Comments by "" (@A86) on "C-SPAN" channel.

  1. Republicans and Trump supporters sound like SNOWFLAKES over this Correspondent's Dinner! What's wrong, Trump supporters? You sound Triggerered. Need a Safe Space?
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  2. ***** - No he didn't. Why must Republicans lie? But you know what is true? Republicans supported and gave money and weapons to Saddam Hussein back in the 80s and armed the Mujahideen which turned into the Taliban. George W. Bush paid off Taliban leaders to leave our soldiers alone in Afghanistan. In 2011 and 2012 Republican Congressional leaders urged Obama to fund the Free Syrian Army, which later morphed into ISIS. Oops!!!
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  3. This is coming from the NSA, FBI, CIA and ODNI. Hardly "Leftists".
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  4. Lol Screaming about What? What liberals were offended by Michelle Wolf? Liberals are howling with laughter at conservatives crying foul and Huckabee's daddy running in crying and whining about his daughter being made fun of. What happened? I thought you guys were against Political Correctness? Mad that the Manchild-In-Chief, Wicked Witch Conway and Hamplanet Sanders were taken down a notch? Lol! 😁
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  5. Obama @ Republicans: You mad? LOL
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  6. "Market regulation by government protects the big boys from competition" In some cases yes but not all cases. That's about like saying all medicine just worsens a problem. Antitrust laws often don't protect Big Business. As for government protecting corporations Big Business can still form even if a government was absent, such as natural monopolies. One has to wonder though without a government who would print money? Where would the military come from?
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  7. "A.K.A the poor and middle class" We keep getting screwed because we keep allowing the upper classes to shift costs onto us. While we get worked up about their minimal tax hikes (most of their personal money comes from capital gains, not income) they shift tax burdens from tax cuts onto us and funnel the savings into their own pockets while not creating more jobs. I'd be far more concerned about small business than bankers and big corporations.
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  8. I don't see what everyone's getting worked up about. The Public Option wasn't in this bill. It's just a giveaway for the insurance industry. Alan Grayson is putting up the Public Option Act this year to be voted on. That would really be some reform.
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  9. "50% of Americans do not pay any income tax" Go to Google and type in "income tax brackets" and see for yourself. What you said is incorrect. And about the top 1% I was incorrect. The top 5% earns nearly 70% of national income, not just the top 1%. While you're talking about "statist lies" you seem to be bought off by corporatist lies.
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  10. "Who is it that is providing more jobs for people to become taxpayers?" Small businesses employ far more people than large businesses. As for providing jobs it's a two-way street. Without workers there wouldn't be any jobs and thus no revenue or tax dollars. "Business loans aren't a government service" Many business loans and many utilities receive billions in government subsidies every year.
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  11. 1) I thought you claimed there were no non-government studies. Why the change of tune suddenly? 2) Not really. They're corporate studies with their own slants as well. They're trusted by conservatives but not by most other people. 3) Look again sir: (dot) nationalpriorities (dot) org/ images/stories/ chartspage/ discfy04 (dot) gif
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  12. yglesias (dot) thinkprogress (dot) org/ wp - content/ uploads/ 2009/ 02/ nineteenth (dot) png No one in their right mind would argue that living standards in the 19th century were higher than they were after the New Deal. At any point. Our economic production has been higher ever sense and there has been more economic diversification and growth of businesses since 1938. The major staples of the economy used to be controlled by a few companies.
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  13. h t t p (.) org / files/ active / 0 real % 20GDP % 20per % 20capita % 20US (.) gif (put it all together) h t t p / / w w w (.) econbrowser (.) com / archives / 2005 / 08 / productivity _ graph2 (dot) gif
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  14. I still remember how Republicans were pulling their kids out of school claiming the speech was going to be socialist indoctrination. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! That shit was hilarious.
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  15. Their numbers don't match the numbers of this graph from the Office of Management and Budget. Here is the link of where the graph came from: (dot) gpoaccess (dot) gov/ usbudget/ fy05/ browse (dot) html
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  16. I think you're mistaken, the budget for 2008 was $2.9 Trillion. (dot) reuters (dot) com/article/ latestCrisis / idUSN17421953 Respectfully I think you misread the CBO report. It isn't wrong of course, I think you just misread it. For one thing defense is not the only type of military spending.
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  17. Just for future reference it's hypocritical to talk about my bias when you yourself used "liberal", "left wing", "anti-capitalist" and "Keynesian" as slurs. That kind of thing tends to just get you into arguments instead of helping to make a point. That's why I refrained from using your ideological leaning as a slur word.
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  18. I didn't mean the term as a slur. Sorry if you took it that way. I meant the term descriptively. I didn't say you called ME those terms as slurs you just threw them out as slurs in general.
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  19. 1) You claimed there are no non-governmental studies. Then you claimed you used independent studies. Contradict yourself much? 2) CATO isn't trusted by most non-conservatives either. The WHO is trustworthy and neutral. 3) Foreign debt under Carter: $0.9 Trillion Foreign debt under Reagan: $3 Trillion Foreign debt under Clinton: $5 Trillion Foreign debt under Bush: $10.4 Trillion Budget deficit under Bush: +$9 Trillion The last 3 presidents all decreased social services spending.
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  20. Exactly. If it's about country first they should be more concerned about the country working rather than trying to "prove" their ideology. I couldn't stand Bush and his ideology but I hoped things would work out for the best. I didn't want him to fail because I knew that would hurt me.
