US Politics Mega-thread - Page 257

On May 25 2013 02:10 SayGen wrote:


Risk management and ORM are both concepts I'm quite familiar with.
You have failed to apply reading comprehension, you've missed my entire point.
I'd recommend you go back and read it again a little slower and with more focus this time.

Again, you are better off looking at your car insurance bill and taking that money and putting it in an account that generates enough interest to counter inflation (at a min, more is always better) than you are paying an insurance company. Period.

Cut the middleman, take care of yourself. Build capital.
It is you who doesn't understand Eco 101,202 or Business management 101,200
I'd recommend those classes to any person living in the civilized part of the world.

Edit: It is only when I have to deal with people like you that I feel superior. My peers are often ones that keep me in intellectual checkmate. Sadly your not on that level.



User was banned for this post.

On May 25 2013 02:41 aksfjh wrote:

Increasing the Fed interest rate wouldn't likely increase the % gains on your savings. You might see your real savings appreciate with the deflation we'd see from increased rates, but without a strongly diversified portfolio, your gains would be eroded by the cost of living that wouldn't decline to match your decline in wages.

His assessment is what a lot of us expected and knew already. It's getting to the point now where we all know what all the arguments are and what evidence there is to support it, and what we expect to happen when we pull the same economic levers throughout the world. We're basically running Euro-lite right now, which means slower growth. We need to be watching Japan throughout the next year to see what robust fiscal and monetary policy can do for the economy, compared to some form of austerity.


He'll have to cash in all that gold he buried in his backyard. Or maybe he's a bitcoin guy, so he'll have to hope his health holds out long enough for him to cash out on one of the high swings that comes about every few months.

The U.S. Senate voted 99-0 to adopt a resolution calling for continued and stronger sanctions against Iran.

The resolution, S. Res. 65, also includes a statement of support for Israel if that nation decides to act against Iran.

The resolution states that the U.S. should support Israel “in accordance with United States law and the constitutional responsibility of Congress to authorize the use of military force” if Israel “is compelled to take military action in legitimate self-defense against Iran’s nuclear weapons program.”

Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Robert Menendez said during floor debate that the resolution would send two messages.

One message, the New Jersey Democrat said, is “Israel, we continue to be your faithful ally.”

The other message, he said, is to Iran. “We cannot allow Iran to bide more time by talking even as the centrifuges keep spinning,” he said. “Iran’s leaders must understand that unless they change their course, their situation will only get worse. Their pursuit of nuclear weapons capabilities will make them less, not more, secure.”

On May 25 2013 03:37 HunterX11 wrote:
A better question would be "Will the US engage in open hostilities with Iran?" since there's a good chance the United States will never even engage in formal warfare again.

On May 25 2013 03:43 Shiori wrote:

I really hope you're right. A formal war with the US involved means mass death somewhere .

Millennium Challenge 2002 (MC02) was a major war game exercise conducted by the United States armed forces in mid-2002, likely the largest such exercise in history. The exercise, which ran from July 24 to August 15 and cost $250 million, involved both live exercises and computer simulations. MC02 was meant to be a test of future military "transformation"—a transition toward new technologies that enable network-centric warfare and provide more powerful weaponry and tactics. The simulated combatants were the United States, referred to as "Blue", and an unknown adversary in the Middle East, "Red".


Red, commanded by retired Marine Corps Lieutenant General Paul K. Van Riper, adopted an asymmetric strategy. In particular, using old methods to evade Blue's sophisticated electronic surveillance network. Van Riper used motorcycle messengers to transmit orders to front-line troops and World War II light signals to launch airplanes without radio communications.

Red received an ultimatum from Blue, essentially a surrender document, demanding a response within 24 hours. Thus warned of Blue's approach, Red used a fleet of small boats to determine the position of Blue's fleet by the second day of the exercise. In a preemptive strike, Red launched a massive salvo of cruise missiles that overwhelmed the Blue forces' electronic sensors and destroyed sixteen warships. This included one aircraft carrier, ten cruisers and five of six amphibious ships. An equivalent success in a real conflict would have resulted in the deaths of over 20,000 service personnel. Soon after the cruise missile offensive, another significant portion of Blue's navy was "sunk" by an armada of small Red boats, which carried out both conventional and suicide attacks that capitalized on Blue's inability to detect them as well as expected.[1]

At this point, the exercise was suspended, Blue's ships were "re-floated", and the rules of engagement were changed; this was later justified by General Peter Pace as follows: "You kill me in the first day and I sit there for the next 13 days doing nothing, or you put me back to life and you get 13 more days' worth of experiment out of me. Which is a better way to do it?"[2] After the reset, both sides were ordered to follow predetermined plans of action.

