living sounds
Well-known member
Here's a good rather nonpartisan article:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1112/83704.html?hp=t1
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1112/83704.html?hp=t1
CA also voted in a super majority for dems in Sacramento so you haven't seen anything yet. They have been relatively restrained over recent years.pucho812 said:John I live in Ca, We voted(not including me as I voted no) in a .5% tax increase under the guise it's for education but ultimately goes into the general fund.
If a petition meets the signature threshold, it will be reviewed by the Administration and we will issue a response.I was born and raised in TX IIRC TX is the only state that I am aware of that has to right to walk away should it see fit. The secession I am referring to are as follows
Here is the petition from TX to the us gov
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/peacefully-grant-state-texas-withdraw-united-states-america-and-create-its-own-new-government/BmdWCP8B
according to the numbers they need a minimum of 25,000 signatures, they are up to 10,000+ right now.
Other States Petitioning are:
NY, FL, MT, IN, GA, KY, NC, MS, ND, NJ, AL, LA, TX, SC, MI, CO, OR.
Interesting to watch for sure and remember it's the government there is a form for everything. You just might have to fill it out 3 times over
Looks like some voters may have been partaking before the vote ... ;Dtskguy said:HA , I love these political threads,
Weed is legal in 2 states = about damn time.
yes it's over.Poor richie rich Romney lost, get over it.
Indeed. They horribly mismanaged the changing demographic of voters. Hispanics now make up >10% of voters and Romney got a smaller fraction than McCain or Bush. Way too much of the campaign mud slinging stuck, because the defense was inadequate.The Republican Party is broken.
This is pure partisan spin. I had to remind some of my (black) friends at the gym, that I am one of those evil old white republicans they voted against to get even with.Sorry, super rich white dudes can’t fool us in to making them richer anymore.
Taxes on passive income is arguably double dipping. I already paid income taxes on all the money I used to buy stocks with. getting taxed on the returns from those investments will diminish investment. The stock market is not narrowly owned only by rich people, but stocks are held in average worker's retirement accounts. Increasing the tax rate on this passive income, will result in less capital available to the stock market and for business to grow the economy (jobs and tax revenue for government will suffer) .The fact super rich investors pay half the taxes I do IS MESSED UP!!!! Come on 15% capital gains tax! I work in financial industry, read up on hedge funds some time.
Check out how much the Koch brothers spent on this last election!
It’s all about money; everything else political is a ruse!!
E
fazer said:Politico: article. Living Sounds
I tell my ultra right friends (which I have many) that Rush and his views are about entertainment and used to increase viewership and ad revenue. Being addicted to Drama News is bad no matter what side your on. Your just being played.
I'm addicted to the drama of music. Kind of a stupid addiction in this crazy world but its my 1st passion as many others I read commits from.
I wished I would have spent more time listening and recording music instead of politics this year. Now I know my new years resolution.
Echo North said:Remember Obama still won the popular vote, maybe by as much as 3-4% in the end. If you spread people out evenly over the country, it would sill be more blue.
;D ;D Yup, the electoral college did it's job to make another close election look less close. This is good to keep the losers (like me) from open revolt, but bad when the winners believe their own hyperbole and behave like they have a mandate.AMZ-FX said:Echo North said:Remember Obama still won the popular vote, maybe by as much as 3-4% in the end. If you spread people out evenly over the country, it would sill be more blue.
He only won the popular vote by 0.5%... Obama got 50.5%, Romney had 48% and other party candidates accounted for the balance.
In round numbers, Obama got 62 million votes. That means that there was a popular vote balance in favor of Obama of only 613,861 votes (out of 122.7 Million votes cast) and when you spread that all across the country, it's pretty thin... 12,277 people per State, or 196 people per US county (average).
Figures often beguile me, particularly when I have the arranging of them myself; in which case the remark attributed to Disraeli would often apply with justice and force: “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” - Mark Twain
Ah, but the wealthy have quite often done an excellent job of demonizing themselves.JohnRoberts said:but it goes against the grain of what made the US what it is to demonize wealth and success.
I've heard this argument before. But I don't understand why money earned by sitting on your ars longa should be less taxable than the money you bust your hump for. Really makes no sense to me. If I were writing tax code, I would institute a progressive tax on capital gains so that the little investor (often folks who are or will be depending on that money to get by in retirement) is not hurt.Taxes on passive income is arguably double dipping. I already paid income taxes on all the money I used to buy stocks with. getting taxed on the returns from those investments will diminish investment.
