User Comments, Suggestions, or Complaints | Privacy Policy | Terms of Service | Advertising
|
Demarini, Easton and TPX Baseball Bats
|
AllianceTickets.com has cheap MLB Tickets. Get all your Colorado Rockies Tickets, Seattle Mariners Tickets, San Francisco Giants Tickets and all your favorite baseball tickets here. We also carry cheap Denver Broncos Tickets, Seattle Seahawks Tickets and Denver Nuggets Tickets. |
For wholesale prices on baseball gifts and equipment, check these stores out! |
Page rendered in 0.7452 seconds
50 querie(s) executed
Reader Comments and Retorts
Go to end of page
Statements posted here are those of our readers and do not represent the BaseballThinkFactory. Names are provided by the poster and are not verified. We ask that posters follow our submission policy. Please report any inappropriate comments.
I would say Jan 3 is probably more important than Jan 1 -- come the 4th, we'll know (and so will Boehner) whether he keeps his gavel or not... the numbers also change a wee bit - I think making it a foregone conclusion that package that comes from the 113th congress as opposed to the current 112th would ONLY pass with a fairly decent (say... 30-40) House Dem votes. If he couldn't get 218 of 241, he ain't getting 218 of 233.
Is the contention that they killed everyone on purpose and according to plan?
As fuckups go, it was incontrovertable and basically unforgivable, but do you think it was that, or that all the killings were just what they wanted?
He's also up next cycle (2014) and there are plenty of rumblings about a primary challenge...
It already is in force in two states, I thought.
There is nothing in the Constitution that bars that method of selecting Electors.
sure someone want to tangle with him in 2014 but that candidate will be buried in opposition cash.
I ask because here in Arizona, he's gone from hero (c. 1999) to very much disliked on grounds of both policy and personality.
Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.
I looked through the amendments, and did not see any changes. So the manner of appointing electors is up to the States.
Erick son of Erick has an interesting idea up on RedState -
It's too late for that now, I think...
But I could tepidly support this... just to give it a whirl.
The reason it doesn't usually work this way is that it becomes incredibly easy to poison pill a bill, and while Erick doesn't admit as much, a big part of the problem with this approach is that it would inevitably lead to legislation that would cause folks like Erick and the RSers (and to be fair - Markos and DKers) all the more reason and ammunition to go scorched earth on their reps.
EDIT: Oh - one other change... let's not use HR8, let's use S3412 (the Senate 'solution' rather than the House 'solution') as the thing to be put on the floor for amendments :-)
he's become a very strange and bitter guy.
at minimum you know that if you want someone to attack the president with some amount of perceived street cred the senator is your go to guy. he put out his shingle that if you want someone to go after the president he's your man.
I'd compare McConnell to Nancy Pelosi - both are highly skilled parliamentarians and party leaders. But when the House Dems became irrelevant to policy-making after the 2010 midterms, Pelosi couldn't change that. McConnell can't change the underlying institutional structure, either.
Interestingly, Pelosi has actually managed, now that the House is the choke point in negotiations, to make herself important because Boehner can't deliver his whole caucus. her votes are now just as necessary as his.
Was there ever any proof that Koresh or the other Branch Davidians abused children? I'm asking seriously, because to the best of my knowledge there were merely allegations and not hard evidence, but I may be misinformed.
Then again, even if we had video evidence of Koresh violating a 13-year-old, it's pretty clear that the correct response was not "armed raid on the compound." 20 children (13 or under) were killed during the Waco siege.
Let's remember the events leading up to the siege. Koresh was accommodating, offering to let the ATF investigate the weapons in the complex, and the ATF refused. They obtained a warrant based on the idea that the Branch Davidians MIGHT have been altering weapons for illegal automatic fire, even though the investigation revealed only legal guns in the compound. (That there really were modified guns doesn't defend the flimsy evidence used to justify the warrants for search and arrest, and the resulting raid.) The ATF lied about the Branch Davidians operating a meth lab to bolster their legal excuse to search.
