Sensible Erection | Because all this worked out so well last time...

Wednesday, 16 May 2012

Because all this worked out so well last time...

quote [ Republicans Pledge New Standoff on Debt Limit ]

Here we freakin go again. How many time are these ideologues going to run the country to the edge of the cliff hoping the brakes don't fail.

This all started with Romney's speech a few days ago.

Romney, GOP try to shift focus to deficit

http://www.cnn.com/2012/05/15/politics/campaign-wrap/index.html

You think he would at least have a plan with some numbers before he started down this road.

Though Romney touted his plans to reduce government spending to 20% of GDP over four years (a drop from its current level of 24.3%) in part by capping increases in benefits for higher income retirees, he did not offer any greater detail on how he would achieve those spending cuts while advancing his plan to reduce individual income tax rates by 20% — a fact that was noted by the Obama campaign.

“While President Obama has put forward a plan to reduce the national debt by more than $4 trillion over the next decade, Mitt Romney refuses to say what spending cuts or tax increases he’d make to cover the cost of giving $5 trillion in tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans,” Obama’s campaign spokeswoman Lis Smith said. “Mitt Romney simply wants to return to the same policies that caused the crisis and weakened the middle class: budget-busting tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and letting Wall Street write its own rules.”

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-romney-calls-obamas-economics-morally-wrong-in-iowa-20120515,0,3199085.story

Boehner: No debt ceiling increase without cuts

"When the time comes, I will again insist on my simple principle of cuts and reforms greater than the debt limit increase,"

Mr. Boehner said he would not allow Congress to duck tough decisions with another round of short-term measures. He also said the House would pass an extension of the Bush-era tax cuts before the November elections, and he urged lawmakers both in parties to reach a long-term deal on spending and tax changes — but no additional taxes — to head off a fiscal calamity.

“To get on the path to prosperity, we have to avoid the fiscal cliff, but we need to start today,” he said.

So the plan is to drive just as fast as we can for that cliff???????

Want to make some budget cuts..why not start here.

Seventy-six percent of survey-takers, including 90 percent of Democrats and 67 percent of Republicans, say they would cut the Pentagon's budget. That places the majority of respondents at odds with Democratic President Barack Obama's policies and the proposed budgets of the majority Republican Party in Congress. Obama has essentially held defense spending steady at around $550 billion by cutting its recent rate of increase. The Republicans have proposed adding billions of dollars to the president's budget.

http://the-diplomat.com/flashpoints-blog/2012/05/14/americans-favor-military-cuts/

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/story/2012-05-15/boehner-debt-ceiling/54971892/1

They want to extend the Bush Tax cuts before the election..somebody has to call bullshit.

Romney was back to his lying about Obama and taxes and the deficit again.
It would be nice if we had a press-core who would call him on it.

“The Obama campaign wants everybody to be distracted by shiny objects,” said Rich Beeson, Mr. Romney’s political director. “He promised he would cut the debt and he has not done that.”

Spending, Taxes, And Deficits Are All Lower Today Than When Obama Took Office

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/05/15/484767/obama-budget-chart/

An better chart here.

http://blogs-images.forbes.com/jasonoberholtzer/files/2012/02/w-Ezra01_Policies.jpeg

Doing the math on Obama's deficits

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/ezra-klein-doing-the-math-on-obamas-deficits/2012/01/31/gIQAnRs7fQ_story_1.html

Speaking of having the numbers...

Obamas Disclose Assets of $2.6 Million to $8.3 Million in 2011

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2012/05/15/bloomberg_articlesM430L26K50ZX01-M432Y.DTL#ixzz1v06VF2eZ

I wonder when Romney is going to release his numbers?
This guy is running for president of the United states, he won't release his taxes, hell he won't even go on the Sunday talk shows. He is afraid to go on any show that is not in Fox land. He doesn't have numbers for his big economic plan.... I guess he just wants us to trust him.

Trust him how could we ever doubt a man like Mitt ? This is the guy with all his money swears he lived in his sons house in his unfinished basement.

Did Mitt Romney Live In His Son's Unfinished Basement Last Year?

http://www.forbes.com/sites/brendancoffey/2011/06/15/did-mitt-romney-live-in-his-sons-unfinished-basement-last-year/

[politics] [by bbqkink@2:43amGMT] [+7 Informative]

Comments

conception said @ 3:46am GMT on 16th May [Score:3 Underrated]
It's so refreshing not to need to pay attention to national elections since 2001. The thing I'll never forgive the republicans for doing is making me into a straight ticket democrat.

tomintroy said @ 4:47am GMT on 16th May [Score:-1]
ahhh yes... another open minded thinker "I'll always do blah, blah, blah because no one can convince me otherwise!"

lilmookieesquire said @ 5:30am GMT on 16th May [Score:1]
To be fair, remember what happened when we voted for Nader in droves?