The negative divisive nature of this campaign is another complaint of mine. The chief executive is supposed to represent all of us, including folks like me who voted against him. I am not holding my breath on that.
JR
JohnRoberts said:What do democrats aspire to, if not wealth and success... high positions in government or a union management gig?
JohnRoberts said:The primary freak show, forces candidates to embrace more extreme unelectable positions. Both party primaries are guilty of this, but when both are happening simultaneously the extreme political noise kind of cancels out.
A lot of this is messaging, and the obama campaign used the republican primary to their advantage. Painting Romney as a liar because of his pre and post nuanced positions. Nobody seems to notice the difference between Obama's talk and walk.
There are rich fools and poor fools, but the rich fools get all the attention and ink .hodad said:Ah, but the wealthy have quite often done an excellent job of demonizing themselves.JohnRoberts said:but it goes against the grain of what made the US what it is to demonize wealth and success.
If you tax capitals gains as normal income can I write off investment losses against normal income? That could be useful the way things are going with the economy.I've heard this argument before. But I don't understand why money earned by sitting on your ars longa should be less taxable than the money you bust your hump for. Really makes no sense to me.Taxes on passive income is arguably double dipping. I already paid income taxes on all the money I used to buy stocks with. getting taxed on the returns from those investments will diminish investment.
That's very gracious of you. I heard a data point today that only 50% of the stock market is owned by the 1%, but I don't know how they defined that.If I were writing tax code, I would institute a progressive tax on capital gains so that the little investor (often folks who are or will be depending on that money to get by in retirement) is not hurt.
His idea of compromise was evident in his recent speech where he repeated his threat to veto any tax cut renewal that doesn't raise taxes on the rich. Sounds like the same old Obama to me. And this is not enough money to make a huge dent (something like 8% of the budget deficit. not national debt), in a very soft economy. But it is red meat for his base, and he is still playing politics ("hey you won, move forward already"). Instead of allowing reporters into the room and taking questions about this and other important pressing matters, he surrounded himself with cheering supporters. To cheer his speech applause lines.The negative divisive nature of this campaign is another complaint of mine. The chief executive is supposed to represent all of us, including folks like me who voted against him. I am not holding my breath on that.
JR
From my perspective, Obama has been extremely willing to compromise with Republicans--usually to a fault.
The NCLB attempt to capture and use results based metrics to evaluate teachers, is rational management, just like used for almost every other human activity. NCLB continues to be attacked by teachers unions as a problem. Obama has issued a number of executive orders allowing several states to opt out of NCLB requirements. The failures of education are a modern day tragedy. It's not for lack of spending, but rampant mismanagement IMO. The pupil/teacher ratio back when I was a young puke was around 25:1 today that ratio is closer to 15:1... Give me less better teachers and pay them more. I have no complaints about the education we received back in the 50s-60s.His education policy is not radically different from the corporatist nonsense of the Bush years (not that that represents your beliefs, but it sure doesn't represent mine.)
I was thinking about you... I don't recall getting wet kisses from Bush, either. He expanded government and spending way too much for my taste, he only looks good compared to the current crew.I can also assure you that nobody represented me during the Bush years.
"Hey I'm so old I knew Abraham Lincoln, and Obama is no Abraham Lincoln... " 8) 8) 8) {joke I'm not that old}And if you're really worried about a president representing all of us, why don't you tell that to Abraham Lincoln?
JohnRoberts said:+1... Rush, is a clown, and Glen Beck was as shrill ranting on the right as MSNBC is on the left.
tskguy said:Mr. John Roberts,
I hate to burst that wonderful bubble of yours but guess what, Capital gains for these rich folks has nothing to do with the stock market like you think. Guess what, there are 100's of thousands financial and futures products traded on multiple non-equity exchanges. These people are not investing, their job is to take other people’s money and work it on these exchanges to make a profit. Guess what all the profits from these hedge funds and prop shops as well as large non retail investment banks pay taxes on these profits at a rate of 15%. And they also pay themselves bonuses and salaries in the form of shares so guess what!!! 15% taxes. The stock market is a very small part in this.
And if everyone got stoned once in a while the world would be a much better place.
AMZ-FX said:He only won the popular vote by 0.5%... Obama got 50.5%, Romney had 48% and other party candidates accounted for the balance.
AMZ-FX said:In round numbers, Obama got 62 million votes. That means that there was a popular vote balance in favor of Obama of only 613,861 votes (out of 122.7 Million votes cast) and when you spread that all across the country, it's pretty thin... 12,277 people per State, or 196 people per US county (average).