The Branch Davidians engaged pretty much entirely in defensive violence, which was completely avoidable. The government behaved monstrously, and this is a shameful event in American history.
there is house passed legislation that could be amended/passed in the senate in minor fashion and then returned to the house. the crux here is not having a senator filibuster which mccconnel can make happen (or not happen)
then sure, it's back to the speaker but if the changes are legitimately minor then it has a chance to get through the house.
Red carpet entries like they do at Award shows...
"Now, here's Mitch McConnell walking the carpet... looking resplendent with his chinless face... Ooohhhh -- and here's Harry Reid, wearing his hound dog face, designed by Old Spice for Men.... Let's see if we get a moment with Nancy Pelosi, radiant in her "Cripes, I've been doing this too long" smile... Following her is John Boehner - tan designed by Columbus' famous LA Tan salon... "
What on earth does that have to do with CB's point? Do you care to make the argument that Koresh's actions merited the force used by the feds? If so, please make it.
To answer your bizarrely irrelevant question, I have no idea what the feds' plan was. It's clear that their actions were, at a minimum, incredibly reckless and represented a willful disregard for the safety and rights of the Davidians. It's typically best to assume incompetence rather than malice, but the sheer level of ineptitude on display in Waco was enough to make one wonder.
Koresh was not some recluse, eternally cloistered in a dark room filled with bottles of his own urine and 13 year old girls for raping; he regularly went into town nearby. If law enforcement had good evidence that he was actually committing crimes, stake him out and pick him up then.
Extend certain tax cuts originally enacted in 2001, 2003, and 2009 for taxpayers with income below $250,000 for households and $200,000 for individuals; extend estate and gift tax provisions enacted in 2010; and index the AMT for inflation
Limit to 15% of the value of a tax deduction, down from a maximum 35% currently for the highest earning taxpayers
Increase to $170,000 the amount of earnings subject to the Social Security payroll tax, and adjust for inflation in future years. The 2011 maximum was $106,800.
Phase out the mortgage-interest deduction over a decade beginning in 2014
Repeal a deduction used by oil companies, filmmakers and manufacturers for producing domestically instead of overseas
defense: Allow the automatic spending cuts from the debt-ceiling deal to go into effect
non-defense: Allow the automatic spending cuts from the debt-ceiling deal to go into effect
Give states a set amount of money to fund long-term care under Medicaid, the state and federal health-care program for poor people
Increase the premiums for Medicare Part B, which covers costs like doctor’s visits, to 35% of spending per person, up from 25%
Require prescription drug makers to pay a rebate to the government on drugs purchased by some people in federal health programs
Change how initial Social Security benefits are calculated to slow payments’ growth
Gradually raise the age at which workers are eligible for full Social Security retirement benefits, to as high as 70, up from a range of 65 to 67
Gradually raise the earliest eligibility age for Social Security to 64, up from 62
Change how Social Security cost-of-living adjustments are calculated to slow payments' growth
Apply an excise tax on high-cost health plans in 2014 instead of 2018, and apply the tax to more plans
Limit highway funding largely to the revenue generated by the 18.4-cent-a-gallon federal gasoline tax
Add a government-run health-care plan to the new insurance marketplaces
Reverse the order of the two-step process to calculate Social Security benefits, which would encourage some people to work longer
Reduce initial disability insurance benefits by 15 percent
and note that i hammer the sh8t out of my age bracket. social security is pin money for the bulk of folks collecting the checks and anyone who thinks otherwise is ill-advised. seniors are bilking this country using the pity poor me routine and it hacks me off
everyone
it's no good. bad to the bone.
needs to go away
Wow! Is this ever wrong.
Those 2 changes alone would have increased my taxes (Federal income and payroll) by 25% last year.
As for those still alibi-ing for the Branch Davidians: They shot the legally authorized process servers. They refused to avail themselves of the legal process. They refused publicly to submit to legally constituted authority for something like two months, all that time threatening violence.