After the wargame was restarted, the war game was forced to follow a script drafted to ensure a Blue Force victory. Among the rules imposed by this script, Red Force was ordered to turn on all his anti-aircraft radar in order for them to be destroyed, and Red Force was not allowed to shoot down any of the aircraft bringing Blue Force troops ashore.[3] Van Riper also claimed that exercise officials denied him the opportunity to use his own tactics and ideas against Blue Force, and that they also ordered Red Force not to use certain weapons systems against Blue Force and even ordered that the location of Red Force units to be revealed.[4]

This led to accusations that the war game had turned from an honest, open free play test of America's war-fighting capabilities into a rigidly controlled and scripted exercise intended to end in an overwhelming American victory,[3] which meant that "$250 million was wasted".

On May 24 2013 21:17 paralleluniverse wrote:

I would think that structurally sound bridges are designed to withstand earthquakes, let alone a measly truck hitting it.

On May 25 2013 04:43 Sermokala wrote:
I'm pretty sure after the first day they realized how up shit creek they were. the Navy has been trying to build LCS ships out of wisconsion for a while now (I saw one of them) and after the USS cole they have to have received a message on their weakness's over a decade ago now.

Van Riper being past his full career as a marine general is probably the guy who knows every single possible weakness the navy has and has a ton more experience, training, and resources at his disposal then any iranian commander has any right to.

You can dig up the story of the blackhorse armored brigade (4000 men at the most)on how they kick the ass's of every armored division(21000 men at the most) in wargames.

Due to his criticism regarding the scripted nature of the new exercise, Van Riper resigned his position in the midst of the war game. Van Riper later expressed concern that the war game's purpose had shifted to reinforce existing doctrine and notions of infallibility within the U.S. military rather than serve as a learning experience.

Van Riper also stated that the war game was rigged so that it appeared to validate the modern, joint-service war-fighting concepts it was supposed to be testing.[4] He was quoted in the ZDF–New York Times documentary The Perfect War (2004)[6] as saying that what he saw in MC02 echoed the same view promoted by the Department of Defense under Robert McNamara before and during the Vietnam War, namely that the U.S. military could not and would not be defeated.

PHOENIX (AP) — A federal judge ruled Friday that the office of America’s self-proclaimed toughest sheriff systematically singled out Latinos in its trademark immigration patrols, marking the first finding by a court that the agency racially profiles people.

The 142-page decision by U.S. District Judge Murray Snow in Phoenix backs up allegations that Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s critics have made for years that his officers rely on race in their immigration enforcement.

Snow also ruled Arpaio’s deputies unreasonably prolonged the detentions of people who were pulled over.

A small group of Latinos alleged in a lawsuit that Arpaio’s deputies pulled over some vehicles only to make immigration status checks.

The group also accused the sheriff of ordering some immigration patrols not based on reports of crime but rather on letters and emails from Arizonans who complained about people with dark skin congregating in an area or speaking Spanish. The group’s attorneys pointed out that Arpaio sent thank-you notes to some people who wrote the complaints.

The sheriff has repeatedly denied the allegations, saying his deputies only stop people when they think a crime has been committed and that he wasn’t the person who picked the location of the patrols. His lawyers also said there was nothing wrong with the thank-you notes.

Cecillia D. Wang, director of the ACLU Immigrants’ Right Project, called the ruling a “great day for all the people of Maricopa County.”

Arpaio’s lead attorney Tim Casey was reading Snow’s decision Friday afternoon before commenting on it.

On May 25 2013 04:49 BlueBird. wrote:


Some bridges are designed to withstand earthquakes, some not, it depends on where you are.

There was a bridge that I used to travel all the time in Land Between the Lakes Kentucky, that got hit by the top of a boat or barge or something a year ago, and it collapsed. Some bridges can't take hits in the right spot.

http://www.wdrb.com/story/16613002/ky-lake-bridge-collapses-after-tow-boat-strike

It wasn't a big deal because it was in Kentucky and it wasn't the I5 (which is a major road for any of you guys that live in Oregon, Washington or California.

