988.....
As bad as that looked, Dukakis did serve in the US Army after graduation from college and was deployed to Korea. But he did take a huge hit from that ad.
As for Romney, no politician that has worked hard enough to be a Presidential candidate will walk away just over a month before the election.
mt99 From United States of America, joined exactly 14 years ago today! , 6354 posts, RR: 7 Reply 22, posted (7 months 4 weeks 1 day 1 hour ago) and read 4887 times:
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 18):
No, but you weight your data accordingly. Currently many of the polls are weighing Democrat voters greater than Republican voters, assuming as said that Democrat voter turn out will be greater than in 2008.
Including FOX?
Quoting EA CO AS (Reply 19): Not only are they over-sampling Democrats,
OK how do you know this? Have you done your own polling? How would you know that Fox is over sampling?
pu From Sweden, joined Dec 2011, 642 posts, RR: 12 Reply 24, posted (7 months 4 weeks 1 day 1 hour ago) and read 4876 times:
Quoting Klaus (Reply 17): There is no such bias, there just happen to be more registered Ds than Rs
Correct.
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 18): No, but you weight your data accordingly
No.
They poll likely voters and report the percentage selecting Romney or Obama. There is no extra weight given to people who identify as democrats, insofar as their political affiliation is even asked for, which often it is not. http://www.latimes.com/news/politics...t-surveys-20120927,0,5276434.story
...
Also, the allegation that Obama supporters, especially the young ones, will not turn out in 2012 is irrelevant to poll numbers, because the polls are of likely voters.
Quoting 727LOVER (Reply 9): Was that useless national polls, or state polls?
EXACTLY.
Carter was perhaps winning in national polls up until the summer, but Reagan's comeback was evident in the polls by September. Anyway, national polls as you say, are useless. The only polls that matter are battleground states. The right leaning real clear politics, whcih averages all the polls, http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epo...ections_electoral_college_map.html
...has Obama at 265 electoral votes out of 271 needed to win, with several previous tossup-states moving to lean Obama after the 47% remark and the embassy crisis.
ltbewr From United States of America, joined Jan 2004, 12338 posts, RR: 12 Reply 27, posted (7 months 4 weeks 21 hours ago) and read 4827 times:
He won't concede, won't give up, who know what can happen although the chances of Romney winning are decreasing. Even in losing, many Republicans will gain State offices. Probably the Republicans will control the Congress and possibly gain seats due to reapportionment of Congressional districts in Republican dominated states (like Texas). They may keep their narrow minority status or even gain a seat in the Senate.
Romney needs to stick to several key items like no tax hikes, major spending cuts, cut offensive regulations on individuals and small business. At the least, by a narrow loss, he could force a re-elected President Obama into keep making concessions popular to the Republicans and Conservatives on key issues.
seb146 From United States of America, joined Nov 1999, 9835 posts, RR: 17 Reply 28, posted (7 months 4 weeks 18 hours ago) and read 4746 times:
As long as there is FOX and AM radio, Romney should not concede.
Seriously.
Those are the same people who believe Obama was born in Kenya or Indonesia or wherever and is Muslim (because there is a clause in the Constitution that says the President MUST be Christian) *rolls eyes*
I have not heard a peep out of Paul Ryan. I think it is because he is smart enough to distance himself from Romney. I don't like Ryan's policies, but he is intelligent. Romney will not win, but let him keep running. Let him say silly things that can be easily discredited with simple fact checking with any source any person wants.
zippyjet From United States of America, joined Sep 2001, 4724 posts, RR: 13 Reply 29, posted (7 months 4 weeks 18 hours ago) and read 4744 times:
Let him go the distance. He and his Ricky Ricardo looking running mate are not my cups of tea but, Mitt the money man will fare better than such down on their luck candidates Mondale, droll Dole, George Mc. Govern (pinko in the eyes of Archie Bunker) and Barry blow em up Goldwater and Adlai Stevenson to name a few. Nothing is impossible and then there is all that voter intimidation and convenient voting machine errors. Let the fun begin. Just think once the election is over we will be besieged with those Sh***y over the top mincing Christmas commercials.
BTW I "zippyjet" do not approve of those Christmas buy buy messages!
3DoorsDown From United States of America, joined Oct 2005, 368 posts, RR: 0 Reply 30, posted (7 months 4 weeks 18 hours ago) and read 4737 times:
Should Romney Just Concede Now?
I would be interested in Obama's plans for his first term. Pelozi got Pelozi Care through. What did O do? Had someone killed. Good for him. Had someone else killed. Again, good for him.
But yes. There are tow many people who can't see the expensive writing on the wall who will vote him back in, so yes, I think we might as well write Romney off and let him go back to wherever he came.
Revelation From United States of America, joined Feb 2005, 10494 posts, RR: 20 Reply 31, posted (7 months 4 weeks 17 hours ago) and read 4719 times:
Quoting seb146 (Reply 28): Those are the same people who believe Obama was born in Kenya or Indonesia or wherever and is Muslim (because there is a clause in the Constitution that says the President MUST be Christian) *rolls eyes*
Interesting, since many Republicans refuse to admit that a Mormon is a Christian.
Quoting seb146 (Reply 28): I have not heard a peep out of Paul Ryan. I think it is because he is smart enough to distance himself from Romney.
He can't be happy with Romney's half-hearted and vague endorsement of his budget plans.
Aesma From France, joined Nov 2009, 4813 posts, RR: 9 Reply 32, posted (7 months 4 weeks 17 hours ago) and read 4702 times:
There is no sense in conceding. If there was a world war going on then yes, it would make sense, so that people would unite behind the president. But here, even if Romney thought it would be good for the country, his party would still continue with the silly games. However I hear economists saying the game ends a couple of weeks after the election, when everyone will be again looking at the US deficit.
Quoting EA CO AS (Reply 19): Not only are they over-sampling Democrats, they're assuming record Democrat turnout. Not only will that not occur (many in Obama's base are disenchanted with him and aren't as eager to vote), but you have a VERY whipped up Republican base that will almost certainly end up with a huge Republican turnout.
Makes sense, it's well know pollsters are in the business of doing wrong polls.
Are you implying that they receive money under the table from Democrats to make Obama look good ?
Or that they receive money under the table from Republicans to make Obama look good, thus unmotivating his troops while motivating the R ones ?
Or both at the same time, maybe ?
New Technology is the name we give to stuff that doesn't work yet. Douglas Adams
jetblueguy22 From United States of America, joined Nov 2007, 2021 posts, RR: 1 Reply 33, posted (7 months 4 weeks 16 hours ago) and read 4699 times:
AIRLINERS.NET CREW FORUM MODERATOR
Quoting pvjin (Reply 15): Yes he should, world doesn't need another Republican as US president. George W Bush already showed what it leads to, growing inequality, war, greed, terror.
Wow, just wow. Explain this growing inequality. I also didn't know that greed was limited to Republicans . And terror? Really! The ignorance is incredible! I had no idea GWB financed all these terror groups and was pro terrorist. I think your dislike for America is clouding your judgement.
Blue
Professor Foltz: You push down on that yolk, the houses get bigger, you pull back on the yolk, the houses get bigger.
No, but you weight your data accordingly. Currently many of the polls are weighing Democrat voters greater than Republican voters, assuming as said that Democrat voter turn out will be greater than in 2008.
Including FOX?
Oh, so now all of a sudden Fox is the pinnacle of accuracy for you?
Quoting pu (Reply 24): Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 18):
No, but you weight your data accordingly
No.
They poll likely voters and report the percentage selecting Romney or Obama. There is no extra weight given t
Incorrect.
If you want a decently accurate poll there are many factors that must be weighted. For example, women answer the phone more than men giving a gender sample statistically disparate from the electorate, so it's necessary give more weight to males polled as well as weigh down the elderly as a disproportionately large number agree to actually be polled. Youth voters polled are also given extra weight as they typically don't have landlines, most use their cell phones as their primary means of communication. Lastly, party affiliation is asked and then weighted using modeling based on what they predict turn-out will be. Usually they just use the previous election's turn-out statistics, however 2008 was such an exception, that modeling a poll based on it is obviously not going to be accurate, the most accurate polls are those using a combination of 2004 and 2008 stats.
Quoting pu (Reply 25): The candidate leading in mid-September polling has won every election since 1948.
...and no president other than FDR has ever won reelection with unemployment above 7.2%
Aaron747 From Japan, joined Aug 2003, 7656 posts, RR: 28 Reply 35, posted (7 months 4 weeks 16 hours ago) and read 4693 times:
Quoting pvjin (Reply 15):
Yes he should, world doesn't need another Republican as US president. George W Bush already showed what it leads to, growing inequality, war, greed, terror
This kind of stuff is why this kind of discussion never works. Have to at least have the facts straight! War? Vietnam? Started under LBJ, a Democrat. Obama has utilized the US military in no less than five locations in the world since taking office. Again your point is lost here. Growing inequality? Inequality grew under Kennedy, LBJ, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush I, made a slight statistical improvement with Clinton, then grew again under Bush II and now Obama. Inequality is not a problem an American president has the power to fix, period.
Bottom line: inequality is a structural problem in the US. War of some type is inevitable due to powerful foreign interests and relationships of assistance held by the US in most corners of the world. Greed is a baseline of the US economic system and the political machine operates as a support network for this regardless of who the President is. This kind of blind finger-pointing at individual US Presidents, all of whom in my estimation have been men of good character and intent overall, is completely uncalled for. Need to see the big picture first.
If you need someone to blame / throw a rock in the air / you'll hit someone guilty
I posted a link from today's LA Times explaining how polls are NOT weighted to the benefit of either party.
.
Can you provide a source other than a right wing blog or opinion piece that polls are weighted to the benefit of Democrats?...because the "weighting" you describe of giving more value to men and older people in polls would help Republicans.
pu From Sweden, joined Dec 2011, 642 posts, RR: 12 Reply 37, posted (7 months 4 weeks 16 hours ago) and read 4680 times:
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 34): party affiliation is asked and then weighted using modeling based on what they predict turn-out will be.
This is bullsh*t. Polls are NOT weighted by party ID ;or "predicted turnout".
.
...but if you provide a manstream source (not a blog or opinion piece) I will of course apologise!
Revelation From United States of America, joined Feb 2005, 10494 posts, RR: 20 Reply 38, posted (7 months 4 weeks 16 hours ago) and read 4681 times:
Quoting Aaron747 (Reply 35): This kind of stuff is why this kind of discussion never works. Have to at least have the facts straight! War? Vietnam? Started under LBJ, a Democrat.
Right after the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?
US "advisers" were in French Indochina in 1950 i.e. Truman's era. The French left in 1955, and US helped install the government of South Vietnam, and US presence was slowly increasing in the entire period of the Ike and JFK administrations. When LBJ took over, US "advisers" were present in every level of the South Vietnamese Army, and a large insurgency was already ongoing. Surely LBJ accelerated the Vietnam War far beyond that of his predecessors, but surely he didn't start it either. Most historians would place it at the time where the US decided to support the South Vietnamese government, i.e. during Ike's administration. That decision, and the South's subsequent suspension of elections it was mandated to hold, was the beginning of what the Vietnamese call "the American War". Note that if elections were held, even Ike said that Ho would get 80% of the vote.
flyguy89 From United States of America, joined Feb 2009, 1618 posts, RR: 9 Reply 40, posted (7 months 4 weeks 15 hours ago) and read 4660 times:
Quoting pu (Reply 36): Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 34):
Incorrect
I posted a link from today's LA Times explaining how polls are NOT weighted to the benefit of either party.
.
Can you provide a source other than a right wing blog or opinion piece that polls are weighted to the benefit of Democrats?...because the "weighting" you describe of giving more value to men and older people in polls would help Republicans.
"Weighting" does not inherently exist to skew polls for one party or the other but to make them more representative of the electorate for the reasons I stated above. In a telephone sampling of likely voters there are going to be a disproportionately large number of women and elderly persons and too low a number of minorities and young persons, thus it's necessary to not only decipher likely voters, but also weigh the sample to bring it in sync with census data.
The issue is that afterwards, many weight their modeling using exit polling from the last year's election...and there in lies the problem for this year, 2008 was an exceptional year, but I don't know a single Democrat who's admitting that enthusiasm for Obama is even approaching that which existed in 2008.
So, I post direct links PROVING polls do not "weight their modeling using exit polls"as you claim.
...
.....and you post an essay claiming they do? By Mr David Ross?
.
I can't decide who to believe, the mainstam Nonpartisan polling organisations explaining they don't weigh their data or you and Mr David Ross "a freelance writer based in Mexico" (his credentials from the auhoritive essay you provided)...
Flyguy, we have chatted before and you are mostly rational, but you have attached yourself to make-believe falsehoods drummed up by fringe right wing crackpots in this case. Check the polling data in September in any previous election, it has never been wrong.
flyguy89 From United States of America, joined Feb 2009, 1618 posts, RR: 9 Reply 42, posted (7 months 4 weeks 13 hours ago) and read 4628 times:
Quoting pu (Reply 37): This is bullsh*t. Polls are NOT weighted by party ID ;or "predicted turnout".
*facepalm* It's not about "predicted turnout", it's about their modeling in determining LIKELY voters in their sample, for which they use exit polling from the previous presidential election in 2008, which was a statistical outlier.
Quoting pu (Reply 37): ...but if you provide a manstream source (not a blog or opinion piece) I will of course apologise!
Almost all of these are opinion pieces (Guardian and LA Times)! Except for the clickorlando.com link which inexplicably mentions that 43% polled were Democrats while Democrats comprise only 40% of the rolls...
And CBS? Please, they're no better than Fox or MSNBC.
Quoting pu (Reply 39): Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 34):
...and no president other than FDR has ever won reelection with unemployment above 7.2%
flyguy89 From United States of America, joined Feb 2009, 1618 posts, RR: 9 Reply 43, posted (7 months 4 weeks 13 hours ago) and read 4611 times:
Quoting pu (Reply 41): .....and you post an essay claiming they do? By Mr David Ross?
.
I can't decide who to believe, the mainstam Nonpartisan polling organisations explaining they don't weigh their data or you and Mr David Ross "a freelance writer based in Mexico" (his credentials from the auhoritive essay you provided)...
He's probably no more or less credible than the opinion writers of the articles you've linked to.
Quoting pu (Reply 41): Flyguy, we have chatted before and you are mostly rational, but you have attached yourself to make-believe falsehoods drummed up by fringe right wing crackpots in this case.
What make-believe falsehood would that be? That they're using 2008 election data in their modeling? Because they absolutely are, it's the norm in polling to use the last election but again, 2008 was an exceptional year and you don't have to be a "crackpot" to see that the resulting poll isn't going to be the most accurate.
Klaus From Germany, joined Jul 2001, 20861 posts, RR: 55 Reply 44, posted (7 months 4 weeks 11 hours ago) and read 4588 times:
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 34): Incorrect.
If you want a decently accurate poll there are many factors that must be weighted. For example, women answer the phone more than men giving a gender sample statistically disparate from the electorate, so it's necessary give more weight to males polled as well as weigh down the elderly as a disproportionately large number agree to actually be polled. Youth voters polled are also given extra weight as they typically don't have landlines, most use their cell phones as their primary means of communication. Lastly, party affiliation is asked and then weighted using modeling based on what they predict turn-out will be. Usually they just use the previous election's turn-out statistics, however 2008 was such an exception, that modeling a poll based on it is obviously not going to be accurate, the most accurate polls are those using a combination of 2004 and 2008 stats.
It looks as if you've simply not understood the methodology being used.
You have claimed that previously recorded party affiliation was the basis for polling, but from everything I've seen so far it simply isn't.
Of course there is weighing being done, but only after a neutral sample of registered voters has been polled.
The party affiliations detected in the poll are just a neutral sample of then-current affiliations as far as I'm aware, not some pre-biased basis for the sampling in the first place.
That makes a crucial difference.
There will be several corrections applied to the raw data in order to extrapolate from the people actually polled to the entire voter population (which cannot just be scaled by a given factor), but that is something completely different from what you've claimed.
Revelation From United States of America, joined Feb 2005, 10494 posts, RR: 20 Reply 45, posted (7 months 4 weeks 9 hours ago) and read 4548 times:
Strange how all the Romney supporters have is the hope that the pollsters are wrong, repeatedly, in several different swing states. I guess it's their "vast left wing conspiracy" theory taking on yet another one of its guises.
Quoting Revelation (Reply 38): Most historians would place it at the time where the US decided to support the South Vietnamese government, i.e. during Ike's administration.
Something I stumbled across to further my earlier point:
Quote:
November 1, 1955 — President Eisenhower deploys the Military Assistance Advisory Group to train the Army of the Republic of Vietnam. This marks the official beginning of American involvement in the war as recognized by the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
comorin From United States of America, joined May 2005, 4677 posts, RR: 17 Reply 46, posted (7 months 4 weeks 8 hours ago) and read 4490 times:
Quoting Revelation (Reply 45): Strange how all the Romney supporters have is the hope that the pollsters are wrong, repeatedly, in several different swing states.
They are now know as 'Denialists' as per the local press.
The premise of this thread was that Romney had fatally damaged his candidacy, so should should he pull out.
The responses fall into:
1. No his candidacy is alive, the polls are wrong.
2. The polls are right, but he should stick in there anyway
3. Obama is a very very bad guy.
I would like to point out that political polling and market research both have a huge body of knowledge backing them in the areas of applied statistics, especially sample surveys. If you question the efficacy of these methodologies, please note that all these models are rigorously back tested for validity. Statisticians also know that correlation is not causality, and how cell phones etc etc affect polling. Most of all these polls present us with confidence intervals so we also know how to interpret results.
Statistically, Romney has about a 20% chance of winning based on current data - so the question is, should he stay in the race? If he were a David battling Goliath, with hearts and minds on his side, we would all be rooting for him. But given his recent utterances, there's little sympathy left amongst swing voters.
As for Obama being a good guy or not, there are plenty of other threads active for those posts.
My personal opinion is that for a center-right country, it is important to have sensible conservative and liberal views on the table for debate. Extremist, ideologue positions do not make for intelligent discourse. In a way, this is good news for the GOP; now is the perfect time to chase out the extremists from the tent and return to the party of Lincoln and Eisenhower.
DeltaMD90 From United States of America, joined Apr 2008, 5318 posts, RR: 47 Reply 47, posted (7 months 4 weeks 7 hours ago) and read 4483 times:
Quoting Revelation (Reply 45): Strange how all the Romney supporters have is the hope that the pollsters are wrong, repeatedly, in several different swing states. I guess it's their "vast left wing conspiracy" theory taking on yet another one of its guises.
This is kinda my fault, I posted that link in the beginning of the thread for laughs and I completely debo-ed the topic. I don't think any conspiracy is going on, from what I've heard many Republicans are thinking that the polls are skewed to the left (not for any malicious reasoning, they are just affected by 2008's Democratic turnout) and that Republican voters are fired up this year/Democrat voters are less fired up this year.
Not here to argue whether that's right or wrong, I'm not too educated in polling methodology, and furthermore I really don't care about the polls too much. I'm just saying that I haven't heard any conspiracy theories, just incorrect methodology
seb146 From United States of America, joined Nov 1999, 9835 posts, RR: 17 Reply 49, posted (7 months 4 weeks 5 hours ago) and read 4419 times:
Quoting comorin (Reply 46): should he stay in the race? If he were a David battling Goliath, with hearts and minds on his side, we would all be rooting for him. But given his recent utterances, there's little sympathy left amongst swing voters.
IMO, Romney is what Kerry was as far as enthusiasm. People listen to him speak and just kinda shrug their shoulders and say "well, okay..." That has a lot to do with it, too.
Quoting comorin (Reply 46): Extremist, ideologue positions do not make for intelligent discourse. In a way, this is good news for the GOP; now is the perfect time to chase out the extremists from the tent and return to the party of Lincoln and Eisenhower.
Except those extremists sell more papers, so to speak. Also, those extremists the GOP *should* chase out are the ones who want to be even farther right than Reagan, whom they claim was the best thing that every happened to this country.
flyguy89 From United States of America, joined Feb 2009, 1618 posts, RR: 9 Reply 50, posted (7 months 4 weeks 4 hours ago) and read 4392 times:
Quoting Klaus (Reply 44): You have claimed that previously recorded party affiliation was the basis for polling, but from everything I've seen so far it simply isn't.
I have not, it simply concerns the modeling they're using in determining LIKELY voters for which they use precedent (past presidential election). In my opinion, the polls aren't massively inaccurate, and I believe that Obama is ahead, just not by as wide a margin as reported in the Quinnipiac/New York Times poll. Up by 10 points in Ohio? Seriously? If that were true, Obama still wouldn't be vigorously campaigning there like he still is.
Quoting comorin (Reply 46): But given his recent utterances, there's little sympathy left amongst swing voters.
Proof? Romney's poll numbers have little changed since the 47% remark and have readily been overshadowed by the debacle in Benghazi.
Quoting Revelation (Reply 48): Quoting DeltaMD90 (Reply 47):
Republican voters are fired up this year/Democrat voters are less fired up this year.
Romney's utterances have surely changed that equation, and even worse for him, have fired up a lot of swing voters to vote against him.
Again, where? Last poll I saw, Romney was beating Obama among likely independent voters 54%-43%
Despite Romney "utterances" and apparent gaffes, the polls have only tightened since the DNC, eroding Obama's post-convention lead.
DocLightning From United States of America, joined Nov 2005, 16833 posts, RR: 57 Reply 51, posted (7 months 4 weeks 4 hours ago) and read 4398 times:
For those of you claiming that the polls are flawed.