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  21. @jimistreets - Corporations do not feed the world, most people are employed in small businesses. What corporations produce we can thank the employees for. This computer was created by scientists, technicians and employees. Not CEOs or shareholders. "Tax cuts have spurred HUGE economic growth" No they haven't: (dot) huppi (dot) com / kangaroo / L - taxgrowth (dot) htm (dot) cbpp (dot) org / cms / ? fa = view & id = 692
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  22. I see it but I don't really see anything to back up the information. This is from the Office of Management and Budget: (dot) nationalpriorities (dot) org/ images/ stories/ chartspage/ discfy04 (dot) gif
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  23. Who gives a shit about North Korea? They're a pissant country that poses no real threat to the US. Their weapons can't even reach us and half their shit doesn't work.
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  24. @billabong24041 - By more "democratic" I don't mean mob rule or majoritarianism. I mean our government should be able to just be bought off by the highest bidder and completely ignore the taxpayers and the public.
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  25. The danger with a private military is they derive a profit from war which means they have a vested interesting in making sure wars continue. They have a vested interested in making sure as many wars as possible are going on at all times. If there is peace they don't make a profit.
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  26. 1) Whom in the staff claims it didn't work? 2) If it didn't why did the US economy take off during and after it? (a lot of New Deal policies continued until the Reagan Era): upload (dot) wikimedia (dot) org/ wikipedia/commons/d/da/ Gdp20 - 40 (dot) jpg As you can see economic production and growth went up during and after it.
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  27. 1) I don't remember that. I remember reading about him not doing much of anything to stave off Depression. 2) What do mean about Reagan? He massively increased the size of the government. Government spending was far higher in 1988 than it was in 1979. What's worse is that he cut taxes (and thus decreased tax revenues) but increased spending which caused a budget deficit and lead to him massively increasing foreign borrowing to offset the debt. Also wages haven't raised for most of us since 1984.
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  28. You mean like Trump trying to find out the identity of everyone who protested his Inauguration or conservatives demanding that students who attend Parkland rallies be punished by their schools? Or demanding that every show that makes fun of Trump be taken off the air?
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  29. What conservative comedians have had their rights taken away?
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  30. What do you mean? Krugman is a big critic of the Democrats and their opposition to public healthcare and he's opposed to the Democrats' protection of tariffs and trade barriers. Yeah, he's a liberal. Your point? Milton Friedman was a Republican. Both of them still have good advice on topics regardless.
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  31. 1) The "free market" has never existed. The US has always had state-protected corporate mercantilism. 2) The general consensus on Reagan is that he actually did relatively little. His biggest accomplishment was bringing down inflation. Other than that he ran up our foreign deficit to $3 Trillion (it had been $0.9 Trillion under Carter), racked up a huge budget deficit and increased wasteful government spending. Wages haven't really changed either.
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  32. I absolutely hate the mandates but they aren't to buy government health insurance. There is no government health insurance in the bill anymore. This was paid for by the insurance industry by way of Max Baucus, Olympia Snowe and Harry Reid. It's basically like if you had to buy McDonald's or Burger King at least once a week or else face a fine.
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  33. Apparently you never heard of the 1982 recession (the second worst in the 20th century) or the 1987 small recession. The 1982 recession didn't fully stop until 1985. The 90s business cycle was much stronger. "tax revenue doubled" I don't know where you got that from. Reagan had a total of -0.6% growth in tax revenue. "Who made the computer you are using" Engineers, technicians, etc. "whom you are callling vampires" I'm calling the practices of CEOs and shareholders vampirical.
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  34. I'm sure you're probably a very miserable human being. Only the most ignorant and miserable of people go around attacking complete strangers simply because of their skin color. You're no better than the thugs you extrapolate onto all black people.
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  35. (dot) cbpp (dot) org/ images/ cms/ 9 - 27 - 06tax-f3 - rev (dot) jpg
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  36. "Total Real Per-Capita Revenue Growth in 22 Quarters after the Last Business Cycle Peak 2001-2007: 1.7% Average for All Previous Post-World War II Business Cycles: 12.0% 1990s Business Cycle (Following Tax Increases): 16.2%" (dot) mass (dot) gov/ bb/ h1/fy10h1/ img10/ wordimgs/ 06 - graph11 (dot) gif
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  37. "Democrats are tax and spend. Republicans are borrow and spend. Enough of the wasteful spending from both parties" Agree 100%.
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  38. Ted Yoho assumed his wife's and daughters' gender.
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  39. "[joblessness during] the first five years of the New Deal, from 25 percent when FDR took office to 14.3 percent in 1937. Then, however, joblessness rose, hitting 19.1 percent in 1938 before dropping back to 14.6 percent in 1940 and 9.9 percent in 1941." "A 23.7 percent increase in federal spending in 1933 was followed by a 10.8 percent increase in GDP in 1934, for example, while a 34.2 percent increase in 1934 was followed by an 8.9 percent GDP increase in 1935."
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  40. Lol, oh no. Not the "Japan's lost decade" myth. Now you're really grasping for straws: mediamatters (dot) org/ research/ 200812220005 "Japan's monetary and fiscal stimulus did help to lift the economy. After a recession in 1993-94, GDP was growing at an annual rate of around 2.5% by 1995" This is THE ECONOMISTS stating this.