There are probably more bridges that have collapsed, had something bad happen to them lately, I just happened to hear about this because my family lives in Murray, KY.

Speaking of earthquakes, in Portland, if we have a major quake along the Cascadian subduction zone(not sure of the fault names), we could possibly have a 9.0(our last big quake was between 8.7 and 9.3 in 1700 (there is a major earthquake up here every 300-600 years).. and there was another one of similar size before that, etc. Supposedly none of our bridges are designed to withstand quakes of that kind of magnitude and most of the on ramps will collapse and the bridges will become structurally unsound. They will bring in inflatable bridges, could be months before we can use some of the real bridges again and some of them will be torn down possibly. All I hope is that me and my gf are on the same side of the willamette river if it happens. It's probably just cheaper to rebuild them then to make them withstand extreme circumstances/quakes.

On May 25 2013 14:40 paralleluniverse wrote:

The problem here is that people are pretending that only the truck is to blame. But the fact is, we know that many bridges in America are deficient and in poor shape. We know that repair and maintenance have lacking due to government spending cuts.

But let's talk about this particular bridge. According to this news report here, this is a "functionally obsolete" and "fracture critical" bridge. It was inspected, but it should have been maintained, upgraded or replaced.

The proximate cause of this disaster was a truck hitting the bridge. But should a bridge collapse if it's hit by merely a truck? Is this acceptable? No. Bridges shouldn't collapse even in a Earthquake, let alone by a truck.

There seems to be this indifference, that it's just a freak truck accident, so it's not a problem we should care about. This is pure negligence. The more of these old and deficient bridges there are, and the less they are adequately maintained and upgraded, the greater the chance that such accidents will cause bridges to collapse.

On May 25 2013 14:40 paralleluniverse wrote:

The problem here is that people are pretending that only the truck is to blame. But the fact is, we know that many bridges in America are deficient and in poor shape. We know that repair and maintenance have been lacking due to government spending cuts.

But let's talk about this particular bridge. According to this news report here, this is a "functionally obsolete" and "fracture critical" bridge. It was inspected, but it should have been maintained, upgraded or replaced.

The proximate cause of this disaster was a truck hitting the bridge. But should a bridge collapse if it's hit by merely a truck? Is this acceptable? No. Bridges shouldn't collapse even in an earthquake, let alone by a truck.

There seems to be this indifference, that it's just a freak truck accident, so it's not a problem we should care about. This is pure negligence. The more of these old and deficient bridges there are, and the less they are adequately maintained and upgraded, the greater the chance that such accidents will cause bridges to collapse.

On May 25 2013 15:25 Wegandi wrote:


The Government is spending trillions and trillions of dollars. This problem certainly isn't one of 'cuts' or 'lack of spending'. How much more does the Government have to spend until you say it is adequate? They're all ready taxing us cumulatively over 50% in the majority of the country. Serfs had it good compared to us - being taxed only 25%.

On May 25 2013 15:25 Wegandi wrote:


The Government is spending trillions and trillions of dollars. This problem certainly isn't one of 'cuts' or 'lack of spending'. How much more does the Government have to spend until you say it is adequate? They're all ready taxing us cumulatively over 50% in the majority of the country. Serfs had it good compared to us - being taxed only 25%.

On May 25 2013 15:56 upperbound wrote:

I want you to break down for me how any person is paying >50% effective tax rate.

Feel free to use worst-case scenarios (highest sales taxes, no deductions/credits, municipal/state/federal income taxes, any tax bracket). You can even mix-and-match using impossible combinations. I really don't think any single person in the U.S. pays a <50% effective tax rate, never mind a majority of the country.

On May 25 2013 16:12 paralleluniverse wrote:

I'm not sure where you're getting this 50% number from, because it's bogus. Here's the effective (not marginal) tax rate over the last 30 years. As you can see, the highest is about 30%, and it shows that effective tax rates have been falling over the last decade.

The economy is in an equilibrium where front loaded cuts in spending threw the sequester is slowing growth. The testimony from Bernanke stating exactly this just a few days ago was linked to you a few pages back. So the problem absolutely is one of cuts and lack of spending, relative to the level that would put the economy into an equilibrium where fiscal policy would be supporting economic growth instead of holding it back.