When Obama wins the election, are you going to claim that the election is invalid? That's my prediction. In fact, I would not be surprised to see enormous crowds of gun-toting people marching on Washington after he wins. I just hope they don't actually try to revolt.
mt99 From United States of America, joined exactly 14 years ago today! , 6354 posts, RR: 7 Reply 52, posted (7 months 4 weeks 4 hours ago) and read 4369 times:
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 50): In my opinion, the polls aren't massively inaccurate, and I believe that Obama is ahead, just not by as wide a margin as reported in the Quinnipiac/New York Times poll. Up by 10 points in Ohio? Seriously?
So based on you information, what is the "right" number? Have you done your own polling? What number makes sense to you?
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 50): Proof? Romney's poll numbers have little changed since the 47% remark and have readily been overshadowed by the debacle in Benghazi.
DeltaMD90 From United States of America, joined Apr 2008, 5318 posts, RR: 47 Reply 53, posted (7 months 4 weeks 4 hours ago) and read 4366 times:
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 50): Proof? Romney's poll numbers have little changed since the 47% remark and have readily been overshadowed by the debacle in Benghazi.
Actually I agree that the 47% remark was overhyped. I mean it was a dumb thing to say, and very inaccurate (there are Republicans in that 47% and there are Democrats in the 53%) but most of the people I've seen make a big deal about the 47% thing are people that weren't gonna vote for Romney anyways. Then again, the swing voter population is so small it doesn't take much
Quoting DocLightning (Reply 51): When Obama wins the election, are you going to claim that the election is invalid?
I wouldn't go that far, the only thing I've been seeing, again, is flawed methodology. I'm sure you can dig up accusations of media corruption and all that crap, but no one I've been seeing (even on this forum.) I only brought up that website as a joke and wish I hadn't!
Quoting DocLightning (Reply 51): In fact, I would not be surprised to see enormous crowds of gun-toting people marching on Washington after he wins.
I doubt this as well. This sounds like the whole "black people are gonna riot in the cities if Obama doesn't win (2008)" rumors. Although we'll never know 100% sure since the President won, I think we're safe to say (99.99%) that it wouldn't've happened, and I bet the only retaliation we'll see if/when the President is reelected is a bunch of angry(er) Republicans
Klaus From Germany, joined Jul 2001, 20861 posts, RR: 55 Reply 54, posted (7 months 4 weeks 3 hours ago) and read 4347 times:
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 50): I have not, it simply concerns the modeling they're using in determining LIKELY voters for which they use precedent (past presidential election). In my opinion, the polls aren't massively inaccurate, and I believe that Obama is ahead, just not by as wide a margin as reported in the Quinnipiac/New York Times poll.
After the election the polls can be compared to the actual results, and that is basically where the adjustment factors will come from for the next elections.
But polls are always an extrapolation from the sample to the entire electorate and from recent and current results to an upcoming election.
They can not be entirely precise.
But applying the kind of sampling you described above would just be a mistake and would compromise the quality of the results. I'm pretty sure that at lest the reputable polls don't make that kind of severe mistakes.
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 50): Up by 10 points in Ohio? Seriously? If that were true, Obama still wouldn't be vigorously campaigning there like he still is.
Having momentum in a notorious swing state doesn't mean that momentum will actually hold all the way to the last polling day (has early voting already started in Ohio?).
DocLightning From United States of America, joined Nov 2005, 16833 posts, RR: 57 Reply 55, posted (7 months 4 weeks 2 hours ago) and read 4328 times:
Quoting DeltaMD90 (Reply 53): I doubt this as well. This sounds like the whole "black people are gonna riot in the cities if Obama doesn't win (2008)" rumors.
The rhetoric from the right has been a LOT more vitriolic than it was in 2008. That whole "rise up and exercise your second-amendment rights" thing has been unusually loud.
We've seen this before with the formation of "citizen militias" in the 1990's during the Clinton administration, but there were fewer mainstream GOP politicians openly embracing such things.
flyguy89 From United States of America, joined Feb 2009, 1618 posts, RR: 9 Reply 56, posted (7 months 4 weeks 1 hour ago) and read 4300 times:
Quoting mt99 (Reply 52): Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 50):
In my opinion, the polls aren't massively inaccurate, and I believe that Obama is ahead, just not by as wide a margin as reported in the Quinnipiac/New York Times poll. Up by 10 points in Ohio? Seriously?
So based on you information, what is the "right" number? Have you done your own polling? What number makes sense to you?
I think Gallup and Rasmussen are probably the most accurate as they use a combination of 2004 and 2008 in their modeling.
Why would the New York Times be any more credible than Fox?
Quoting Klaus (Reply 54): But polls are always an extrapolation from the sample to the entire electorate and from recent and current results to an upcoming election.
They can not be entirely precise.
Absolutely.
Quoting Klaus (Reply 54): But applying the kind of sampling you described above would just be a mistake and would compromise the quality of the results. I'm pretty sure that at lest the reputable polls don't make that kind of severe mistakes.
I don't have a problem with their sampling per se, I understand well how they sample...but it's their methodology in sifting out the likely voters, each polling firm has different methodologies for doing so.
Quoting DocLightning (Reply 55): Quoting DeltaMD90 (Reply 53):
I doubt this as well. This sounds like the whole "black people are gonna riot in the cities if Obama doesn't win (2008)" rumors.
The rhetoric from the right has been a LOT more vitriolic than it was in 2008. That whole "rise up and exercise your second-amendment rights" thing has been unusually loud.
Loud from who? I haven't heard any politician embracing such rhetoric, where do you hear this stuff from?
flymia From United States of America, joined Jun 2001, 6298 posts, RR: 6 Reply 57, posted (7 months 3 weeks 6 days 23 hours ago) and read 4242 times:
Quoting DocLightning (Reply 51): When Obama wins the election, are you going to claim that the election is invalid? That's my prediction. In fact, I would not be surprised to see enormous crowds of gun-toting people marching on Washington after he wins. I just hope they don't actually try to revolt.
You can't be serious. Sarcasm right? There is going to be no "revolt" and no one is going to say the election was a fraud. If turnout for Republicans is low there might be the case of the polls killed the turnout but nothing well be said about election. Revolt really? Come on.
Quote: In order to attain the most accurate results, pollsters first need a reference or control. This emphasis is usually focused on the most recent presidential polling demographics. Thus, 2012 polls are designed around the premise that more democrats participated in the 2008 presidential election and the polling samples should represent that fact by oversampling likely democrat voters. The polls you see reflect the oversampling by skewing the numbers of likely democrat voters to the positive; sometimes over 13 percent!
All the major polls such as Reuters, CBS/New York Times, Pew, CNN, and Rasmussen skew their polls liberal. Even the Fox News Poll shows a liberal spread of +4.
"It was just four of us on the flight deck, trying to do our job" (Captain Al Haynes)
seb146 From United States of America, joined Nov 1999, 9835 posts, RR: 17 Reply 58, posted (7 months 3 weeks 6 days 23 hours ago) and read 4235 times:
I also do not think Romney should concede because that makes his charicter look even worse. It's bad enough he is secretive about his finances and that shows how he would run the country fiscally. But, if he quits, that really REALLY speaks to his charicter.
pu From Sweden, joined Dec 2011, 642 posts, RR: 12 Reply 59, posted (7 months 3 weeks 6 days 23 hours ago) and read 4230 times:
FlyMia, That ultra right wing Republican surrogate Augusta paper? Really?
.
Try looking up the facts on your own. Carter WAS NOT ahead in the polls at this time in 1980 as you've posted repeatedly (copied from a right wing BLOG), ....see 1980 polling data above...reply 25
..
.....POLLS DO NOT TAKE INTO ACCOUNT THE VOTER TURNOUT IN 2008 ON A PARTY BASIS
...and the only "sources" that say they do are uncited rightwing fringe writers.
Thus, 2012 polls are designed around the premise that more democrats participated in the 2008 presidential election and the polling samples should represent that fact by oversampling likely democrat voters
[/quote]
.{{{{{{{{{.according to University of Phoenix (an online diploma mill) graduate Jason Pope in an uncited article}}}}}}}}}
.
BUT COMPARE TO THE VERIFIABLE FACTS on polling methodology:
connies4ever From Canada, joined Feb 2006, 3857 posts, RR: 13 Reply 60, posted (7 months 3 weeks 6 days 21 hours ago) and read 4189 times:
Quoting Aaron747 (Reply 35): Have to at least have the facts straight! War? Vietnam? Started under LBJ, a Democrat.
Even conceding some type of American presence in Vietnam as early as 1950, I don't think substantial numbers were there until late in Ike's 2nd term, 1959-1960-ish.
I really do hope Obama wins by a fair margin. The Tea Party will then dissolve into a number of increasingly irrelevant splinter groups and mainstream Republicans will not be cowed by them anymore. The US does need a healthy political discourse, but the Tea Party does not provide it. And that's from a Liberal.
Dreadnought From United States of America, joined Feb 2008, 7794 posts, RR: 22 Reply 61, posted (7 months 3 weeks 6 days 21 hours ago) and read 4192 times:
There is a lot of propaganda going on from the Obama campaign through their compliant media channels.
Just stop and consider just how deranged your thought processes have to be in order to believe that Obama is somehow running away with this election:
- The Debt: you have to believe that Obama's act of adding $6 trillion - 60 percent - to the national debt, which has resulted in the country's first credit downgrades, is wildly popular
- Unemployment: you have to believe that Obama's horrific unemployment record is a winning one
- 2010 Elections: you have to believe that the 2010 tidal wave election never happened
- Obamacare: you have to believe that spiking health care premiums and a huge number of employers who are dropping coverage is a program beloved by the citizenry
- Foreign Policy: you have to believe that Obama's bizarre handling of the Middle East, now aflame, is popular
- Energy: you have to believe that Obama's war on coal - a critical energy source for much of the US - is popular, and people love to pay more for energy (never mind gas prices doubling)
- Illegal Immigration: you have to believe that Americans embrace illegal immigration and Obama's extra-Constitutional executive orders implementing the DREAM Act
- Obama himself: you have to believe that the known quantity -- a narcissistic, hyper-partisan,, hard Left demagogue -- is as popular now than ever.
DeltaMD90 From United States of America, joined Apr 2008, 5318 posts, RR: 47 Reply 62, posted (7 months 3 weeks 6 days 21 hours ago) and read 4187 times:
Quoting connies4ever (Reply 60): Quoting Aaron747 (Reply 35):
Have to at least have the facts straight! War? Vietnam? Started under LBJ, a Democrat.
Even conceding some type of American presence in Vietnam as early as 1950, I don't think substantial numbers were there until late in Ike's 2nd term, 1959-1960-ish.
I don't know why people argue what a party did 50 years ago. It makes me cringe when I hear that Republicans are good because Lincoln was a Republican or something like that. Minus the fact that the parties flipped, who cares what party did what decades/over a hundred years ago? Most those people are dead and the political views of the parties decades ago probably don't match either of the parties now!
pu From Sweden, joined Dec 2011, 642 posts, RR: 12 Reply 63, posted (7 months 3 weeks 6 days 21 hours ago) and read 4180 times:
Quoting flymia (Reply 57): ll the major polls such as Reuters, CBS/New York Times, Pew, CNN, and Rasmussen skew their polls liberal. Even the Fox News Poll shows a liberal spread of +4.
pu From Sweden, joined Dec 2011, 642 posts, RR: 12 Reply 64, posted (7 months 3 weeks 6 days 21 hours ago) and read 4162 times:
Quoting Dreadnought (Reply 61): - deranged your thought processes have to be.... ...... .....Foreign Policy: you have to believe that Obama's bizarre handling of the Middle East, now aflame, is popular
Is it deranged to believe polling results by nonpartisan polling organisations? Or deranged to think you have a feel for pupoplarity based on your intuition?????
.
.
.
According to The Pew Center:
Percent polled who approve of Obama's handling of Middle East turmoil versus approve of Romeny's comments
....................................Obama...............Romney
Republican....................11........................58
Democrat.......................75........................5
Independent...................44........................23
Overall............................45.......................26
Dreadnought From United States of America, joined Feb 2008, 7794 posts, RR: 22 Reply 65, posted (7 months 3 weeks 6 days 20 hours ago) and read 4169 times:
Quoting pu (Reply 64): Percent polled who approve of Obama's handling of Middle East turmoil versus approve of Romeny's comments
A perfect example of propaganda that I was talking about. You are comparing a single comment by Romney, which turned out to be factual, to the entire administration's response to the attacks over 2 weeks, where they repeatedly lied at all levels in order to minimize the existence of terrorism 2 months before an election, and could not even get their stories straight (that's usually the problem with lies - it takes a lot more effort).
Shall we poll "You didn't build that" against the repeal of Obamacare? One is a single comment, one is a policy. It's easy to find little soundbites that tweak people the right or wrong way.
flyguy89 From United States of America, joined Feb 2009, 1618 posts, RR: 9 Reply 66, posted (7 months 3 weeks 6 days 20 hours ago) and read 4160 times:
Aesma From France, joined Nov 2009, 4813 posts, RR: 9 Reply 67, posted (7 months 3 weeks 6 days 20 hours ago) and read 4155 times:
Quoting Dreadnought (Reply 61): Just stop and consider just how deranged your thought processes have to be in order to believe that Obama is somehow running away with this election:
You have to be deranged to think that all those are only Obama's fault or doing.
Fact is, even if Obama loses, he'll get 47% easily (don't know why I picked that number) and that means that either half the people in your country are deranged, or that things are less black and white than you make them look like.
New Technology is the name we give to stuff that doesn't work yet. Douglas Adams
pu From Sweden, joined Dec 2011, 642 posts, RR: 12 Reply 68, posted (7 months 3 weeks 6 days 20 hours ago) and read 4152 times:
Quoting Dreadnought (Reply 65): Shall we poll "You didn't build that" against the repeal of Obamacare? One is a single comment, one is a policy. It's easy to find little soundbites that tweak people the right or wrong way
Care to explain how and why left, right and nonpartisan polling organisations all agree Obama's foreign policy is more popular than Romney's Foreign policy ideas?
I have cited
Fox News
The Los Angeles Times
The Guardian
Orlando's local newspaper
...
you have cited a freelance Mexican writer
...
“The Ohio Newspaper Poll does not use self-identified partisanship in its weighting methodology,” http://cincinnati.com/blogs/politics...24/about-our-poll-party-breakdown/
flyguy89 From United States of America, joined Feb 2009, 1618 posts, RR: 9 Reply 71, posted (7 months 3 weeks 6 days 19 hours ago) and read 4113 times:
Quoting pu (Reply 69): you have cited a freelance Mexican writer
Again, any time someone has posted a link, you instantly denounce whoever the writer is and then demand a "non-right-wing/non-opinion" piece be cited when all of the articles you have cited are opinion pieces, and mostly from left-wing outlets at that.
Quoting pu (Reply 59): POLLS DO NOT TAKE INTO ACCOUNT THE VOTER TURNOUT IN 2008 ON A PARTY BASIS
I'm not sure you're certain what you're arguing against here, first it was that THEY DON'T WEIGHT BASED ON PARTY ID and now it's the above, which is it that you're trying to assert? Polling firms use different screening methodologies to determine likely voters, a component of which includes past voting behavior. Some use 2008 as a reference, others use a combination of 2004 and 2008 (the more accurate way in my opinion).
Quoting pu (Reply 69): Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 66):
Where are your cites from reliable news outlets?
Give us a citation that's NOT just an opinion piece first before you start demanding that.
mt99 From United States of America, joined exactly 14 years ago today! , 6354 posts, RR: 7 Reply 72, posted (7 months 3 weeks 6 days 18 hours ago) and read 4087 times:
Quoting Dreadnought (Reply 61): Just stop and consider just how deranged your thought processes have to be in order to believe that Obama is somehow running away with this election:
Lets take these in a different parts
Quoting Dreadnought (Reply 61): The Debt: you have to believe that Obama's act of adding $6 trillion - 60 percent - to the national debt, which has resulted in the country's first credit downgrades, is wildly popular
Quoting Dreadnought (Reply 61):
- The Debt: you have to believe that Obama's act of adding $6 trillion - 60 percent - to the national debt, which has resulted in the country's first credit downgrades, is wildly popular
Quoting Dreadnought (Reply 61): - Obamacare: you have to believe that spiking health care premiums and a huge number of employers who are dropping coverage is a program beloved by the citizenry
Quoting Dreadnought (Reply 61): - Foreign Policy: you have to believe that Obama's bizarre handling of the Middle East, now aflame, is popular
Quoting Dreadnought (Reply 61): - Illegal Immigration: you have to believe that Americans embrace illegal immigration and Obama's extra-Constitutional executive orders implementing the DREAM Act
- Obama himself: you have to believe that the known quantity -- a narcissistic, hyper-partisan,, hard Left demagogue -- is as popular now than ever.
How do you know that all the above are not popular? Please don't point to any poll because we all know how they can be skewed and misleading.
Unless you have your own polls. I am sure that there would be interest in seeing those.
Quoting Dreadnought (Reply 61): - Unemployment: you have to believe that Obama's horrific unemployment record is a winning one
Il give you this one.
Quoting Dreadnought (Reply 61): - Energy: you have to believe that Obama's war on coal - a critical energy source for much of the US - is popular, and people love to pay more for energy (never mind gas prices doubling)
Coal is dead - want to know who killed it? Sub $3 Natural Gas.
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 56): I think Gallup and Rasmussen are probably the most accurate as they use a combination of 2004 and 2008 in their modeling.
Well.. Gallup has Obama leading by 50% to 44%..
Quoting Dreadnought (Reply 65): Shall we poll "You didn't build that" against the repeal of Obamacare? One is a single comment, one is a policy.
Go for it. No one is stopping you. Please document your methodology - so we can learn how a proper poll is taken.
DocLightning From United States of America, joined Nov 2005, 16833 posts, RR: 57 Reply 73, posted (7 months 3 weeks 6 days 17 hours ago) and read 4093 times:
Quoting flymia (Reply 57): You can't be serious. Sarcasm right? There is going to be no "revolt" and no one is going to say the election was a fraud. If turnout for Republicans is low there might be the case of the polls killed the turnout but nothing well be said about election. Revolt really? Come on.
Ya, rly. Not a successful revolt, but a riot with firearms, which could get very ugly.
There will be a lot of pissed-off Republicans, but they have nobody to be pissed-off at but themselves. Maybe it's time to write a sensibly Conservative platform? Just maybe?
flyguy89 From United States of America, joined Feb 2009, 1618 posts, RR: 9 Reply 74, posted (7 months 3 weeks 6 days 17 hours ago) and read 4075 times:
Quoting mt99 (Reply 72): Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 56):
I think Gallup and Rasmussen are probably the most accurate as they use a combination of 2004 and 2008 in their modeling.
Well.. Gallup has Obama leading by 50% to 44%..
I'm well aware. I stated previously that I have no doubt that Obama is leading in the polls, my concern was the margin that certain polls had him leading by.
Quoting DocLightning (Reply 73): Quoting flymia (Reply 57):
You can't be serious. Sarcasm right? There is going to be no "revolt" and no one is going to say the election was a fraud. If turnout for Republicans is low there might be the case of the polls killed the turnout but nothing well be said about election. Revolt really? Come on.
Ya, rly. Not a successful revolt, but a riot with firearms, which could get very ugly.
There will be a lot of pissed-off Republicans, but they have nobody to be pissed-off at but themselves. Maybe it's time to write a sensibly Conservative platform? Just maybe?
Oh pleeeeeze. If I had a nickel for every time the Leftist intelligentsia has unsuccessfully predicted some mythical armed Republican revolt I'd be rich...it was supposed to happen after Clinton got elected, after the OJ acquittal (because Republicans are just racists, don't you know), after Obama got elected, after Obamacare, after the Obamacare supreme court decision...etc. Meanwhile, the ignorant, Leftist youth comprising the Occupy Wall St. movement riots, impedes commerce, vandalizes, defecates in the streets, loiters on private property, elicits the riot police, and runs rampant with rape and theft...but never mind that, it's those violent "Teabaggers" you have to worry about with their zero incidents of violence, respect for the local ordinances for assembly on public property and cleaning up their trash and litter after all their events, what miscreants eh? Duck and take cover for the revolution!
Darksnowynight From United States of America, joined Jan 2012, 986 posts, RR: 1 Reply 75, posted (7 months 3 weeks 6 days 17 hours ago) and read 4069 times:
Quoting Dreadnought (Reply 61):
- Unemployment: you have to believe that Obama's horrific unemployment record is a winning one
What's horrific about making it better than it was before? Does Romney's "Shut up and don't worry about it" plan honestly sound better to you? If so, that puts you in a pretty stark minority.
Quoting Dreadnought (Reply 61):
- 2010 Elections: you have to believe that the 2010 tidal wave election never happened
And given the progress and general across the board improvements that republicans intercepted there, you actually want Americans to forget what republicans and tea partiers did to them at that time.
Quoting Dreadnought (Reply 61):
- Foreign Policy: you have to believe that Obama's bizarre handling of the Middle East, now aflame, is popular
Hmmm... So killing public enemy no.1, building exit strategies for Iraq & Afghanistan, and stablizating our relationships with important allies is bizarre now, huh? Kind of makes you wonder what you actually want here. Sure doesn't sound like peace and prosperity when you put it like that...
Quoting Dreadnought (Reply 61):
- Obama himself: you have to believe that the known quantity -- a narcissistic, hyper-partisan,, hard Left demagogue -- is as popular now than ever.