1 terrorist attack, 2 wars, tax deductions, and an eventual credit down grading.

Even my mom started voting Democrat after four years of that.

bbqkink said @ 7:13am GMT on 16th May
I remember when everybody thought this guy was crazy.

The US is swapping good manufacturing jobs for lower paying service jobs. For instance, the University of South Carolina reports that between 1978 and 1990 South Carolina lost more than 58,000 manufacturing jobs. At the same time, the biggest job gains in South Carolina were in restaurants, bars, and grocery stores-more than 72,000 service jobs were created in such establishments. It’s a bad tradeoff. The lost manufacturing jobs paid an average of $279 per week. The replacement service jobs pay only $127 a week-less than half as much. The result: the living standards of working men and women are declining, and America is becoming a nation of hamburger-flippers.

http://www.issues2000.org/Celeb/Ross_Perot_Jobs.htm

Didel said @ 7:13pm GMT on 16th May
Of course, now in the year 2012, South Carolina is bringing back manufacturing jobs at an outstanding rate. It's not the highest state in absolute numbers, but it may be the highest rate of percentage gain in manufacturing jobs in the US (or at least one of the highest). I was talking to a community college professor the other day in Charlotte and he said that Bosch came up there recruiting. They're looking to hire 200 machinists for a new plant in the Greenville/Spartanburg area. You may say, "200 people isn't a lot." But 200 trained machinists, that's a lot. You don't just become a machinist overnight, especially a highly skilled one. That's why they're going to every community college in a 100 mile radius recruiting. That plant is also going to need a hell of a lot of other people to support those machinists, people to put together the parts, etc. etc.

clumsy_juggler said @ 8:35pm GMT on 16th May
I wonder how much of that has to do with South Carolina being a "Right to Work" state.

Didel said @ 8:52pm GMT on 16th May
A whole hell of a lot, they're like the second least unionized state there is, NC I believe being the first. But regardless, fairly high wage manufacturing jobs are flooding into the area. This is one of the arguments for right to work, and in this case at least, it seems to be working. There are a lot of arguments to be made on both sides of right to work laws, but this does seem to be working for SC at the moment.

bbqkink said @ 9:11pm GMT on 16th May
It all depends on you point of view. if you are a fortune 500 company "right to work" is a great thing it means you can pay workers less for the same work.

If you are a worker it means that you will likely have less benefits (insurance ) holidays, work longer hours, and be less safe while doing it.

Of every 100 American workers who lost their jobs in the 1980s, at least 61 had not reached the same standard of living they had before losing their job. The hard fact of life is that a majority of the American workers who will be thrown out of work if NAFTA is passed will have to take less pay and fewer benefits to get another job-and that’s if they can find someone willing to hire them.

clumsy_juggler said @ 11:07pm GMT on 16th May
It is not just affecting American workers. We had a nice example here in Canada of Caterpillar shutting down a factory full of union workers and moving it to a right to work state.

theolypse said @ 1:35am GMT on 17th May
I really think we should stop calling them that in favor of Beg To Work.

conception said @ 10:45pm GMT on 16th May
Well, I mean, the right has been convincing me pretty strongly the last ten years or so.

atter_cob said @ 3:46am GMT on 16th May
Making money in a static economy is hard... pretty much the best you can do is to pick something that is growing at a steady rate and invest in that. BUT if the economy is uncertain and full of flux then you can take advantage of the fluctuations by getting in on thing when they are undervalued and then dumping them on others when they are over valued. Of course you need to be able to predict the fluctuations or you could lose money by doing the opposite. The solution is obvious: manufacture your own churning that you have some control over. Now does the GOP behavior make sense to you?

bbqkink said @ 3:52am GMT on 16th May
Wonder what stocks did they short?

conception said @ 3:54am GMT on 16th May
American manufacturing companies. ;)

lilmookieesquire said @ 5:28am GMT on 16th May
In 2000 it was California.

atter_cob said @ 8:00am GMT on 16th May
Not just stocks.

