US Politics Mega-thread - Page 681

On December 03 2013 02:39 corumjhaelen wrote:
The glory of Newton obviously didn't come from predicting the movement of planets, you silly.
Also let's skip a few steps and get to Feyerabend and throw potatoes at each other.

BOSTON (AP) — Pro-marijuana activists in Massachusetts have already succeeded in paving the way for dozens of medical marijuana dispensaries and decriminalizing possession of small amounts of the drug.

Now many of those same activists have set their sights on the full legalization of marijuana for adults, effectively putting the drug on a par with alcohol and cigarettes.

And those activists — as they have in the past — are again hoping to make their case directly to voters.

The group Bay State Repeal says it’s planning to put the proposal on the state’s 2016 ballot. The group is first planning to test different versions of the measure by placing nonbinding referendum questions on next year’s ballot in about a dozen state representative districts.

Those nonbinding questions are intended to gauge voter support for possible variations of the final, binding question.

Bill Downing, a member of Bay State Repeal, said the state should legalize marijuana for many reasons, especially since the use of marijuana no longer carries the stigma it once did and many people smoke the drug despite laws against it.

‘‘That’s the problem with the marijuana laws,’’ Downing said. ‘‘There’s no moral impact anymore because the laws don’t reflect our common values.’’

The activists have some reason to be hopeful. Not only have Massachusetts voters twice supported past efforts to ease restrictions on marijuana, but other states and cities have also recently moved toward lifting prohibitions on the drug.

Last year, voters made Washington and Colorado the first states to legalize the sale of taxed marijuana to adults over 21 at state-licensed stores.

On December 03 2013 01:09 JonnyBNoHo wrote:

Unemployment went up early in his first term because the Fed raised interest rates up to 20% to fight inflation. That caused a rough recession and sparked the S&L financial crisis. After, stagflation had ended.

Reagan did spend a lot, though some of that was due to high interest rates on the debt.

You'll have to explain how you think making the rest of the world friendlier for US capital lowered the unemployment rate in the US. Are you making a free trade argument?

About 100,000 people signed up for health insurance through Obamacare's troubled online federal exchange last month even as government contractors raced to revamp the website, Bloomberg News reported.

An anonymous person familiar with the website's progress told Bloomberg that about 100,000 customers successfully selected a plan in November, roughly four times more than the amount of sign-ups in October. That number represents a steady increase in sign-ups, the person said, although the final enrollment numbers were still being calculated.

The White House announced Sunday that it met its goal of "having a system that will work smoothly for the vast majority of users." The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said that 50,000 users can now access the federal exchange simultaneously.

On December 03 2013 03:48 Danglars wrote:

Frankly, it took all his focus on tax cuts with blue dog Democrats to even get that done. It was Congressional spending under the Democrats that was responsible for the debt more than even the growth in military spending. You can't win them all as a president.

On December 03 2013 07:12 WhiteDog wrote:

I'm just saying you argue that Germany has done supply side economics and it worked, while what made German policy work is : the euro and its impacts, and the global hypocrisy of the german economy.

It's not a proof that "supply side economy works" it is just a proof that being hypocritical and having a big advantage thanks to a currency that destroy southern countries is good for your economy, period.

Now if you want to know if supply side works, you need an economic context that is more or less "normal" so that you can really assess the impact of the said economic policy without interferences : and that is the bush administration.

On December 03 2013 01:09 JonnyBNoHo wrote:

Unemployment went up early in his first term because the Fed raised interest rates up to 20% to fight inflation. That caused a rough recession and sparked the S&L financial crisis. After, stagflation had ended.

Reagan did spend a lot, though some of that was due to high interest rates on the debt.

You'll have to explain how you think making the rest of the world friendlier for US capital lowered the unemployment rate in the US. Are you making a free trade argument?

On December 03 2013 09:25 IgnE wrote:


No, I'm saying that American capital reaped profits from the rest of the world, which had its tariffs and other capital barriers torn down, and the capital surplus in the US allowed domestic (local) unemployment to decrease, even as global growth rates declined in the 80s. Everyone just assumes Reaganomics creates growth because the US and the UK to some extent showed growth, but the entire world showed a relative decline in growth.

Average global growth rate in the 60s was around 3.4%, and declined to 2.4% in the troubled 70s, but declined even further to 1.4% and 1.1% for the 80s and 90s, despite the US, and later, China and India doing well. Yes, global poverty went down, but that is due almost entirely to China and India.

On December 03 2013 01:39 Acrofales wrote:

This is absolute nonsense. Pick up a book on ethnography, or any other methodology that relies on careful observation of the environment (using either qualitative or quantitative methods) rather than controlled experiments.

There is only a small subset of humanities, law, and economics that can realistically conduct controlled experiments. And even other areas like biology rely largely on observation in a natural environment, rather than some controlled setting. Not to mention cosmology, where "experiments" are fundamentally impossible.

