EPTI wish someone would inform that naive couple that it has already happened! Multiple times.
2008 US Presidential Election - Page 29
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Servolisk
United States5241 Posts
I wish someone would inform that naive couple that it has already happened! Multiple times. | ||
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fusionsdf
Canada15390 Posts
Team Clinton: Down, and Out of Touch By Dana Milbank Tuesday, February 26, 2008; A02 They are in the last throes, if you will. As Vice President Cheney knows, such predictions can be perilous. Still, there was no mistaking a certain flailing, a lashing-out, as two Clinton advisers sat down for a bacon-and-eggs session yesterday at the St. Regis Hotel. The Christian Science Monitor had assembled the éminences grises of the Washington press corps -- among them David Broder of The Post, Maureen Dowd of the New York Times and columnist Mark Shields -- for what turned out to be a fascinating tour of an alternate universe. First came Harold Ickes, who gave a presentation about Hillary Rodham Clinton's prospects that severed all ties with reality. "We're on the way to locking this nomination down," he said of a candidate who appears, if anything, headed in the other direction. But before the breakfast crowd had a chance to digest that, they were served another, stranger course by Clinton campaign spokesman Phil Singer. Asked about an accusation on the Drudge Report that Clinton staffers had circulated a photo of Barack Obama wearing Somali tribal dress, Singer let 'er rip. "I find it interesting that in a room of such esteemed journalists that Mr. Drudge has become your respected assignment editor," he lectured. "I find it to be a reflection of one of the problems that's gone on with the overall coverage of this campaign." He went on to chide the journalists for their "woefully inadequate" coverage of Obama, "a point that has been certainly backed up by the 'Saturday Night Live' skit that opened the show this past Saturday evening, which I would refer you all to." The brief moment explained everything about the bitter relations between Clinton's campaign and the media: Singer taunting the likes of Broder, who began covering presidential politics two decades before Singer was born, with a comedy sketch that showed debate moderators fawning over Obama. "That's your assignment editor?" responded Post columnist Ruth Marcus. "That's my assignment editor," Singer affirmed. That Clinton's spokesman is taking his cues from late-night comedy is as good an indication as any of where things stand in the onetime front-runner's campaign. To keep the press from declaring the race over before the voters of Ohio and Texas have their say next week, Clinton aides have resorted to a mixture of surreal happy talk and angry accusation. Yesterday, Ickes played the good cop. "We think we are on the verge of our next up cycle," he reported, even suggesting the apparent impossibility that Clinton "may be running even" with Obama when all the contests are over. "This race is very close," he judged. "This is tight as a tick." The reporters were dubious. The Monitor's Dave Cook mused about the consequences of Clinton "battling after there's not much chance." "For the love of God, we can't say there's not much chance here," Ickes maintained. David Chalian of ABC News reminded Ickes that Obama's lead in delegates is now of the size Ickes had said would be "significant." "As we all know in this city, I have a very short memory," Ickes answered. At one point, he warned of "a bitter and potentially very divisive credentials fight" at the Democratic convention. At another point, he compared the race to 1972, when a strong front-runner, Ed Muskie (now played by Clinton), was upended by an antiwar candidate, George McGovern (now played by Obama), who lost to the Republicans. "The fact is, he could not carry his weight in the general election," Ickes argued. But Ickes could suspend reality for only so long. He referred to Clinton's opponent at one point as "Senator Barack," swapped 1992 for 1972 and Michigan for Vermont, and said of the Pennsylvania primary: "Um, what month is it?" Eventually, Carl Leubsdorf of the Dallas Morning News drew a confession out of Ickes: "I think if we lose in Texas and Ohio, Mrs. Clinton will have to make her decisions as to whether she goes forward or not." Ickes's return to Earth seemed only to further outrage Singer. When Amy Chozick of the Wall Street Journal asked about how combative Clinton would be in tonight's debate with Obama, Singer informed her that it was an "absurd" question. "I don't think . . . any of our senior people have the ESP skills that you all ascribe to us," he said. When Time's Jay Newton-Small inquired about the Obama photo on Drudge, Singer used the occasion to complain about the press's failure to examine Obama's ties to violent radicals who were part of the Weathermen of the 1960s. "As far as I can tell, there was absolutely no follow-up on the part of the Obama traveling press corps," he said. Even Broder, asking about why Clinton had abandoned the North American Free Trade Agreement, was informed by Singer that "elections are about the future." Cook, the host, got similar treatment when he asked why Clinton hasn't released her tax returns. "When she's the general-election nominee, she'll release the tax returns," Singer said. After the breakfast, one of the questioners asked Singer whether he could elaborate on the tax-return issue. He dismissed her with more hostility. When the reporter suggested that Singer was being antagonistic, the spokesman explained. "Sixteen months into this," he said, "I'm just angry." | ||