JohnRoberts said:PS: I don't have a big gripe about legalizing marijuana. It is pretty far down my list and could actually reduce crime and raise tax revenue if they do it correctly. I just think the game at play was to turn out young liberal voters. The Obama administration has not embraced legalizing it, AFAIK, but didn't mind the help at the polls.
JohnRoberts said:hodad said:If I were writing tax code, I would institute a progressive tax on capital gains so that the little investor (often folks who are or will be depending on that money to get by in retirement) is not hurt.Only 50%? 1% owning 50% if the stock market doesn't seem like much of an "only" to me. But maybe that's just my perspective.That's very gracious of you. I heard a data point today that only 50% of the stock market is owned by the 1%, but I don't know how they defined that.
The NCLB attempt to capture and use results based metrics to evaluate teachers, is rational management, just like used for almost every other human activity.
The problems with metrics & teachers are manifold. Pilot programs have shown little or no year-over-year correlation that helps distinguish good teachers from bad ones. Teachers have up years and down years, and a good bit of this is going to be tied to class makeup. It can be as little as one bad apple in a class of 25 that'll bring the whole group down. Get a couple of behavior problems mixed with a handful of struggling learners and 2 or 3 advanced kids who are bored out of their skulls and you've got a management nightmare.
Teachers don't have a say about their class makeup, and rarely have the opportunity to get rid of a disruptive child. And children (thank goodness) are not products--the faulty or defective ones don't get thrown in the trash the way a defective product on an assembly line does. Neither are they exactly employees to be guided through the day by a teacher-manager (though there is some of that going on.) And it's really hard to fire a kid from your class. And the BS of RTTT (which is not substantially better than nCLB in my 'umble), where 1st graders are rating their teachers, is ridiculous.
The classroom should not be treated as a business. It simply does not function that way, and trying to squeeze it into that box is detrimental to all involved.
Kingston said:Makes me wonder if that whole post of yours was some strange meta-play on that quote of Mark Twain.
Yes perspective matters. A couple hundred years ago that might be .1% or .01%.JohnRoberts said:If I were writing tax code, I would institute a progressive tax on capital gains so that the little investor (often folks who are or will be depending on that money to get by in retirement) is not hurt.Only 50%? 1% owning 50% if the stock market doesn't seem like much of an "only" to me. But maybe that's just my perspective.That's very gracious of you. I heard a data point today that only 50% of the stock market is owned by the 1%, but I don't know how they defined that.
I don't claim it is trivial. Mangers should have digression to make exceptions for extraordinary circumstances, but I don't accept it is all unmanageable. I recall taking standardized tests back in the 50's. If you don't work toward a measured result how do you how well you are doing? I don't believe in no-fault jobs, and agree that children grading teachers is one step removed from "lord of the flies" chaos. The little monsters need firm direction and teachers need to be respected not liked.The NCLB attempt to capture and use results based metrics to evaluate teachers, is rational management, just like used for almost every other human activity.
The problems with metrics & teachers are manifold. Pilot programs have shown little or no year-over-year correlation that helps distinguish good teachers from bad ones. Teachers have up years and down years, and a good bit of this is going to be tied to class makeup. It can be as little as one bad apple in a class of 25 that'll bring the whole group down. Get a couple of behavior problems mixed with a handful of struggling learners and 2 or 3 advanced kids who are bored out of their skulls and you've got a management nightmare.
Children, get "reworked" (left back or make up tests), and given special instruction when available and needed, a little like products.Teachers don't have a say about their class makeup, and rarely have the opportunity to get rid of a disruptive child. And children (thank goodness) are not products--the faulty or defective ones don't get thrown in the trash the way a defective product on an assembly line does.
I dislike attacking all teachers. I have fond memories of good teachers I had, who loved their work and did a good job. I also experienced my share of marginal teachers who were not the cream of the crop.Neither are they exactly employees to be guided through the day by a teacher-manager (though there is some of that going on.) And it's really hard to fire a kid from your class. And the BS of RTTT (which is not substantially better than nCLB in my 'umble), where 1st graders are rating their teachers, is ridiculous.
The classroom should not be treated as a business. It simply does not function that way, and trying to squeeze it into that box is detrimental to all involved.
JohnRoberts said:I hope DC drops the partisan nonsense and stops fighting long enough to avoid the fiscal cliff... Budgets and spending are actually important to all of us.
Enter your email address to join: