majorspark;1156513 wrote:I thought only chicken hawks started wars.

Never said that. It's just more annoying when they do. Today you have one of my fellow Catholics, Leon Panetta, a vet, carrying the torch for all the fear propagators. What a disgusting pile he is.

Footwedge;1156512 wrote: But you can thank the de-egulation of the banking cartel that you so adamently defend as the number one reason behind the 25% upsurge in misery under the Obama Administration.

Right, because it's all the bankers' fault. If you believe that, Obama has a few bridges to nowhere to sell you.

Footwedge;1156532 wrote:Today you have one of my fellow Catholics, Leon Panetta, a vet, carrying the torch for all the fear propagators. What a disgusting pile he is.

"Carrying the torch for all the fear propagators"? I'm no fan of Panetta but he is Secretary of Defense. Some might say he's simply doing - um - his job?

believer;1156721 wrote:"Carrying the torch for all the fear propagators"? I'm no fan of Panetta but he is Secretary of Defense. Some might say he's simply doing - um - his job?

So the Secretary of Defense's job is to sabre rattle and fear monger....and lie to the American people on bogus threats?

OK.

That's not what I would want the Defense Secretary to do. Just yesterday, a report stated that Al Quaida is pretty much completely defunct. Try running that by Panetta...who recently claimed an attack on America could happen any minute in today's environment.

He's a worthless pile....no different than Rummy and the rest of the fear mongers.

gut;1156678 wrote:Right, because it's all the bankers' fault. If you believe that, Obama has a few bridges to nowhere to sell you.

I said the bankers were the number one reason for the 2008 debacle. (never said the only reason)..you know...the one whereby Bush the 43rd demanded 700 billion of printing press money to keep the economy afloat. If you want to disagree, more power to you.

Only foolish people think that the bankers collectively, were/are not the number one cause of our inflated misery index.

Footwedge;1156796 wrote:So the Secretary of Defense's job is to sabre rattle and fear monger....and lie to the American people on bogus threats?

Didn't used to be called the Secretary of War for nothing.

majorspark;1156822 wrote:Didn't used to be called the Secretary of War for nothing.

Yes but political correctness re-named it the Department of Defense to appease the Footies of the world.

majorspark;1156822 wrote:Didn't used to be called the Secretary of War for nothing.

Secretary of Wars didn't incite the masses with unabashed bullcrap...the way this guy does.

believer;1156857 wrote:Yes but political correctness re-named it the Department of Defense to appease the Footies of the world.

The Footies of the World are in the vast majority in our country as it relates to Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and even Libya.

The Footies of the world were right 8 years ago...when being anti intervention was considered sedition. Sorry that our beliefs have won over about 70% of Americans today.

Boat-

1) What pro-growth policies has Obama introduced? Cap-n-Trade? How about ObamaKare? Maybe it's the Stimulus/Omnibus Spending Bills, eh? What happened when the borrowed/printed/invented-out-of-thin-air money ran out? According to Keynes, this type of "investment" should have ignited us already, right? How does stealing money from particular sources (children, grandchildren, evil rich, China, Japan, etc.), taking a substantial cut, and then giving the leftovers to other segments of society create demand? The money ran out last year and we saw a 2.2% GDP growth for the 1st quarter. Yeah, I know...yours and Krugman's solution is to steal more. Like addicts, you just can't get off the juice.

2) Who stopped him in the first 2 years of his presidency anyway? Don't tell me about the Senate's cloture rule...it didn't stop ObamaKare, did it? WHEN will you and the Left take ownership of Obamanomics? When is the Bush presidency finally over? I'd like a date, please.

3) It is an undeniable fact that the price of gasoline has doubled since 1-20-2009. That is a 100% increase by definition. Are you trying to say this has no effect on inflation?

4) This president has failed to lead, failed to fix, and failed to tell the truth. We are in a stagnant growth cycle with no hope for job creation, no hope for deficit reduction, and a gradual loss of hope for our future. He has not demonstrated any successes that he said he would deliver....and yet, tens of millions think he deserves 4 more years of blaming Bush, blaming the Tea Party, and blaming everyone other than himself for utter failure.