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Servolisk
United States5241 Posts
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oneofthem
Cayman Islands24199 Posts
On February 26 2008 02:58 gwho wrote: percentage of gdp. nice to know. anyways im totally with you shmay that small gov is the way to go. i may sound like a total partisan pig for what im about to say, but here it is anyway. ill admit i am conservative, in the true sense, not a neocon who draws their philosophy from machiaveli and the likes. to be American means to have small government. the founding fathers all knew of how government tends to grow and go sour so they devised the constitution to keep the evils of usurping of power, and also i quote "the evil forces of democracy" at bay. Ronald Reagan said "no government willingly reduces it's size. In fact, government bureacracy is probably the closest thing to eternal life on this earth." Being conservative IS being american. that's what america is all about. preservation of individual freedoms. The welfare state, and strong leaders (meaning leaders with lots of power, instead of leaders "strong enough to resist the temptation of taking too much power" -RP) in the eyes of history, an old, over proven idea. if you really want to be progressive, progress to liberate humanity and protect individual freedoms. Don't regress to the powerful state idea or welfare state concept. Anyone who doesn't want small government, protection of liberties, i will say is still welcome in this republic. freedom of religion means freedom of views, acadamia and philosophy. however, if you wish to change the government to reflect that, you go against the very core and heart of American philosphy. And you have not been educated enough about the constitution by your public school. i will even go further to say that as a system, with the exception of convicted individual teachers in that horrible system, the public schools are responsible for keeping kids ignorant about it, and feed them dilutions of machiavelli, world government, and socialism. hehe, people who are not super sophisticated american style 'fiscal conservatives' ought to go back to academia? how's that for an insult. you basically saying the people who actually um study this political shit need to get out of your face, because you want to hear none of the newfangled learned theories of governance and such. american philosophy, har har har. mind you most american philosophers of note are leftists, as you would call them. | ||
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Clutch3
United States1344 Posts
On February 27 2008 03:55 gwho wrote: yeah man, we pay almost a third in taxes. no state in history has ever kept up that burden and survived. we have all the signs of a downfall. This statement is completely unsupported. Not to mention that a majority of first world countries all pay 1/3 or more of their GDP in taxes. Do you believe that every one of these countries -- Germany, Australia, Canada, France, Spain, Sweden, the UK, Portugal, Ireland, New Zealand -- is "doomed to fail"?? In fact, if you correlate standards of living with taxes as a percentage of GDP, over all the nations on the planet, there's a sizable positive correlation between the two numbers. http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/tables/08s1324.pdf some pay even more than a third. and i don't care for a rat's ass if they relatively low. i want absolutely low. low. in terms of social security tax, i thought ponzi schemes were illeagal. in terms of income tax, i want zero percent, like we had for over 100 years, and half the country's lifetime. we don't need that money to run the government, provided that the government isn't doing what it shouldn't be doing anyway. the founding fathers were totally against direct tax. do you think we would need all these bullshit welfare programs, and scholarship programs and the ponzi scheme social security if people simply just kept the fruits of their labor, not allow government to get big enough to cause all of these problems in the first place? There's plenty of room for reasonable debate about the pros and cons of the huge transfer payment systems now at work in this country. However, you can't argue that these programs -- social security and Medicare chief among them -- are not supported by a large majority of the citizens of this country. Therefore, it's hard to "blame government" for this. You'd have to blame the will of the American citizens (what, with their uneducated views of the Constitution and all). 1913 is where america's financial slavery starts. 