And there is no way to really find out:

Person A lends money to person B
Person B invests in a fund managed by D
Person C gets elected and does destabilizing things
Person D invests in the things C has trashed
Person C fixes the mess
Person D pulls out the investments
Person A hires C once C is done with term in office

D gets huge management fees and bonuses.
C gets very high paying job
B gets return on investment
A gets huge interest payment on loan

And this is like the simple baby version of the scam. The real ones would take 10 pages of dense type to explain. Even if they get "caught" it won't have technically broken any rules and the public won't be able to understand it much less hold any one accountable.

Wheeeeeeeee!!!!!

bbqkink said @ 9:17pm GMT on 16th May
I get the feeling this is strictly political this time it is not about market manipulation. Most people hate the Republican plan for the economy. So instead of laying out their numbers and have people go HELL NO, they will use the fear card.."Your world is going to end".

This is a one trick pony and only works if people don't look at the numbers or the cause of the debt in the first place. I'm wondering if they have built a backdoor into this newest hostage taking or are they willing to take it to the brink again?

afrasr said @ 3:59am GMT on 16th May

blackpsypher said @ 4:07am GMT on 16th May
This is an easy one, interest rates are what.... 0% - .25%. Oh noes, we are driving up our debt.... ah hell, the fuck do I care.... if you think it's an issue, go take MacroEconomics 101. If you still think it's an issue....

...sure, why not; debt is bad....fuck the lefty communists thats be screwing us all. Mitt Romney for Galactic Emperor.

bbqkink said @ 4:28am GMT on 16th May [Score:2]
It would be different if they were actually talking about ways to end the debt. Either plan you look at the Ryan Budget which Romney thinks is MARVELOUS or the paralytically invisible one Romey, sorta has, raises the debt!

The long term debt is an issue..in the long term. There are three main drivers of long term debt.
(1) are old farts like me we are at the age we will be getting sick and there are a lot of us.

Solution.. Fix the freakin healthcare system

Single-Payer Health Care: $570 Billion Cheaper

http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/single-payer_healthcare_570_billion_cheaper_20120414/

You would also free employers from a huge cost...more corporate profit!

You would save lives in the process.

New study finds 45,000 deaths annually linked to lack of health coverage
Uninsured, working-age Americans have 40 percent higher death risk than privately insured counterparts

(2) military spending

Solution..Quit spending more and moore damn money..JUST QUIT!

(3) The lack of a robust economy

Solution..STIMULUS spend some damn money on the infrastructure of this country . How about making a smart grid ..same some of that money we spend on oil..maybe.

Take advantage of those 0 ..actualy less than 0% money..
BUILD SOMETHING

blackpsypher said @ 6:12am GMT on 16th May [Score:1 Underrated]
Don't forget the part where with under-stimulating you get all the debt and none of the effect.

chold_numa said @ 7:20am GMT on 16th May
Backstopping the banks gave the US lots of debt and no stimulus. Directly giving a low income tax break/bonus payment of $1000 per taxpayer would be more egalitarian and effective than most jobs/business stimulus plans, and possibly cheaper in the long run.

foobar said @ 4:20am GMT on 16th May [Score:3 Insightful]

swiggy said @ 4:21am GMT on 16th May
[Pun involving Cardassians and Kim Kardashian goes here.]

bbqkink said @ 4:43am GMT on 16th May

ComposerNate said @ 6:04am GMT on 16th May

GordonGuano said @ 8:48am GMT on 16th May
If anything, you'd think he'd be a Space Jew, er Ferengi.

Ankylosaur said @ 6:10pm GMT on 16th May [Score:1 Funny]
That role's already played by Ron Paul.

mrklipp said @ 10:14pm GMT on 16th May
I'm sorry, but nobody out Space Jew's the Bajorans.

Beyond all the "subtle" stuff, they even went so far as to refer to one of their religious events as the festival of lights.

GordonGuano said @ 11:11pm GMT on 16th May
(pic of screaming Ogre w/"NERDS!" caption here)

I stand corrected, maybe the Ferengi are supposed to be a black stereotype then? Will take anything that isn't nailed down, obsessed with gold-pressed latinum bling?

mrklipp said @ 12:39am GMT on 17th May
Ferengi aren't a racial stereotype, they are an economic system caricature.

Specifically, the Ferengi are pure capitalists. Selling out your family to make a buck? Not just acceptable, but considered a virtue. Workers are mistreated and underpaid, but they don't want to change the system, they instead aspire to become rich themselves.

Naruki said @ 3:12pm GMT on 17th May
Ferengi aren't a racial stereotype, they are an economic system caricature.