I do indeed find him to be a bit narcisssistic, yes. But 'Hard Left'? Hardly. In fact, by most standards of the modern world, he's actually somewhat center-right.
Quoting Dreadnought (Reply 65):
Shall we poll "You didn't build that" against the repeal of Obamacare? One is a single comment, one is a policy. It's easy to find little soundbites that tweak people the right or wrong way.
Only folks pretty far from the center had a problem with that line. The Fox crowd & of course the Tea Party, tried their level best to distort that and de-context it. But for Americans, we get it. Those among us who happen to run small business across the country tend to appreciate having a safe infrastructure to do business in. But if you have a problem with that, by all means, feel free to build your own city, and then start a business there.
As for the second, yes I would support a repeal of that. But only if it were immediately replaced with a similar plan with a public option. I can't for the life of me fathom how anyone (other than the insurance lobby for obvious reasons) would be against that.
Posting without Talent is simply Tolerated Vandalism... We are the Vandals.
pu From Sweden, joined Dec 2011, 642 posts, RR: 12 Reply 76, posted (7 months 3 weeks 6 days 17 hours ago) and read 4062 times:
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 18): Currently many of the polls are weighing Democrat voters greater than Republican voters, assuming as said that Democrat voter turn out will be greater than in 2008.
Please provide the names of the polls that are "weighing Democrat voters greater than Republican voters" and the source that proves they are doing this.
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 34): Lastly, party affiliation is asked and then weighted using modeling based on what they predict turn-out will be
Which polls do this? What source says they model predicted turnout based on party affiliation?
.
...because according to the major polling organisations YOU ARE WRONG, PARTY AFFILIATION IS NOT WEIGHTED AND MODELED:
Pu
.....waiting to hear exactly which polls use earlier election party affiliation and/or exit polling data to model 2012 polls....(ps....they don't exist, this will be a very long wait...)
DocLightning From United States of America, joined Nov 2005, 16833 posts, RR: 57 Reply 77, posted (7 months 3 weeks 6 days 17 hours ago) and read 4049 times:
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 74): it was supposed to happen after Clinton got elected
That Federal Building in Oklahoma was a domestic terrorist attack by a Right-Wing extremist.
type-rated From United States of America, joined Sep 1999, 4355 posts, RR: 20 Reply 78, posted (7 months 3 weeks 6 days 15 hours ago) and read 4012 times:
Romney's early campaign touted the fact that he would get rid of Obamacare. Then around Sept 4 or so he says he likes parts of Obamacare and may keep some of it. That's when his ratings started to decline and that was before the 47% remark.
I am really disappointed with the way things have gone for Romney. He could have done so much better than he has.
Fly North Central Airlines..The route of the Northliners!
flyguy89 From United States of America, joined Feb 2009, 1618 posts, RR: 9 Reply 79, posted (7 months 3 weeks 6 days 14 hours ago) and read 4006 times:
Quoting pu (Reply 76): ...because according to the major polling organisations YOU ARE WRONG, PARTY AFFILIATION IS NOT WEIGHTED AND MODELED:
For the last time, it has nothing to do with party affiliation, but past voter behavior which IS a factor in screening likely voters, their methodology is no secret. It's not a conspiracy, it's not some backdoor plan, but the end result of using the 2008 election alone as a reference point is that the poll is likely not as accurate as those such as Gallup and Rasmussen which uses a combination of 2004 and 2008.
Quoting pu (Reply 76): .....waiting to hear exactly which polls use earlier election party affiliation and/or exit polling data to model 2012 polls....(ps....they don't exist, this will be a very long wait...)
All of them, but all of them do not use the same methodologies and reference points when doing their polls, hence why they're all different. In constructing likely voter polls, a determining factor used by all is, again, past voter behavior. It has nothing to do with party affiliation/ID, but past voter behavior gives them a reference point to determine which voters are likely voters in whatever election they're polling. The differing factor is, what are they using for that reference point? Some are only using 2008, some are using '04 AND '08.
Quoting DocLightning (Reply 77): Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 74):
it was supposed to happen after Clinton got elected
That Federal Building in Oklahoma was a domestic terrorist attack by a Right-Wing extremist.
And I know of a couple Left-Wing extremists who killed several million, Lenin and Stalin. Your point? The "Great Armed Republican Uprising" has been over 20 years coming, why hasn't it happened yet? Perhaps they're timing it, to quote Saturday Night Live, to coincide with the Reindeer Uprising of 2012? http://www.hulu.com/watch/56633
PHX787 From Japan, joined Mar 2012, 4989 posts, RR: 14 Reply 80, posted (7 months 3 weeks 6 days 14 hours ago) and read 4000 times:
I just hope this country wakes up and sees that choosing a guy who has failed consistently over the last 4 years is a worse choice than choosing someone that the left-wing media says will fail.
We know nothing about how Romney's gonna run the country. He ran Massachusetts just fine. People need to seriously wake the **** up before we end up like Spain.
Klaus From Germany, joined Jul 2001, 20861 posts, RR: 55 Reply 81, posted (7 months 3 weeks 6 days 13 hours ago) and read 3998 times:
Quoting Dreadnought (Reply 61): - Obama himself: you have to believe that the known quantity -- a narcissistic,
He's more successful at getting people to listen to him than most of his fellow politicians are, which apparently earns him your resentment, but "narcissism"? Where, exactly, is that evident beyond what any politician would attempt to achieve in order to have a hope of re-election?
He's been campaigning hard for actual, substantial results and he actually achieved quite a few substantial successes. That you're unable / unwilling to credit him for any of his achievements is another story.
I've been wondering all along why he has acquiesced to republican obstruction without actually engaging them politically in most matters; All that while Republicans to a large extent can't even bring themselves to concede that he's even a fully qualified citizen, much less the actual, legitimate President.
Sorry, but particularly this one is so utterly bizarre and so far removed from any reality that I had to read that claim a few times to be sure you actually want to claim that.
Sorry, but you cannot have the slightest idea what "left" even means and still make a claim that is so outlandishly removed from any political reality.
Obama stands about center-right on average. In relative terms your claim primarily identifies your own location in the political spectrum.
No, not "as ever", but about as much as an incumbent in difficult times running against an incompetent opponent and a largely delusional, but still somewhat disengaged opposition could hope to be.
Romney has given Obama a pretty good boost with his near-total lack of any apparent political competence and his cynical dismissal of much of the electorate. Combined with his lacking popularity even within his own camp his chances of winning the election look quite remote.
Obama may not look like every voter's favourite politician, but he has proven that he's a competent President of the USA. Romney hasn't even convinced most Republicans of that.
Of course Romney still can' concede (except for health-related reasons) – he'll have to go through with it to the end so he can be saddled with the blame on election night.
Quoting PHX787 (Reply 80):
I just hope this country wakes up and sees that choosing a guy who has failed consistently over the last 4 years is a worse choice than choosing someone that the left-wing media says will fail.
"Failed consistently"?
• Bin Laden has been caught.
• The US car industry is still there today – most of it wouldn't be if Romney had been in control.
• After many decades of failed attempts, he has actually succeeded in introducing a halfway(!) decent health insurance system.
• America's standing in the world has mostly recovered from the Bush/Cheney era.
• The actual cost of the wars which had been conducted "off the books" is now being accounted for.
• The utterly shameful way the US casualties of these wars had been swept under the rug and neglected during the Bush/Cheney years has been corrected for the most part. (The foreign casualties are still a separate matter!)
You're free to list any number of shortcomings and failures, of which there certainly were quite a few as well, but that alone is already a rather decent record for a first term.
Quoting PHX787 (Reply 80): We know nothing about how Romney's gonna run the country. He ran Massachusetts just fine.
His former constituents don't appear to agree with you there at all, if any of the polls there are to be believed.
Quoting PHX787 (Reply 80): People need to seriously wake the **** up before we end up like Spain.
So why had you been sleeping while all that debt had actually been produced during the eight years before?
You're condemning Obama for bringing it all to light, but most of it was already present when he took office – just distributed across a multitude of accounts, kept mostly off the main books.
EA CO AS From United States of America, joined Nov 2001, 12562 posts, RR: 64 Reply 82, posted (7 months 3 weeks 6 days 13 hours ago) and read 3994 times:
Here are the CBS/New York Times internals. And here's the con the CBS/NYTs is attempting to pull:
It would be a "con" only if the results were intentionally distorted.
You have produced zero evidence for that actually being the case.
Polls reflect the current attitude of the population, which may (and likely will) still change until the last election day. But the numbers as such are not evidence of any deliberate distortions – there have been many examples for polls indeed correctly predicting major changes, as well as polls deviating from the actual end results in either direction.
A consistent deviation from the actual results in just one direction would suggest a poll to contain an actual bias, but where is that analysis here?
comorin From United States of America, joined May 2005, 4677 posts, RR: 17 Reply 85, posted (7 months 3 weeks 6 days 8 hours ago) and read 3942 times:
I am starting to feel that the sale of tin foil hats is the jump start the U.S. economy needs. Next we will be talking about faith-based statistical distributions replacing Gaussian bell curves. Where is all this rubbish being spewed coming from? Is there a central Ministry that provides 2 am updates daily to anxious minds?
For those of a rational bent: here is a great article by the left-wing anarchist Nate Silver in the terrorist-sympathizing The New York Times:
Revelation From United States of America, joined Feb 2005, 10494 posts, RR: 20 Reply 87, posted (7 months 3 weeks 6 days 8 hours ago) and read 3925 times:
Quoting pu (Reply 76): "It is important to understand that all of the major polls – Gallup, Pew, Quinnipiac, CBS, ABC, and NBC- do not weight their data by party"
Don't worry about it so much. The GOP are looking for something to blame for thier upcoming loss. Yeah it's not too original to blame it on leftists in the media and their egg-headed intelegencia cohorts, but they need some place too hang their hats.
Quoting Klaus (Reply 81): I've been wondering all along why he has acquiesced to republican obstruction without actually engaging them politically in most matters
The reality is that Obama has been most comfortable being a Chicago-style back room deal maker, and that indeed upsets many in his party and his administration, but the GOP hasn't been able to find a way to use that against him.
Quoting kngkyle (Reply 84): As Stephen Colbert so eloquently put, the Republicans are working through the first phase of grief: denial.
Obama can't possibly be ahead by that much!! It must be a con.
It's just so blatantly obvious.
Indeed it seems Colbert has hit the nail on the head.
Aaron747 From Japan, joined Aug 2003, 7656 posts, RR: 28 Reply 88, posted (7 months 3 weeks 6 days 8 hours ago) and read 3922 times:
Quoting PHX787 (Reply 80): People need to seriously wake the **** up before we end up like Spain.
???
The fiscal cliff is coming no matter which party is in power. That should be plainly obvious to any objective witness of the US political machine. Too many expensive favors in too many quarters for too many ingrained interests that have been continued too long to stop now.
If you need someone to blame / throw a rock in the air / you'll hit someone guilty
Klaus From Germany, joined Jul 2001, 20861 posts, RR: 55 Reply 89, posted (7 months 3 weeks 6 days 7 hours ago) and read 3908 times:
Quoting Revelation (Reply 87): The reality is that Obama has been most comfortable being a Chicago-style back room deal maker, and that indeed upsets many in his party and his administration,
Which "back room deals" would that actually be, in particular, which would have been out in the open otherwise?
Quoting Revelation (Reply 87): but the GOP hasn't been able to find a way to use that against him.
Apparently simply because there's nothing to it – or they would have been able to cite any actual evidence.
The Republicans have so far embarked on a course of absolute, unconditional obstruction, even blocking such obvious matters as benefits and support for military veterans just to somehow damage Obama in the process.
Is there any actual political debate left? Particularly from the right there seems to be hardly anything beyond painting Obama as Satan incarnate and making demands which are so far removed from the center that this will very likely seal their own defeat.
Quoting Aaron747 (Reply 88): The fiscal cliff is coming no matter which party is in power. That should be plainly obvious to any objective witness of the US political machine. Too many expensive favors in too many quarters for too many ingrained interests that have been continued too long to stop now.
Two major war efforts with one of them completely unnecessary would be the biggest-ticket items there.
Revelation From United States of America, joined Feb 2005, 10494 posts, RR: 20 Reply 90, posted (7 months 3 weeks 6 days 6 hours ago) and read 3888 times:
Quoting Klaus (Reply 89): Which "back room deals" would that actually be, in particular, which would have been out in the open otherwise?
I'm not sure my point is getting across correctly.
No one lays down all their cards in the open.
My point is really about the way he's been doing his job.
I feel that many of his supporters would be happier if he was more willing to use his "power of the pulpit" to name and shame obstructionists and to set down lines in the sand.
Instead it seems he's happier to work out deals in the background.
If you want an instance of this, I'll offer up his trade of two more years of Bush-era tax cuts for the extension of unemployment benefits.
Many of his supporters would not have made that compromise and felt blind-sided by the way it was reached.
I think Obama's approach has changed in the last year or so. I think he now (finally?) realizes that no one on the GOP side is politically able to compromise, and we've seen he's reacting accordingly by using presidential powers more broadly.
Unfortunately this means not much will get done especially because due the sharp increase of the use of cloture (see below) it takes a super-majority of 60 to get anything done in the Senate.
Not a pretty picture...
Quoting Klaus (Reply 89): Particularly from the right there seems to be hardly anything beyond painting Obama as Satan incarnate
Or even worse, a muzz-lim, sigh...
Quoting Klaus (Reply 89): and making demands which are so far removed from the center
I feel there's a huge need for things like entitlement reform and that the right could have found a way to run on such a platform, but they are so transparently in favor of making the rich richer and so unwilling to talk about the revenue side of the equation that they have failed to connect with the center.
flyguy89 From United States of America, joined Feb 2009, 1618 posts, RR: 9 Reply 91, posted (7 months 3 weeks 6 days 5 hours ago) and read 3844 times:
Quoting Klaus (Reply 81): I've been wondering all along why he has acquiesced to republican obstruction without actually engaging them politically in most matters
Right, because "Either vote to raise taxes on the rich or we're going to let taxes go up on everybody" is so acquiescing of him.
Quoting Klaus (Reply 81): Obama stands about center-right on average.
His supporters, opponents and reality would disagree with you.
Quoting Klaus (Reply 81): The US car industry is still there today – most of it wouldn't be if Romney had been in control.
Incorrect. Ford? They weren't taking any bailing money, and GM's assets would have gone somewhere, it's an absolute myth that he saved the auto industry. Instead though, we have a government-run manufacturer producing cars no one wants at a loss to the tax-payers whose management is begging for the government to sell their shares.
Quoting Klaus (Reply 81): After many decades of failed attempts, he has actually succeeded in introducing a halfway(!) decent health insurance system.
So you're calling this health care plan which all Americans are forced to buy, and fined if we don't, which purportedly covers at least 10 million more people, without adding a single doctor but provides for 16,000 new IRS agents, written by a committee whose chairman says he doesn't understand it, passed by a Congress who didn't read it but exempted themselves from it, and signed by a president who smokes, with funding administered by a treasury chief who didn't pay his taxes, by a government which has already bankrupted social security and medicare, all to be overseen by a Surgeon General who's obese and financed by a country that's broke a success?
Quoting Klaus (Reply 81): America's standing in the world has mostly recovered from the Bush/Cheney era.
Which we're now seeing is a crock with recent events in the Middle East.
Quoting Klaus (Reply 81): The utterly shameful way the US casualties of these wars had been swept under the rug and neglected during the Bush/Cheney years has been corrected for the most part.
What are you talking about? And you do realize that more US soldiers have died in Afghanistan during Obama's presidency than during Bush's 8 years right?
Because the end-result is that they are weighted according to whatever reference they're using for past voter behavior. They don't actively call up X number of Democrats and X number of Republicans or just decide they want X number more Democrats, it's all about their methodology in screening out likely voters from their sampling.
Quoting Klaus (Reply 81): All that while Republicans to a large extent can't even bring themselves to concede that he's even a fully qualified citizen, much less the actual, legitimate President.
Find me even one Republican official saying Obama is not a citizen.
Quoting Klaus (Reply 81): You're condemning Obama for bringing it all to light, but most of it was already present when he took office – just distributed across a multitude of accounts, kept mostly off the main books.
Incorrect, "most of it" was NOT already there. Obama has added more net debt in four years than Bush in 8 years. Gross public debt under Bush in 8 years went from $5.7 trillion to $10.7 trillion, under Obama it has gone from $10.7 trillion to over $16 trillion (Source: United States Department of the Treasury).
Quoting Revelation (Reply 90): If you want an instance of this, I'll offer up his trade of two more years of Bush-era tax cuts for the extension of unemployment benefits.
Name another example.
Also, Obama stated at the time he agreed to the deal that it wasn't the right time to raise taxes. I'm curious as to why he all of sudden thinks right now IS the right time to raise taxes, the economy being in no better shape than it was two years ago.
mt99 From United States of America, joined exactly 14 years ago today! , 6354 posts, RR: 7 Reply 92, posted (7 months 3 weeks 6 days 4 hours ago) and read 3831 times:
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 91): Obama stated at the time he agreed to the deal that it wasn't the right time to raise taxes. I'm curious as to why he all of sudden thinks right now IS the right time to raise taxes, the economy being in no better shape than it was two years ago.
Romney wants to close "loopholes" isn't that effectively a tax increase?
ltbewr From United States of America, joined Jan 2004, 12338 posts, RR: 12 Reply 93, posted (7 months 3 weeks 6 days ago) and read 3762 times:
There may be several potential issues with the polls and actual election numbers we don't see yet.
We don't know the affects of the voter ID laws in a number of states or how it might scare off some voters even in states without such stricter laws.100's of 1000's many not be able to vote in some states as don't have a 'residence' as have lost a home in foreclosure or they are close to it, they have lost their jobs and had to move to have a place to live or find any work and some who have lost documents needed to vote in a new district.
You have the whole total disgust by millions of potential voters toward politicians due to none of them really listening to them, dislike for both President Obama and Romney as persons, failures to produce decent paying jobs, no help them bail out of their upside-down mortgages, anger over the lack of criminal prosecutions on those of Wall Street who brought the big 2008 financial crash.
Many black voters will not turn out unlike in 2008 to historically elect the first person of African heritage to be President as well as disappointment in not doing enough to help them directly. On The other hand, more white males may turn out to vote in the election booth to kick out the Black guy in office, but won't say that in a survey
The dominance of Republicans on the state level and gaining a major shift in Congressional seats due to reapportionment, the popularity of massive tax cuts on the 'middle class' and demands for less spending on the 'undeserving' (read non-white) poor and on government employees who continue to have generous benefits they have lost or never had Republicans are firm supporters of reducing.
There is also the possibility of another screw up like in Florida of badly designed voting forms in a tight state, possible real voting fraud by messing with the computerised voting machines.
Despite some of the seroius issues as to VP Canidate Ryan, he is a far better qualifed to be VP than the historical disaster that Palin was in 2008 and has a lot of supporters for his tough policies. That will screw up the models used from 2008.
Most of the polls are within the margin of error, and it should be a lot wider due to the additional variations as I noted and many others. In the end, as I and many others have predicted over the last 6 or so months, it will be a close win, pro baby by 1-2% in the overall vote and probably within 20 Electoral votes.
Aaron747 From Japan, joined Aug 2003, 7656 posts, RR: 28 Reply 94, posted (7 months 3 weeks 6 days ago) and read 3755 times:
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 91): His supporters, opponents and reality would disagree with you.
Only if you're looking at things through the filter of American reality. This of course is the problem with most Americans living in their domestic bubble of all-America, all the time. That comment came from a German forumer. Simply put, on the global political spectrum, not the American one, Obama does come in center-right. That was the point.
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 91): So you're calling this health care plan which all Americans are forced to buy, and fined if we don't, which purportedly covers at least 10 million more people, without adding a single doctor but provides for 16,000 new IRS agents, written by a committee whose chairman says he doesn't understand it, passed by a Congress who didn't read it but exempted themselves from it, and signed by a president who smokes, with funding administered by a treasury chief who didn't pay his taxes, by a government which has already bankrupted social security and medicare, all to be overseen by a Surgeon General who's obese and financed by a country that's broke a success?
If you're going to frame policy discussions in those terms, nobody anywhere should make policy about anything. Personally I also believe the healthcare scheme as proposed by the Democrats was a failure, even if their intentions were good. The problem was there are existing two-tier, triple-payer systems that balance public and private interests already in use in places like Israel, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Japan, but nobody bothered to look at implementing the best features of those systems to craft a practical American hybrid.
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 91): Which we're now seeing is a crock with recent events in the Middle East.
Gross oversimplification of a problem that goes way beyond who the sitting US president happens to be. When you find me an American face that can do something about the 30% unemployment that sends hooligans into the streets in Arab countries whenever the slightest excuse for a public showing arises, then any talk of any US president influencing anything might be relevant.
If you need someone to blame / throw a rock in the air / you'll hit someone guilty
Aesma From France, joined Nov 2009, 4813 posts, RR: 9 Reply 95, posted (7 months 3 weeks 5 days 23 hours ago) and read 3734 times:
I read here a lot that Democratic turnout was exceptional in 2008, which I tend to believe. We had the same situation here in 2007. One candidate, Sarkozy, was the media darling (quite a feat for a right wing politician in this country, not likely to be seen again for a long time). But what this caused is that the other camp also turned up en masse, and Sarkozy won with 53% of the vote, a good number but nothing exceptional. The global turnout was exceptional at around 85% (compared to the US 55%). So, didn't Obama bring many a Republican to the ballot too, in 2008 ?