Neither Obama nor Romney know anything about pro growth policies. We have been looking to the government for "pro growth policies" for 80 years and we got what we deserve. 26.7% of all working age Americans that aren't in college or locked up in a government cage are unemployed. Oil has tripled in 3 years. We have to fight non stop wars to make sure oil exporting countries know the consequences of accepting money other than dollars in exchange for oil.

Barack got all of the "pro growth" policies passed that he wanted his first two years and did nothing but bury the economy further. Mitt would have pursued the same policies. This entire system is a joke. It will come crashing down in the near future, but so will any political dissent, so it won't do us any good anyway. The American people are too stupid for freedom anymore.

Footwedge;1156867 wrote:The Footies of the World are in the vast majority in our country as it relates to Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and even Libya.

The Footies of the world were right 8 years ago...when being anti intervention was considered sedition. Sorry that our beliefs have won over about 70% of Americans today.

generally speaking

BGFalcons82;1156901 wrote:Boat-


1) What pro-growth policies has Obama introduced? Cap-n-Trade? How about ObamaKare? Maybe it's the Stimulus/Omnibus Spending Bills, eh? What happened when the borrowed/printed/invented-out-of-thin-air money ran out? According to Keynes, this type of "investment" should have ignited us already, right? How does stealing money from particular sources (children, grandchildren, evil rich, China, Japan, etc.), taking a substantial cut, and then giving the leftovers to other segments of society create demand? The money ran out last year and we saw a 2.2% GDP growth for the 1st quarter. Yeah, I know...yours and Krugman's solution is to steal more. Like addicts, you just can't get off the juice.


2) Who stopped him in the first 2 years of his presidency anyway? Don't tell me about the Senate's cloture rule...it didn't stop ObamaKare, did it? WHEN will you and the Left take ownership of Obamanomics? When is the Bush presidency finally over? I'd like a date, please.


3) It is an undeniable fact that the price of gasoline has doubled since 1-20-2009. That is a 100% increase by definition. Are you trying to say this has no effect on inflation?


4) This president has failed to lead, failed to fix, and failed to tell the truth. We are in a stagnant growth cycle with no hope for job creation, no hope for deficit reduction, and a gradual loss of hope for our future. He has not demonstrated any successes that he said he would deliver....and yet, tens of millions think he deserves 4 more years of blaming Bush, blaming the Tea Party, and blaming everyone other than himself for utter failure.

1. The stimulus bill was good but not large enough and it wouldn't have passed if it was larger because there are a lot of Democrats who don't know textbook economics either. The Joe Lieberman's of the world were what forced it to be too small.

Keynes would not have said that the ARRA would have ignited the u.s. economy. It was an epic failure because the entire world is swept up in the conventional wisdom that is ruining Europe right now and holding us back. Additionally, the savage cuts at the state and local level have offset the expansionary policies at the federal level.

You have to realize that you think firing everyone at the Department of Education and putting them on unemployment insurance in an already depressed economy is pro-growth. When what you consider to "pro-growth" is nothing of the sort and won't bring to life a magical confidence fairy we're just going to talk past one another.


2. He made an epic mistake thinking the stimulus was large enough....thinking if it was much bigger the bond vigilantes would arrive. Essentially a moderately conservative view and it was wrong. He then turned to Obamacare for over a year begging Republicans to endorse ideas they invented which was also a mistake.


Obama did not do enough but if the U.S. had taken your advice we'd be looking at 15% unemployment as is happening in countries like Ireland. I'm unhappy with Obama's performance but it's for different reasons. Endorsing the complete opposite side which is being utterly proven wrong by other countries is no option.




3. You really don't understand the difference between headline inflation and core inflation. I've discussed this with you numerous times. The inflation in the price of gasoline is not due to the printing of paper money out of thin air, yada yada. That type of inflation is going to be below the Fed's target rate for several years. If we had the 4% core inflation of the Reagan years things would be getting much better much more quickly but we don't.


4. You and the people in your power have done everything in your power to stop him from pursuing policies that might actually work. We'd have hope for deficit reduction and job creation if you would repudiate your ideas that have been proven wrong across the pond and stop repeating things that were refuted in 1937.


