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
meet the new boss, same as the old boss
- Thread starter pucho812
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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:
The education needs more more money is a popular theme but like the street beggar asking for money to buy a warm meal, you know that dollar is going for booze.
If a petition meets the signature threshold, it will be reviewed by the Administration and we will issue a response.
Yawn, so if 25k people send the same message to the WH they will acknowledge it. Any one want to guess what the answer to that one would be?
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As I mentioned this is not a new concept from TX, the third coast. I almost wouldn't mind Austin taking over for DC, they seem much more realistic and practical, but its not likely IMO.
JR
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.
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.
Looks like some voters may have been partaking before the vote ... ;Dtskguy said:
yes it's over.
I wouldn't mind having Obama money, let alone Romney money, but it goes against the grain of what made the US what it is to demonize wealth and success.
Are Al Gore and George Soros. painted with the same "wealth is evil" broad brush?
What do democrats aspire to, if not wealth and success... high positions in government or a union management gig? I recall when government jobs were low paying but secure jobs, for people with low potential for advancement in the private sector.
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 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. As I suggested long ago, he's a basketball player, ignore his head fakes and look at his feet to figure out where he is headed.
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.
In my judgment the economy is being driven into the ditch, and there's a cliff to the left of that ditch. It seems to me that when you are already in the left ditch, you should stop steering left, but that's just 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. 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) .
I agree that there is a narrow distortion/abuse of the passive income rules exploited by some money managers who manipulate their day job, which is investing mostly OPM for capital appreciation, and they structure the deals so their compensation "looks" like a capital gain. The fix is to close this one loophole, not throw out the baby with the bathwater by damping all investment by the public into the market.
I would refine that to it'a all about power, while money is the fruit of having that power, and apparently useful for attaining that power.
I haven't seen a final accounting but it looks like pro-Obama spending exceeded pro-Romney spending in this campaign. Kock brothers were not the only deep pockets supporting the right (Adelson, etc). Many (not all) in the banking and business community switched sides in response to how they have been treated. I don't deny big unions free speech either, while I am not sure government workers need union protection from their employer ( us taxpayers). SIEU borrowed some $25M before 2008 to supplant their campaign spending and that investment seems to have paid off.
I am not happy with all the money pissed away by both sides in the campaign that could have been put to better use for the economy. The amount of money this election attracted ($billions) is a testament to the reward that both sides are lusting after. The republicans are only the lesser evil, but IMO a lot "lesser" compared to our recent years experience. You can't kill the cow and still milk it.
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
PS: In these post campaign exchanges, I have found many common themes in the opposition arguments I heard from the less informed (like my basketball playing friends at the gym) almost literally cut and pasted from opinion leading sources like Huffington, et al. I value original thought in circuit design and governance. I need to stop responding to the programmed talking points.
Even more insidious, the use of cookie tracking in social media has done a lot of narrow casting of partisan arguments to susceptible voters. If business used personal tracking to that degree there would be a huge outcry. Apparently its OK in politics? Another reason I didn't sign up for Romney's website. I value my privacy.
fazer said:
+1... Rush, is a clown, and Glen Beck was as shrill ranting on the right as MSNBC is on the left. Their messages are 1% content 99% hyperbole. Just like Trump and all his arm waving is more about self-promotion than informing the public.
Why do people need to get their opinions spoon fed to them by others? Don't search out opinion (including mine), search out facts and form your own opinions. Not just a couple weeks before the election. Pay attention all year long, the truth is out there while sometimes hard to see behind all the smoke and mirrors. Start paying attention now for the next decision point, 2014 (assuming we make it past the world ending Dec 2012).
I wonder if that end of the world legend in Dec 2012 was why they placed the fiscal cliff right after that in Jan 2013...
Those clever poltiicians always looking for the easy way out. ;D ;D ;D if the world is going to end, we might as well go out owing money to everybody. But what happens if we are still here in Jan?
JR
AMZ-FX
Well-known member
Echo North 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.
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
;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:
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
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If you spread the blue voters evenly across the country they probably wouldn't stay blue voters (not that I needed to move to MS to grow more conservative)... 8)
I was looking at a vote by county map, and you can almost track population density by vote preference. Looking near where I live, there was a band of blue counties roughly following interstate 20 east-west through the middle of AL.
I have theories about the correlation, but prefer to stick to fact whenever possible, so won't go there.
JR
Ah, but the wealthy have quite often done an excellent job of demonizing themselves.JohnRoberts said:
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.
From my perspective, Obama has been extremely willing to compromise with Republicans--usually to a fault. 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 can also assure you that nobody represented me during the Bush years.