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  41. "the only president to spend trillions has been Obama" Bush spent $2.8 Trillion in 2008 alone. He spent a total of $11.5 Trillion in his 8 years in office.
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  42. While Fannie and Freddie did play a big part in this mess the majority of the bad loans were the deregulated loans. The CRA loans only account for 23% of the bad loans that led to the crash of the housing market.
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  43. There is no private sector without consumers and workers just like there is no government without tax payers. Neither inherently exist in and of themselves. Labor/production and consumption is the end-all-be-all ultimately when you get down to the root of things. I have no reason to believe the information presented is invalid. As for unemployment during the Great Depression it came to its lowest level when spending was most active. It rose when FDR stopped spending for a bit.
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  44. Reagan was in the pocket of corporate America, bankers and the military-industrial complex like the rest. I think Eisenhower was the last truly unowned President.
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  45. "the matter are the people in this country" 6 out of 10 Americans support the public option. And where do you get this notion that the public option will still be put in? The Dems abandoned it which is one of the primary reasons they Democrats' approval rating is now as low as the Republicans' approval rating.
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  46. Link please. No source seems to confirm this claim.
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  47. @soulfullyanointed - If you had clicked on the link: (dot) traigerlaw (dot) com / publications / traiger _ hinckley _ llp _ cra _ foreclosure _ study _1 - 7 - 08 (dot) pdf
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  48. The Economist I meant. As for unemployment the U.S. unemployment rate was 14.3 percent in 1937 and 19 percent in 1938, compared to 24.9 percent in 1933. Lol. 3) I think I trust the CBPP and the CBO over John Stossel.
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  49. @WilhelmHelmut - What? Lemme guess - you also think we shouldn't teach evolution in school?
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  50. Republicans and Trump supporters sound like SNOWFLAKES over this Correspondent's Dinner! What's wrong, Trump supporters? You sound Triggerered. Need a Safe Space?
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  51. I've read that before. "Wasting Away in Hooverville" by Jonathan Chait, The New Republic blows most of these revisionist myths away.
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  52. "They're investors. They're small business owners who don't make the millions" Most small business owners make less than $250,000/year. Obama's "tax hike" on those over that limit is still pretty low. Ronald Reagan raised the tax rate on the rich to as must as 50%. Obama's rate for them is 11% lower. "Takes a lot of income to pay multiple people $15k per year and up" Small businesses make money from the value added from the labor of employees.
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  53. Besides, I haven't "redirected" arguments. Unless you consider refuting claims you hold to be sacred and self-evident to be "misdirection" because you couldn't possibly conceive that they might be incorrect.
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  54. "increasing tax burdens" On whom? Most of us are getting tax cuts. It's the top 2% who will be getting the tax increase. I feel no sympathy for them because they've shoveled debt and the tax burden onto the rest of us for decades. You can't continue to dole out corporate welfare and pay for multi-trillion dollar military adventures every year without spending. No president after Eisenhower has decreased spending.
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  55. "use the percentage of blacks verses whites" Government surveys even show that black suspects are 3 times more likely to be incarcerated for the same crime as a white counterpart.
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  56. I'm sorry but this is completely revisionist: (dot) boston (dot) com/ bostonglobe/ editorial _ opinion/ oped/ articles/ 2009/02/ 18/ the_new_ deal_ and _right _ wing_ revisionism/ Before the New Deal there was no suburbia, no large, booming middle class, no interstate highway system, few social services, lower business/industrial output, lower wages, etc. To say the New Deal didn't work is like saying investment doesn't pay off.
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  57. *brainwashed* *monotone robotic voice* Must.......crush.....capitalism..... Lol. Neocons and Glenn Beck fans would be funny if they weren't dead serious and 30-35% of Americans didn't actually believe them.
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  58. I agree. It's not just minorities either, at least on a global scale. Poor rural whites have more or less the same crime rates as poor inner city minorities. Russia, one of the poorest European countries per capita, has a crime rate around that of an American inner city. The experts should do a research into what are the motives of offenders, including violent offenders. Though the data already shows that poverty breeds crime we need to hear it from the horse's mouth, so to speak.
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  59. @jimistreets - I don't think it's that simple. I think we should lower taxes on some things and raise it on others. Most large businesses are not paying their taxes as it is, which is why need to restore Glass-Steagall. I think for small businesses taxes should be lowered.
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  60. @billabong24041 - Of course I have a problem with it. But Republican policies do nothing but add to the debt as well. "Bush had it right with his tax cuts" Tax cuts did jack shit except shift more of the tax burden to the middle class and increase debt. He cut taxes while increasing spending. That's horrendously stupid. That's like cutting your salary in half then buying a new car. You can't fight multi-trillion dollar wars if you cut taxes.
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  61. Here you go: (dot) sadlyno (dot) com / archives / 11958 (dot) html While CRA loans were part of the problem the bigger problem was the deregulated loans.
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  62. That's true. Without social services to take care of people when they're down and out and without sufficient jobs that pay well to fill the void of social services people will commit crime to get by. It's human nature. The countries and regions with the lowest crime are generally those with the highest per capita income and the most social services. Crime rates in the US are highest in inner cities and poor rural areas like the Rustbelt and the Bible Belt.
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  63. I don't know about your business but in general tax cuts for the wealthy don't trickle down to small businesses: (dot) cbpp (dot) org / cms/ ? fa = view & id = 692 Most small business owners are not wealthy. Even if you don't increase spending it still decreases tax collections and puts a burden on small businesses to pick up the slack. Most savings are just pocketed and/or put in overseas bank accounts.