Um... disagree. They are a Jewish caricature, much like Watto from Star Wars. That they happen to also represent unbridled capitalism is not coincidence, it's part of the stereotype.

sanepride said @ 11:12pm GMT on 16th May
An interesting observation, considering that the Bajorans are obviously a heavy-handed parable for the Palestinians.

GordonGuano said @ 11:41pm GMT on 16th May
I'm only about half a season into DS9, but Memory Alpha talks about the Bajorans undergoing genocide at the hands of the Cardassians and then doing the diaspora thing, so maybe the analogy works if Cardassians are Space Nazis?

mrklipp said @ 12:45am GMT on 17th May [Score:1 Informative]
As you watch more of the show, they *really* start to hit the Cardassians as Space Nazis theme heavily.

They even do time travel episodes to show them running forced labor camps, and have higher ranking Cardassian officers taking female Bajorans away from the camps as comfort women.

Later shows even covered a Cardassian doctor who was responsible for conducting forced medical experimentation on Bajorans in a labor camp.

mrklipp said @ 12:54am GMT on 17th May
What makes you say that?

Everything the show covered about the Cardassian occupation of Bajor painted it as a brutal occupation after an invasion, involving work camps, mass killings as collective punishment in response to resistance, even forced medical experimentation.

They hit so many of these, and related themes, often more than once, that it's very hard for me to see it as anything other than Space Jews vs Space Nazis with a thin tablecloth over it.

sanepride said @ 1:17am GMT on 17th May
Well that's how I read it. I guess I never saw the Cardassians as space Nazis because there were always a few who were sympathetic characters.

mrklipp said @ 1:31am GMT on 17th May
Space Germans during the Nazi era then if you prefer.

That's probably a better fit really. Most of the military and those running the occupation were portrayed rather unsympathetically, but there were a few odd stand outs that weren't just obvious evil generic bad guy #3. The general Cardassian population wasn't portrayed as actively evil in regards to the occupation, more just indifferent about it.

sanepride said @ 1:38am GMT on 17th May
And yet, as bad as they were, the Dominion were even badder.

mrklipp said @ 1:55am GMT on 17th May
Oh sure. Hell, I'd say that a lot of the reason they went to so much trouble to make the Cardassians seem evil and menacing was so that when the Dominion came along and was even worse it would have a bigger impact.

biblebeltdrunk said @ 6:52pm GMT on 16th May [Score:1 Funny]
Am I the only one that thought the villain in the after credits scene to the avengers looked like Herman Cain when he did that slow smile?

torinaga said @ 3:56am GMT on 17th May

swiggy said @ 4:32am GMT on 16th May [Score:1 Insightful]
It's more than a little distressing that the republicans can hold their own fucking country hostage in an election year, and still be assured that its base are either too ignorant, brainwashed or just stuck in a tribalistic "not the arab nigger president" mindset to give a shit.

tomintroy said @ 4:51am GMT on 16th May
"...Spending, Taxes, And Deficits Are All Lower Today Than When Obama Took Office..."

Figures lie and liars figure. I'm not defending Bush who was the worst liberal of the last 100 years, just pointing out the stupidity of the deficit hogwash you site.

bbqkink said @ 4:54am GMT on 16th May
Go ahead point it out..but do it with numbers.

lilmookieesquire said @ 5:25am GMT on 16th May
Are you sure? When he took office, there were two wars in full tilt and the US credit rating basically took a bit from that.

Accounting gives a lot of flexibility.

I doubt, in that light, that it's a lie, but you could easily debate if that's a meaningful figure.

Kind of like a car having "dual over-head cams".

sanepride said @ 6:59am GMT on 16th May
Actually the US credit rating was downgraded because of the intransigence of Republican lawmakers playing chicken with the debt ceiling. Just as they are apparently getting ready to do again.

lilmookieesquire said @ 7:25am GMT on 16th May
Yes, but we reached the debt ceiling due to bush policies and republican bullshit.