I am not defending the actions of the ATF in Waco, just noting that "creepy guy" doesn't exactly fully account for a guy that was "married" to multiple 14 year old girls (parental permission in Texas at the time made that "legal" but it's still...more than creepy) and almost certainly was "married" to and sexually active with at least one 13 year old girl.
The proper Dem play here is to get behind a National Popular Vote initiative to counter the "local districts choose" GOP gambit. If the Dems sit on their hands and attempt to simply defend the status quo they'll loose on the optics. They need to be the more liberal option, offering "every vote matters" in contrast to the GOP's "the votes matter but only in the way we've gerryrigged the districting."
EDIT: Which is to say, I don't agree with everything he's said today or over the last few weeks, but there's a lot of good stuff in there that I would happy agree to compromise on. Harveys, you remind me of my dad. Are you sure you're not a elfin old Chinese man?
I read that at first as "grouch-on-hookers"
For 2/3 of seniors, SS provides the majority of their income. For 1/3 of seniors, it provides 90% or more of their income.
It's also one of the very few largely available to the middle class, and home ownership drives a number of industries. I could see capping it, but I think it is a very useful thing to leave in for middle income taxpayers.
If a debt ceiling deal were included, I'd certainly sign on.
Ultimately, though -- that's an extremely workable framework.... I do think that I'd ask to drop SS almost entirely (we can keep the CPI calc changes) in exchange for maybe putting cap/corp taxes on the table (tell me how many points you need).
SS, I just don't think, needs to be on the table for this deal to work simply because it's really not a debt driver --- unless we're seriously considering some selective defaults on notes the Trust Fund owns, which probably isn't legal to begin with.
Fair enough. Let's go with "very creepy," or if you prefer, "super freaking creepy". Does that merit the slaughter of all those kids in that compound? Because unless you think it does, you're simply throwing up red herrings in an attempt to distract attention from where blame lies. The degree of Koresh's "creepyness" is not relevant.
As I said before, assume ALL the allegations were true (although we know now that they weren't). Let's pretend Koresh was raping every 13 year old girl in the place. Is the proper response to kill the victims?
I have not defended the ATF's actions or tactics.
This is what I was responding to before that you bitched about. If you are flat out asking if killing the victims was the proper response, you're implying that is the PLANNED response, and I'm simply asking if that's what you mean. If their planned response was an armed firebomb takedown that mistakenly, wrongly, and horribly killed the victims I don't see the point in what you're asking because it wasn't the response. The response you're asking about is something that got terribly bent. To me the question "Was the response of killing so many victims really proper" only makes sense if you think that is what they were trying to do, which is why I asked.
If you're asking if the planned response shouldn't have even been ABLE to go that wrong, that seems to be something else. I really don't recall at the moment the full story of how it went so wrong or why.
Anyone from my bubble hive or anyone else feel free to let me know if I'm spouting idiocy.
old people in this country have a great gig. they need to pony up
young people in this country are under the thumb of the elderly. that's not healthy for a society.
Link
It's kinda like how Prop 13 screwed up things for California. It was short term thinking at its finest.
Forget about the article, I would think the guy is guilty by just looking at his mug. Holy smokes!
You see your cat taking a nice long scratch on the arm of your couch and in an attempt to get her to stop, you go to stomp your foot nearby, to scare her. The cat hears you coming, gets stuck, and just before you get to your stomp, gets a bit confused and starts to run away right in your direction. You mistakenly stomp on her foot, breaking it.
If you were then asked by your GF or anyone else, "Was the proper response to a scratch on the couch breaking the cat's foot?", what would your reply be?
i didn't hack at head start. didn't hack at education grants. didn't hack at aid to rural hospitals or teaching hospitals.
my big focus was entitlements on the spending side. give me more time and i will carve that area up but good.
why the largesse???
and spare me the cr8p about development costs. big pharma companies just acquire small startups to get new stuff. nobody can tell me otherwise. that is my arae of business.