Advocate a fiscal stimulus now, a higher inflation target and fiscal consolidation starting in 2015 with tax rates that Ronald Reagan Supported and all your concerns are alleviated. Obama will not do this but it's better than your recipe for disaster. You think it's bad here? The people taking your advice are heading back into recession.

I mean, imagine if half the people at your job were actively trying to prevent from succeeding.

Cleveland Buck;1156939 wrote:The American people are too stupid for freedom anymore.

Perhaps I am stupid but you know, I went for a jog in a public park today and it was nice not having to pay a toll/fee to use it like would happen in your perfect world. Pretty sure I'd feel more free if we kept things more like the way they are than in your world. Like Sartre says, we're radically free. Enjoy it.

BoatShoes;1157011 wrote:1. The stimulus bill was good but not large enough and it wouldn't have passed if it was larger because there are a lot of Democrats who don't know textbook economics either. The Joe Lieberman's of the world were what forced it to be too small.

Keynes would not have said that the ARRA would have ignited the u.s. economy. It was an epic failure because the entire world is swept up in the conventional wisdom that is ruining Europe right now and holding us back. Additionally, the savage cuts at the state and local level have offset the expansionary policies at the federal level.

You have to realize that you think firing everyone at the Department of Education and putting them on unemployment insurance in an already depressed economy is pro-growth. When what you consider to "pro-growth" is nothing of the sort and won't bring to life a magical confidence fairy we're just going to talk past one another.


2. He made an epic mistake thinking the stimulus was large enough....thinking if it was much bigger the bond vigilantes would arrive. Essentially a moderately conservative view and it was wrong. He then turned to Obamacare for over a year begging Republicans to endorse ideas they invented which was also a mistake.


Obama did not do enough but if the U.S. had taken your advice we'd be looking at 15% unemployment as is happening in countries like Ireland. I'm unhappy with Obama's performance but it's for different reasons. Endorsing the complete opposite side which is being utterly proven wrong by other countries is no option.




3. You really don't understand the difference between headline inflation and core inflation. I've discussed this with you numerous times. The inflation in the price of gasoline is not due to the printing of paper money out of thin air, yada yada. That type of inflation is going to be below the Fed's target rate for several years. If we had the 4% core inflation of the Reagan years things would be getting much better much more quickly but we don't.


4. You and the people in your power have done everything in your power to stop him from pursuing policies that might actually work. We'd have hope for deficit reduction and job creation if you would repudiate your ideas that have been proven wrong across the pond and stop repeating things that were refuted in 1937.


Advocate a fiscal stimulus now, a higher inflation target and fiscal consolidation starting in 2015 with tax rates that Ronald Reagan Supported and all your concerns are alleviated. Obama will not do this but it's better than your recipe for disaster. You think it's bad here? The people taking your advice are heading back into recession.

I mean, imagine if half the people at your job were actively trying to prevent from succeeding.

In other words, do the same things we have done for 85 years and have failed to accomplish anything except to wipe out the middle class. Excellent.

Of course European countries are falling back into recession. Their economies are dependent on the government. They don't have private economies. Now the governments can't borrow any more, so they are fucked. It's simple, and why planned economies are never sustainable. Mises showed why socialism can never work, because market prices mean something in reality, but mean nothing to a government that can print or outright steal the money.

If our government slashed spending and washed their hands, we would "fall into recession" too, but after everything corrected we would have real, sustainable growth again instead of your plan where you just want to print more and more to paper over each slowdown until the paper is worthless and the poor and middle classes just starve off.

BoatShoes;1157020 wrote:Perhaps I am stupid but you know, I went for a jog in a public park today and it was nice not having to pay a toll/fee to use it like would happen in your perfect world. Pretty sure I'd feel more free if we kept things more like the way they are than in your world. Like Sartre says, we're radically free. Enjoy it.

Would it be worth it to pay a fee (if they would even charge one, they would probably just sell concessions to park goers) if you kept all of your income?