And if you're really worried about a president representing all of us, why don't you tell that to Abraham Lincoln?
living sounds
Well-known member
JohnRoberts said:
I don't know about Democrats, but liberals are motivated primarily by a drive to help people. The "harm reduction" value in the psychological value chart takes precedent over all others. People are genuinly different from each other. Which doesn't say that many voting for Democrats don't vote with their pocket books, or - if they're running for office - have other dominating factors (narcissism is probably overrepresented with politicians accross the spectrum). But personal "wealth and success" in the financial sense is not the most important goal in live for everybody.
living sounds
Well-known member
JohnRoberts said:
Those are false equivalences.
The kind of freak show Republicans put up these days is just unprecedented. The equivalent for the Democrats would be 10 candidates on stage that feature 1-2 qualified candidates, and the rest being a pot intoxicated hippie, a vegan eating a carrot during the debate, a gay guy all clad in leather etc. Well, almost. ;-)
Here's a best-off:
http://video.msnbc.msn.com/now-with-alex-wagner/49713496#49713496
As for Romney's positions, it was his Republican primary contestants who gathered a file with the positions he held during his political life, and there were at least two opposing ones on every issue. Obama fell short on several promises (often because of factors beyond his control), but he never flips between extremes as far as I can recall, in fact I don't think he varies his positions a lot at all.
There are rich fools and poor fools, but the rich fools get all the attention and ink .hodad said:
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'd be OK with more taxes on interest and capital appreciation, if the government stopped inflating the currency. Then we wouldn't have to run so fast just to end up in the same spot (my alice in wonderland reference).
As another marker for how pervasive inflation is, another item on the pending "fiscal cliff" to-do list is going back into the alternate minimum tax "again" to correct it for inflation. When congress originally passed the alternate minimum tax, it only targeted a small handful of extremely wealthy households, but over time inflation creep has nudged normal middle class incomes to rise up into that formerly uber-wealthy bracket.
This is going on all the time with all the progressive tax brackets. Don't think the pukes who wrote the tax code, don't know what is going on.
I bought some gold before the election as a hedge to hopefully preserve some value but even it is down 8%+ I'm finding it hard to be optimistic in the short term, now near term.
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.
Romney had a similar scheme in his tax overhaul proposal where instead of deductions being wiped out entirely they get capped for wealthy taxpayers to keep progressivity and incentives in place for the lower earners. But he was just a Scrooge McDuck, trying to make rich people richer, if you believe the attack ads.
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 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.
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.
"Hey I'm so old I knew Abraham Lincoln, and Obama is no Abraham Lincoln... " 8) 8) 8) {joke I'm not that old}
The stuff about Lincoln being a vampire killer is complete fiction. While he was a good president.
JR
living sounds
Well-known member
JohnRoberts said:
I know I should shut up, but - MSNBC is certainly partisan and sometimes shrill, but the stuff Beck came up with and some parts of the conservative bubble are on a different qualitative level. Generalizations, even factual inaccuracy and demonization are not the same as locked-ward-mental-patient-like conspiracy mongering.
Most conservatives don't think like this, but at this point in history they are overall more fact-challenged than liberals.
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.
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.
tskguy said:
Burst my bubble... One guy at the gym was telling me that I was living in a bubble and didn't know what was going on. I wish i was, this real world is kind of depressing.
Several posts ago I said there were traders on wall street that shouldn't get the capital gains treatment for their business model. I am proposing that they lose passive income treatment because what they are doing does not resemble simple passive investing, that said i do not think the government needs to suppress investment more broadly. Suppressing hedge fund activity a little will not break the bank, contrary to their arguments about liquidity and efficiency,, bull chips.
The stock market over the last several years has gotten weirder and weirder, it like all the civilians pulled back, and now it's mainly the sharks left trading against each other. but they're using the same algorithms so all kinds of strange correlations in market activity occurs. it's like somebody raises the risk-on flag, or the risk-off flag, and everybody salutes. Not like back in the day when there were lots more more innocents around and more randomness in the market.
I think the high speed traders are getting a nice skim off the top whenever the big mutual funds or institutions have to rebalance their portfolio or trade large blocks. The high speed traders probe prices constantly with fake trades and can "sniff out" when a big buy or sell program is happening then front run those trades. i can imagine it adding up to lots of money. They can't skim too much or the trades will stop, but it's like a troll under the bridge you have to pay a little to cross. The trolls are getting fat, and the exchanges are in bed with them, allowing them to co-locate their computers on the premises to reduce time lag, and even offering special types of trades to help them in their games. Of course I must be wrong about this or the government regulators would surely shut them down... right?
JR
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.
Kingston
Well-known member
AMZ-FX said:
Your math is failed. Take that 0.5% and give it to Romney. Obama still wins. The other party candidate votes are not some magical air that you can just discount to suit your will.
Also those percentages are 50.6% and 47.8%. I see you "conveniently" rounded them to nearest 0.5%.