16th ammendment, the power to coin money given up by the congress, bills of credit allowed instead of paper that is backed by real stuff: gold. having the money be a representation of something backing is it the cure for inflation. if it has to be backed, inflation couldn't happen. they couldn't create credit and diilute everyone else's purchasing power if it required limits. if the fed and the banks can create money out of thin air and collect interest on it, why can't i? why do i have to work my butt off for money that constantly becomes less over time, pay a third of it to a gov that abuses the money? thats definitely not what the founding fathers' idea of freedom was. nor is it anyone's, except propagandized folks. you'd really have to be ignorant. There's no way we could back all of our currency with gold these days. I don't see inflation in the United States as a huge problem, nor do most of our citizens. Put your money in a savings account and you'll generally at least retain its value over time. Luckily for you, the federal government, your favorite institution, insures bank deposits. I do think that rising wealth inequality is a far bigger issue than inflation -- and one that would be far worse without government intervention. There's no way the Founding Fathers could have envisioned the automobile, but at the same time there's no reason to think they'd all be against it. The fed has secured this power to print money, which congress should have. actually congress only has the power to create silver/gold certificates. but what the fed does, it prints, and then loans it to the government - they collect interest! now why should an illegetitimate, unconstitutional power get to do that? If anything, congress should coin money themselves and not have to pay interest. The interest that the FED collects today, is over all of our income taxes combined. 100% of our income tax goes toward interest. Not true. Interest is about 20% of federal outlays, give or take. Personal income tax receipts are more than twice that. http://www.census.gov/statab/hist/HS-48.pdf Thats why the 16th ammendment was passed. if we didn't have such huge debts to pay to someone else, or spend like drunken sailors, there would be no need to steal from all of the supposedly free people. solution: get out of the dollar. other currencies are better, even though they too are fiat and unbacked. commodities are great. gold is even better. I agree, spending is way out of control. I suggest starting with the defense budget, which is far and away the largest non-transfer payment source of government spending. p.s. you didn't answer the questions i asked in my last response to you. | ||
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Servolisk
United States5241 Posts
YOU KNOW TIM, YOU ASK A LOT OF HYPOTHETICALS... <goes on to answer different question> | ||
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Servolisk
United States5241 Posts
![[image loading]](http://www.totensiebush.com/bigmad.gif) | ||
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Pressure
7326 Posts
but i really dislike hillary now that laugh she just did >_> -A-H-HA-HA-HA | ||
Jibba
United States22883 Posts
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to miss the mark
Bosnia-Herzegovina1381 Posts
On February 27 2008 11:51 Servolisk wrote: Hillary = couldn't have said it better myself. | ||
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HaXxorIzed
Australia8434 Posts
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NovaTheFeared
United States7231 Posts
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The Storyteller
Singapore2486 Posts
On February 24 2008 12:47 Servolisk wrote: I didn't know she wanted to freeze it for 5 years... Seems weird. Can someone explain why she wants that? I really don't grasp much simple economics myself. :p The problem is that a lot of poor people signed up for loans from predatory companies which charge exhorbitant rates of interest. There were a variety of deals, but I think a lot of them offered relatively low interest rates for the first 2 years or so and then hit you with massive interest rate increases in subsequent years. A lot of people can't pay those loans and the high interest and thus are losing their homes as the banks repossess them. Because of this, the US housing market is going down, which in turn affects consumer spending which in turn affects the economy as a whole. Her idea is that freezing interest rates for these loans would solve the problem because then poor people could continue to pay what they're already paying instead of being faced with interest rates that keep going up. The problem is that these poor people couldn't get loans in the first place. That's why the banks were charging them such high interest rates - to compensate for the risk that they might not be able to pay up (the banks would loan Bill Gates money for next to no interest because he can definitely pay back, but they'll make you pay more interest because there's a higher chance that you won't be able to). If interest rates were frozen... Banks would only offer new loans to such people at even higher rates of interest because of increased risk. The risk is not just that these people can't pay back the loan, the risk is also that the government will suddenly step in and cap interest rates. So the banks are going to only offer loans at massive rates of interest to make it worth their while. You can see this happening on a smaller scale in normal loans. Often, banks offer 2 main types of loans - floating rate and fixed rate. Floating rate loans have