The scientific method isn't founded on experiments, it is founded on falsifiable hypotheses. And even that is only part of the equation. I suggest everybody here starts reading up on the philosophy of science before spouting pseudoscientific drivel here.

On December 03 2013 11:37 Danglars wrote:

In order to get the budget passed, you have to pick your fights, pay the political cost pushing through reductions in wasteful spending. The man fought a belligerent communist regime and punitive taxes (70% top rate) and the worst economy since the great depression (thanks Carter). He brought unemployment down from ~7.7% pre-cuts to ~5.8%, part of which was growth at the expense of deficits. Revenue growth was higher in his 1980s with low taxes than the high-tax 1970s. Successes upon successes.

You might have to step back from an examination of what actually got passed through Congress to see the following. His economic thought involved minimizing the deficit with cuts in spending, but he needed the Democratic Congress to authorize his defense buildup and go along with the tax cuts that he was actively selling the American people. The price for this was agreement with the Democrat's domestic spending desires. In an alternate universe without a communist power to oppose, I have no doubt his energies and political power could've been exercised profitably in the deficit area. Long-term, the booming economy from his 1980s management were the only thing that made the 1990s surpluses possible (add in defense savings from having won the Cold War as well here if you wish).

WASHINGTON -- While most Americans like the idea of drug testing for welfare recipients, they LOVE the idea of drug testing for members of Congress.

According to a new HuffPost/YouGov poll, 64 percent of Americans favor requiring welfare recipients to submit to random drug testing -- a measure pushed by Republican lawmakers in recent years -- while 18 percent oppose it. But an even stronger majority said they're in favor of random drug testing for members of Congress, by a 78 percent to 7 percent margin. Sixty-two percent said they "strongly" favor drug testing for congressional lawmakers, compared to only 51 percent who said the same of welfare recipients.

The House of Representatives passed legislation this year that would allow states to require food stamp recipients to pee in cups to prove they're not on drugs. In 2012, Republicans pushed for drug testing of people seeking unemployment insurance benefits when they lose their jobs. At the state level, GOP lawmakers across the country have sought drug testing for an array of safety net programs. (Politicians sometimes refer to means-tested government benefits in general as "welfare," although the term is more commonly a nickname for the relatively small Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program.)

Democrats have frequently suggested that if drug tests are good for people getting a hand from the government, then they're good for people running the government, too. Republicans usually don't go along with that idea -- the Kansas state legislature is one recent exception -- but voters heartily approve.

While drug testing for both welfare recipients and lawmakers received support across party lines in the new poll, the congressional proposal was the one more likely to bring Americans together. Eighty-six percent of Republicans, 77 percent of Democrats and 75 percent of independents said they want drug testing for members of Congress.

Republicans felt especially strongly about drug testing of welfare recipients, with 87 percent favoring it and only 9 percent opposed. Among Democrats, 50 percent favored and 28 percent opposed drug testing of welfare recipients, while independents were in favor by a 64 percent to 16 percent margin.

On December 03 2013 15:14 Mindcrime wrote:


Yeah, who gives a shit if Reagan requested more spending than Congress authorized; democrats made him do it.

and who gives a shit about glasnost and perestroika when you have fucking star wars, amirite?

On December 03 2013 12:19 Roe wrote:


Why are you assuming that "ethnography" and other humanities need experiments, or have scientifically meaningful results, or are even scientific? So I don't see where the nonsense is, and I don't see it in absolute form.

Associated Industries of Massachusetts survey finds huge variability in health insurance premium changes under 'Obamacare'

... AIM is conducting a survey of its members to determine the effect of the Affordable Care Act on insurance premiums for those businesses that must renew their plans in January, the first time parts of the the new law will be in effect. The group will conduct an additional survey in March, since many small businesses renew their premiums in April.

So far, the group has received 101 responses from businesses buying insurance in the small group market. Although the number is too small for a scientific sample, it does provide some early indication of what businesses will see going forward.

Of those, Geehern said, 59 percent of businesses are seeing their premiums increase, 27 percent are seeing their premiums decrease and 14 percent are seeing their premiums remain flat. Since health insurance premiums typically increase every year, the most notable thing about the results is how variable those changes are.

All of those who saw their premiums decrease saw drops of less than 9 percent, Geehern said. The increases were more variable.

Among all respondents, 27 percent saw their premiums increase by less than 9 percent; 17 percent increased between 10 and 19 percent; 13 percent increased between 20 and 29 percent; and 2 percent increased between 30 and 49 percent.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) dodged a question Tuesday about whether the GOP will bring up a legislative alternative to Obamacare for a vote in 2014.

"We'll see," he said.

At a press briefing in the Capitol, Boehner swiped the Affordable Care Act and called for "patient-centered" solutions to health care.

"When you look at Obamacare which is a government-centered health care delivery system, that's not what the American people want," he said. "The American people want to be able to pick their own type of health insurance. They want to be able to pick their own doctor. They want to be able to pick their own hospital. That's what a patient-centered system looks like."