I think it was a very foreseeable consequence that they were willing to take in order to demonstrate government dominance over private citizens. What they wanted was for Koresh to surrender to the authority of the government, and then when he refused, what they wanted was to demonstrate that failing to surrender to the government has very serious consequences.
The error starts long before the first shot is fired. Putting aside for a moment the inherent problem with restricting what consenting individuals do on their private property, Koresh wasn't some hermit that never left the compound. There are quite a few steps between "do nothing" and "show up with a small army and essentially declare war on a small religious cult."
To me the question "Was the response of killing so many victims" only makes sense if you think that is what they were trying to do, which is why I asked.
I think you're deliberately reading that in the most "tinfoil hat crazy" way possible. That's not a very polite way to have a discussion.
If you're asking if the planned response shouldn't have even been ABLE to go that wrong, that seems to be something else. I really don't recall at the moment the full story of how it went so wrong or why.
I can only speak for myself, but I'm not asking. I'm telling. The planned response never should have been one that possibly could lead to that result, and it's not like this was a particularly bizarre and unlikely outcome. If you assault an armed population of religious cultists in possession of a weapons stockpile, you would be remarkably stupid not to expect armed resistance.
Not that this was the plan. The raid was designed to be a surprise attack because of that very likely possibility, and even though they knew that the defenders were aware of the attack, they followed the same plan. You should read up on the sequence of events; from the absurdly incompetent surveillance, to the fraudulent effort to obtain warrants, to the complete lack of awareness that their spy had been discovered, to the lack of patience in the negotiation, to the rigidity in adhering to a failed plan... this was a laundry list of government incompetence. The more I read about this, the angrier I get at the government for the outrageous abuse of power that cost so many lives.
Not that I'm defending Timothy McVeigh, because he was a monster if any human being can be defined as a monster, but the Oklahoma City bombing was in part inspired by the brutality of the government in Waco.
You need to look at the balance sheet as well as the cash flow. I see nothing wrong, from a policy perspective, in having seniors use the accumulated capital rather than rely upon government payments to replace inflow that ended upon reaching retirement age. The alternative is allowing the social safety net to serve as a way to allow people to have an estate to pass along to their heirs.
Seniors, on the whole, have the largest share of the nation's net worth. Median net worth by age of the head of household:
<35 $9.3k35-44 $42.1k
45-54 $117.9k
55-64 $179.4k
65-74 $206.7k
75+ $216.8k
The data is slightly different if you look at mean rather than median. In that case, the greatest net worth is the 55-64 age group, followed closely by 65-74 and then a bit further behind 75+. The net worth of the mean of the 75+ age group is 18% higher than the 45-54 age group.
Data as of 2010 from the Federal Reserve: http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/bulletin/2012/pdf/scf12.pdf
Seriously, encouraging older folks to work longer is bad for young people. We (in as much as I'm 30, but let's say we) really want old people to retire, so there's openings. (This may be exacerbated by the fact that I had to emigrate to the UK to find work). That, and I'd like to stick it to people with estate tax (or at least, for estates above a million bucks or something).
But, as I've noted earlier, my politics don't align super-great with parties anyways, so I think you could pick up my vote. (At least if you could lay off the teenage girls who need abortions ;) )
Reading a ton of tea leaves, most probably bad -
Here's my meaningless prediction - poor John gets another good whacking; Reid takes HR8 to the floor, completely shreds it, sends it back to the House, and it becomes a game of hot potato with both chambers amending and bouncing it back forth until time runs out.
This is where John's hand COULD get really weak... and he needs McConnell to cover him... It sounds like Boehner is promising floor votes - regardless of his own caucus - on anything the Senate can amend from HR8. So - McConnell either gums up the works, or, allows Reid's amendments (which WILL be near shreddings) to get up or down votes. Let's assume that Reid keeps his caucus together... Has McConnell promised to sideline filibustering motions to consider? There's really no reason the Senate GOP should offer amendments - remember, this is Boehner's bill... it ought to be fine as is to Senate GOP, so amendments would (rightly) be Dem amendments. The Senate GOP has three choices:
1)block via procedure (i.e., force anything or some things to get to the 60 vote threshold)... but this would be a pretty naked McConnell maneuver and then he'll start getting the fire Boehner has been getting.