interest which can go up or down every year depending on market rates. Fixed rate loans have interest which remains the same every year. Fixed rate loans always have higher rates of interest to begin with because the bank is taking the risk that interest rates might go up and they'll still be stuck with having to give you low interest rates. There are other horrible effects which are kind of complex, but that's the long and short of it. The world economy is affected by the US economy, and I think Clinton's plan about freezing interest rates would lead to global problems. What will happen if we leave the problem alone? After a while, the banks will start negotiating with these people. Banks hate to repossess homes. They have to sell these homes on the open market. Because so many people are losing their homes and so many banks are trying to sell so many homes, house prices are going down. Banks can't get the money they loaned back by selling homes. So they will negotiate a deal with these people to delay payments or to lower payments. It's in their best interest to continue getting money out of these people than to take their increasingly worthless homes. | ||
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The Storyteller
Singapore2486 Posts
America: http://www.irs.gov/formspubs/article/0,,id=150856,00.html Singapore: http://www.iras.gov.sg/irasHome/page03.aspx?id=1190 Americans pay 10% on their first USD7,500? My first SGD20,000 ( about USD13,000) is tax free, and I pay 3.5% on my next SGD10,000! It's probably low compared to some European countries, but wow... I wonder where all the money goes. It's crazy to have to pay 10% of your income on some part time job. | ||
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NovaTheFeared
United States7231 Posts
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_deduction That chart is the tax rate for taxable income. With the variety of deductions and credits the tax burden for someone earning <20k USD is very low. | ||
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The Storyteller
Singapore2486 Posts
On February 27 2008 03:55 gwho wrote: if the fed and the banks can create money out of thin air and collect interest on it, why can't i? The fed has secured this power to print money, which congress should have. actually congress only has the power to create silver/gold certificates. but what the fed does, it prints, and then loans it to the government - they collect interest! now why should an illegetitimate, unconstitutional power get to do that? If anything, congress should coin money themselves and not have to pay interest. solution: get out of the dollar. other currencies are better, even though they too are fiat and unbacked. commodities are great. gold is even better. 3 very big, but common, fallacies. 1. Money is not printed blindly the way, say, the Japanese did during WW2 in their colonies. That does lead to hyperinflation. The amount of money a central government prints is tied to demand for their currency, which in turn is tied to demand for the country's goods and services. I emphasise SERVICES because they are worth a lot of money but would not meet your definition of a "backing" for the currency. For example, I wish to purchase an American movie. Hollywood will only accept American dollars as payment. So I have to purchase US dollars to purchase the movie. Therefore, the value of your currency goes up. Therefore, you can afford to print more of it. The tip to a doorman, the payment to a film director, a waiter's salary, these are all examples of intangible services which create a demand for the US dollar. Tying the US dollar's value only to physical goods would distort its value. 2. CONGRESS should have the power to print money? Are you mad? CONGRESS is the body that spent like crazy and caused a deficit! the FEDERAL RESERVE was the one that constantly advised caution to Congress! Congress is made up of people who will spend money that isn't theirs on votes. The federal reserve is independent and does not need to pander to the whims of the people. That is why the Fed is the custodian of interest rates and other tools to help the economy and Congress is not. 3. See point one. Your idea of a currency being "backed" is one that is only backed by physical goods. But a currency's value is the result of overall supply and demand for goods and SERVICES, which are intangible. GOLD is an unbacked currency, just like paper money. It has no real use beyond being cosmetic. It has no intrinsic value. It does not generate more material wealth, unlike oil. Why would you change your currency for a worthless lump of metal that operates on the same principles? Gold only has value because people want it, just like the US dollar bill only has value because people want it. Simple as that. In conclusion, if you were to tie your currency to COMMODITIES, you would be missing out a huge chunk of value, which would lead to serious imbalances. America's lawyers, accountants, insurers, entertainment personalities and other service oriented industries provide huge returns for America from their offices across the world. Why shouldn't the value of the US dollar fluctuate depending on demand for such services as well? Answer: it does, and the Fed printing more money only reflects this greater demand. They don't just print it when they're happy. | ||