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  64. The corporations wouldn't exist without the people that work for them. Don't forget. "The Reagan tax cuts increased tax revenue" Not really: en (dot) wikipedia (dot) org / wiki / Reaganomics # Tax _ receipts Tax cuts don't increase tax collection revenue and aren't intended to do so. The whole point of them is to encourage more spending or investment.
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  65. A monopoly forms by cornering the market and limiting competition. That makes them anti-competitive by nature. Cornering the market and limiting competition coerces the consumer. If a company has not cornered the market and squeezed out all competitors they're not a monopoly. "Every new product or service creates a monopoly" So McDonald's "Southern Style Chicken Sandwich" created a monopoly for chicken sandwiches?
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  66. CRA is only part of the problem. The other problem was deregulation put into place by Bush, Reagan and "ironically" Carter. You have more than one culprit in this. You have deregulation and bad regulation.
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  67. @CalifSunshine2008 - It was the same way with Bush. Paulson, Gramm, etc. All those characters. Both parties are pretty much the same.
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  68. No, some planets are cooling while some are warming: (dot) skepticalscience (dot) com / global - warming - other - planets - solar - system (dot) htm Solar activity has been at a minimum for decades. There has never been a period in earth's post-Cambrian history where atmospheric CO2 composition has jumped 107ppm in just 250 years. If so I'd like you to point me to that period or chron. There is no such thing as "Planet X".
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  69. What's been "socialized" about healthcare? The public option isn't even being put in. A step backwards? Lol. All the best healthcare systems in the world are single-payer systems (which is nationalization, not socialization). The US is in 37th place in healthcare quality. Not a single private healthcare system in the world is above 45th place.
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  70. From the CBO, the Department of Treasury, the Department of Labor, the Census Bureau and the NBER. I can PM them if you want.
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  71. Tripled the national debt? Please explain how so. Our foreign debt at the end of the Bush Admin was $10.4 Trillion. Bush brought it up to that from the $5 Trillion foreign debt under Clinton. Reagan increased Carter's foreign debt of $0.9 Trillion in 1980 to $3 Trillion by 1988. Under Obama our current foreign debt is $12 Trillion. Every president since Nixon has increased our foreign debt. But $12 Trillion is not triple of $10.4 Trillion.
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  72. 1) Prove the information is incorrect. If you cannot this argument is worthless. 2) BS. There are all sorts of private studies. CATO and the Heritage Foundation being two of them. 3) Government spending on social programs has shrunken over the past 30 years but the income gap is increasing.
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  73. America is not above question or condemnation. It's a nation like any other. Not a god or something holy. If you read the Bible you would know that nation-worship is idolatry.
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  74. The public ended the Vietnam War through protests and lobbying Congress to end it. "Without government, I doubt Blackwater would be stirring up trouble in Iraq" According to that logic no business would exist without the government. Blackwater exists because there is money to be made off of war. A business will form around anything that money can be made off of.
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  75. You haven't proven that I've misrepresented anything. Your only argument consists of "well some guy under FDR later criticized him" and citing a certain book/article as if by itself it is the gospel truth. People claim all sorts of things. All that matters is pure, unbiased, unpredjudiced numbers. And the revisionists' numbers don't add up.
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  76. Actually employment and economic growth was higher under Eisenhower and Clinton than Kennedy and Reagan.
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  77. Most people in the EU work less hours per month and per year than Americans yet have higher living standards. America is 15th overall in the world in living standards and dropping.
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  78. 1) Again that's a logical fallacy. There is no reason to disbelieve the information simply because of the source. I could just as easily dismiss private/independent studies by saying they have their own motivations. You have to PROVE the information is false. BTW, some of the information was independent and private studies. Not government. 2) Did you know most economists don't take depreciation and foreign debt weighed against growth into consideration? Also no growth isn't necessarily bad.
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  79. About socialism I don't see anti-socialists getting rid of their pensions, unionized $38/hour jobs, retirement funds, the GI Bill, collective bargaining power, public parks, firefighter services, etc. Ironically (or maybe not) it was the socialistic policies that industrialized capitalist nations adopted that bailed them out of collapse and bails their people out of poverty. All the countries in the world with the best living standards are regulated capitalist or market socialist countries.
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  80. Bush left over a trillion in deficit and Obama has so far left nearly 2 trillion in deficit. That's not quadruple, that's nearly double. "stolen from future generations" The only problem I have is that when people complained about Bush stealing from future generations Republicans just went "Oh be quiet you silly libs. He knows what he's doing. This is for the best." now those same people are wringing their hands about Obama. "Born-again fiscal conservatives" I call them.
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  81. "It doesn't take a genius to deduct Rev. Wright doesn't like America" Not that I'm a fan of Rev. Wright but you're taking what he said out of context. He said "God damn America" about slavery, extermination of the Natives, etc. He was cussing he saying "damn" as in "condemn". He said "That's in the Bible" because prophets in the Old Testament such as, ironically Jeremiah, called down God's condemnation upon their nation (being Judea) for their nation committing various sins.
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  82. Newsflash: a lot of economists believe Obama's stimulus is insufficient. I know, I work with them.