2) Try to pick off a couple Dems and block via true up/down votes... Sounds unlikely, but probably possible on a few things. However, this would be selective blocking.. HR8 still looks virtually nothing like what passed the House.
3) Wash their hands, no filibuster - but vote no on all amendments and no on the final bill - essentially, dumping the mess back in Boehner's lap
I suspect it will be a combo of 2) and 3).
Then... I think Boehner loses his gavel - he'll have no choice but to let a very Dem-favored bill come to the House floor and he has three bad choices, two of them very bad:
1) Amend some more -- but now -- the House dysfunction REALLY comes into play... House rules are a lot looser than the Senate, so who the hell knows what comes up and gets passed. This would be where Pelosi's tighter control of her caucus could really pay dividends.
2) Let a bill pass with what would probably be almost wholly Dem supported, with minority GOP support
3) Whip AGAINST it
Choice 3) means his bad few weeks gets even worse.... because he'd probably lose that, too... gavel gone. Choice 2) means he at least gets the 'thanks of the American people', but still loses his gavel next week.... Choice 1) is a wildcard, but he's still stuck what probably ends up being a hated bill... but perhaps McConnell gets him enough cover to allow him a slim chance to keep his gavel.
Yup - they're screwing Boehner.
They've put it Reid/McConnell's hands and it sounds like no filibuster/procedural blocks. Implicit promises from Boehner to allow House floor vote (obviously, you can't filibuster in the House - you block by not placing bills on the floor).
If Reid/McConnell can put something together by then, that gets an up or down.
If not, the 'mini-package' gets an up or down.
Whatever passes - gets a vote in the House.
I'm telling you... Boehner is getting the screwjob here - but he got screwed by his own caucus. I hope the yahoos in his caucus realize that what has transpired since they shot down his fig leaf - they utterly pissed away their leverage.
It's problematic on other grounds as well. It's currently a favorite target of Republicans because it screws people in blue states, relatively speaking. I would be in favor, though, of eliminating the deduction for second homes (if that still exists).
I must win the prize for "most liberal" here, because I strongly disagree with 13 of Harveys' 20 proposals. There's a 21st about which I'm neutral (tax deduction for production in US).
It's really, really good for lenders and real estate agents. Part of the value of home ownership is artificially inflated because of the mortgage deduction; if people couldn't rely on it, they'd be willing to borrow less money and therefore would have paid less for their homes. This artificially high market for homes prices poor and many lower-middle-class people out of the market.
The government had a lot longer than a half-second to modify its response.
This would be a more reasonable analogy if your living room were a thousand feet long, you and the cat started on opposite sides of the room, you lifted your leg to stomp, and then stomped anyway once the cat got right under your foot.
And if the filibuster is in play, then McConnell's in the same position as Boehner, and the Dems have to get through two ###### up caucuses to get a bill through. I guess arguably the "optics" change if the Senate passes a bill, but ultimately I think this is still more about interests and structures then "optics".
I think the Reid/McConnell huddle predicates that -- this is why I hate political reporting, they completely ignore the complexities...
But - remember - the Senate had already passed something... That's S3142 - the bill Boehner says has a "blue slip" problem.
Sooo... I think (and these are my tea leaves) - that Reid/McConnell get one last chance to work out something that won't make Boehner blanch... That gets an up or down (and since McConnell would be part of that negotiation, makes sense).
If not -
Then HR8 essentially gets wholly rewritten (ahem, 'amended') with the guts of S3142 - which, again, already got through the Senate once.
In effect - it's either a compromise that McConnell at least implicitly signs on to, or, it's a bill that has already passed the Senate (just under an 'S' designation, which means Boeher 'blue slips' it).