[edit]
AMZ-FX said:
in fact even your sources are failed. The votes went 62,278,404 and 58,901,020. You must have ripped that 613,861 of yours from thin air. Give it to Romney and Obama still won.
little bit biased are we? Makes me wonder if that whole post of yours was some strange meta-play on that quote of Mark Twain.
Echo North
Well-known member
JohnRoberts said:
In WA it was a citizens initiative. By refusing to act on it, the legislature made it a ballot issue however, WA would have been blue regardless of what was on the ballot. I've never smoked weed for the record.
I find this thread depressing at this point. I'm trying not to read it, but it's like a train wreck I can't help but look at for some sadistic purpose. It's about as productive as those threads about how the WM has destroyed the spirit of the forum. People who would probably be sharing a beer and giggles in person, are being passive aggressive and turdy to each other trying to defend politicians that could give a shit about any of us.
For many Americans both left and right, choosing between Obama and Romney is like choosing between a punch in the face or a kick in the nuts. Neither is a real good idea.
History says in 4 years the next president will be republican, the house or the senate will be controlled by the dems, the middle class will continue to get shit on and we can start another thread and pick sides like it's an NFL game. Except we don't really like either team, we're just rooting for the team that might help the team we actually like. It's like the SF-STL game yesterday for me...fittingly it ended in a tie.
I don't mind the political threads at all, but people on both sides have started crossing the disrespectful line in this one. Maybe we should just learn to except that we all have had different experiences in life that shape us. If I walked a mile in JR shoes I might be a republican and vice versa. I respect his opinions and views because I respect people regardless of what they think of me (I'm a liberal pussy after all). The lack of ability of people to except that others draw different conclusions from life than they do is a bit mind boggling to me. Both sides.
*cricket sounds*
Mike
AMZ-FX
Well-known member
Kingston said:
8) 8) Lies, damned lies and statistics. Yes, I was making a point that the numbers can be made to spin any way you want. I assure you that my math is accurate, well as accurate as the starting vote count, though the relevance of the number may be debatable. (For the record, I think it is probably of marginal relevance.)
The Presidency is not the issue in the US. It is that we have Professional Politicians in both parties that have lost touch with the average man.
BTW, while driving to work this morning, I heard on NPR that the projected deficit for 2013 is $641 billion dollars if Congress does not act soon. That's a problem.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2012/11/13/164960245/with-or-without-fiscal-cliff-cuts-deficit-looms-large
Best regards
Yes perspective matters. A couple hundred years ago that might be .1% or .01%.JohnRoberts said:
There are some recent (income/wealth) trends moving in the wrong direction, but we have enjoyed a charmed existence for quite some time. Now we are competing with the entire world and they are smart and willing to work hard. If we don't, we will get what we get. I don't blame the rich, I blame globalization, which is a net positive for the whole world. For us it is a double edged sword. We get to buy stuff inexpensively (helping standard of living), but don't easily earn as much (hurting). In this new paradigm there are winners and losers, with the most productive and best skilled workers still doing OK. Unskilled, under educated workers not so well. The wealthy do better, because they are better equipped to deal with the changing economic environment.
Communism increases wealth for the leadership more than anybody else. Over in China a recent study found that the top 50 members of the government were all billionaires. We constantly see news reports of some government leader's kid, crashing their ferrari, or other exotic car after a drunken night on the town.
We are only guaranteed opportunity not prosperity, we still have to earn it (now competing globally). I have been to China. They are not immune to hard work.
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.
I also hold parents jointly responsible. They need to support the schools, and back up the teachers.
Children, get "reworked" (left back or make up tests), and given special instruction when available and needed, a little like products.
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.
I blame the system that is biased heavily toward protecting job security, independent of individual performance at the assigned task. The teacher /pupil ratio that has has grown, is not all inside the classroom but administrata, doing who knows what. I agree NCLB adds bureaucracy, but if the school demonstrates superior results in standardized tests, they should be free to keep doing what they are doing.
Measurement may be a crap shoot the first few years, but they have been at it long enough to see trends, and weaker and stronger groups of kids move through the system roughly together.
While I haven't reviewed the results in all states looking at the NCLB report card in MS (2010-2011) looks like they are meeting the vast majority of statutory objectives. Now MS started at the bottom of the heap, so one might argue improvement is easier.
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Thank you for the kind words Mike.
Yes, these discussions would have been far more useful a few weeks ago.. now it is mostly sour grapes, crying over spilt milk, yadda yadda...(al least for me).
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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.
JR
Echo North
Well-known member
JohnRoberts said:
You're right, the budget situation (I won't say crisis) DEFINITELY matters. As I said earlier, the house and the president know they are stuck with one another and probably for 4 years, I think they'll get it done. Maybe not by Jan 1, but most agree that as long as progress is being made, the markets will not react negatively. I might also be very naive.