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  83. Exactly. The heating which started at the end of the Little Ice Age ended back at the end of the 50s, which is why the temperature temporarily dropped in the 1960s before it started going back up again in the late 60s/early 70s. If human pollution didn't exist the earth's temperature would be going down right now or leveling off. Instead it keeps going up at an ever-accelerating rate. I guarantee there is no time in earth's history where CO2 jumped 107ppm in less than 10,000 years.
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  84. @mynameiswhoo - That is correct. The vast majority of foreigners who come to the US for treatment are wealthy. Why the hell would working/middle class people come to the US to get treatment and end up with a $10,000+ bill? In the US you get billed $800 just for the fucking doctor to LOOK at you. I got billed $1400 for a 15 minute checkup last year. The majority of working/middle class people travel to Canada, Japan, France and India for medical tourism.
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  85. What does democracy have to do with healthcare being "government-run"? There is no such thing as "government-run healthcare" in the first place. Single-payer is where the government funds insurance for everyone for private healthcare. "is a disaster" Lol, and the private sector has done such a bang-up job? They got us into this economic mess thanks to deregulation. Cash For Clunkers was very successful. As is NASA, the FDA, Medicare, etc.
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  86. "denying the facts" Such as what? And single-payer is government insurance. The government does not actually run the pharmaceutical system of the country or regulate the doctors. Speaking of facts over the past 40 years the income of the top 5% of this country has increased more than fivefold while the income of the bottom 90% of income earners in this country has stagnated or even decreased since 1983.
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  87. "But to tax them extra lacks any meaningful sense" They already don't pay most of their taxes as it is (and leave working/middle class Americans and small businesses to pick up the slack). Taxing them even less would just mean they pay even less of taxes they already mostly avoid paying. That's what happened with the Bush tax cuts and to a large degree the Reagan tax cuts. Tax cuts are better for small businesses instead of corporate vampires.
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  88. 4) I linked a graph of government spending. Less than 40% of it was dedicated to those. The vast majority was dedicated to defense contractor spending, corporate handouts and agribusiness.
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  89. You do know that people who worked under Reagan now criticize him, right? It's not the source, it's the information. Argument from Authority is a logical fallacy.
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  90. If you think our private sector is a "free market" then there is little hope for you. It's so far from what Adam Smith or David Ricardo envisioned they wouldn't even recognize it. "tax payers are forced to participate" The Constitution grants the government the right to collect taxes and all citizens are expected to pay them. Since everyone uses public services that's why you are "forced" to pay them. Living on American territory is a public service in and of itself.
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  91. "Tax cuts increase tax revenues" myth is one of the biggest tripe theories they teach kids in economic classes today. It's based on the Laffer Curve theory which is almost completely without basis. It doesn't even make common sense. It's like saying eating less makes you gain weight: (dot) cbpp (dot) org/ cms/ ? fa = view & id = 692 Real tax revenue collection has dropped over the past 30 years. But government spending has not. Hence why deficits and foreign borrowing and inflation increases.
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  92. Monopolies are by nature coercive. A non-coercive monopoly is sort of like a "non-harmful criminal" or a "altruistic bully". If competition was a threat they wouldn't be monopolies.
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  93. The Housing Market Crash was because of both deregulation and bad regulation (in the form of the CRA). Bush and Reagan are just as responsible as Carter in Clinton. If you want to blame it all on the CRA (which is ridiculous) the Republicans still had 6 years of a Republican Congress and Executive Branch and did nothing about it.
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  94. The debate among scientists is over how fast this is occurring, if humans can significantly lessen our impact and how.
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  95. As for private services you aren't forced to partake of any particular service but you have to by necessity since it's impossible for most citizens completely self-sufficient. I don't even know about not being forced anymore to partake of private services. The current healthcare bill says you HAVE to buy private insurance or else pay a fine (a tax). Also when certain private businesses fail everyone HAS to pay for it through corporate welfare and bailouts.
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  96. (dot) salon (dot) com/ tech/ htww/ 2009/ 02/02/ the _ new _ deal _ worked/ Trying to argue the New Deal didn't work is an uphill battle. It doesn't even make logical sense. Logically if you invest in more production, more infrastructure (which allows businesses and workers to increase output) and increase tax revenue while keeping prices down you have economic growth.
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  97. Market growth has slowed over the past 30 years. Indeed the market can find a way to grow but that doesn't mean much if the growth isn't raising GDP per capita for most of the population, isn't decreasing inflation, isn't offsetting debt and borrowing and isn't lowering prices. Growth alone a good economy does not make.
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  98. @jimistreets - Actually the mandates are to buy PRIVATE INSURANCE. You need to go back and re-read that bill. This was bought and paid for by the insurance industry. Good ole corporate America sold you and I out. Yet again. Are you waking up yet?
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  99. Usually "small businesses" are defined as ones with less than 100 or less than 200 employees. "It's simply unjust to say that someone at the top should pay substantially more than those in the middle or bottem" They should because those at the top use more government services and functions than those at the middle and the bottom. Most working/middle class people don't use tons of energy every year, or use shipping lanes, land grants, business loans, etc. Public services aren't free.
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  100. Reagan indoctrinating kids to vote Republican by indoctrinating what they should believe about taxes = okay with the Right Bush Jr. asking kids how can they help his Administration = okay with the Right Barack Obama Jr. telling kids to work hard, be healthy and stay in school = Right-wing shitfit Notice the double standards? Shit like what the Republicans are doing lately is exactly the kind of stuff that makes the US a laughing stock in the world, especially among industrialized nations.