I'm sure the turnout will be less this time, as it was in France, but not just for Obama.
New Technology is the name we give to stuff that doesn't work yet. Douglas Adams
flyguy89 From United States of America, joined Feb 2009, 1618 posts, RR: 9 Reply 96, posted (7 months 3 weeks 5 days 23 hours ago) and read 3723 times:
Quoting mt99 (Reply 92): Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 91):
Obama stated at the time he agreed to the deal that it wasn't the right time to raise taxes. I'm curious as to why he all of sudden thinks right now IS the right time to raise taxes, the economy being in no better shape than it was two years ago.
Romney wants to close "loopholes" isn't that effectively a tax increase?
No because he also wants to decrease marginal rates which also broadens the tax base.
Quoting Aaron747 (Reply 94): Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 91):
His supporters, opponents and reality would disagree with you.
Only if you're looking at things through the filter of American reality.
And that's the only reality that matters in the election. I've lived abroad and was actually in Paris during French presidential elections, the Left and the Right in Europe are not the same as the Left and the Right in the US. America is far more to the right politically than many other countries obviously, so no it's not surprising that a European sees Obama as center-right ideologically, but that's not the reality here in the US.
Quoting Aaron747 (Reply 94): If you're going to frame policy discussions in those terms, nobody anywhere should make policy about anything.
It certainly was not the "change" in Washington's ways that many hoped for in voting for Obama. I remember very well the 2008 election, Obama ran an amazing campaign and I could definitely understand the attraction to Obama's message of Hope and Change, however I didn't buy it that he would actually be able usher in such change. Some argue that peoples' expectations were just too high, I also don't buy that because Obama certainly didn't do anything to tamper down those expectations.
Quoting Aaron747 (Reply 94): Gross oversimplification of a problem that goes way beyond who the sitting US president happens to be.
I didn't say his policies had caused it, I was merely pointing out the myth that he had somehow magically improved the standing of the US in those countries. As you said, it's a problem that goes way beyond whoever is in the White House.
Aesma From France, joined Nov 2009, 4813 posts, RR: 9 Reply 97, posted (7 months 3 weeks 5 days 22 hours ago) and read 3696 times:
Since you were here during the French elections, you might have noticed that this time no great promises were made. Still, opinion polls are already bad for new president François Hollande. So it seems elections just excite people more than they realize.
New Technology is the name we give to stuff that doesn't work yet. Douglas Adams
mt99 From United States of America, joined exactly 14 years ago today! , 6354 posts, RR: 7 Reply 98, posted (7 months 3 weeks 5 days 21 hours ago) and read 3665 times:
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 96): No because he also wants to decrease marginal rates which also broadens the tax base.
But how? Ryan had the chance to explain today.. but he couldn't..
He did say though that first to have to pay more in taxes where the "rich"
flyguy89 From United States of America, joined Feb 2009, 1618 posts, RR: 9 Reply 99, posted (7 months 3 weeks 5 days 20 hours ago) and read 3651 times:
Quoting Aesma (Reply 97): Since you were here during the French elections, you might have noticed that this time no great promises were made. Still, opinion polls are already bad for new president François Hollande. So it seems elections just excite people more than they realize.
It was actually very interesting. Most everyone I talked to seemed sure that Sarkozy would probably win, but then he lurched to the right to try and attract some of Marine Le Pen's voters which ultimately seemed to have cost him the election. People certainly did seem VERY excited when Hollande was elected, my friends and I went down to Place de la Bastille for a few drinks and practically ended up having to run for our lives from the victory rally there!
Quoting mt99 (Reply 98): Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 96):
No because he also wants to decrease marginal rates which also broadens the tax base.
But how? Ryan had the chance to explain today.. but he couldn't..
You mean by refusing to name which loopholes they want to get rid of? The explanation has been that they don't want to say so they'll be able to more easily negotiate with Congress which makes sense to me, but then again, Obama has refused to address how raising taxes on the rich will help the economy since the CBO has said his tax proposal will cost us jobs here in the US. The idea behind it is to lower rates but close loopholes, effectively giving taxpayers more take-home pay in their checks.
mt99 From United States of America, joined exactly 14 years ago today! , 6354 posts, RR: 7 Reply 100, posted (7 months 3 weeks 5 days 20 hours ago) and read 3641 times:
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 99): You mean by refusing to name which loopholes they want to get rid of? The explanation has been that they don't want to say so they'll be able to more easily negotiate with Congress
He didn't say that in that video... Why not? You feel that they cannot make they own excuses?
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 99): Obama has refused to address how raising taxes on the rich will help the economy
On the flip side.. how does lower taxes for the rich equate to more jobs?
"The combined net worth of the 2012 class of the 400 richest Americans is $1.7 trillion, up from $1.5 trillion a year ago. "
cws818 From United States of America, joined Aug 2008, 1167 posts, RR: 2 Reply 101, posted (7 months 3 weeks 5 days 20 hours ago) and read 3643 times:
Quoting PHX787 (Reply 80): I just hope this country wakes up and sees that choosing a guy who has failed consistently over the last 4 years is a worse choice than choosing someone that the left-wing media says will fail.
Where were you in 2004?
Quoting PHX787 (Reply 80): We know nothing about how Romney's gonna run the country.
flyguy89 From United States of America, joined Feb 2009, 1618 posts, RR: 9 Reply 102, posted (7 months 3 weeks 5 days 20 hours ago) and read 3621 times:
Quoting mt99 (Reply 100): Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 99):
You mean by refusing to name which loopholes they want to get rid of? The explanation has been that they don't want to say so they'll be able to more easily negotiate with Congress
He didn't say that in that video... Why not? You feel that they cannot make they own excuses?
Yeah I watched the video and I fail to see where the issue was except for that "I don't have time to go through all the math" soundbite Left-leaning Slate.com was salivating at. The questioning was bizarre...no sh*t you cut taxes and it theoretically cuts into revenue, what matters is the way loopholes will be closed and the tax base broadened to make up for that "loss". It was all done before with great success in the 1980's.
Quoting mt99 (Reply 100): On the flip side.. how does lower taxes for the rich equate to more jobs?
You're calling something BS that's been proven many times over to work. Reagan in the 80's massively slashed taxes and revenue doubled, Bush cut taxes near the start of his presidency and shortly afterwards the federal government took in the greatest amount of revenue ever, if you choose to call that BS that's your prerogative. My proof is in history, show me any sliver of proof in the recent past where a nation has taxed it's way out of a recession and into prosperity. I mean seriously, even Clinton doesn't think we should be raising taxes.
mt99 From United States of America, joined exactly 14 years ago today! , 6354 posts, RR: 7 Reply 103, posted (7 months 3 weeks 5 days 19 hours ago) and read 3611 times:
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 102): My proof is in history, show me any sliver of proof in the recent past where a nation has taxed it's way out of a recession and into prosperity.
I can tell you the story of a country that spent its way out of the Great Depression...
Now you show me how the increased wealth of the Forbes 400 affected the employment rate last year ,
flyguy89 From United States of America, joined Feb 2009, 1618 posts, RR: 9 Reply 104, posted (7 months 3 weeks 5 days 19 hours ago) and read 3604 times:
Quoting mt99 (Reply 103): Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 102):
My proof is in history, show me any sliver of proof in the recent past where a nation has taxed it's way out of a recession and into prosperity.
I can tell you the story of a country that spent its way out of the Great Depression...
...thanks to WWII! It's well known that FDR's policies did little to improve the depression situation and even arguable that he prolonged it, no you can thank WWII for getting us out of that one.
Quoting mt99 (Reply 103): Now you show me how the increased wealth of the Forbes 400 affected the employment rate last year
I'm not talking about the Forbes 400, I'm not obsessing about what my neighbor down the street is making, I'm talking about Supply-side economics which has, again, been proven to work many times over.
mt99 From United States of America, joined exactly 14 years ago today! , 6354 posts, RR: 7 Reply 105, posted (7 months 3 weeks 5 days 19 hours ago) and read 3597 times:
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 104): I'm not obsessing about what my neighbor down the street is making,
What makes you think that i am doing so? Ryan seems to focus on these Rich people first? you didn't see the video?
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 104): I'm talking about Supply-side economics which has, again, been proven to work many times over.
It did not work last year here did it? Did it work when the airlines could not collect the FAA tax? again, did they lower the prices or did they pocket the money?
Darksnowynight From United States of America, joined Jan 2012, 986 posts, RR: 1 Reply 106, posted (7 months 3 weeks 5 days 19 hours ago) and read 3591 times:
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 104):
...thanks to WWII! It's well known that FDR's policies did little to improve the depression situation and even arguable that he prolonged it, no you can thank WWII for getting us out of that one.
No, it's well guessed. There's as much, if not more, evidence to the contrary, not limited to the recession that immediately followed WWII.
A lot of what FDR put into place is still around today, mitigating pretty much every recession since.
I don't know where people got this idea that War is good for a national economy. It's only good, without exception, for a short term burst of spending, immediately followed by an inflation & wage hangover period. War is not analogous to getting a better job, as you seem to mistakenly think, but much more like getting an AMEX card in the mail. Enjoy it now, we'll bill you later is how that works.
Posting without Talent is simply Tolerated Vandalism... We are the Vandals.
EA CO AS From United States of America, joined Nov 2001, 12562 posts, RR: 64 Reply 107, posted (7 months 3 weeks 5 days 19 hours ago) and read 3597 times:
Quoting cws818 (Reply 101): Quoting PHX787 (Reply 80):We know nothing about how Romney's gonna run the country.
That is precisely the problem!!!!
How is it a problem? It worked flawlessly for Obama in 2008; he only talked in broad strokes about "hope" and "change" but never quite got into specifics:
"In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem - government IS the problem." - Ronald Reagan
mt99 From United States of America, joined exactly 14 years ago today! , 6354 posts, RR: 7 Reply 108, posted (7 months 3 weeks 5 days 19 hours ago) and read 3584 times:
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 104): ..thanks to WWII! It's well known that FDR's policies did little to improve the depression situation and even arguable that he prolonged it, no you can thank WWII for getting us out of that one.
flyguy89 From United States of America, joined Feb 2009, 1618 posts, RR: 9 Reply 109, posted (7 months 3 weeks 5 days 18 hours ago) and read 3575 times:
Quoting mt99 (Reply 105): Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 104):
I'm not obsessing about what my neighbor down the street is making,
What makes you think that i am doing so? Ryan seems to focus on these Rich people first? you didn't see the video?
Because you keep railing on and on about the Forbes 400, I watched the video and he's only focusing on these "Rich people" in saying their deductions will be the first to go so deductions preferential to the middle class can be kept.
Quoting mt99 (Reply 105): It did not work last year here did it? Did it work when the airlines could not collect the FAA tax? again, did they lower the prices or did they pocket the money?
You're trying to equate an entire market and fiscal policy with one industry which is just illogical. You can be sure that airlines being able to enjoy the higher margins benefited from that as did the tens of thousands of airline employees. And what do you mean they "pocket the money"? If by pocketing money you mean investing in new equipment/technologies and injecting capital into the economy, that's a good thing. If by pocketing money you mean paying down debt to creditors/investors, that's a good thing. If by pocketing money you mean making profit-sharing payments to their employees, that's a good thing. How is this proving your argument that taxes should be raised again?
mt99 From United States of America, joined exactly 14 years ago today! , 6354 posts, RR: 7 Reply 111, posted (7 months 3 weeks 5 days 18 hours ago) and read 3566 times:
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 109): "Rich people" in saying their deductions will be the first to go so deductions preferential to the middle class can be kept.
Aha!!! Class warfare! Attack the rich!! Paging Karl Marx.. Class warfare from the GOP!!!
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 109): ou can be sure that airlines being able to enjoy the higher margins benefited from that as did the tens of thousands of airline employees.
Because Corporations are people right?
I guess as long a CEOs got their bonus from that extra money, we are can all go to bed happy
Quoting PHX787 (Reply 110): Well we know Obama has failed. We don't know about Romney.
"The Devil you know is better than the Devil you don't"...
Dreadnought From United States of America, joined Feb 2008, 7794 posts, RR: 22 Reply 112, posted (7 months 3 weeks 5 days 18 hours ago) and read 3569 times:
Quoting mt99 (Reply 100): Last year the Forbes 400 made more money than in any other year - yet how had the labor market fared in the same period? How high is the DOW today?
What do you expect? The wealthy will always do OK - even if you increase their taxes to ridiculous levels, or impose other stringent regulations on their businesses. The real impact of those things is to lessen their propensity to spread that wealth around by starting or expanding their businesses, and keeping their money for themselves.
Basic economics. But somehow I doubt you'll believe it. The rich are just being selfish, right?
BMI727 From United States of America, joined Feb 2009, 14358 posts, RR: 26 Reply 113, posted (7 months 3 weeks 5 days 18 hours ago) and read 3565 times:
Quoting mt99 (Reply 103): I can tell you the story of a country that spent its way out of the Great Depression...
Contrary to what you may have been taught in high school, the New Deal was a failure, not unlike how Obama's stimulus failed to end this recession.
Secondly, Roosevelt raised taxes during the Depression, which was another misstep the Democrats seem eager to repeat. The lowest tax rate went from 1.5% in 1929 to 4% in 1932 while the highest tax bracket (in 1929) went from 25% in 1929 to 56% in 1932 to 62% in 1936. The highest tax bracket overall went from 25% in 1929 to 63% in 1932 to 79% in 1936. Overall, raising taxes in a weak economy is an exceptionally poor idea. Furthermore, you have to remember that this was an age before offshore banking and investments in foreign countries was a less viable option. Suffice to say, that's not smart at the moment.
Beyond that, let's remember that ending a war and slashing defense spending has been nearly the equivalent of a "Go directly to Recession. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200" card. It happened after WWI, it happened after WWII, it happened after the Korean War, and it's no coincidence that the Cold War period was largely very prosperous since the nation was in many respects fighting a war economically, if not physically. Drawing down foreign combat operations on a large scale is okay, but the liberal wet dream of slashing defense budgets would be a poor plan both in terms of national defense and the economy, especially when it's not at all clear that we can count on another Ronald Reagan to swoop in and save both after the economy and military both found themselves in a sorry state after the Vietnam War.
Franklin Roosevelt also did not abandon the gold standard, which is obviously not something that could be repeated now at least. What really ended the Great Depression was WWII, especially the early part which largely consisted of American profiteering as well as attempts to catch up after the neglect the military suffered post WWI. The war also probably saved FDR's presidential legacy, which otherwise could have been that of a proto-Jimmy Carter. The bottom line is that you don't fix recessions by ending wars. You fix recessions by starting wars.
And let's consider what sorts of jobs and industries might suffer if defense budgets get cut: high tech manufacturing, engineering, etc. All solid middle class professions standing right in the crosshairs of those who preach about the strength of the middle class. For all the talk about "Main Street" or "Joe the Plumber", let's remember that economic home runs like the digital revolution and the internet come from the top rather than the bottom (in terms of education and industry). I think that America spends way too much time trying to get back what they had or keep what they have and too little time trying to get what's next. The result will be losing both the past and the future.
So let's review what Democrats want to do:
1. More stimulus, which the national debt cannot really handle, didn't work during the Great Depression and hasn't worked during this recession.
2. Cut defense budgets, which has regularly led to economic downturns and would possibly push more people out of the middle class and into the Democrats' precious social programs.
3. Raise taxes, which is a poor idea in a rough economy. Not to mention that now there are more options for working around such tax hikes than in the past.
So with a little over a month until election day, the question needs to be asked: are there any more mistakes that they want to try and make?
Quoting mt99 (Reply 105): Did it work when the airlines could not collect the FAA tax? again, did they lower the prices or did they pocket the money?
Really? You're going to use two weeks of one tax not being levied to make blanket statements about macroeconomics?
Why do Aerospace Engineering students have to turn things in on time?
mt99 From United States of America, joined exactly 14 years ago today! , 6354 posts, RR: 7 Reply 115, posted (7 months 3 weeks 5 days 18 hours ago) and read 3559 times:
Quoting Dreadnought (Reply 112): even if you increase their taxes to ridiculous levels, or impose other stringent regulations on their businesses. The real impact of those things is to lessen their propensity to spread that wealth around by starting or expanding their businesses, and keeping their money for themselves.
But that did not happen last year, or the year prior - their taxes have remained the same.. their wealth increased and the claim that taking care of them will result in job increase has not materialized.
If i am getting a 15% ROI and after new regulations and taxes i get 14% am i going to throw everything out of the window?
flyguy89 From United States of America, joined Feb 2009, 1618 posts, RR: 9 Reply 116, posted (7 months 3 weeks 5 days 18 hours ago) and read 3539 times:
...thanks to WWII! It's well known that FDR's policies did little to improve the depression situation and even arguable that he prolonged it, no you can thank WWII for getting us out of that one.
No, it's well guessed. There's as much, if not more, evidence to the contrary, not limited to the recession that immediately followed WWII.
Not really, the numbers on employment, taxes, revenues, job creation in those years are all very straight forward. FDR spent A LOT of money with little result when he wasn't trying to stack the Supreme Court. I will say this though, at least there are SOME things to show for all his stimulus money such as the Hoover Dam and TVA versus Obama's stimulus.
Quoting mt99 (Reply 108): Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 104):
..thanks to WWII! It's well known that FDR's policies did little to improve the depression situation and even arguable that he prolonged it, no you can thank WWII for getting us out of that one.
Oh.. and WWII was free.. i forgot!
How is war not government expenditure?
Oh, so you mean we SHOULDN'T cut defense spending?
Quoting Darksnowynight (Reply 106): I don't know where people got this idea that War is good for a national economy.
Long-term it certainly isn't good for the economy, but in that period of time there's no denying it was critical to getting the national economy moving again.
Quoting mt99 (Reply 111): Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 109):
"Rich people" in saying their deductions will be the first to go so deductions preferential to the middle class can be kept.
Aha!!! Class warfare! Attack the rich!! Paging Karl Marx.. Class warfare from the GOP!!!
How many times does this need to be stated: One candidate wants to raise their taxes AND close loopholes, the other candidate wants to LOWER their taxes and close loopholes...I think it's obvious which one is the class warfare warrior.
Quoting mt99 (Reply 111): Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 109):
ou can be sure that airlines being able to enjoy the higher margins benefited from that as did the tens of thousands of airline employees.
Because Corporations are people right?
I guess as long a CEOs got their bonus from that extra money, we are can all go to bed happy
Sure, as did their employees in their profit-sharing checks. You conveniently ignored every other point I made about investing in new equipment, paying down debt...etc.
Quoting mt99 (Reply 115): Make sure the rich keep being rich and getting richer and MAYBE, they will hire you..
Well, have you ever gotten a job from a poor person? Would you prefer the rich live and invest somewhere else? I mean really, they pay 70% of income taxes in the US. Just look at France right now: Hollande promised he'd raise the highest bracket to 75%, a populist message ("stick it to the rich..yeah!"), but now he's trying to figure out a way in which he can do it without really doing it to avoid a capital flight as Britain, Switzerland and the likes have said they would roll out the red carpet and happily welcome France's millionaires as citizens.
EA CO AS From United States of America, joined Nov 2001, 12562 posts, RR: 64 Reply 117, posted (7 months 3 weeks 5 days 17 hours ago) and read 3536 times:
Quoting mt99 (Reply 111): Quoting PHX787 (Reply 110):Well we know Obama has failed. We don't know about Romney.
"The Devil you know is better than the Devil you don't"...
If that's the case, why didn't you support and/or vote for McCain in 2008? After all, the left's sole narrative was that he was just like Bush...
"In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem - government IS the problem." - Ronald Reagan
mt99 From United States of America, joined exactly 14 years ago today! , 6354 posts, RR: 7 Reply 118, posted (7 months 3 weeks 5 days 17 hours ago) and read 3529 times:
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 116): Oh, so you mean we SHOULDN'T cut defense spending?
Its is you who is sugesting we use wars as a stimulus pacakge.
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 116): How many times does this need to be stated: One candidate wants to raise their taxes AND close loopholes, the other candidate wants to LOWER their taxes and close loopholes...I think it's obvious which one is the class warfare warrior.
By making 1+1=8? How is he going to do if? Oh yes the has no time to explain. Just trust him.. Trust Romney blindly. He has never changed his mind.
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 116): Sure, as did their employees in their profit-sharing checks. You conveniently ignored every other point I made about investing in new equipment, paying down debt...etc.
No, i addrsessed it. I said that you belive that corportions are people be we should bow down to and beg for work. Which is fine. (Ok that a bit dramatic) but honestly a very marginal increase in taxes will not spell doom for any company. On the contrary it may spur additional efficienies that create even more profita
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 116): I mean really, they pay 70% of income taxes in the US.
And who is proposiing 70%?!!! We know it not Obama, it must be Romeny becuase he has not told us any details
Darksnowynight From United States of America, joined Jan 2012, 986 posts, RR: 1 Reply 119, posted (7 months 3 weeks 5 days 17 hours ago) and read 3519 times:
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 116):
Not really, the numbers on employment, taxes, revenues, job creation in those years are all very straight forward.
Again, all of which, and thensome, were given back in the recession that followed. WWII had to happen for obvious reasons, but to say it saved us from the Depression is missing the picture here. Even during the war, quality of life was not overall improved at home, given the amount of rationing and personal sacrafice going on at the time (which by the way is something this somewhat war-hungry generation seems to conveniently ignore).
The only legacy of WWII that actually benefitted anyone at the personal level was the GI bill.