Hence - McConnell really hasn't given away anything he hasn't already, previously given away.
This is why my tea leaves say they're screwing Boehner...
Anyway, the people getting screwed by this process are ordinary working Americans. It appears that no matter what, the payroll tax will be hiked and a variety of other bad things will happen. All to solve a "problem" that is obviously not affecting the American economy in the least way, and doesn't project to cause any actual problems for at least another presidential administration, and while we're still in the throes of a four-year labor market crisis. So this all basically sucks.
In absolute terms, yes. In the short term, yes. But relative to the possible grand bargains bandied about (especially given the bill that died in the house) it is better than the alternatives. In the long term - if things collapse and the GOP gets blamed, it might (but I doubt it) help future things get passed.
Cloud meet silver lining I guess.
That thing went on interminably and in public before authorities finally decided something had to be done. Koresh and the BDs got what they wanted, and at every step they pushed it further. That because the authorities finally did something and a horrible outcome resulted doesn't make the authorities are automatically at fault. Koresh could have, and should have, simply submitted. That was not only his legal duty; it was what would have been best for his own crazy folloers. If you push legally constituted authority like that, something bad is likely to eventuate, and unless you had a better reason that some Brave New Worldview at stake, you are the one that is at fault. That's where it started, not with process of service. Koresh and Co. were not owed a duty to have service done like they wanted it to be done, just as they aren't entitled to have society we constituted like they'd like it to be.
Because virtually all of the available options mean a breach of the Hastert rule -- in effect, a bill passing (unless he can whip enough opposition within his caucus) with mostly Dem votes.
I think that's death for a GOP speaker (especially with the caucus he has).
Thus far, he's been able to play with a short field -- i.e., just his 241 caucus, with the idea of getting 218 of them "with" him. That sounds over and done... so now - his magic number is probably 121 and I don't think he can get that because the Senate bill is going to be at least relatively Dem friendly, if it isn't an outright recapitulation. Even his allies and friends (and he does have them) have to start really thinking about their own seats.
He's been hiding behind the blue slip - and my guess is that he can't hide anymore... Perhaps McConnell can get him something - just enough to get him over 121 GOP votes... but if not, he's gonna get the original Senate bill that will almost certainly pass the House, but also almost certainly pass with almost the entire Dem caucus and very few (maybe 50? 60?) GOP votes.
The blue sip was basically his final "not my fault" excuse... if the Senate essentially gives him back something called "HR8 as amended" - he can't hide behind a blue slip anymore.
As explicitly stated, it was not an analogy for the event. I was talking about the question being wrong.
And let's be honest; there's no response to Waco that Clinton's administration could have gone with that would have kept the wingers from winging it up.
Link
Is this supposed to be, gorblimey, not cricket, old sport?
Obama HAS played this well, politically.
The big problem with his thesis is that it's all predicated on this fantastical, radical concept that the very idea of raising taxes is somehow a 'radical' agenda.... Never mind that Clinton did it... never mind that Bush I did it... never mind that Reagan did it... Never mind that virtually every President since Wilson has done it for a variety of reasons -- to pay for wars, to pay for various national initiatives...
He HAS forced the Republicans into a day of reckoning - either they face up to the idea that, even if you think spending needs a drastic, across-the-board cut to an extreme degree, taxes of some manner or another WILL HAVE TO RISE.
Sane people accept this. Many of them Republicans, many of them conservative, many of them hating taxes accept this.
The argument should be a matter of "OK - fine... but what spending do we cut? What taxes do we raise? How much do they rise"? Those are perfectly legitimate counterpoints - and worthy of debate, discussion, and yes - compromise.
But that's not where Krauthammer is coming from... He's coming from the nihilistic, snort a mountain of coke then ride the laffer curve roller coaster that plunges forever to eternity with magic fairies delivering revenue at the bottom camp.
....where 'raising taxes' has somehow become this impossible, radical idea that only a cloaked marxist would dare propose.