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  101. I agree and I sincerely hope President Obama follows through on his promises. I really hope this isn't just hot air like a lot of what he said last year was. When he says he wants to go through with reform he needs to do it. And no more of that bank bailout shit.
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  102. Here's the budget for 2008: (dot) nationalpriorities (dot) org/ sites/ default/files/ disc08 (dot) gif 59% Defense.
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  103. 2) You can see for yourself the trend of income in the US: economistsview (dot) typepad (dot) com/ (dot) a/ 6a00d83451b33869e201156fec9518970c - 450wi (dot) newint (dot) org/ issue281/ death (dot) htm The highest growth in real income in the US was between 1938-1983. Since 1984 wages have only increased slightly for the top of the middle class. For everyone below that strata it has stagnated or outright decreased for the bottom 2/5.
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  104. @CalifSunshine2008 - Not really. Obama's deficit is only slightly larger than Bush's. As for his spending he's spending at around the same rate as Bush. Bush spent $2.8 Trillion in 2008. In 2009 Obama spent in the neighborhood of $2.4 Trillion. Two flavors of shit. Take your pick.
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  105. Look at economic expansion before and after the ND: wpcontent (dot) answers (dot) com/ wikipedia/ commons/ thumb/ a/ a1/ US _ Employment_ Graph _ - _ 1920_ to _1940 (dot) svg/ 400px - US_Employment_Graph_-_ 1920 _ to _ 1940 (dot) svg (dot) png
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  106. 1) Using "Keynesian" as a slur is a logical fallacy. It's argument from incredulity. There are some things in Keyesnianism that are correct and some things in Neoliberalism that are correct. 2) Trying to deny that tax increases increase revenue is arguing against common sense and actual economic facts: (dot) cbpp (dot) org/ images/ cms/ 10 - 20 - 03tax - fact- f1 (dot) jpg I'm sorry friend but the facts are against you on this topic, though I agreed with some of what you said earlier.
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  107. 1) I'm using mathematical arguments regardless of ideology. I say things liberals wouldn't like either, like Reagan got inflation under control for a time. 2) Government intervention was highest during this time yet economic expansion and income rates rose rapidly. According to your ideology this shouldn't have happened, but it did anyway. 4) What are you talking about? Those presidents signed A LOT of deregulation: en (dot) wikipedia (dot) org/wiki/ Deregulation # United _States
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  108. While I generally agree about fiat currency some printing is necessary. I don't think the US could operate if we only had the same number of greenbacks today as we had in 1770. "A government military creates massive casualties & enemies all over the world" So can a private one like Blackwater/Xe. A military is a military whether public or private. Just like cops are cops whether state or private. The benefit with a government military is you can at least control it.
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  109. Now you're just being silly. Get out of my face.
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  110. I disagree here. The market is not magical and it's not a panacea. Markets can handle some things better than public enterprises but public enterprises are better at handling some things than the private sector. Government entities can work on things with long-term incentives with no immediate payoff or sometimes little incentive at all. Markets are mostly only interested in things with short-term profitability. Markets are also usually bad at handling negative externalities.
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  111. Adam Smith also believed government action was sometimes necessary to prevent the growth of large corporations. The government can be a tool of the people if made more democratic. Of course it will be on the side of Big Business if you have a government composed of wealthy people on the dole of corporations like we have now. Again it's sort of like saying all medication is bad just because half of the medicine out in the market today is bad.
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  112. From what I heard it was $12 Trillion foreign debt. Bush took Clinton's foreign debt of $5 Trillion to $10.4 Trillion.
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  113. "not very high considering whites are still nearly seventy percent of the U.S. population" It is considering a white person is less than one-fifth as likely to run into a black person than vice versa.
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  114. "The bill punished businesses that do not buy gov't insurance with an 8% tax" I heard that rumor but it turned out to be a myth. It actually provided small businesses with tax cuts so they could provide employees with the public option. Ones that didn't weren't penalized. There is no such thing as "government-run healthcare". Single-payer systems are simply government insurance for private healthcare. Those are the most successful system in the world and every industrialized nation has it.
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  115. I'm an economist. I'm very well educated in US economic history. 1) Hoover did act in some ways but it was indirectly and insufficient: (dot) sparknotes (dot) com/ 101/ us _ history_two/ the _ great _ depression _ and_ the_ new _ deal/ hoovers _response (dot) html FDR's actions worked because his investments in increasing production and starting new businesses and putting people back to work increased production and consumption.
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  116. The recession of 82 was largely an effect of policies enacted in 1981: (dot) huppi (dot) com / kangaroo / L - recession1982 (dot) htm While there is a lag between policy and effect most of the consequences of Carter's policies already came into effect by 1980.
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  117. "In September of 1979 this person (the middle quintile of income earners] was earning (in constant, inflation-adjusted dollars) $498 a week, or $24,700 a year. By 1995 he or she had suffered a wage cut of about a hundred dollars a month, or 4.6 per cent."
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  118. "Competition to serve consumers benefits consumers more" Of course. Regulation is sometimes needed to prevent the growth of monopolies and oligopolies. As for the ban of DDT the chemical itself is very dangerous to humans and animals and it still kills people and wildlife in areas where it is still used. One negative externality that even competing businesses don't worry about avoiding is pollution. Companies usually don't clean up unless the public twists their arm.