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The Storyteller
Singapore2486 Posts
On February 27 2008 16:31 NovaTheFeared wrote: I don't know a lot about the tax code but in the USA the standard deduction exempts from income your first $5,350 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_deduction That chart is the tax rate for taxable income. With the variety of deductions and credits the tax burden for someone earning <20k USD is very low. That makes more sense. Thanks! | ||
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Clutch3
United States1344 Posts
On February 27 2008 16:15 NovaTheFeared wrote: Of course high taxation will bring up standard of living in the near term as long as government spends the money on its people and not say foreign aid or weapon systems. It takes away from the country's future by constricting economic growth though. That should be equally obvious. Of course if you make taxes extremely high, economic growth will suffer. But it's not at all obvious that a country's future is hurt by marginal tax rates of up to even 50%. Of course, a progressive tax plan is important so that people who are middle class or lower don't pay as high of a rate. I'd be interested to hear if you have any examples of a country where high taxation led to a serious, long-term decline in the quality of life of its citizens (since I've brought up numerous examples to the contrary). The United States has showed fairly robust economic growth even during times when the highest marginal rates were above 90%! Not to mention the fact that a lot of government spending is very beneficial for economic growth. For example, many companies looking at building new factories in, say, Canada and the United States, are choosing Canada because they know they won't have to pay the huge costs associated with health care here (since Canada has a national plan). Anyone who's had to pay for health care for employees knows how huge of an impact this has on the bottom line of a business. I won't even get into the fact that our government spending on job training easily pays for itself in terms of having a skilled workforce, or that our spending on R&D creates jobs, strengthens our position in terms of emerging high-tech sectors, and pays for itself many times over in terms of increased economic growth. | ||
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Clutch3
United States1344 Posts
On February 27 2008 16:41 The Storyteller wrote: 3 very big, but common, fallacies. 1. Money is not printed blindly the way, say, the Japanese did during WW2 in their colonies. That does lead to hyperinflation. The amount of money a central government prints is tied to demand for their currency, which in turn is tied to demand for the country's goods and services. I emphasise SERVICES because they are worth a lot of money but would not meet your definition of a "backing" for the currency. For example, I wish to purchase an American movie. Hollywood will only accept American dollars as payment. So I have to purchase US dollars to purchase the movie. Therefore, the value of your currency goes up. Therefore, you can afford to print more of it. The tip to a doorman, the payment to a film director, a waiter's salary, these are all examples of intangible services which create a demand for the US dollar. Tying the US dollar's value only to physical goods would distort its value. 2. CONGRESS should have the power to print money? Are you mad? CONGRESS is the body that spent like crazy and caused a deficit! the FEDERAL RESERVE was the one that constantly advised caution to Congress! Congress is made up of people who will spend money that isn't theirs on votes. The federal reserve is independent and does not need to pander to the whims of the people. That is why the Fed is the custodian of interest rates and other tools to help the economy and Congress is not. 3. See point one. Your idea of a currency being "backed" is one that is only backed by physical goods. But a currency's value is the result of overall supply and demand for goods and SERVICES, which are intangible. GOLD is an unbacked currency, just like paper money. It has no real use beyond being cosmetic. It has no intrinsic value. It does not generate more material wealth, unlike oil. Why would you change your currency for a worthless lump of metal that operates on the same principles? Gold only has value because people want it, just like the US dollar bill only has value because people want it. Simple as that. In conclusion, if you were to tie your currency to COMMODITIES, you would be missing out a huge chunk of value, which would lead to serious imbalances. America's lawyers, accountants, insurers, entertainment personalities and other service oriented industries provide huge returns for America from their offices across the world. Why shouldn't the value of the US dollar fluctuate depending on demand for such services as well? Answer: it does, and the Fed printing more money only reflects this greater demand. They don't just print it when they're happy. Well-written and very informative... thanks! | ||
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NovaTheFeared
United States7231 Posts
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