You talk about "serfs" having it good because they're not getting taxed so heavily. Why don't you become a "serf" then? The fact is that the wealthy are paying the highest share of taxes because their incomes have exploded in the last few decades, while everyone else has actually fell behind. As shown by this CBO report, in terms of after-tax, after-transfer income, everyone but the top 1% is falling behind.

“Great power often corrupts virtue; it invariably renders vice more malignant. . . . In proportion as the powers of government increase, both its own character and that of the people becomes worse.”
—John Taylor of Caroline, 1814

On May 25 2013 16:36 Wegandi wrote:


Sure thing.

Let's take California for instance:

46k+ Income Tax bracket: 9.3%
Sales tax ~ 9% (http://www.boe.ca.gov/sutax/pam71.htm) & gas tax is 46Cents a Gal which is at current prices about 14%+ effective rate
Property Tax ~ 1,500$ per capita which is figuring 50k income is 3% not to mention the parcel tax

So state taxation alone is ~ 21-23% (there are all sorts of other taxes that add up to like communications tax fees, if you own a business you have additional taxes, etc.) This isn't even counting local taxes which can add an additional ~1-5% depending where you live.

Federal - Medicare/SS is ~8% (http://ssa-custhelp.ssa.gov/app/answers/detail/a_id/240/~/social-security-and-medicare-tax-rates%3B-maximum-taxable-earnings) oh and if you are self-employed your rate is 15%.
Income Tax for 46k - roughly 15% (http://www.calcxml.com/calculators/federal-income-tax-calculator;jsessionid=81B5CBD179B96BAC5506DEC172F4D2E1?skn=)

Federal unemployment tax is 6.2% (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_unemployment_tax_act) which is taken from your pocket before you even see your wage.

That is roughly 50-52% right there, not including the other dozens and dozens and dozens of taxes levied (http://whatistaxed.com/other_taxes.htm). Of course some states have lower burdens like Florida and New Hampshire, but then some states have higher burdens like New York and Hawaii.

On May 25 2013 16:45 Wegandi wrote:
Yes, I am quite aware that the average income and standard of living has been decreasing over the last 50 years. I however, see the correlation between the growth of State and Business intertwining as such cause (esp. through monetization - Fed Reserve inflationary printing). Whereas this increase of power has led to those politically connected (like it always does) enjoying greater comforts while the rest of us mundanes and peons are stolen to pay for it. Yet, in light of this you want to give the Government even greater power, which will only exacerbate the problem. You simply fail to understand human nature. Of course a person is going to bribe a Government official with a pittance to them for plundering the treasury, and this not only goes for business interests, but also for bureaucratic and Government interests themselves.

Also, Bernanke has the credibility of a sociopath. How many times does one person have to be wrong over and over until they're laughed off the stage?

PS. I also find it funny how you a so-called Progressive is now defending increased Military Industrial Complex spending. Military Keynesians are so funny trying to take both positions. You can't have your cake and eat it too. (Lest I remind folks of post-WWII military spending reductions and associative lowering of tax rates led to...) A priori...building bombs and tanks increasing my standard of living! Lol lol.

On May 25 2013 18:07 Melliflue wrote:

You cannot just add all these percentages together and then say that is how much money goes into tax. For example, that 9% sales tax is only 9% of what you spend and not 9% of your pre-tax income, so you cannot just add that 9% to the other percentages. I am not familiar enough with US tax law to know how all the other taxes are counted, but I'd be surprised if all those taxes were as percentages of the 46K.


I'm not sure how to quantify the intertwining of state and business but what makes you believe it has growing? I thought there had been a lot of deregulation over the last couple of decades, which would mean less intertwining. Maybe I misunderstood what you meant by the intertwining of state and business.


I'm not sure what being a sociopath would have to do with credibility when it comes to economic knowledge. Anyhoo, I've not seen any analysis on how often Bernanke was wrong/right. I did see the study by Hamilton College, which amongst other things found a positive correlation between how liberal a person's political views are and how accurate his/her predictions have been. (source) It's not completely pertinent but I found it interesting. Unfortunately they didn't look at Ben Bernanke.


Building bombs and tanks does create jobs, and pump money into the economy. It is a form of stimulus. Maybe I am mis-reading your comment though; I am struggling to tell which part is sarcastic and which isn't.