I'm sure you would feel more free the way things are today, though I have no idea why. I know you would happily fund the government and everything they do voluntarily. That is your prerogative. I wouldn't, but am forced to. Do you support paying for endless wars of empire? I don't recall, but if not, you have no choice, it is taken from you at the barrel end of a gun. Congratulations. Freedom is sweet.

I assume you don't have a Muslim name, but if you did and the president ordered a drone strike on your home, if you survived, how free would you feel? You say they can't do that? Why not? Read the NDAA. I love freedom.

I'm sure you have no problem investing your money in the Wall Street slot machine, but say you just wanted to save it for a rainy day without risking losing it? You are welcome to, but it won't be worth as much when you go to spend it. That lost value? Stolen. It's ok though, the government took it. The land of the free.

Cleveland Buck;1157030 wrote:In other words, do the same things we have done for 85 years and have failed to accomplish anything except to wipe out the middle class. Excellent.

Of course European countries are falling back into recession. Their economies are dependent on the government. They don't have private economies. Now the governments can't borrow any more, so they are fucked. It's simple, and why planned economies are never sustainable. Mises showed why socialism can never work, because market prices mean something in reality, but mean nothing to a government that can print or outright steal the money.

If our government slashed spending and washed their hands, we would "fall into recession" too, but after everything corrected we would have real, sustainable growth again instead of your plan where you just want to print more and more to paper over each slowdown until the paper is worthless and the poor and middle classes just starve off.

This seems to suggest there was a larger/more prosperous middle class around 1927 which I really doubt.

Cleveland Buck;1157052 wrote:Would it be worth it to pay a fee (if they would even charge one, they would probably just sell concessions to park goers) if you kept all of your income?

I'm sure you would feel more free the way things are today, though I have no idea why. I know you would happily fund the government and everything they do voluntarily. That is your prerogative. I wouldn't, but am forced to. Do you support paying for endless wars of empire? I don't recall, but if not, you have no choice, it is taken from you at the barrel end of a gun. Congratulations. Freedom is sweet.

I assume you don't have a Muslim name, but if you did and the president ordered a drone strike on your home, if you survived, how free would you feel? You say they can't do that? Why not? Read the NDAA. I love freedom.

I'm sure you have no problem investing your money in the Wall Street slot machine, but say you just wanted to save it for a rainy day without risking losing it? You are welcome to, but it won't be worth as much when you go to spend it. That lost value? Stolen. It's ok though, the government took it. The land of the free.

I think you'll find that Boatshoes is (I think, he can correct me) equally against endless wars for empire and bullshit like NDAA, SOPA/PIPA, CISPA, etc. Simply because I think that we can have some publicly provided services like parks and libraries doesn't mean I love ridiculous government intrusion in all things.

I Wear Pants;1157100 wrote:This seems to suggest there was a larger/more prosperous middle class around 1927 which I really doubt.

It s impossible to prove empirically, but you might be right simply because innovations in capital goods have greatly improved the standard of living of people despite government policies over that time, but we have no way of know how much more prosperous we would all be without those policies all of this time.

What is indisputable is the erosion of the middle class in this country over the last 40 years, precisely the time period that the dollar has not been backed by anything of value, and therefore the time period of the most explosive growth of government in this country's history, and there is no reason to believe continuing the same policies will yield different results.

I Wear Pants;1157105 wrote:I think you'll find that Boatshoes is (I think, he can correct me) equally against endless wars for empire and bullshit like NDAA, SOPA/PIPA, CISPA, etc. Simply because I think that we can have some publicly provided services like parks and libraries doesn't mean I love ridiculous government intrusion in all things.

That's fine, but what I am saying is that they are morally the same. We are either free and own ourselves and have rights, or we are not free and are just permitted by our masters to have some privileges like freedom of speech or to keep some of our property. What is wrong with voluntarily funding government services? Or voluntarily funding private companies to provide services you find important?

Cleveland Buck;1157117 wrote:What is indisputable is the erosion of the middle class in this country over the last 40 years, precisely the time period that the dollar has not been backed by anything of value, and therefore the time period of the most explosive growth of government in this country's history, and there is no reason to believe continuing the same policies will yield different results.