And since someone else here said:
Quoting BMI727 (Reply 113): the liberal wet dream of slashing defense budgets would be a poor plan both in terms of national defense and the economy,
If we cut our own defense spending to a reasonable level, and allowed our economic partners in the world (ahem, China, that would be you) to start picking up the tab for the defensive stability that they use and we pay for, we would indeed have all kinds of money to gainfully employ folks at home for Green or Infrastructural Projects. It's not as if that's un-needed anyway.
Anyway, that's another topic entirely...
Mitt should stay in the race, it's what his investors have paid for & he'd be doing them a disservice to Palin out now.
Personally, I have to wonder if Obama would ever consider going the Lincoln route and appoint Mitt to some executive branch cabinet position after next January...
Posting without Talent is simply Tolerated Vandalism... We are the Vandals.
BMI727 From United States of America, joined Feb 2009, 14358 posts, RR: 26 Reply 120, posted (7 months 3 weeks 5 days 16 hours ago) and read 3520 times:
Quoting Darksnowynight (Reply 119): WWII had to happen for obvious reasons, but to say it saved us from the Depression is missing the picture here.
It did. When the factories had to start churning out equipment for the retooling of the US military and the allies is the point when people started really going back to work and making money. None of the New Deal policies managed to do that.
Quoting Darksnowynight (Reply 119): Even during the war, quality of life was not overall improved at home, given the amount of rationing and personal sacrafice going on at the time (which by the way is something this somewhat war-hungry generation seems to conveniently ignore).
It wasn't because people weren't working or making money, it was because there wasn't anything to buy due to wartime rationing. You couldn't spend your money on a new car because all the capacity was turning out war material. People weren't going off on vacation or buying consumer goods either, but not for lack of employment.
Quoting Darksnowynight (Reply 119): If we cut our own defense spending to a reasonable level, and allowed our economic partners in the world (ahem, China, that would be you) to start picking up the tab for the defensive stability that they use and we pay for, we would indeed have all kinds of money to gainfully employ folks at home for Green or Infrastructural Projects. It's not as if that's un-needed anyway.
Keep the defense budget where it needs to be and pay for infrastructure by dropping loser social programs.
It's painful to see that so many people seem to want to go back to the days of Jimmy Carter. Unless you can promise me a Reagan on the other end of it that's an awful deal.
Why do Aerospace Engineering students have to turn things in on time?
flyguy89 From United States of America, joined Feb 2009, 1618 posts, RR: 9 Reply 121, posted (7 months 3 weeks 5 days 16 hours ago) and read 3512 times:
Quoting mt99 (Reply 118): Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 116):
Oh, so you mean we SHOULDN'T cut defense spending?
Its is you who is sugesting we use wars as a stimulus pacakge.
Point to where I suggested that.
Quoting mt99 (Reply 118): Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 116):
How many times does this need to be stated: One candidate wants to raise their taxes AND close loopholes, the other candidate wants to LOWER their taxes and close loopholes...I think it's obvious which one is the class warfare warrior.
By making 1+1=8? How is he going to do if?
Where do you get 1+1=8? I'm not sure how much more straightforward you can get, the marginal rates would be lowered for EVERYONE and then tax loopholes closed which are preferential for the upper bracket. What about this don't you get? How is he going to do it you ask, well I would assume he would work with Congress and pass a bill...how else do you think he'd do it?
Quoting mt99 (Reply 118): Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 116):
Sure, as did their employees in their profit-sharing checks. You conveniently ignored every other point I made about investing in new equipment, paying down debt...etc.
No, i addrsessed it. I said that you belive that corportions are people be we should bow down to and beg for work.
No, you did not address it. You tried to fallaciously make a connection between a tax not being levied for a few weeks to an entire macroeconomic theory, for some reason asserting that because airlines didn't lower ticket prices that Supply-side economics is bunk. You stated that the airlines just "pocket the money" to which I clearly showed they don't do (servicing debt, upgrading equipment, paying employees...all of which create jobs and additional tax payers by the way).
Quoting mt99 (Reply 118): but honestly a very marginal increase in taxes will not spell doom for any company. On the contrary it may spur additional efficienies that create even more profita
...which is why they go to China and ship jobs overseas, because you force them to find these additional efficiencies to maintain profits. Do you seriously expect to bring jobs and FDI back to the US by raising the cost of doing business here? If you do you're dreaming and China, India and Brazil are laughing all the way to the bank.
Quoting mt99 (Reply 118): Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 116):
I mean really, they pay 70% of income taxes in the US.
And who is proposiing 70%?!!! We know it not Obama, it must be Romeny becuase he has not told us any details
Not a 70% tax RATE! Rather they pay 70% of all income taxes received by the federal government.
Quoting Darksnowynight (Reply 119): but to say it saved us from the Depression is missing the picture here. Even during the war, quality of life was not overall improved at home, given the amount of rationing and personal sacrafice going on at the time
No, quality of life during the war didn't markedly improve, but massive investment in production and new defense technologies had a large and tangible effect on jump-starting the economy for post-war life.
Quoting Darksnowynight (Reply 119): If we cut our own defense spending to a reasonable level, and allowed our economic partners in the world
Are you honestly trusting China to maintain defensive stability in the world when they prop up communist totalitarian regimes like North Korea and Myanmar (both of which make Mubarrak look like the world's most enlightened ruler) and pressing territorial claims on free democracies like Taiwan? China, as wonderful as it's economy has been, is still an un-democratic, communist human rights abuser and the vast majority of their citizens live in abject poverty with restrictive rights, can you honestly say with a straight face that you want THEM being a military leader in the world? Why wouldn't you say that Britain, Canada, France, Germany and Brazil should step up...China? Honestly?
Klaus From Germany, joined Jul 2001, 20861 posts, RR: 55 Reply 122, posted (7 months 3 weeks 5 days 16 hours ago) and read 3512 times:
Quoting BMI727 (Reply 120): When the factories had to start churning out equipment for the retooling of the US military and the allies is the point when people started really going back to work and making money. None of the New Deal policies managed to do that.
And the funds for military programs come from where in your theory?
In reality, they come from
a) taxes,
b) debt or
c) inflation.
(With inflation meaning the respective central bank printing money for the government (where that is possible) which effectively acts as a general tax again.)
Quoting BMI727 (Reply 120): Keep the defense budget where it needs to be and pay for infrastructure by dropping loser social programs.
Yep. Give the middle class and the (often still working) poor a kick in the teeth so weapons manufacturers can be fattened up even more. That will of course solve any problem an economy could ever have...!
Quoting BMI727 (Reply 120): It's painful to see that so many people seem to want to go back to the days of Jimmy Carter. Unless you can promise me a Reagan on the other end of it that's an awful deal.
Reagan funded his "star wars" initiative with debt. Dick Cheney infamously remarked that "Deficits don't matter – Reagan has proved that!".
So how much or how little does the debt piled on top of Reagan's debt by the Bush/Cheney administration actually matter today, combined with the self-inflicted meltdown of the banking sector?
I seem to remember especially the Republicans crying bloody murder about the level of debt at the same time – I can't shake the feeling that they don't actually realize what they're doing there...!
BMI727 From United States of America, joined Feb 2009, 14358 posts, RR: 26 Reply 123, posted (7 months 3 weeks 5 days 16 hours ago) and read 3506 times:
Quoting Klaus (Reply 122): And the funds for military programs come from where in your theory?
Taxes, and considering that the military is one of the essential functions of government, it's money well spent. That said, a healthy economy will always have some inflation.
Quoting Klaus (Reply 122): Give the middle class and the (often still working) poor a kick in the teeth so weapons manufacturers can be fattened up even more.
Who do you think works at those weapons manufacturers? Those are the educated, middle class professionals everyone keeps worrying about hurting. Major defense cuts could cause a serious brain drain, which would leave America in a bad situation.
Quoting Klaus (Reply 122): Reagan funded his "star wars" initiative with debt. Dick Cheney infamously remarked that "Deficits don't matter – Reagan has proved that!".
The defense budget has to be healthy but spent on projects with actual value. Like infrastructure spending, it can't be spending for spending's sake, because the more rational among us call that "waste."
Why do Aerospace Engineering students have to turn things in on time?
Darksnowynight From United States of America, joined Jan 2012, 986 posts, RR: 1 Reply 124, posted (7 months 3 weeks 5 days 15 hours ago) and read 3499 times:
Quoting BMI727 (Reply 120): pay for infrastructure by dropping loser social programs.
As opposed to that "winner" defense program of ours that takes about a decade to admit that it lost a war the previous administration was sure was an "easy win?"
Quoting BMI727 (Reply 120):
Keep the defense budget where it needs to be
Which would be about 30% of what it currently is, yes.
Quoting BMI727 (Reply 120): It's painful to see that so many people seem to want to go back to the days of Jimmy Carter. Unless you can promise me a Reagan on the other end of it that's an awful deal.
Apples to Oranges. You may believe that the world looks like "Red Alert," but the rest of us seem to have gotten the memo that the Cold War is over. Unless you're proposing to start a new one of those, that assertion of yours is somewhat disconnected from the present reality.
Posting without Talent is simply Tolerated Vandalism... We are the Vandals.
BMI727 From United States of America, joined Feb 2009, 14358 posts, RR: 26 Reply 125, posted (7 months 3 weeks 5 days 15 hours ago) and read 3494 times:
Not even close. There are plenty of savings in ending two overseas wars, but some of that money is going to have to go towards restoring and retooling the force. The future of the military may be smaller in terms of manpower, but may not be that much cheaper.
Quoting Darksnowynight (Reply 124): You may believe that the world looks like "Red Alert," but the rest of us seem to have gotten the memo that the Cold War is over.
The Cold War is over, however that is anything but a free pass to slash defense spending. Really the Cold War was a much simpler time: we knew pretty much who we would fight, where we would do it, and how it would be fought. Now situations are much more in flux. The capability must be maintained at levels that are for the most part similar, but has to be a much smarter and quicker to react force. The truth is that in the future, we have less idea what wars may be fought and in what environments.
Add to that the new-ish threat of terrorism that requires different capabilities than the conventional standing military. Even though they must be a smarter force than in Cold War days, fighting terrorism requires unprecedented aggression, speed, intelligence, and collaboration. Just because those doing the fighting may do so in smaller groups and may never fire a shot does not mean that the team behind them does not need to be as capable and intelligent as any in history.
So while the force needed to respond to future threats may need two prongs, I believe they have one major thing in common. While previous wars were fought largely on the backs of manpower and machinery, future conflicts, be it against a dozen terrorists or a division of soldiers, will rely more and more on information: getting it, analyzing it, sharing it, and utilizing it in a timely manner. Gaining and maintaining that capability will take funding and a lot of really intelligent and really dedicated people. The military of tomorrow may not be bigger than before, but it damn well better be smarter.
Why do Aerospace Engineering students have to turn things in on time?
seb146 From United States of America, joined Nov 1999, 9835 posts, RR: 17 Reply 126, posted (7 months 3 weeks 5 days 15 hours ago) and read 3491 times:
Quoting Dreadnought (Reply 112): The wealthy will always do OK - even if you increase their taxes to ridiculous levels, or impose other stringent regulations on their businesses.
So, the wealthy (a.k.a. "Job Creators") are doing well according to you. They can create jobs.
Where are the jobs? Even if taxes on Job Creators are increased, you admit they will still be able to create jobs. Where are the jobs? Where are the jobs? Has that worked over the past 12 years? Has it really? Obama, according to FOX and the right-wing, has not created one job. Even with 39 months of job growth, no jobs have been created. Just think what job growth would have been with taxes being higher! MORE jobs. That's right: MORE JOBS!
The right does not want to think about that. The Democrat (read: Black guy) in the White House doing well? Perish the thought! Like Mitch McConnell said: "Make Obama a one-term president"! That is the top priority of the right-wing.
flyguy89 From United States of America, joined Feb 2009, 1618 posts, RR: 9 Reply 127, posted (7 months 3 weeks 5 days 15 hours ago) and read 3490 times:
Quoting seb146 (Reply 126): So, the wealthy (a.k.a. "Job Creators") are doing well according to you. They can create jobs.
Where are the jobs? Even if taxes on Job Creators are increased, you admit they will still be able to create jobs.
Do they have the financial means to create jobs? Obviously. But why would they do it if you're making it impossible for them to do so profitably?
Quoting seb146 (Reply 126): Even with 39 months of job growth, no jobs have been created.
Try doing your own research instead of going to Obama's re-election website. In each of those 39 months of job growth, the job growth has been too anemic to even keep up with growth in the workforce, so joblessness has continued to increase in every one of those months. The economy needs to be creating well over 150,000 jobs a month to keep up with population growth AND add jobs...what was that August jobs report again? Only 96,000 jobs added? tisk tisk
Oh yes, it couldn't possibly be the abject failures of his policies to turn around the economy or his imperial governing style...we have to hate him because he's black. Never mind that currently one of the darling politicians of the Right is black nor that Herman Cain was a very serious contender for the Republican nomination, nope, just completely ignore all that because it HAS to be racism because who in their right mind couldn't like Obama? Get over yourself, the 'racist' card has no honorable place in the forum of civilized discourse.
Dreadnought From United States of America, joined Feb 2008, 7794 posts, RR: 22 Reply 128, posted (7 months 3 weeks 5 days 9 hours ago) and read 3450 times:
Quoting mt99 (Reply 115): But that did not happen last year, or the year prior - their taxes have remained the same.. their wealth increased and the claim that taking care of them will result in job increase has not materialized.
Their actual taxes remained the same, but financial decisions are made according to EXPECTATIONS, and those expectations are that taxes and regulations are going to increase dramatically. Telling people that you will raise their taxes in two or three years will influence the same kind of behavior as if you raised their taxes now.
With Obama's huge deficits, and Taxmageddon only 3 months away, and Obamacare coming fast, every investor knows to not invest in anything risky, and play their cards close to their vest.
Would you like to know how to get business and private enterprise to explode like it never has before? Get a bipartisan promise to to introduce any new regulations or taxes for the next 20 years. The sheer predictability would encourage a huge amount of new business.
pvjin From Finland, joined Mar 2012, 549 posts, RR: 0 Reply 129, posted (7 months 3 weeks 5 days 8 hours ago) and read 3414 times:
Quoting BMI727 (Reply 125): Not even close. There are plenty of savings in ending two overseas wars, but some of that money is going to have to go towards restoring and retooling the force. The future of the military may be smaller in terms of manpower, but may not be that much cheaper.
Do you realise that the very same terrorist organizations that US is fighting against gained their popularity only because US military kept messing around the middle east?
Violence creates only more violence, US military will be never able to solve this problem as their actions only make their enemy more popular. A while ago I saw really good Vice documentary about this. In Afghanistan and Pakistan US has helped Taliban a lot through civilian casualties caused by UAV airstrikes as those naturally create rightful hate towards US army.
mt99 From United States of America, joined exactly 14 years ago today! , 6354 posts, RR: 7 Reply 130, posted (7 months 3 weeks 5 days 8 hours ago) and read 3414 times:
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 104): , no you can thank WWII for getting us out of that one.
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 121): Where do you get 1+1=8? I'm not sure how much more straightforward you can get, the marginal rates would be lowered for EVERYONE and then tax loopholes closed which are preferential for the upper bracket. What about this don't you get? How is he going to do it you ask, well I would assume he would work with Congress and pass a bill...how else do you think he'd do it?
Because talk is cheap. I can promise you a 5% Flat for everyone. Would you believe me without proof?
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 121): No, you did not address it. You tried to fallaciously make a connection between a tax not being levied for a few weeks to an entire macroeconomic theory, for some reason asserting that because airlines didn't lower ticket prices that Supply-side economics is bunk. You stated that the airlines just "pocket the money" to which I clearly showed they don't do (servicing debt, upgrading equipment, paying employees...all of which create jobs and additional tax payers by the way).
Sigh - no it like you getting 11 donuts after you paid for a dozen - and felling better because the baker will be able to sell one more donut at 0 cost, which eventually would work its way thru "economic karma" (ohh did i just make up a term?") and benefit you someday..
BTW - Even with all the taxes you think that will come, Supply Side economic is not going away anywhere. Business are resilient, they figure stuff out.
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 121): ...which is why they go to China and ship jobs overseas, because you force them to find these additional efficiencies to maintain profits. Do you seriously expect to bring jobs and FDI back to the US by raising the cost of doing business here? If you do you're dreaming and China, India and Brazil are laughing all the way to the bank.
Oh Sweety, where have you been the last 20 years?That train has salied - Ask Bain Capital how long they have been farming jobs to China.
Now, do you think that Romney Policies (well. the ones you think he has, because he hasn't shared with us) would bring back jobs from China?
Quoting Dreadnought (Reply 128): Would you like to know how to get business and private enterprise to explode like it never has before? Get a bipartisan promise to to introduce any new regulations or taxes for the next 20 years. The sheer predictability would encourage a huge amount of new business.
BS. They have a little piece of paper offered by Norqvist saying that taxes wont be raised. Plus, with the impeding landslide victory of the GOP (after all, who to believe the polls, they are skewed!)
Certainty could come in the form of knowing for a fact that taxes would raise (say 0.5%) a year for the next 20 years.
casinterest From United States of America, joined Feb 2005, 3288 posts, RR: 1 Reply 131, posted (7 months 3 weeks 5 days 7 hours ago) and read 3392 times:
Quoting Dreadnought (Reply 128): ld you like to know how to get business and private enterprise to explode like it never has before? Get a bipartisan promise to to introduce any new regulations or taxes for the next 20 years. The sheer predictability would encourage a huge amount of new business.
On this I agree, but we both know politicians don't want to give away carrots. They need these for votes. The true problem is that we have a federal deficit that no politician likes to admit exists. In fact we are in the situation we are in , because they all found it so convenient to vote for a tax cut while increasing spending over the past 12 years.
Older than I just was ,and younger than I will soo be.
zckls04 From United States of America, joined Dec 2011, 778 posts, RR: 3 Reply 132, posted (7 months 3 weeks 5 days 6 hours ago) and read 3347 times:
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 127): nor that Herman Cain was a very serious contender for the Republican nomination, nope
I agree with you on the racism point, it's rather hackneyed now, but I really have to red flag this. Herman Cain was never a serious contender for anything
If you're not sure whether to use a piece of punctuation, it's best not to.
flyguy89 From United States of America, joined Feb 2009, 1618 posts, RR: 9 Reply 133, posted (7 months 3 weeks 5 days 6 hours ago) and read 3335 times:
Quoting mt99 (Reply 130): Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 121):
Point to where I suggested that.
Here:
Nowhere in there did I suggest we use wars to get us out of recessions, try again.
Quoting mt99 (Reply 130): Because talk is cheap. I can promise you a 5% Flat for everyone. Would you believe me without proof?
The proof is in history as I've pointed out before, but even taking that out of the equation, there's just as much substance behind Romney's plan as there is behind Obama's plan. Again, where has Obama explained how raising taxes and costing the economy tens of thousands of jobs will help get us out of the recession? There's cheap talk happening on both sides of the aisle.
Quoting mt99 (Reply 130): Sigh - no it like you getting 11 donuts after you paid for a dozen
How is saying "Hey I'd like 12 donuts please" and then not getting 12 comparable to airlines deciding not to lower their ticket prices? You have a flawed understanding of Supply-side economics, lowering the tax burden doesn't serve to specifically lower the prices, but to remove barriers to entry for people going into business or the workforce. So again, with that additional money those evil corporate airlines "pocketed" they were able to hire more people/pay down or service debt to investors which injects capital into the economy/invest in upgrading their aircraft creating a boon in hiring and contract for whoever they do business with/pay profit-sharing checks to their employees...etc.
Quoting mt99 (Reply 130): Business are resilient, they figure stuff out.
They absolutely will...all the way to China with that mentality.
Quoting mt99 (Reply 130): Oh Sweety, where have you been the last 20 years?That train has salied
So, explain to me how increasing the cost of doing business in the US as Obama is proposing to do even remotely reverses that trend, if not further encourages it.
Quoting mt99 (Reply 130): Ask Bain Capital how long they have been farming jobs to China.
Where did you get that one, obamaforamerica.com?
Quoting zckls04 (Reply 132): I agree with you on the racism point, it's rather hackneyed now, but I really have to red flag this. Herman Cain was never a serious contender for anything
Perhaps not from the perspective of the other side of the aisle, but A LOT of Republicans liked what he had to say and were pulling for him.
connies4ever From Canada, joined Feb 2006, 3857 posts, RR: 13 Reply 135, posted (7 months 3 weeks 5 days 5 hours ago) and read 3320 times:
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 102): Reagan in the 80's massively slashed taxes and revenue doubled, Bush cut taxes near the start of his presidency and shortly afterwards the federal government took in the greatest amount of revenue ever, if you choose to call that BS that's your prerogative. My proof is in history, show me any sliver of proof in the recent past where a nation has taxed it's way out of a recession and into prosperity. I mean seriously, even Clinton doesn't think we should be raising taxes.
"My proof is history" ... well then you're cherry picking points, not reading the whole narrative. Yes, Reagan cut taxes, and when the deficit rose to approx. 4% of GDP he did a 180 and raised taxes. And then all was happiness in the money markets.
Bush I slashed taxes also, and then Congress forced him to raise them. The "read my lips" thing kind of was exposed, and was a big factor in his 1992 loss (although, to be fair, Ross Perot was a big factor, and this really smart guy from Arkansas).
Quoting Klaus (Reply 122): Reagan funded his "star wars" initiative with debt. Dick Cheney infamously remarked that "Deficits don't matter – Reagan has proved that!".