I'd say he and his ilk are just being spoiled, idiot children who suddenly realize the gig is up -- but that's giving him and his ilk far, far too much credit.
It's a reckoning that needed to happen.
Fail No. 1: Obama can score a partisan political victory AND seriously deal with the national debt at the same time, Charles. These are not mutually exclusive. In fact, it's going on right now.
Fail No. 2: But what actions are mutually exclusive to Krauthammer? Raising taxes and dealing with the debt. He says so right there.
The big $$ from Harveys cuts come from Medicaid and poor people. He snuck it by most of the readers apparently:
These are all very regressive cuts that hit poor people hardest.
This would not be a good deal for Obama to agree to. I'm just pointing this out because I think people have a hard time understanding that it's quite difficult to cut spending at this point without causing a fair amount of harm to poor people or old people or old, poor people.
You can cut some to Medicare by instituting more means-based tests. I like the revenue raisers in Harveys' proposal, but the cuts are basically non-starters. That deal would fail in the House by huge margins--neither caucus would support it.
***
With no deal done today, I think we're going over the cliff (at least technically). It's pretty much unavoidable. We might get a deal agreed to in principle, and then voted on by Jan 4-5, but that's about it.
http://www.sanders.senate.gov/legislation/issue/?id=a86e4557-d2ed-4159-ab67-75380e07b9cd
Funny how those fascists on the far left, like Sanders and, say, Kucinich, are much more likely than the far right crowd to actually stand up for liberty.
I'll give Rand Paul credit, though. He's one of the very rare righties who gives a damn about civil liberties when it involves more than your right to carry maximum fire power.
Eminently sensible. I do want to see great care exercised, in that the potential for real, costly, long-term environment damage (which we as taxpayers will bear) is present; at the same time, failing to frack (should be a song in that) has its own costs, including an increased likelihood of foreign adventuring at some point to ensure the US oil/energy supply, and environmental damage from sources of energy other than fracking. It's not like the energy needed in lieu of fracking doesn't come with its own significant costs; costs of varyng kinds.
It's reasonable to disagree on this. I'm a Keynesian, and while I'm also a small government liberal (which can make for a difficult balancing act) I do think the time is right (high unemployment, low borrowing costs) for government to go ahead and do its job here, namely to catch up on all the building and maintenance we've let slide.
True, but... the fact that government employment has actually dropped since Obama took office strongly suggests that the first stimulus was not well-crafted.
courtesy of the budget office these are the billions on each item
medicaid--50 billion
social security age raise--30 billion
eligibility age--30 billion
cost of living--20 billion
the tax increases alone were over 400 billion
taxed the biggest earners
cut defense
took away stuff from corporations.
but your perspective is that the folks over 65 don't have to contribute a d8mn thing?
so in the spirit of shared sacrifice you would expect the group that has the most concentrated wealth as an age demographic to contribute nothing?
this old poor folk thing is getting as tedious as save the children.
employment dropped and has stayed dropped because the economic downturn forced companies to cut costs and learn to live without. they discovered that they had a lot of folks earning paychecks which did not need to be replaced.
american worker productivity and technology made backfilling unnecessary.
the american worker needs to reinvent himself/herself. again. which has happened repeatedly in our nation's history.
this constant cuckooing over the plight of the american worker is also noise to my ears. if you sit and tell folks they have it rought they expect someone to do something versus the worker doing something.
the american worker is a great asset. now that the chinese want stuff and wages are going up annually the competitive labor cost edge is diminished making it about the workers skills versus cheapitudeness
Are those costs per year or per 10 years? Because it looks like you're comparing per year spending cuts with per 10 year revenue raises.
It's my perspective that rich seniors should contribute, but we should do our best to hold harmless people who have no other source of income.
There is no impending budget crisis. There are no bond vigilantes. The only thing that is urgent is the unemployment rate. So no, I don't think that making everyone share sacrifice is important.
This is fine as an explanation ... except why has there been stagnant wage growth? If companies trimmed the fat and found that they could do just fine, why no growth in wages?