Repeat after me, "Big Gubmint is Good Gubmint"....it'll grow on ya.

Cleveland Buck;1157125 wrote:That's fine, but what I am saying is that they are morally the same. We are either free and own ourselves and have rights, or we are not free and are just permitted by our masters to have some privileges like freedom of speech or to keep some of our property. What is wrong with voluntarily funding government services? Or voluntarily funding private companies to provide services you find important?

The real difference in our opinions comes from the fact that you think (at least this is the impression I've got) that an absolute free market is sustainable over a long period of time. I'm of the opinion that it isn't, people get greedy/do stupid things/fuck people/companies over and this results in the market not always working like it should and in fewer entities slowly owning more and more and we see this happening.

Now we don't have an absolute free market but I find it hard to argue against the fact that an actual free market requires people to be rational decision makers both on the end of producers and consumers to work as it is theoretically intended on a long enough timescale. And people are not rational.

And that's not to say that there certainly aren't things that we can't switch from public funding to privately funded and they work out just as well or better. There are certainly places we can do that. But something like say, the prison system. That seems like something that should never be privately operated and especially never be operated by a publically traded company. Private entities and even more severly publicly traded companies are about profits and cost cutting will happen. We're seeing this with some of the stories coming out of the privately operated prisons throughout the US.

I Wear Pants;1157285 wrote:The real difference in our opinions comes from the fact that you think (at least this is the impression I've got) that an absolute free market is sustainable over a long period of time. I'm of the opinion that it isn't, people get greedy/do stupid things/fuck people/companies over and this results in the market not always working like it should and in fewer entities slowly owning more and more and we see this happening.

Now we don't have an absolute free market but I find it hard to argue against the fact that an actual free market requires people to be rational decision makers both on the end of producers and consumers to work as it is theoretically intended on a long enough timescale. And people are not rational.

And that's not to say that there certainly aren't things that we can't switch from public funding to privately funded and they work out just as well or better. There are certainly places we can do that. But something like say, the prison system. That seems like something that should never be privately operated and especially never be operated by a publically traded company. Private entities and even more severly publicly traded companies are about profits and cost cutting will happen. We're seeing this with some of the stories coming out of the privately operated prisons throughout the US.

I do believe that monopolies enforced by violence, which is what governments are, are never the best providers of goods or services. I wasn't even getting into all of that though. I was breaking it all the way down to the most basic level.

Do you own yourself and your property or does that state own you and your property? When you own something then you are the final authority regarding that item. You don't need permission to do anything you want with it (as long as you aren't violating someone else's property) and it can not be taken away from you.

You need to pay for a license to drive a car. Why? Because you do not own the roads, the state does. They make the rules and you need their permission to use the roads.

You do not need permission (at least not yet) if you want to cook your steak in your refrigerator for dinner. It is yours. You can wear it on your head if you want to.

You need permission to build a shed on your property. You need to pay tribute to the state if you want to keep your land. Do you own it? If you own it, then you do not need permission to do anything you want to your land. The fact that the state has infringed on our right to own land is immoral, no matter what that tax revenue pays for.

Your income is your property. If the state can take as much of it as they want to, then it either isn't your property or they are stealing it.

If you want to voluntarily fund some state services, then I don't suppose there is anything immoral about that. Whether or not state services "work better" than private services, if they are funded by the violent seizure of people's property, then they are immoral and illegal.

^^^CB, I think you answered your own questions. The government owns everything including us.

There are federal, state, and local laws and codes that, when you did deep enough, even own the steak on your head, how you're permitted to where it, when you can wear it, and how the steak shall be cooked.

"it is just getting sad now. In April the number of people not in the labor force rose by a whopping 522,000 from 87,897,000 to
88,419,000. This is the highest on record. The flip side, and the reason why the unemployment dropped to 8.1% is that the labor force participation rate just dipped to a new 30 year low of 64.3%."

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/people-not-labor-force-soar-522000-labor-force-participation-rate-lowest-1981

obama: The Master of Unemployment ...... he is making Jimmy Carter look like Ronald Reagan.

Change we can believe in ...