Another bit of cherry-picking. Deficits don't actually matter in the short term, but they do in the longer term. In all honesty, I do wonder about the current American fiscal trajectory. And ours. We were on course to completely eliminate the federal debt by about 2018 or 2019, until the Conservatives, in an act of ideological purity rather than common sense, decided to cut taxes. Had we eliminated the federal debt, then a nice tax cut would have been justified.
flyguy89 From United States of America, joined Feb 2009, 1618 posts, RR: 9 Reply 136, posted (7 months 3 weeks 5 days 4 hours ago) and read 3298 times:
Quoting connies4ever (Reply 135): Yes, Reagan cut taxes, and when the deficit rose to approx. 4% of GDP he did a 180 and raised taxes. And then all was happiness in the money markets.
Incorrect, he was absolutely a net tax cutter. The top rates went from 70% to 28% during his presidency, your assertion is disingenuous. He agreed to raise the top rate from 25% to 28% out of compromise with Democrats to create just two tax brackets where previously there had been as many as 16, but make no mistake, tax rates were massively slashed during his presidency.
mt99 From United States of America, joined exactly 14 years ago today! , 6354 posts, RR: 7 Reply 137, posted (7 months 3 weeks 5 days 4 hours ago) and read 3300 times:
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 133): So, explain to me how increasing the cost of doing business in the US as Obama is proposing to do even remotely reverses that trend, if not further encourages it.
It wont. How does Romney's plan compete with $350 per month wages in china? Specific please.
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 133): Nowhere in there did I suggest we use wars to get us out of recessions, try again.
You want me to quote you again? Its very clear you where thanking WWII for ending the Great Recession. I can if you want me too.
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 133): "pocketed" they were able to hire more people/pay down or service debt to investors which injects capital into the economy/invest in upgrading their aircraft creating a boon in hiring and contract for whoever they do business with/pay profit-sharing checks to their employees...etc.
Prove that they profit shared with the employees. Besides ..Lower prices would create demand.. having similar benefits..
flyguy89 From United States of America, joined Feb 2009, 1618 posts, RR: 9 Reply 138, posted (7 months 3 weeks 5 days 3 hours ago) and read 3264 times:
Quoting mt99 (Reply 137): Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 133):
So, explain to me how increasing the cost of doing business in the US as Obama is proposing to do even remotely reverses that trend, if not further encourages it.
It wont. How does Romney's plan compete with $350 per month wages in china? Specific please.
It's a misnomer that we would have to lower wages to China's level to be competitive, and Romney's plan which lessens the cost of doing business in the US further decreases the potential benefits of outsourcing to China as opposed to Obama's plan which would only further incentivize outsourcing and make moving jobs to China an even more profitable proposition.
Quoting mt99 (Reply 137): Its very clear you where thanking WWII for ending the Great Recession. I can if you want me too.
That's different from saying that wars should be used as stimulus every time to get out of recession or depression.
Quoting mt99 (Reply 137): Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 133):
"pocketed" they were able to hire more people/pay down or service debt to investors which injects capital into the economy/invest in upgrading their aircraft creating a boon in hiring and contract for whoever they do business with/pay profit-sharing checks to their employees...etc.
Quote: Delta Air Lines Inc. said Friday it will pay $264 million in profit sharing to its employees for meeting 2011 goals.
Quoting mt99 (Reply 137): Besides ..Lower prices would create demand.. having similar benefits..
...at lower margins and lower profits, giving them less money to invest, less money to profit share with employees, and less money to service debt, you're arguing in circles here. It's irrelevant anyways as it's been pointed out multiple times above that this odd analogy you're trying to make has nothing to do with Supply-side economics.
mt99 From United States of America, joined exactly 14 years ago today! , 6354 posts, RR: 7 Reply 139, posted (7 months 3 weeks 5 days 3 hours ago) and read 3257 times:
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 138): Quoting mt99 (Reply 137):
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 133):
"pocketed" they were able to hire more people/pay down or service debt to investors which injects capital into the economy/invest in upgrading their aircraft creating a boon in hiring and contract for whoever they do business with/pay profit-sharing checks to their employees...etc.
Quote:
Delta Air Lines Inc. said Friday it will pay $264 million in profit sharing to its employees for meeting 2011 goals.
Quoting mt99 (Reply 137):
Besides ..Lower prices would create demand.. having similar benefits..
Prove that they got more money than they would have gotten otherwise...
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 138): It's a misnomer that we would have to lower wages to China's level to be competitive, and Romney's plan which lessens the cost of doing business in the US further decreases the potential benefits of outsourcing to China as opposed to Obama's plan which would only further incentivize outsourcing and make moving jobs to China an even more profitable proposition.
OK - so you said nothing concrete..you say "further decease" - decrease by how much? How much more profitable? Numbers please.
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 138): .at lower margins and lower profits, giving them less money to invest, less money to profit share with employees, and less money to service debt, y
Not necessarily.. What makes you think that what you say is a certainty?
seb146 From United States of America, joined Nov 1999, 9835 posts, RR: 17 Reply 140, posted (7 months 3 weeks 5 days 3 hours ago) and read 3250 times:
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 127): Do they have the financial means to create jobs? Obviously. But why would they do it if you're making it impossible for them to do so profitably?
They are paying the least in taxes in the history of the United States. I think they don't have a problem with profit. I think you just don't want them to pay anything. You want all those oil companies and all those energy companies getting billions in welfare and rebate checks. Who do you blame for that? Obama? Or the right-wing who made those deals?
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 127): In each of those 39 months of job growth, the job growth has been too anemic to even keep up with growth in the workforce
So, you admit there have been 39 months of job growth. If the right-wing would compromise and do what is right for the American people instead of just trying to make Obama a one-term president, maybe you wouldn't have to split hairs.
Let me ask this: What if Romney becomes president and the very first thing Harry Ried says is " our number one goal should be to make Romney a one-term president"? Don't you think every media outlet would keep playing that every hour on the hour and even on the half hour?
But, it's not a big deal when Mitch McConnell says it. It's not a big deal when the number two in Pennsylvania tells everyone, because of voter ID laws, Pennsylvania has been handed to Romney. No one cares about that. But, when Democrats even hint at such a thing, it is un-American? How can that be? One party is fine, the other is evil?
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 127): what was that August jobs report again? Only 96,000 jobs added?
How many jobs were we gaining this time four years ago?
Dreadnought From United States of America, joined Feb 2008, 7794 posts, RR: 22 Reply 141, posted (7 months 3 weeks 5 days 2 hours ago) and read 3236 times:
Quoting seb146 (Reply 140): So, you admit there have been 39 months of job growth. If the right-wing would compromise and do what is right for the American people instead of just trying to make Obama a one-term president, maybe you wouldn't have to split hairs.
As you well know, the popularly used unemployment rate (U-3) is a political creation. U-6, which includes people who have fallen out of U-3 because they have run out of benefits and have given up, is far more realistic.
The job growth from 2010 onwards is nothing to be proud of. If the government had gone on vacation and done nothing, supply and demand would have done as good if not better. The question is how to get U-6 back in line with historical averages of around 8-9% rather than the current rate of 15% - and remember, economists are generally agreed that we are headed for another recession next year.
flyguy89 From United States of America, joined Feb 2009, 1618 posts, RR: 9 Reply 142, posted (7 months 3 weeks 5 days 2 hours ago) and read 3227 times:
Quoting mt99 (Reply 139): Prove that they got more money than they would have gotten otherwise...
What makes you think they would have gotten more if their profits had been less? They profit-share at a certain proportion of the profits made.
Quoting mt99 (Reply 139): Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 138):
It's a misnomer that we would have to lower wages to China's level to be competitive, and Romney's plan which lessens the cost of doing business in the US further decreases the potential benefits of outsourcing to China as opposed to Obama's plan which would only further incentivize outsourcing and make moving jobs to China an even more profitable proposition.
OK - so you said nothing concrete..you say "further decease" - decrease by how much? How much more profitable?
Does it really matter by how much when the other candidate wants to go in the opposite direction? Again you've yet to explain how under Obama's job-costing tax plan it would be better.
Quoting mt99 (Reply 139): Not necessarily.. What makes you think that what you say is a certainty?
Because I understand how businesses and capital markets work, less profits=less money to spend unless they finance more debt, what are you not understanding here?
Quoting mt99 (Reply 139): Why do companies have "sales" to sell less?
To mitigate losses on unsold inventory...what does this have to do with Supply-side economics again?
Quoting seb146 (Reply 140): They are paying the least in taxes in the history of the United States.
Incorrect.
Quoting seb146 (Reply 140): I think they don't have a problem with profit.
I think they do if you're increasing the minimum wage, making it more expensive to hire people, and burdening them onerous regulations such Obamacare or EPA rules.
Quoting seb146 (Reply 140): I think you just don't want them to pay anything. You want all those oil companies and all those energy companies getting billions in welfare and rebate checks.
I honestly don't care what you think I believe or want.
Quoting seb146 (Reply 140): Or the right-wing who made those deals?
Who was it that just loaned billions of dollars to the Brazilian oil companies to develop their oil industry so we can "Become their best customer"? *cough* Obama *cough*
Quoting seb146 (Reply 140): Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 127):
In each of those 39 months of job growth, the job growth has been too anemic to even keep up with growth in the workforce
So, you admit there have been 39 months of job growth.
Not net job growth which is what matters, the number jobless persons under Obama has continued to grow each month.
Quoting seb146 (Reply 140): Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 127):
what was that August jobs report again? Only 96,000 jobs added?
How many jobs were we gaining this time four years ago?
So we should accept this ever-increasing joblessness as "good enough"? Who's said it HAS to be that way? Mediocrity is mediocrity, at this point in Reagan's presidency we were creating between 150,000 and 250,000 jobs a month. Why aren't we down to 5% unemployment like Obama said we would be?
mt99 From United States of America, joined exactly 14 years ago today! , 6354 posts, RR: 7 Reply 143, posted (7 months 3 weeks 5 days 2 hours ago) and read 3219 times:
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 142): What makes you think they would have gotten more if their profits had been less? They profit-share at a certain proportion of the profits made.
Well "re-investing" does not goes into the "profits" does it?
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 142):
Does it really matter by how much when the other candidate wants to go in the opposite direction? Again you've yet to explain how under Obama's job-costing tax plan it would be better.
Its your story man.. not mines.. burden of proof is in you .. P
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 142): Quoting mt99 (Reply 139):
Not necessarily.. What makes you think that what you say is a certainty?
Because I understand how businesses and capital markets work, less profits=less money to spend unless they finance more debt, what are you not understanding here?
You can make more profits by increasing volume with if you keep the same resources. Is that untrue?
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 142): Quoting mt99 (Reply 139):
Why do companies have "sales" to sell less?
To mitigate losses on unsold inventory...
Right - so increased sales have a benefit to companies..
flyguy89 From United States of America, joined Feb 2009, 1618 posts, RR: 9 Reply 144, posted (7 months 3 weeks 5 days 2 hours ago) and read 3214 times:
Quoting mt99 (Reply 143): Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 142):
What makes you think they would have gotten more if their profits had been less? They profit-share at a certain proportion of the profits made.
Well "re-investing" does not goes into the "profits" does it?
What? Re-investing occurs because profits provide the capital to make it possible.
Does it really matter by how much when the other candidate wants to go in the opposite direction? Again you've yet to explain how under Obama's job-costing tax plan it would be better.
Its your story man.. not mines.. burden of proof is in you ..
Why am I the only one with the burden of proof here? For the fifth time, you've yet to explain how the alternative (Obama's plan) job-costing plan would do better.
Quoting mt99 (Reply 143): You can make more profits by increasing volume with if you keep the same resources. Is that untrue?
Only if you're able to lower your costs in some other area...like labor by outsourcing to China.
Quoting mt99 (Reply 143): Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 142):
Quoting mt99 (Reply 139):
Why do companies have "sales" to sell less?
To mitigate losses on unsold inventory...
Right - so increased sales have a benefit to companies..
Again, what does this have to do with Supply-side economics?
mt99 From United States of America, joined exactly 14 years ago today! , 6354 posts, RR: 7 Reply 145, posted (7 months 3 weeks 4 days 8 hours ago) and read 3135 times:
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 144):
What? Re-investing occurs because profits provide the capital to make it possible.
Right - but if that extra income was re-invested, there is no profit sharing from that. There is not a "fixed" amount for profits
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 144): Why am I the only one with the burden of proof here? For the fifth time, you've yet to explain how the alternative (Obama's plan) job-costing plan would do better.
Because you are trying to prove to probe that Romney plan is better. Its your sale - not mines
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 144): Only if you're able to lower your costs in some other area...like labor by outsourcing to China.
Not necessary. If you can sell 1 more donuts in you store with the same number of employees.. you make more $ than the the first donus you sold. That the hole (hehhe) concept behind the "buy 10 get 1 free" punch cards.
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 144):
Again, what does this have to do with Supply-side economics?
Dude - bringing taxes back to Clinton levels is not a cataclysmic event.
flyguy89 From United States of America, joined Feb 2009, 1618 posts, RR: 9 Reply 146, posted (7 months 3 weeks 4 days 6 hours ago) and read 3116 times:
What? Re-investing occurs because profits provide the capital to make it possible.
Right - but if that extra income was re-invested, there is no profit sharing from that. There is not a "fixed" amount for profits
Considering that profit-sharing is typically calculated as a certain percentage of profits, if profits are larger, profit sharing is larger. But that doesn't matter, even if they do spend more money on reinvestment it's just as positive...it benefits suppliers, contractors, tech-ops employees, etc.
Quoting mt99 (Reply 145): Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 144):
Why am I the only one with the burden of proof here? For the fifth time, you've yet to explain how the alternative (Obama's plan) job-costing plan would do better.
Because you are trying to prove to probe that Romney plan is better. Its your sale - not mines
And by contrast you're trying to make the point the alternative to Romney is better which you've yet to make a case for. Where are the numbers for Obama's plan? What's he going to do when he raises taxes and costs the economy tens of thousands of jobs if not more?
Quoting mt99 (Reply 145): Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 144):
Only if you're able to lower your costs in some other area...like labor by outsourcing to China.
Not necessary. If you can sell 1 more donuts in you store with the same number of employees.. you make more $ than the the first donus you sold. That the hole (hehhe) concept behind the "buy 10 get 1 free" punch cards.
Yeah...for a donut shop, but for a large-scale manufacturer of goods, the cost-benefit and fiscal situation is quite different.
I would call 700,000 jobs pretty cataclysmic, wouldn't you?
...and, again, considering that Bill Clinton himself doesn't think taxes should be raised to the levels of his presidency, why on earth would you think raising taxes in this current feeble economy to levels during the 90's, when the economy was roaring due to the dot com boom, would be a good idea? Keep in mind as well that the majority of filers in the upper income bracket where Obama wants to raise taxes are actually small businesses filing as sole proprietorships, so you also think it's a good idea to raise taxes on small businesses?
zckls04 From United States of America, joined Dec 2011, 778 posts, RR: 3 Reply 147, posted (7 months 3 weeks 4 days 6 hours ago) and read 3106 times:
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 133): Perhaps not from the perspective of the other side of the aisle, but A LOT of Republicans liked what he had to say and were pulling for him.
That might say more about them than him. I really can't stand people who think ignorance is an admirable quality, and he had it in spades. Cain was an almost textbook example of how being a businessman does not automatically mean you have the right qualities for being president.
If you're not sure whether to use a piece of punctuation, it's best not to.
seb146 From United States of America, joined Nov 1999, 9835 posts, RR: 17 Reply 148, posted (7 months 3 weeks 4 days 6 hours ago) and read 3108 times:
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 142): Why aren't we down to 5% unemployment like Obama said we would be?
Ask the untaxed "job creators".
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 142): Not net job growth which is what matters, the number jobless persons under Obama has
continued to grow each month.
So, the number of people with jobs is going up, but the number of people without jobs is going up? How does that work? the employed is gaining and the unemployed is gaining? How?
Quoting Dreadnought (Reply 141): The job growth from 2010 onwards is nothing to be proud of.
But, the right wing wants to go back to the 2002-2009 period. Remember, Obama took office in 2009 and put his policies in place over the course of that year. That line has been going down since. But, let's not look at that. Or the line up to 2002. Let's just focus on everything after 2010.
BTW, which party had control of Congress (spends the money) after 2010? I bring that up because you use that as a benchmark.
Aesma From France, joined Nov 2009, 4813 posts, RR: 9 Reply 149, posted (7 months 3 weeks 4 days 6 hours ago) and read 3101 times:
I wonder why for the conservatives climate change is a myth or junk science or whatever, but one economic theory seems to be a fact as true as what is written in the bible (or is that a poor analogy ?).
I have studied economy, albeit not for long, precisely because I found it to be too far removed from science. A lot of intelligent people end up with a lot of incompatible theories that somehow all work when used against past data, and all fail to predict the future.
New Technology is the name we give to stuff that doesn't work yet. Douglas Adams
mt99 From United States of America, joined exactly 14 years ago today! , 6354 posts, RR: 7 Reply 150, posted (7 months 3 weeks 4 days 6 hours ago) and read 3099 times:
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 146): And by contrast you're trying to make the point the alternative to Romney is better which you've yet to make a case for. Where are the numbers for Obama's plan? What's he going to do when he raises taxes and costs the economy tens of thousands of jobs if not more?
I would call 700,000 jobs pretty cataclysmic, wouldn't you?
Now your turn.. show me how Romney's plan (with real number please) fares any better.
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 146): Yeah...for a donut shop, but for a large-scale manufacturer of goods, the cost-benefit and fiscal situation is quite different.
Hmm if GE can produce an sell additional refrigerator with the same number of employees - how does that come at a lower profit?
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 146): so you also think it's a good idea to raise taxes on small businesses?
Of course not. Romney does though
Our major conclusion is that a revenue-neutral individual income tax change that incorporates the features Governor Romney has proposed – including reducing marginal tax rates substantially, eliminating the individual alternative minimum tax (AMT) and maintaining all tax breaks for saving and investment – would provide large tax cuts to high-income households, and increase the tax burdens on middle- and/or lower-income taxpayers
soon7x7 From United States of America, joined May 2006, 2802 posts, RR: 14 Reply 151, posted (7 months 3 weeks 4 days 5 hours ago) and read 3079 times:
Obama should...he is already a proven failure...Romney's Plan?...what is Obama's Plan...another four years of lies and unsatisfactory results.
mt99 From United States of America, joined exactly 14 years ago today! , 6354 posts, RR: 7 Reply 152, posted (7 months 3 weeks 4 days 5 hours ago) and read 3077 times:
Quoting soon7x7 (Reply 151): nother four years of lies and unsatisfactory results.
Unsatisfactory for whom? Not the Forbes 400. That all that matters buddy. Get your priorities straight!
"The combined net worth of the 2012 class of the 400 richest Americans is $1.7 trillion, up from $1.5 trillion a year ago. "
DeltaMD90 From United States of America, joined Apr 2008, 5318 posts, RR: 47 Reply 153, posted (7 months 3 weeks 4 days 4 hours ago) and read 3057 times:
Quoting seb146 (Reply 148): But, the right wing wants to go back to the 2002-2009 period. Remember, Obama took office in 2009 and put his policies in place over the course of that year. That line has been going down since. But, let's not look at that. Or the line up to 2002. Let's just focus on everything after 2010.
This is very true and there is a lot of ignorance in this area. I don't give those arguments the light of day. The ones I've heard that at least make sense (not saying I agree or disagree) is that he hasn't done a good job/good enough job, other presidents would probably have the economy at a higher level, and maybe the growth we've seen isn't really because of good policies but just the economy naturally rebounding. Don't forget, what the economy does isn't 100% dependent on the person in the Oval Office.
At least above arguments make sense and have a point, even if you disagree. But yeah, the examples that account for the economy RIGHT when he took office forward are pretty dishonest
flyguy89 From United States of America, joined Feb 2009, 1618 posts, RR: 9 Reply 154, posted (7 months 3 weeks 4 days 4 hours ago) and read 3056 times:
Quoting seb146 (Reply 148): Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 142):
Why aren't we down to 5% unemployment like Obama said we would be?
Ask the untaxed "job creators".
No, Obama is the one that made that promise.
Quoting seb146 (Reply 148): So, the number of people with jobs is going up, but the number of people without jobs is going up? How does that work? the employed is gaining and the unemployed is gaining? How?
Because the jobs being created monthly are not enough to keep up with workforce growth. So let's say in one month, similar to last month, 96,000 jobs were created, but because of population growth and graduation rates the number people seeking employment in that month is 100,000, so 4,000 people are added to the jobless rolls. In other words, not enough jobs are being created to both employ all job-seekers in that month AND dip into the vast numbers of unemployed or underemployed persons to begin setting the workforce back up to near-full employment.
I would call 700,000 jobs pretty cataclysmic, wouldn't you?
Now your turn.. show me how Romney's plan (with real number please) fares any better.
It would be your turn to show how doing the opposite of Obama's job-costing plan would be better than lowering the tax burden and barrier into business/employment. I'm aware of Romney's plan of lowering marginal rates in all brackets, cutting capital gains taxes, and lowering the corporate income tax and the results those actions had in the 1980's, it's been done before. It's incumbent upon you to show how Obama, who wants to go in a different/new (though not really new as he's proposing the same things he did four years ago) direction would do better in departing from Supply-side economics to lift us out of the recession.
Quoting mt99 (Reply 150): Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 146):
Yeah...for a donut shop, but for a large-scale manufacturer of goods, the cost-benefit and fiscal situation is quite different.