sanepride said @ 3:15pm GMT on 16th May [Score:1 Informative]
Well, not exactly. The US public debt and 'debt ceiling' are sort of established characteristics of economic policy. We've maintained a public debt for almost our entire history, and due to mounting interest, inflation, etc it inevitably continues to increase. Thus, it regularly hits a 'ceiling', which the Constitution mandates Congress must set. Historically this has never been a big deal, a few impassioned speeches on fiscal discipline and then an easy consensus on raising the ceiling - because the alternative, default, would obviously undermine our otherwise rock-solid credibility as a debt investment. In fact this has happened at least 90 times in the last century, under both parties.
Now you may be thinking of the federal budget deficit, which did in fact explode under Bush due to wars, tax cuts, unfunded entitlements, TARP, etc etc. This does add to the national debt, but the debt itself, that is the sum of all obligations, existed and grew even under the balanced budget of the Clinton years.
Now where the Republican bullshit comes in is this completely gratuitous ideological objection to raising the debt ceiling, which has traditionally been simply a matter of bipartisan economic housekeeping. The debt itself is the result of expenditures by both parties (mostly entitlements) over time, along with compounding interest, but only one party has decided to seriously use it as a political tool and threaten default. This is the reason for the credit downgrade.

bbqkink said @ 7:57pm GMT on 16th May [Score:3]

ComposerNate said @ 7:14am GMT on 17th May [Score:1 Funny]
When Clinton (D) left office the CBO forecast the US debt would be paid off fully by 2012.

Naruki said @ 3:21pm GMT on 17th May
Now, without context, I am forced to make a choice as to how that graph was derived.

It would appear that each figure was based on percent of the debt during that leader's term, not percent compared to all the leaders.

What with inflation, the latter would be a pretty staggeringly counter-intuitive chart.

As such, with no correlation between say Reagan and Clinton, these figures are utterly meaningless.

It's like saying I can lift 189% more weight than Joe, whereas you can lift 37% more weight than Harry. Our respective percentages have zero correlation to each other!

If I start with a dollar and add another, I have increased the debt 100%. If you later start with 8 dollars and add 2, you have only increased 25%, despite DOUBLING the debt that I made.

I would much rather see actual dollar figures (adjusted for inflation) than segregated percentages.

ComposerNate said @ 3:59pm GMT on 17th May
I assumed it was increase in national debt between the two dates listed under each man, so the debt more than doubled under GWBush, increasing by 115% between 1/2001 and 1/2009. Probably more fair would have been from 1/2002 until 1/2010 as budgets are planned a year ahead.

bbqkink said @ 5:59pm GMT on 17th May [Score:1 Informative]
http://www.skymachines.com/US-National-Debt-Per-Capita-Percent-of-GDP-and-by-Presidental-Term.htm

bbqkink said @ 4:58am GMT on 16th May [Score:3 Interesting]
Just in from Fox news.

Obama is a terrorist, a political terrorist.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

valen85 said @ 5:29am GMT on 16th May
Fuuuuuuuck my fucking stocksssssss

happyman said @ 5:36am GMT on 16th May

This is a worksafe image that popped in my head when you mentioned "fucking stocks".

ENZ said @ 6:21pm GMT on 16th May
I wonder where I can find puritan tickle porn?

kichijoii said @ 7:48am GMT on 16th May
Stupid is as stupid does.

val said @ 12:51pm GMT on 16th May
In the words of one of my more radical friends, "I hope Ron Paul wins... Because I want the revolution to be awesome."

Supreme_Coconut said @ 1:26pm GMT on 16th May
Does he skateboard everywhere while drinking Mountain Dew?

Anti-fuites said @ 2:39pm GMT on 16th May
I'm just going to watch it on tv

sanepride said @ 7:10pm GMT on 16th May
OK this is just too funny.
Romney gives speech referring to George W. Bush five times simply as Obama's "predecessor".
It is not a good sign when you cannot refer to your party's last president by his actual name.

anagramophone said @ 11:12pm GMT on 16th May
gop candidate buttplug design reflects polls:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/galleries/2012/05/16/gop-approval-rating-sex-toys-photos.html

bbqkink said @ 12:02am GMT on 17th May [Score:1 Funny]
He is going full Sara Palin...hide..don't answer any questions.

Romney Adviser: Mitt ‘Doesn’t Want To Really Engage’ On Foreign Policy Issues Until He’s President

http://thinkprogress.org/security/2012/05/14/483510/romney-doesnt-want-to-engage-foreign-policy/

Mitt Romney is trying harder than ever these days to stay on script — and keep his traveling national press corps at arm's length.

The latest clash came Wednesday when aides to the presumptive Republican presidential nominee blocked the reporters who cover Romney daily from asking him questions at the "rope line" separating him and his supporters.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jCOFTbUXMmJ2ll-kg_Wbw9s5IzgA?docId=a5a7a61b90ba4a439b668bd7912c730c