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  119. Taxes are simply payments for use of public services and public property. You have to pay for use of those just like you would pay for usage of any private service. They're basically a public fee. That's why the Founding Fathers advocated taxes. Benjamin Franklin talked about the sacrifices that you have to make to be part of society.
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  120. 1) Ah, I misread this statement "There is no information, outside of government sponsored ones" I didn't read ahead. My apologies. 2) I said it isn't trusted by those not on the right. Just like those on the right usually don't trust Krugman. 3) I know Carter spent more money on social programs. Income also rose at higher rates back then and living standards were higher overall. 4) Bush's increases have mostly been in defense spending and corporate welfare. Not social programs.
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  121. I didn't redirect anything or make excuses. What I said is the truth and I directly tackled your argument. The fact that your argument was just flat-out WRONG doesn't mean that I misrepresented it. I love how ideologues claim to be misunderstood when they can't defend their arguments. BTW the US in 37th place overall in health care quality and accessibility. Almost every industrialized nation with nationalized healthcare (which is most of them) is ahead of us.
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  122. 1) I'm not a liberal. 2) The US economy expanded most rapidly during 1938-1982 when government intervention was highest. 3) Government intervention is needed for a market economy to work. It's common sense. 4) WTF are you on? The income gap has expanded from 1977-Present as government intervention has decreased.
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  123. So you believe official sources are "fudging the numbers"? What you're basically saying is "I'm not convinced by the facts." I guess you can't argue with someone like that. "I live near minorities" Where you live doesn't represent all non-white people. Just like when I lived in Frostburg, Maryland while going to college up there in Appalachian Maryland near West Virginia that doesn't mean the white people there represent all or even most white Americans.
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  124. Not really. Not at all. krugman (dot) blogs (dot) nytimes (dot) com/2009/02/20/ glorifying - the - gilded -age/ I don't know where you get this stuff from. You need to put the right-libertarian literature down and start reading some of the real stuff that was going on instead of the romantization of the era. Monopolies are not compatible with a free market.
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  125. The private sector has no money either other than what it makes in profits from value-added production and consumer sales. Government spending creates money when it is spent investing in things that produce more returned value. That's exactly what the New Deal did. As for the inflation rate: (dot) debtdeflation (dot) com/blogs/ wp - content/ uploads/ 2008/10/ IMG0008 _ 2834015 (dot) PNG
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  126. Don't worry, I'm not trying to defend Carter or just slam Reagan. I'm not a fan of any president after Eisenhower really. Well, JFK and LBJ sort of though I think they also set into effect the wheels of a lot of the policies which are helping destroy the country today. So did Nixon. Reagan, Clinton, the Bushes and Obama are simply the culmination of this decline.
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  127. I didn't mind the typo. I've probably made typos of my own somewhere. Lol. "Hence not needing heavy taxation" That sounds more like corporatism than capitalism. Most economists and most of the original capitalist philosophers and economists like Adam Smith believed that large corporations can only come to exist when the government protects monopolies and oligopolies. Oligopolies and monopolies are also counterproductive because they limit choice, quality and competition. I agree.
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  128. Government can help if used effectively. Leaving it all to the private sector is just as extreme as leaving it all to the government. Government can help if you reduce spending in some areas and spend money on things that have high returns on investment or things that create jobs. We've been spending on things which don't create jobs. It also helps if you make the government more democratic, more controllable and more transparent. Which neither party is interested in doing.
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  129. That's why trying to apply the logic behind an ideal free market to our current system is erroneous. In our corporatist system just because a company sells a better product doesn't mean they will win out. Oligopolies and monopolies can simply squeeze out the competition by lowering prices to a point where startup businesses can't compete. They can also bribe the government to give the established businesses special kickbacks. Even in a free market natural monopolies can form.
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  130. Untrue again: GDP per capita growth: agonist (dot) org/ files/ active/0/ real % 20GDP % 20per % 20capita % 20US (dot) gif private hours and productivity: (dot) econbrowser (dot) com/ archives/2005/08/ productivity _ graph2 (dot) gif
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  131. And any man worth his salt should also love this woman!
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  132. By condemned I don't mean calling down the wrath of Heaven. But to be honest a lot of Americans probably say "God damn America" every April 15th. Lol.
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  133. I love how racist clowns are accusing Wanda Sykes of being "ghetto". She's from Anne Arundel County, Maryland where I've spent the latter half of my childhood and I'm still spending my young adult years. This place is largely a collection of sleepy, quiet suburbs, shopping centers and small towns with metropolitan traffic. The most "ghetto" thing about this area is some of the drivers. Mrs. Sykes actually graduated from the same high school I did (though 2 decades before me, lol).
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  134. The Democrats ARE opposed to public healthcare. It's not getting passed because of Dems blocking it. Krugman is a defender of sweatshops and a defender of lowering tariffs and trade barriers. Apparently he's not that much of a "huge left winger". Stop being pedantic.
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  135. @billabong24041 - Bingo.
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  136. The study showed that CRA loans constituted only 23% of all loans and 9.2% of high-cost loans.
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  137. @billabong24041 - I actually think tax cuts for SMALL BUSINESSES is far more productive than tax cuts for large businesses and the wealthy. Most small businesses make only enough marginal profits that the savings from tax cuts would go more into investment, expansion of production or more benefits for workers instead of pocketed in offshore accounts. I agree with tax cuts on some issues and tax increases on others. It just depends on the situation.