Hmm if GE can produce an sell additional refrigerator with the same number of employees - how does that come at a lower profit?
So forcing them to find new efficiencies in producing more with fewer employees where they otherwise would hire additional employees to increase production benefits employment how? That's a job-costing consequence as well...either move the jobs to China or do more with fewer employees? How is that good for the economy?
Quoting mt99 (Reply 150): Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 146):
so you also think it's a good idea to raise taxes on small businesses?
Of course not. Romney does though
Our major conclusion is that a revenue-neutral individual income tax change that incorporates the features Governor Romney has proposed – including reducing marginal tax rates substantially, eliminating the individual alternative minimum tax (AMT) and maintaining all tax breaks for saving and investment – would provide large tax cuts to high-income households, and increase the tax burdens on middle- and/or lower-income taxpayers
1) Where has Romney said he WOULDN'T get rid of those tax breaks. In fact he specifically said tax breaks preferential to the middle would be kept.
2) Even if that were true, how would that affect small businesses negatively when the majority of them are clustered in the upper income bracket Obama wants to raise taxes on?
mt99 From United States of America, joined exactly 14 years ago today! , 6354 posts, RR: 7 Reply 155, posted (7 months 3 weeks 4 days 4 hours ago) and read 3049 times:
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 154): It would be your turn to show how doing the opposite of Obama's job-costing plan would be better than lowering the tax burden and barrier into business/employment
Sorry - you already provided link about. I accept that it would cost 700,000 jobs.
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 154): It's incumbent upon you to show how Obama, who wants to go in a different/new (though not really new as he's proposing the same things he did four years ago) direction would do better in departing from Supply-side economics to lift us out of the recession.
Exactly. He has been doing it for 4 year. You know his plan. Details on Romneys plan please to prove that its better.
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 154): cutting capital gains taxes,and lowering the corporate income tax and the results those actions had in the 1980's, it's been done before.
Oh come on.. "its been done before" in the 80's? Not good enough. Hard numbers for 2012 please.
If that is your angle, then compare each of the tax rates in "80's" to what Romney proposes.
A side by table would be a good start
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 154): So forcing them to find new efficiencies in producing more with fewer employees where they otherwise would hire additional employees to increase production benefits employment how? That's a job-costing consequence as well...either move the jobs to China or do more with fewer employees? How is that good for the economy?
So efficiencies are bad? Hmm i guess you agree with Obama than ATMs are job killers.
Besides, i am not forcing anyone to do anything. Just proving a point that Airlines could have alsoe seen benefit from lowering their fares instead of pocketing the amount of tax that could no longer collect.
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 154): 1) Where has Romney said he WOULDN'T get rid of those tax breaks. In fact he specifically said tax breaks preferential to the middle would be kept.
If you believed him blindly. Which you do .
But if you insist:
Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney cautioned voters in Ohio not to expect "a huge cut in taxes"
Hey, you owe me $1,000,000. I would explain why, but i dont have the time., Just trust me. Ill explain once the check clears.
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 154):
2) Even if that were true, how would that affect small businesses negatively when the majority of them are clustered in the upper income bracket Obama wants to raise taxes on?
flyguy89 From United States of America, joined Feb 2009, 1618 posts, RR: 9 Reply 156, posted (7 months 3 weeks 3 days 19 hours ago) and read 2987 times:
Quoting mt99 (Reply 155): Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 154):
It's incumbent upon you to show how Obama, who wants to go in a different/new (though not really new as he's proposing the same things he did four years ago) direction would do better in departing from Supply-side economics to lift us out of the recession.
Exactly. He has been doing it for 4 year. You know his plan. Details on Romneys plan please to prove that its better.
Quoting mt99 (Reply 155): Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 154):
cutting capital gains taxes,and lowering the corporate income tax and the results those actions had in the 1980's, it's been done before.
Oh come on.. "its been done before" in the 80's? Not good enough.
Why is something that has been tried and tested before with great success not good enough?
Quoting mt99 (Reply 155): Hard numbers for 2012 please.
How would those even exist since currently, under Obama, Supply-side economics is not being put to use?
Quoting mt99 (Reply 155): If that is your angle, then compare each of the tax rates in "80's" to what Romney proposes.
Under Reagan the top tax rate was 28%, it is currently 35% (irs.gov)
Quoting mt99 (Reply 155): Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 154):
So forcing them to find new efficiencies in producing more with fewer employees where they otherwise would hire additional employees to increase production benefits employment how? That's a job-costing consequence as well...either move the jobs to China or do more with fewer employees? How is that good for the economy?
So efficiencies are bad? Hmm i guess you agree with Obama than ATMs are job killers.
Not if the government is artificially forcing the companies to find those efficiencies. ATM's were a natural market consequence.
Quoting mt99 (Reply 155): Besides, i am not forcing anyone to do anything. Just proving a point that Airlines could have alsoe seen benefit from lowering their fares instead of pocketing the amount of tax that could no longer collect.
You are advocating artificially raising the cost burdens on companies beyond natural market forces.
Quoting mt99 (Reply 155): If you believed him blindly. Which you do .
Nice
Quoting mt99 (Reply 155): Just proving a point that Airlines could have alsoe seen benefit from lowering their fares instead of pocketing the amount of tax that could no longer collect.
You didn't prove they would have benefited more from lowering fares.
Quoting mt99 (Reply 155): As long as they do not make $150,000
mt99 From United States of America, joined exactly 14 years ago today! , 6354 posts, RR: 7 Reply 157, posted (7 months 3 weeks 3 days 19 hours ago) and read 2979 times:
Nobel prize? Obama has one of those.. That makes Nobel Prizes impressive don't they?
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 156): Why is something that has been tried and tested before with great success not good enough?
Nope. Leeches were used ones with great success in medical treatments.
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 156): How would those even exist since currently, under Obama, Supply-side economics is not being put to use?
I meant numbers that Romeny proposes.
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 156): Under Reagan the top tax rate was 28%, it is currently 35% (irs.gov)
And what does Romeny propose?
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 156): Not if the government is artificially forcing the companies to find those efficiencies. ATM's were a natural market consequence.
But you agree that they are job killers.
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 156): You are advocating artificially raising the cost burdens on companies beyond natural market forces.
What burden? The pass the tax from the consumer to the IRS. They never counted on it for their business
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 156): You didn't prove they would have benefited more from lowering fares.
And here we go.. Romney want to limit deductions to a max of $17,000. If you make $10M a year, you can only deduct $17,000.
‘As an option you could say everybody’s going to get up to a $17,000 deduction; and you could use your charitable deduction, your home mortgage deduction, or others — your health care deduction, and you can fill that bucket, if you will, that $17,000 bucket that way,’’ Romney said. ‘‘And higher income people might have a lower number.’’
flyguy89 From United States of America, joined Feb 2009, 1618 posts, RR: 9 Reply 158, posted (7 months 3 weeks 3 days 18 hours ago) and read 2974 times:
Nobel prize? Obama has one of those.. That makes Nobel Prizes impressive don't they?
I agree, but that's only five of the 400 economists who endorsed Romney's plan.
Quoting mt99 (Reply 157): Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 156):
Why is something that has been tried and tested before with great success not good enough?
Nope. Leeches were used ones with great success in medical treatments.
Another illogical fallacy, we actually have numbers on the greatly increased revenues, tumbling unemployment and economic growth that occurred as a result of Reagan's Supply-side policies.
Quoting mt99 (Reply 157): Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 156):
How would those even exist since currently, under Obama, Supply-side economics is not being put to use?
I meant numbers that Romeny proposes.
He wants to cut the corporate income tax to 25%, cut non-security discretionary spending by 5%, cap annual increases in regulatory costs on business to zero dollars, cap spending at 20% of GDP, cut marginal tax rates 20% across the board, eliminate capital gains taxes on those with income below $200,000, and switch to a territorial tax system for multinational companies to bring us on par with every other industrialized nation.
Quoting mt99 (Reply 157): uoting flyguy89 (Reply 156):
Not if the government is artificially forcing the companies to find those efficiencies. ATM's were a natural market consequence.
But you agree that they are job killers.
I don't, they have to be manufactured, have the manufacturing materials made and sold to them as well as be maintained.
Quoting mt99 (Reply 157): Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 156):
You are advocating artificially raising the cost burdens on companies beyond natural market forces.
What burden? The pass the tax from the consumer to the IRS. They never counted on it for their business
And how many customers will they lose because of the artificially higher price they have to charge to pay the IRS?
Quoting mt99 (Reply 157): Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 156):
You didn't prove they would have benefited more from lowering fares.
I did.. They could have sold more fares.
No, that does not mean they would have benefited more than what they otherwise did. If this was not the case I suspect their shareholders would have taken issue with the executives.
Quoting mt99 (Reply 157): Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 156):
Too bad most of them do and more.
And here we go.. Romney want to limit deductions to a max of $17,000. If you make $10M a year, you can only deduct $17,000.
‘As an option you could say everybody’s going to get up to a $17,000 deduction; and you could use your charitable deduction, your home mortgage deduction, or others — your health care deduction, and you can fill that bucket, if you will, that $17,000 bucket that way,’’ Romney said. ‘‘And higher income people might have a lower number.’’
And even if, at worst, they end up paying the same amount in taxes they are currently...how does that make it an inferior proposition to raising their tax burden as Obama wants to do?
mt99 From United States of America, joined exactly 14 years ago today! , 6354 posts, RR: 7 Reply 159, posted (7 months 3 weeks 3 days 8 hours ago) and read 2933 times:
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 158):
I agree, but that's only five of the 400 economists who endorsed Romney's plan.
I dont believe you. Can you name the other 395?
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 158): Another illogical fallacy, we actually have numbers on the greatly increased revenues, tumbling unemployment and economic growth that occurred as a result of Reagan's Supply-side policies
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 158): He wants to cut the corporate income tax to 25%, cut non-security discretionary spending by 5%, cap annual increases in regulatory costs on business to zero dollars, cap spending at 20% of GDP, cut marginal tax rates 20% across the board, eliminate capital gains taxes on those with income below $200,000, and switch to a territorial tax system for multinational companies to bring us on par with every other industrialized nation.
Dont forget close loopholes. Which ones? Tell you what- YOU tell me which 3 loopholes you would close.
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 158): And how many customers will they lose because of the artificially higher price they have to charge to pay the IRS?
That does not come into play because its was Status Quo.
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 158): No, that does not mean they would have benefited more than what they otherwise did. If this was not the case I suspect their shareholders would have taken issue with the executives.
It doesn't. why not? Again back to my simple donut example.. How does a selling a product with lower marginal production cost doesn't make money?
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 158):
And even if, at worst, they end up paying the same amount in taxes they are currently...how does that make it an inferior proposition to raising their tax burden as Obama wants to do?
Lets look at Mitt's 2011 Taxes. He deducted about $2M because of his charity donations. He could have deducted up to about $4M - but just to increase his tax bill (great business man, right!) he choose not to)
Any who, instead of deduction $2M he would only be able to deduct $17,000.
And to you, that means paying "about the same" to the Government?
"In order for that claim to be true in 2011, Mr. Romney had to voluntarily take a smaller deduction than he was entitled to for his charitable deductions, his advisers said Friday.
Mr. Romney and his wife, Ann, donated about $4 million to charity in 2011, but claimed only $2.25 million as a deduction. The campaign said that Mr. Romney’s tax liability would have been far lower in 2011 had the Romneys claimed the full deduction for their charitable contributions."
Dreadnought From United States of America, joined Feb 2008, 7794 posts, RR: 22 Reply 160, posted (7 months 3 weeks 3 days 8 hours ago) and read 2933 times:
Quoting mt99 (Reply 159): And to you, that means paying "about the same" to the Government?
Are you implying that giving to the government is better than giving to charities?
mt99 From United States of America, joined exactly 14 years ago today! , 6354 posts, RR: 7 Reply 161, posted (7 months 3 weeks 3 days 8 hours ago) and read 2931 times:
Quoting Dreadnought (Reply 160):
Are you implying that giving to the government is better than giving to charities?
No. never. I described Romeny's Plan not mines,. He would limit deductions from charity donations to $17,000. Scary Stuff huh?
Guess he doesn't think donations are a good idea..
PS. He claimed a $2milliion deduction for this in 2011
flyguy89 From United States of America, joined Feb 2009, 1618 posts, RR: 9 Reply 162, posted (7 months 3 weeks 3 days 6 hours ago) and read 2910 times:
I agree, but that's only five of the 400 economists who endorsed Romney's plan.
I dont believe you. Can you name the other 395?
LOL did you not read the article?
Quote: Who's got the best plan for bringing America's economy back from the doldrums? Well, according to more than 400 prominent economists—including five Nobel laureates—it's Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan.
Quoting mt99 (Reply 159): Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 158):
Another illogical fallacy, we actually have numbers on the greatly increased revenues, tumbling unemployment and economic growth that occurred as a result of Reagan's Supply-side policies
He did, but it was driven by increases in defense spending, but at the same time hundreds of thousands of jobs were being created each month and GDP was growing over twice as fast as it is now.
Quoting mt99 (Reply 159): Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 158):
He wants to cut the corporate income tax to 25%, cut non-security discretionary spending by 5%, cap annual increases in regulatory costs on business to zero dollars, cap spending at 20% of GDP, cut marginal tax rates 20% across the board, eliminate capital gains taxes on those with income below $200,000, and switch to a territorial tax system for multinational companies to bring us on par with every other industrialized nation.
Dont forget close loopholes. Which ones? Tell you what- YOU tell me which 3 loopholes you would close.
Quoting mt99 (Reply 159): Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 158):
He wants to cut the corporate income tax to 25%, cut non-security discretionary spending by 5%, cap annual increases in regulatory costs on business to zero dollars, cap spending at 20% of GDP, cut marginal tax rates 20% across the board, eliminate capital gains taxes on those with income below $200,000, and switch to a territorial tax system for multinational companies to bring us on par with every other industrialized nation.
Dont forget close loopholes. Which ones? Tell you what- YOU tell me which 3 loopholes you would close.
Ah but we already know that Romney hasn't disclosed which ones he wants to get rid of, that's nothing new, but he has said that loopholes for those in the upper bracket would be closed to keep deductions preferential to the middle class. On the other side, I've yet to see Obama address the job-costing consequence his policies are predicted to have.
Quoting mt99 (Reply 159): Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 158):
No, that does not mean they would have benefited more than what they otherwise did. If this was not the case I suspect their shareholders would have taken issue with the executives.
It doesn't. why not?
Because unless you're familiar with every aspect of their complex fare structures, balance sheet and operating costs, it's an assertion you can't prove. You can discuss how in theory they could do "this" or "that", but it definitely doesn't prove anything, and again, if the airlines truly would have been more profitable by lowering fares and they didn't do so, the board of directors would have had something to say about it.
Quoting mt99 (Reply 159): but just to increase his tax bill (great business man, right!) he choose not to)
mt99 From United States of America, joined exactly 14 years ago today! , 6354 posts, RR: 7 Reply 163, posted (7 months 3 weeks 3 days 4 hours ago) and read 2885 times:
I did - i did not see 400 names, Make you a deal - ill settle for half.. Start naming,..
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 162): He did, but it was driven by increases in defense spending, but at the same time hundreds of thousands of jobs were being created each month and GDP was growing over twice as fast as it is now.
So government spending is good.. Now you are back to saying that defense (ie war) makes for good stimulus.
In any case, it seems that you would not be opposed to an increase of the deficit. After all, that is what Reagan did.
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 162): Ah but we already know that Romney hasn't disclosed which ones he wants to get rid of, that's nothing new
That the whole point isnt it? That he has not proved that his plan works. There is a part missing.
But I asked YOUR opinion, which 3 loop holes would you target first..
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 162):
Really? Can you read peoples' minds now?
No but i can read the NY Times:
"The campaign said that Mr. Romney’s tax liability would have been far lower in 2011 had the Romneys claimed the full deduction for their charitable contributions."
Yes, again you're forgetting that Romney will also be lowering their marginal rate.
So for Romney's 2011 tax. Instead of deduction $2,000,000 he would only been able to deduct $17,000.
The $2M deduction him a 14% effective tax rate.How much would he is effective tax rate be if he would be able to deduct only $17,000? There in awful lot of ground between $2M and $17k deduction that cannot be made up with a lowered tax rate.
Are you taking math lessons from Ryan?
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 162): Because unless you're familiar with every aspect of their complex fare structures, balance sheet and operating costs, it's an assertion you can't prove. You can discuss how in theory they could do "this" or "that", but it definitely doesn't prove anything, and again, if the airlines truly would have been more profitable by lowering fares and they didn't do so, the board of directors would have had something to say about it.
Oh ok.. so you are familiar with every aspect of their complex fare structures, balance sheet and operating costs,- or are you talking in "theory" too?
Klaus From Germany, joined Jul 2001, 20861 posts, RR: 55 Reply 164, posted (7 months 3 weeks 3 days 3 hours ago) and read 2869 times:
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 162): He did, but it was driven by increases in defense spending, but at the same time hundreds of thousands of jobs were being created each month and GDP was growing over twice as fast as it is now.
Classic deficit spending for jobs, which is something the GOP most fervently condemns – at least as long as nobody points out how inconsistent that point of view can be with others of their tenets.
And contrary to other fields, military spending is not constructive – it is not an investment, it is just money out of the window with no actual returns beyond the actual level of defensive needs.
BMI727 From United States of America, joined Feb 2009, 14358 posts, RR: 26 Reply 165, posted (7 months 3 weeks 3 days 3 hours ago) and read 2852 times:
Quoting Klaus (Reply 164): Classic deficit spending for jobs, which is something the GOP most fervently condemns – at least as long as nobody points out how inconsistent that point of view can be with others of their tenets.
I'm all for rationalization and not spending for the sake of spending. The Reagan defense push was the aftermath of the neglect the military (among other things) suffered after the Vietnam War and during Jimmy Carter's term.
Right now, the Democrats seem poised to throw the military into a similar period of neglect in the wake of the Iraq war. Unfortunately, that is a poor course of action since the current situation dictates that the national defense infrastructure be more capable and quicker to respond than ever before.
Quoting Klaus (Reply 164): And contrary to other fields, military spending is not constructive – it is not an investment, it is just money out of the window with no actual returns beyond the actual level of defensive needs.
That's an interesting thing to post via the internet of all things.
Why do Aerospace Engineering students have to turn things in on time?
flyguy89 From United States of America, joined Feb 2009, 1618 posts, RR: 9 Reply 166, posted (7 months 3 weeks 3 days 2 hours ago) and read 2840 times:
Quoting mt99 (Reply 163): Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 162):
LOL did you not read the article?
I did - i did not see 400 names, Make you a deal - ill settle for half.. Start naming,..
Oh really? So they're just lying? *facepalm*
Gary Becker, Nobel laureate
James Buchanan, Nobel laureate
Robert Lucas, Nobel laureate
Robert Mundell, Nobel laureate
Edward Prescott, Nobel laureate
Myron Scholes, Nobel laureate
Burton Abrams, University of Delaware
James D. Adams, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Richard Adams, Oregon State University
Douglas Adie, Ohio University
Lee C. Adkins, Oklahoma State University
Richard Agnello, University of Delaware
James Ahiakpor, California State University, East Bay
Francis Ahking, University of Connecticut
William Albrecht, University of Iowa
Michael J. Alderson, Saint Louis University
John W. Allen, Texas A&M University
William Allen, University of California, Los Angeles
Fernando Alvarez, University of Chicago
Wayne Angell, Former Member, Federal Reserve Board
Joe Antos, American Enterprise Institute
J. J. Arias, Georgia College
Richard K. Armey, FreedomWorks
Nathan Ashby, University of Texas at El Paso
Christopher Azevedo, University of Central Missouri
Scott Baier, Clemson University
Charles Baird, California State University, East Bay
Eric Baklanoff, The University of Alabama
Spencer Banzhaf, Georgia State University
Robert J. Barro, Harvard University
William Beach, Alexandria, VA
Howard Beales, George Washington University
Stacie Beck, University of Delaware
Larry Belcher, Taylor University
Don Bellante, University of South Florida
Bruce Bender, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Lee Benham, Washington University in St. Louis
Michael Bennett, Curry College
Bill Beranek, University of Georgia
M. Douglas Berg, Sam Houston State University
Richard Bernstein, Temple University
Sanjai Bhagat, University of Colorado
Andrew Biggs, American Enterprise Institute
Robert Bise, Orange Coast College
Michael Block, University of Arizona
Cecil Bohanon, Ball State University
Michael Bond, University of Arizona
Carlos Bonilla, Airline Forecasts
Donald Booth, Chapman University
G. Geoffrey Booth, Michigan State University
Karl Borden, University of Nebraska
Michael Bordo, Rutgers University
George Borts, Brown Universiy
Michael Boskin, Stanford University
Edward H. Boss, Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability Illinois State Legislature
John Boyce, University of Calgary
John Boyd, University of Minnesota
Edward Boyer, Temple University
Gordon Brady, glbradygroup.com
Daniel Brandt, Chevy Chase, MD
Ike Brannon, American Action Forum
David Brat, Randolph-Macon College
Charles Breeden, Marquette University
Ivan Brick, Rutgers University
Alex Brill, American Enterprise Institute
Roger Brinner, The Parthenon Group
Wayne T. Brough, FreedomWorks
James N. Brown, Rice University
Jeffrey Brown, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
David P. Brown, University of Wisconsin, Madison
Edgar Browning, Texas A&M University
Eric Brucker, Widener University
Lawrence Brunner, Central Michigan University
Peter Brust, University of Tampa
Phillip Bryson, Brigham Young University
William K. Buchanan, Valdosta State University
Todd Buchholz, Sproglit, LLC
M. Northrup Buechner, St. John’s University
Van Bullock, New Mexico State University
Richard Burdekin, Claremont McKenna College
....etc.