I think a much better explanation is the demand side explanation. A sudden demand drop explains everything. Not some things, but everything.
I'm with Harvey. Excepting my mom I say we march the lot of them up the damned mountain without parkas.
Because the newly unemployed would snap up any job that comes available if a resource demanded wage increases, at the non-increased cost.
all the figures courtesy of the congressional budget office and there is nothing stating that there is a timeframe difference.
as for wage growth there is no broad based competition for the american worker. folks can term it exploitation but it's the flip side of when workers were moving from job to job and getting 20 percent and greater raises with each move
companies are not motivated to provide raises as there is no market pressure to do so.
limit patients ability to sue for malpractice
reduce federal payements to hospitals that teach
end higher medicare payments to rural hospitals
extend waiting period for disability insurance to 12 months from 5 months
eliminate federal grants for wastewater and drinking water
increase the share of rent that low income tenants pay in federally subsidized housing
restrict pell grants to fewer students
eliminate grant programs for elementary and secondary education
eliminate funding for national community service programs
do i need to continue? i got more
i could get every one of these programs but get what, 50 billion?
stick it to the old people or stick it to the kids. well, as an old person i am saying very clearly we had our bite at the apple
it's look out for folks who had jobs and families and instead of leveraging that into a means of coping with their later years they have their hand out boo hooing about how the mean old govt shouldn't be touching their social security checks which they have been cashing for possibly half as long as they actually worked.
give me a break
But Harveys' explanation was that those people were unemployable. So if businesses cut all the people who were unemployable, the remaining people should see wage growth--absent a demand problem.
Again, for this to make sense, there has to be a demand gap.
i did not write that these folks unemployable. i stated that companies made do with less. the worker needs to transition the skill set to a company/industry where the demand exists
it is also true that workers are less willing to move. there is a need in the energy sector in nebraska and north dakota but companies are struggling to get workers in that part of the country.
once upon a time folks would rush to where the work was located
now there is a belief in quality of life or some such.
Well, you yourself called infrastructure spending ######## or some such.
hey, i will toss that into the pot. but i was looking to get serious money. that's like 4 billion. that's nothing
that and it's bad pr. not worth the hassle
oh, and won't someone think of the old people. can't have them drinking nasty water
whatever
Which program is this?
It sounds like you're talking about the transition someone makes, should they become disabled, from SSI (which is means tested) to SSDI (which is not), which occurs in most cases once someone has worked something like 25 quarters (though iirc from helping a friend through the hoops, it was variable and also painfully complex) and paid into SS during those quarters.
What would you change it to?
edit: "Agree with Harveys about the mortgage interest deduction. It is pretty much the most regressive tax break imaginable."
Could it not be re-written to benefit only first time homebuyers and on the first $250,000 of the home's value?
It makes sense to incentivize first time ownership, to give people who otherwise could not build real equity a shot at doing so.
the first passage is mine and that refers to social security
the second passage is not mine and hence no answer
so why is social security some sacred ground for folks 40 years from eligibility?
if i were you i would be agitating for death panels
you can write tax law, as with any law, any way you like
but you won't find an economist worth his/her salt who supports the mortgage interest deduction. nor any tax person. everyone agrees it's just a big fat handout to a small segment of the taxpaying population
there is no large scale economic benefit. there isn't.
it....................is......................dumb
so add that to the pot
see, i am a farmer and i am sticking it to farmers
i am old and sticking it to the old people
i am invested in oil companies and sticking it to the oil companies
How young do you think we are? I'm about a dozen years from collecting benefits. Look, I once had plans to never give SS a thought. But first big salary cuts to save the pension (and thus less money to set aside for later), and then the pension going bye bye means that it is starting to look like a real piece of the retirement income basket.
the general sense is that this crowd was a bunch of 35 year old nerdy white dudes as a rule of thumb
give or take of course
my sincerest apologies
You must be Registered and Logged In to post comments.
<< Back to main