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  138. "Why do you defend Obama?" I'm not. The only thing I'm defending is facts and records. Even if I hated someone I wouldn't lie about them just to make a point. As much as I couldn't stand Bush I won't exaggerate and claim he spent $30 Trillion just to rile people up about him. To be honest I only find Obama slightly more tolerable than Bush. He's been Bush Redux so far to me and a huge disappointment.
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  139. The last time we tried that under Herbert Hoover we got the Great Depression. This whole "the market is a perfect entity that works itself out" is one of the biggest lies ever told. Every president after Hoover learned their lesson. Even Ronald Reagan didn't just let the 1982 recession "work itself out".
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  140. Another problem is the Republicans want to further cut taxes for entities who already don't pay most of their taxes (now if we everyday citizens did that we'd be in jail) and which shift costs onto everyone else while ramping up spending by spending trillions on more expensive wars. That's incredibly dumb from an economics standpoint.
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  141. The USPS, despite its current financial woes, is still one of the best postal systems in the world. Try Italy's postal system and you'll see what I meant. All the top healthcare systems of the world are single-payer or some variation of it. That includes Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, etc. BTW the US was not the world's first democratic nation. Just the longest continuous one.
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  142. @kloneo - Agree totally. Capitalism needs regulation so business can flow smoothly and so all parties can have a fair shot. Adam Smith and David Ricardo would totally agree. Adam Smith actually greatly disliked enterprises with more than 50-100 employees. He believed a business cannot become very large without government protection of oligopolistic practices.
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  143. None of them are progressive or truly conservative either. They're all corporate. Real progressives and real conservatives are opposed to pro-corporate policies. At least historically.
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  144. The thing about the spending though is most of our spending, aside from corporate welfare, is going to the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The former of which is even less justified than the latter. I would take tea party people more seriously if they had been this loud about spending all along and were critical of both parties. Many don't seem to mind the trillions spent on the wars and I didn't hear from many when Bush was spending like crazy and bailout out the banks.
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  145. 1) Whatever he said it doesn't add up economically. The numbers speak for themselves. 2) Look at the trend lines. The increase started before the war and continued to take off after the war ended.
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  146. The top 1% NOMINALLY pays that much but in actuality pays less because they avoid much of it with loopholes. In net terms they pay less each year. Don't forget the top 1% also earns 60% of the nation's income. "50% of Americans pay no income taxes" Who told you that? The tax rate for poor Americans is 10%. Which is quite a lot when you make $7,000/year. Class warfare is indeed going on. These people have been screwing us for the past 40 years and both parties help them. Time to wake up.
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  147. I never said I liked the Fed. The Fed is indeed a loan shark.
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  148. They're not really takeover of the banks and auto industry. The government has been buying up their toxic assets at the taxpayer's expense. It's business as usual for them and now corporate America and the government have a cozy relationship where the government pays for corporate America's mistakes with taxpayer money. The problem of many right-libertarians is they believe the government and the private sector are enemies with one good and one bad. No, no, no. They're partners in crime.
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  149. "Yet their foreign policy creates generations of enemies & trains foreign soldiers only to fight them in subsequent wars?" I didn't say the government ALWAYS handles long-term incentives well or behaves properly. Our foreign policy over the past 50 years has been pretty crappy. This is actually largely a result of the buildup of what President Eisenhower warned us about: The Military-Industrial Complex.
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  150. Ah Jesus Christ, this guy sounds like Mr. Rogers. Really Republicans? Really? This is the best guy your party has? This fool was lying out of his teeth when he claimed he wouldn't take Obama's money. He opposed little more than 2% of the money Obama was offering Louisiana. Even Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) was chastising this guy.
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  151. @billabong24041 - Agree 100% with your last post.
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  152. I know. All presidents have and to be honest I'm not a fan of any president after LBJ. But I want him to at least do something instead of just continuing Bush policies and keep building up debt while not creating jobs.
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  153. 1) I'm concerned about what the number say, not what individuals say. The general consensus and the general mathematical conclusion is that it worked. I even posted some GDP and unemployment rates for you to chew on. 2) I didn't "redirect" the conversation to healthcare, I simply brought it up because I mentioned it earlier. 3) Prove that these other health issues are the main reasons why we are behind other industrialized nations in health care.
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  154. The Guilded Age was just another state-enforced corporate mercantile economy. Not a "free market". Though I'm no fan of the Fed either.
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  155. Let's hope so. Alan Grayson already put it out there as a proposed bill to be voted on.
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  156. "Blacks hardly ever commit violent crimes" I'm not saying that either. -__- Thanks for using argumentum ad absurdum.
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  157. I was trying to quote this which had been in the article weeks ago: (dot) motherjones (dot) com/politics/ 2008/07/ where - credit - due - timeline- mortgage - crisis
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  158. Republicans aren't very hard to figure out. They want Obama to fail for a very simple reason: Because if Obama's polices work it will prove their Neoconservative ideology wrong. That's it. They are such ideologues they'd rather see the country crash and burn just "prove" that liberalism is "wrong" than see it prosper under a system that contradicts theirs.
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  159. Even before the existence of the military-industrial complex there has always been an industry of war profiteering. Blackwater would exist without government support (though maybe not as easily). There have always been mercenary armies.
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  160. I'm not saying he's wrong or right, just explaining what he meant. By "America" I think he was more referring to the American government. Sometimes people don't always make a distinction in common speech. I think America should be praised when it's right and condemned when it's wrong just like any other nation or government.
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