Quoting mt99 (Reply 163): So government spending is good.. Now you are back to saying that defense (ie war) makes for good stimulus.
Seeing as how the vast majority of the jobs created under Reagan were unrelated to defense, no I am not. The Cold War however was in full swing at the time, so that was the primary driver behind the reasoning in ramping up defense spending, judge that however you will, but the private sector was the driver during the Reagan recovery, so again, no to your assertion.
Quoting mt99 (Reply 163): In any case, it seems that you would not be opposed to an increase of the deficit. After all, that is what Reagan did.
I very much would, spending as a percentage of GDP in the 80's was not at the alarming rate it is today, nor is the debt-to-GDP ratio.
Quoting mt99 (Reply 163): Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 162):
Ah but we already know that Romney hasn't disclosed which ones he wants to get rid of, that's nothing new
That the whole point isnt it? That he has not proved that his plan works. There is a part missing.
And neither has Obama, but we know the ideological tendencies of both the candidates well enough to know what they want to do. Same as in 2008, the Obama campaign was extremely vague, but it wasn't like no one had any idea what type of policies he favored/wanted to pursue.
Quoting mt99 (Reply 163): But I asked YOUR opinion, which 3 loop holes would you target first..
Step-up deductions (only if the estate tax is repealed however), the mortgage interest deduction, and goods-specific deductions (private jets for example).
Quoting mt99 (Reply 163): No but i can read the NY Times:
So where did it say that Romney didn't take the full charitable deduction specifically to have a higher tax rate? You're certainly free to infer that, but unless you've had intimate conversations with the guy, you can't really know the reason.
Quoting mt99 (Reply 163): The $2M deduction him a 14% effective tax rate.How much would he is effective tax rate be if he would be able to deduct only $17,000? There in awful lot of ground between $2M and $17k deduction that cannot be made up with a lowered tax rate.
Seeing as Romney doesn't draw a salary and makes money off his investments and is thus taxed at the capital gains tax rate (which is double-taxed mind you), it's irrelevant...charity is also voluntary.
Quoting mt99 (Reply 163): Oh ok.. so you are familiar with every aspect of their complex fare structures, balance sheet and operating costs,- or are you talking in "theory" too?
Nope, I never claimed to prove it either way as you did. I merely pointed out that if airlines could have indeed made a higher profit with lowering fares but DIDN'T, the shareholders and board of directors would have had something to say about it.
Quoting Klaus (Reply 164): Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 162):
He did, but it was driven by increases in defense spending, but at the same time hundreds of thousands of jobs were being created each month and GDP was growing over twice as fast as it is now.
Classic deficit spending for jobs, which is something the GOP most fervently condemns – at least as long as nobody points out how inconsistent that point of view can be with others of their tenets.
And contrary to other fields, military spending is not constructive – it is not an investment, it is just money out of the window with no actual returns beyond the actual level of defensive needs.
See above, the Reagan recovery was driven by the private sector, 14.6 million private sector jobs to be exact (bls.gov). Perhaps the extra defense spending was justified with the Cold War, perhaps not, that's up to you.
BMI727 From United States of America, joined Feb 2009, 14358 posts, RR: 26 Reply 168, posted (7 months 3 weeks 3 days 2 hours ago) and read 2817 times:
Quoting flyingturtle (Reply 167): I agree with Klaus' point. And the ARPANET cost a microscopic fraction of the then-time military budget.
But it's wrong because 1) healthy defense spending is necessary to maintain national security and 2) such spending acts as a stimulus and creates massive leaps in technology while the actual stimulus achieved little more than making the deficit larger.
It doesn't matter if it's defense or infrastructure: spending for the sake of spending is stupid. Americans are much to worried about blue collar jobs and turning ourselves into a nation of bricklayers rather than worrying about innovation and building from the top. If you want to build a strong economy the goal needs to be raising the ceiling rather than the floor. Wasting so much time and effort trying to regain the past and retain the present will allow the future to slip away.
Why do Aerospace Engineering students have to turn things in on time?
connies4ever From Canada, joined Feb 2006, 3857 posts, RR: 13 Reply 169, posted (7 months 3 weeks 3 days ago) and read 2797 times:
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 136): He agreed to raise the top rate from 25% to 28%
A tax raise is a tax raise. Would not have passed muster with the Tea party, had it existed then. Result: congressional gridlock.
Quoting seb146 (Reply 140): They are paying the least in taxes in the history of the United States. I think they don't have a problem with profit. I think you just don't want them to pay anything.
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 144):
What? Re-investing occurs because profits provide the capital to make it possible.
Not quite 100%. There is also the issuance of share capital/
Quoting seb146 (Reply 148): So, the number of people with jobs is going up, but the number of people without jobs is going up? How does that work? the employed is gaining and the unemployed is gaining? How?
Because as jobs continue to be created, people who had previously withdrawn from the workforce re-enter, which either holds the unemployment rate level or actually increases it. But this was foreseen by many.
Quoting DeltaMD90 (Reply 153): Don't forget, what the economy does isn't 100% dependent on the person in the Oval Office.
Correct. A lot of how the economy performs is driven by public perception of how the economy is performing. If the general public have a good feel about the future, they will spend.
Not to be overlooked is the market. Generally thought to be 6-9 months ahead of actual economic performance, and the markets have been doing very well the past while.
flyguy89 From United States of America, joined Feb 2009, 1618 posts, RR: 9 Reply 170, posted (7 months 3 weeks 2 days 18 hours ago) and read 2753 times:
Quoting connies4ever (Reply 169): Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 136):
He agreed to raise the top rate from 25% to 28%
A tax raise is a tax raise. Would not have passed muster with the Tea party, had it existed then. Result: congressional gridlock.
You're being extremely disingenuous then if you're trying to label Reagan as a tax-increasor when he cut the rates from 70% down to 25% and then raised it to 28% out of compromise with Democrats to create a near-flat tax.
comorin From United States of America, joined May 2005, 4677 posts, RR: 17 Reply 172, posted (7 months 3 weeks 2 days 17 hours ago) and read 2722 times:
Quoting flymia (Reply 171): Ok we can close this thread now. The debate gave Romney a nice momentum swing until the next debate.
As the OP, I am in full agreement and request a lock on the thread.
soon7x7 From United States of America, joined May 2006, 2802 posts, RR: 14 Reply 173, posted (7 months 3 weeks 2 days 11 hours ago) and read 2685 times:
Quoting mt99 (Reply 152): Get your priorities straight!
My priorities are doing just fine,...thanks for your concern. Last night only substantiated my position. It is as easy as black and white.
mt99 From United States of America, joined exactly 14 years ago today! , 6354 posts, RR: 7 Reply 174, posted (7 months 3 weeks 2 days 7 hours ago) and read 2631 times:
Quoting comorin (Reply 172): As the OP, I am in full agreement and request a lock on the thread.
Quoting flymia (Reply 171): Ok we can close this thread now. The debate gave Romney a nice momentum swing until the next debate.
Due to impending thread lock.. i wontr reply to flyguy89.. I'll do a Romney: I have all the correct answers - I wont tell you what they are - But just trust me
Darksnowynight From United States of America, joined Jan 2012, 986 posts, RR: 1 Reply 175, posted (7 months 3 weeks 2 days 6 hours ago) and read 2610 times:
Quoting BMI727 (Reply 125): believe they have one major thing in common. While previous wars were fought largely on the backs of manpower and machinery, future conflicts, be it against a dozen terrorists or a division of soldiers, will rely more and more on information: getting it, analyzing it, sharing it, and utilizing it in a timely manner.
Right. And we need a million+ soldiers for what then?
Quoting BMI727 (Reply 125): Quoting Darksnowynight (Reply 124):
Which would be about 30% of what it currently is, yes.
Not even close.
We'll I'd have said closer to 20 - 25, but I think that might be cutting it a little fine, hence why I think 30% is a good starting point. If we can go further down from there, great.
Quoting BMI727 (Reply 125):
The Cold War is over, however that is anything but a free pass to slash defense spending.
No, war being over is exactly the right time to cut military spending.
Quoting pvjin (Reply 129):
Do you realise that the very same terrorist organizations that US is fighting against gained their popularity only because US military kept messing around the middle east?
Right. The truth is that the military is to our gov't the way income is to individuals. The more one has, the more one uses.
We have that problem now, where it is simply too tempting to start trouble, as opposed to either working issues out, or leaving whatever region it is we're having problems.
I think we all know what problems happen because of this, and what kind of trouble kicking cans like that down the road do to us and others.
Quoting flyingturtle (Reply 167):
Civil engineering projects give more people a job, and the project benefits society for a much longer time.
Absolutely. Reducing/reassigning military staff will provide the number of people and money to do this as well. This really could be a much better place if we ever got serious about it.
Quoting BMI727 (Reply 168):
But it's wrong because 1) healthy defense spending is necessary to maintain national security
Yes, healthy, like healthy eating leads to being in shape. What we're doing here is like hitting up the all-u-can eat buffet for every meal. This neither sustainable nor in our best interest as a nation.
Posting without Talent is simply Tolerated Vandalism... We are the Vandals.
flyguy89 From United States of America, joined Feb 2009, 1618 posts, RR: 9 Reply 176, posted (7 months 3 weeks 2 days 5 hours ago) and read 2589 times:
Quoting Darksnowynight (Reply 175): Quoting BMI727 (Reply 125):
believe they have one major thing in common. While previous wars were fought largely on the backs of manpower and machinery, future conflicts, be it against a dozen terrorists or a division of soldiers, will rely more and more on information: getting it, analyzing it, sharing it, and utilizing it in a timely manner.
Right. And we need a million+ soldiers for what then?
Well we all know that you want communist, human rights abuser China to "step-up" and be a military power on par with us....so have fun with that one.
Quoting Darksnowynight (Reply 175): Right. The truth is that the military is to our gov't the way income is to individuals. The more one has, the more one uses.
We have that problem now, where it is simply too tempting to start trouble, as opposed to either working issues out, or leaving whatever region it is we're having problems.
I'm sorry, but what an asinine argument, and one that's not even backed up with fact at that. I suppose our Portugal-sized military just "drove" us to dive right into WWI, oh and then I guess that the cut-down-to-size Army and Navy (in which we were far outnumbered in the world at the time) just made us oh so trigger happy to "start trouble" with that whole WWII thing.
BMI727 From United States of America, joined Feb 2009, 14358 posts, RR: 26 Reply 177, posted (7 months 3 weeks 2 days 4 hours ago) and read 2593 times:
It may not be a million soldiers. I've said in the past that the future of the military may be smaller in manpower, but that doesn't necessarily translate into smaller budgets. And those who do remain in the force will have to be smarter than ever before.
Quoting Darksnowynight (Reply 175): No, war being over is exactly the right time to cut military spending.
First, doing that regularly tosses the economy right into a recession.
Secondly, that's just a crappy way of doing business. Up until the second half of the 20th century it didn't work so bad: cruise along through peacetime, and then when the rumblings of war start you start mobilizing the forces, gathering up and training new soldiers (which consisted mostly of stretching exercises and handing them a gun), put them in a ship and send them off to fight whatever grand battles need to be fought.
It doesn't work that way anymore. Crises arise and flash into situations requiring force in a matter of weeks. The huge showdowns between armies are not as likely, but at the same time conflict cannot be seen from miles away anymore.
We saw a dip in defense spending after Vietnam during the Carter administration and that, not coincidentally, was followed by things like the botched rescue of the hostages in Iran and the poorly executed invasion of Grenada. Luckily, we learned the lesson and as a result the Gulf War became the curbstomp that it was.
The pattern of postconflict, Carter-esque neglect absolutely should not be repeated, especially when there are new threats around the world that will likely not call for a traditional response.
Quoting Darksnowynight (Reply 175): Yes, healthy, like healthy eating leads to being in shape. What we're doing here is like hitting up the all-u-can eat buffet for every meal. This neither sustainable nor in our best interest as a nation.
Actually military spending as a fraction of GDP is lower than during most of the post-WWII era.
Why do Aerospace Engineering students have to turn things in on time?
pvjin From Finland, joined Mar 2012, 549 posts, RR: 0 Reply 178, posted (7 months 3 weeks 2 days 4 hours ago) and read 2585 times:
Quoting BMI727 (Reply 177): Secondly, that's just a crappy way of doing business. Up until the second half of the 20th century it didn't work so bad: cruise along through peacetime, and then when the rumblings of war start you start mobilizing the forces, gathering up and training new soldiers (which consisted mostly of stretching exercises and handing them a gun), put them in a ship and send them off to fight whatever grand battles need to be fought.
Nobody forces United States to interfere with every damn conflict around the world. I am very sure that 9/11 attacks and terrorism against United States would not exist if US had been more diplomatic during last 50 years and wouldn't have interfered with politics of other countries.
DeltaMD90 From United States of America, joined Apr 2008, 5318 posts, RR: 47 Reply 179, posted (7 months 3 weeks 1 day 20 hours ago) and read 2527 times:
Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 176): Well we all know that you want communist, human rights abuser China to "step-up" and be a military power on par with us....so have fun with that one.
I say we keep a right sized but still powerful military. Who cares if China messes with the world and pisses off the Middle East or something. Look at Europe--they strong enough to defend for themselves, they aren't the #1 super power, and they're doing just fine. Look at our problems with the Middle East and all... let China deal with them if they want. Who cares if they make the Middle East communist or whatever, let's focus on our citizens for a change
Darksnowynight From United States of America, joined Jan 2012, 986 posts, RR: 1 Reply 180, posted (7 months 3 weeks 1 day 20 hours ago) and read 2524 times:
Quoting BMI727 (Reply 177):
The pattern of postconflict, Carter-esque neglect absolutely should not be repeated, especially when there are new threats around the world that will likely not call for a traditional response.
But I'm not advocating neglect. I'm advocating outright dismantlement of literally everything that is not essential to maintaining the integrity of our borders and trade routes, full stop. I'm also advocating, for the record, that our trade partners start picking up the slack as well. It's not ok to spend untold billions a year so that China can maintain a trade imbalance with us.
Quoting BMI727 (Reply 177): I've said in the past that the future of the military may be smaller in manpower, but that doesn't necessarily translate into smaller budgets. And those who do remain in the force will have to be smarter than ever before.
It almost certainly would as personnel is one of the most expensive line items in maintaining our current structure.
Quoting BMI727 (Reply 177):
It doesn't work that way anymore. Crises arise and flash into situations requiring force in a matter of weeks. The huge showdowns between armies are not as likely, but at the same time conflict cannot be seen from miles away anymore.
Righ. But as you say right there, huge showdowns, the preparation of which is again, the most expensive part of this equation, are unlikely in the future. In fact almost everything that we're likely to be involved with would be classified as a large scale policing operation.
And in any case, you're making an assumption that we somehow need to get involved with every little tiff that comes. We don't.
I'm actually ok with maintaining the same number of employees, but the effort needs to be turned inward and de-weaponized toward developing and maintaining more domestic needs.
Quoting BMI727 (Reply 177): Luckily, we learned the lesson and as a result the Gulf War became the curbstomp that it was.
That would be because we only did half the job and then went home. A little over a decade later, we found out that fully pursuing that end was quite a bit more of a challenge. And most of that time was spent fighting poorly armed shepherds. Not really our proudest moment...
Quoting pvjin (Reply 178): Nobody forces United States to interfere with every damn conflict around the world. I am very sure that 9/11 attacks and terrorism against United States would not exist if US had been more diplomatic during last 50 years and wouldn't have interfered with politics of other countries.
Exactly. We need to break this cycle of buying ourselves more trouble down the road while trying (badly) to "fix" the trouble we bought the same way thirty years ago.
Posting without Talent is simply Tolerated Vandalism... We are the Vandals.
PHX787 From Japan, joined Mar 2012, 4989 posts, RR: 14 Reply 181, posted (7 months 3 weeks 1 day 20 hours ago) and read 2527 times:
Quoting pvjin (Reply 178): Nobody forces United States to interfere with every damn conflict around the world. I am very sure that 9/11 attacks and terrorism against United States would not exist if US had been more diplomatic during last 50 years and wouldn't have interfered with politics of other countries.
Ah Yes I've heard about you. You're the guy who always blames America.
I'd like to say this before I pull the topic back on track: If we have not been there for scandinavia, I'm pretty sure Finland would be a part of the USSR. You don't know the strings we had to pull to keep nations democratic. But I digress:
I'm not about to get into a conflict about interventionist and non-interventionism, but seriously: We (sadly) house the UN and are the biggest contributor to NATO. I can do without the UN but we founded NATO and NATO has been very helpful to us.
When duty calls, we answer. As the world's largest economy, the most influential culture, and simply because of our power, we have this responsibility, whether Americans or foreign nationals like it or not. Turkey is gonna call us soon, for example.
Israel will call us too in a few months to take care of Iran. I'll guarantee that.
Hence the difference between Romney and Obama: I'll guarantee that Romney will respond if our embassies are attacked or if one of our allies are attacked. Obama has been really bad to respond.
This is why we need Romney. Obama is simply a laughings talk. Not as bad as Bush but still pretty damn bad.
Darksnowynight From United States of America, joined Jan 2012, 986 posts, RR: 1 Reply 182, posted (7 months 3 weeks 1 day 20 hours ago) and read 2518 times:
Right. This is more or less what I've been saying for quite a while here. More so, if we're so worried about China's human rights record, we better look out for that one country that wiped out its own entire native population before they become a military superpower. Oh wait, too late...
Right now, China makes bricks of money at a time without spending it all back on defense. And they're not about get invaded tomorrow either. The world (as you seem to know) is not going to end by sharing defensive responsibilities. The sooner we work toward that, the more long term good we can actually do for ourselves.
Posting without Talent is simply Tolerated Vandalism... We are the Vandals.
DeltaMD90 From United States of America, joined Apr 2008, 5318 posts, RR: 47 Reply 183, posted (7 months 3 weeks 1 day 19 hours ago) and read 2508 times:
And sometimes we answer even when duty doesn't call. I wasn't around for the paranoid of the 1960s-1970s so I can't really answer for that, but do you think Iraq was really worth it? This drawn out portion of Afghanistan (not the initial portion.) For a lot of our conflicts, all we do is spill blood, money, and standing with the world (which equates to more problems.)
BMI727 From United States of America, joined Feb 2009, 14358 posts, RR: 26 Reply 184, posted (7 months 3 weeks 1 day 19 hours ago) and read 2501 times:
Quoting Darksnowynight (Reply 180): I'm advocating outright dismantlement of literally everything that is not essential to maintaining the integrity of our borders and trade routes, full stop.
Then you aren't dismantling that much at all.
Quoting Darksnowynight (Reply 180): It almost certainly would as personnel is one of the most expensive line items in maintaining our current structure.
A lot of that is post-discharge benefits. I'm all for looking at and rationalizing the packages offered to future soldiers, but it's unconscionable to pull the rug out from under current troops and retirees.
Quoting Darksnowynight (Reply 180): But as you say right there, huge showdowns, the preparation of which is again, the most expensive part of this equation, are unlikely in the future.
Not unlikely, less likely. And whatever the size of future battles, you can bet they will be less predictable, more information driven, and quicker to arise than before. The world will not tolerate tooling along with a skeleton force before mobilizing funding, training, and equipment when it looks like trouble is brewing. Future conflicts just won't work that way.
Quoting Darksnowynight (Reply 180): And in any case, you're making an assumption that we somehow need to get involved with every little tiff that comes. We don't.
Not at all, but when things do come up there won't be time to retool the nation's factories and mold farm boys into an army before the shit hits the fan. That's just the reality of the world: the future of the military will be in being smarter and quicker to react than ever before.
Quoting Darksnowynight (Reply 180): And most of that time was spent fighting poorly armed shepherds. Not really our proudest moment...
Which means that not only must we maintain the ability to annihilate well equipped opponents in open battle but also have the intelligence, equipment, and people to fight the shepherds turned insurgent/terrorist as well. When the Cold War ended, the future conflicts became smaller in magnitude but greater in complexity.
Why do Aerospace Engineering students have to turn things in on time?
DeltaMD90 From United States of America, joined Apr 2008, 5318 posts, RR: 47 Reply 185, posted (7 months 3 weeks 1 day 19 hours ago) and read 2499 times:
I think you'd somewhat change your mind, even just a little bit, if you knew how much the US military wasted. I cringed a few years ago when we loaded up thousands of blank rounds into M-16s and fired them on burst, using them up because you can't check them back in (or it was a lot of paper work.) When my dad was in the Air Force he was ordered to fly his KC-135 around in a circle all day to burn fuel so they'd have that much for the next fiscal year. A kid missed a sim yesterday due to a misunderstanding and the company charges the US Navy $1000 or something (the cost to use it, but it was wasted since the person didn't show up.)
I can't think of any huge examples, I'm sure they're out there (like the video of the Blackhawk shooting off all its minigun ammo, "just cuz") but all these tiny, horrible inefficiencies add up because no one really cares (or even worse, they need to spend the money to earn it next fiscal year.)
That's the crap that can be cut and would save us a good amount, and would only change our military in making us more responsible human beings (not too much to ask.) Not harping on the military, but with our big budgets and little accountability, waste will occur
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. And terror? Really! The ignorance is incredible! I had no idea GWB financed all these terror groups and was pro terrorist. I think your dislike for America is clouding your judgement.
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