Some extreme Conservatives are saying that Romney lost because he was not "Conservative" enough. Personally I think these folks have been out smoking some of that POT they don't want to legalize... It seems their rationale is that Conservative voters decided it wasn't worth going out to vote... Which based on C1 and C2's votes regarding the continuum, is absolutely silly. Conservatives see Obama as Socialism incarnate and would therefore vote for anyone to keep him out of the office.
I keep saying that the GOP needs to focus more on being fiscal Conservatives and less on trying to legislate our country's and the world's morality per the fundamentalist Christians... Being a modern day Crusader apparently is not too popular in this incredibly diverse country.
What do you think? How can the Republicans do better next time?
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Too many Republicans insist on believing silly things, that Obama was a conservative or that he was born in China. And Republicans can talk about being fiscal conservatives, but it's awfully hard to do it with credibility when they are asking for increases in the defense budget and refuse to consider tax increases.
==Hiram
I don't think any Republicans see Obama as a conservative. And supporting the defense of the USA is a core responsibity of the Feds. Controlling taxes / spending is what us fiscal conservatives want from them. Being the people's Sugar Daddy isn't supposed to be their role from our perspective.
I don't think any Republicans see Obama as a conservative.
I don't know that I would characterize Obama as a conservative either. The real problem is that too many Republicans didn't see Obama as what he was, a moderate, centrist figure, and pro business to boot. The image they tried to create for Obama, the socialist, affirmative action benefiting, apologizing Kenyan interloper, wasn't true, and what's worse for the Republican Party, didn't ring true with the American people. And that was particularly true, when you consider what a lot of people have been talking about since the election, the changing demographics of America.
In terms of the deficit, what is or isn't core responsibility of the Federal government is irrelevant. I happen to believe keeping America's promises to our elderly is a core responsibility of the federal government, but that particular belief is irrelevant to the deficit as well. In terms of Social Security, the American people were the sugar daddy when we loaned the federal government all that money over the years. It's hardly the case that the federal government is a sugar daddy when they are asked to pay it back.
They are called entitlements for a reason.
--Hiram
As I said, make up your mind.
Since they were just paying their taxes, they are not owed anything.
If we just cut Social Security payments by 20% across the board, that should help slow the need to raise the debt limit,
Since they were just paying their taxes, they are not owed anything.
Aren't we owed what the taxes were expected to pay for? Think of government as a commodity we buy and taxes as the purchase price. Social Security, along with defense, is something we purchased, and now that we did, it's time for the government to make delivery.
It is possible that we might cut Social Security. But the Republican position, that we can do it without raising taxes on wealthier Americans is simply a non starter. That's nothing more than a redistribution of wealth from the poor to the rich.
--Hiram
Who wants to cut Social Security? I haven't heard any Republican suggesting it. All we want to do is give people the freedom to put their "insurance payments" into a better "investment." Since SS pays only about 1% now, if you are lucky and live a long time, almost anything else would be better, MORE certain, and stop the government from putting us further in debt. The real fiscal crunch, though, comes from Medicare and Medicaid, for which the cures are equally simple but totally unpalatable to Democrats.
J. Ewing
What cures are those that would have immediate results?
As Hiram said, the GOP aand myself didn't think much of Obama's arbitrary payment cuts (ie price controls)
Immediate meaning eliminating the need to raise the debt ceiling again.
Might be helpful to realize that their talking points and strategies didn’t work, but I can’t tell how open they are to real analysis and suggestions. I keep hearing the same crap, only now they have added opinion that the American people are stupid to have voted as they did. Then again, I’m not a Republican, so I’ve no idea what resonates with them.
But here’s what I think didn’t work:
Attacking candidates by using charges and labels that make no sense. Perhaps learning the difference between a socialist, a communist, and a Marxist might be helpful before using those terms to attack someone. And the idea that Romney would get a leg up by having his supporters allege that a standing President is not a citizen after running for office and serving for three years is just bizarre, or that he forged his school records, even though he was Editor of the most prestigious law-school publication in the country and taught at one the most prestigious universities, is just ludicrous. It might fire up the base, but no thinking person can swallow that.
Supplanting facts with opinion. I thought the right-wing pundits’ predictions and reaction to the election results, especially Karl Rove’s meltdown on Fox, was the epitome of the Republican philosophy on facts and opinion. Clearly they thought that their gut feelings were more relevant than real data. The same holds true when it came to campaigns. All of the hyperbole and downright distortions were alienating to the point where it was difficult to believe anything that came out of the Republican organization. The Benghazi situation being a perfect example. The attempts to show that Obama lied or didn’t do what he could just wasn’t convincing to the non-fringe, primarily because all of the information is not in.
Underestimating the value of honesty. Romney was simply dishonest, as were an incredible number of Republicans. I would agree that Democrats are not pure, but the depth and breadth of the Republicans’ falsehoods was shocking, starting with the Presidential candidate. Time and again he said things that so clearly were not true. Although the mainstream media failed miserably in holding candidates accountable for their positions and statements, there are myriad reliable sources that are easily accessible to verify their allegations, and more often than not, they proved illegitimate.
Overwrought doom and gloom. Ironically, if you compared the Republicans’ position on our country to what they were spewing during Bush’s terms about patriotism, they couldn’t be more different. Republicans were brilliant about draping the flag over their tactics and suggesting that critics were unpatriotic and un-American. And since Obama was first elected, they have done everything they can to cause him to fail. Had Democrats taken that tack, they would have been drummed out of the country. But suddenly it became patriotic to criticize and demonize a standing President, all the while suggesting that all the Republicans want to do is to “take our country back.” Trying to make our country weak is not a good campaign strategy.
Failing to live up to their promises. Everyone knows that what the Republicans did in the state legislature had nothing to do with what they promised. Their alleged focus on job creation never went anywhere as its’ sole strategy was to cut taxes. In the meantime, they crippled the government and cause job losses as tax-paying government workers lost jobs due to the state’s economic mess. They tried to blame Dayton for the impasse, but all but the fringe saw exactly what they were trying to do, as evidence by Dayton’s approval rating as compared to the legislative leaders.
To be continued
Lock-step loyalty. That any legislator would sign a loyalty oath to someone like Grover Nordquist is something that is difficult to rationalize with a voter. Who exactly were the Republicans representing?
Focusing on wedge issues and constitutional amendments. Nothing illustrated the Republicans cynical view of government and voters than the ballot initiatives. Clearly they backfired, not only because they failed, but they highlighted how the Republicans were squandering any opportunity they had to get something done, while instead focusing on issues that were number-one with nobody. Sure, people have opinions about these issues, but if they had asked the electorate after the 2010 elections what their top 20 legislative priorities were, neither of the two issues would have been on the list. Perhaps voter fraud would have been on there, but that issue was clearly bogus as there was no evidence that it was occurring.
Money does not trump hard work. I got a call from a Republican staffer, who left a voicemail that urged me to defeat Democrats. While it was anecdotal, their message was rapid-fire and passionless. They were simply telling me what to think and whom to vote for. Hardly compelling. Meanwhile, there were legions of Democrats who were going door-to-door, actually having conversations with people about the issues and the candidates. The latter approach is far more effective than the millions that were spent on advertising. Until Republicans become willing to get their hands dirty and talk with rather than lecture to voters of all kinds, they will be out maneuvered. But that will be difficult if they can’t build a platform that survives more than 3 minutes of rational discussion that starts with “Let’s look at the facts.”
Representing an increasingly smaller base. I chuckle at the post-election analysis that says the Republicans want to bring in more minorities and women into their ranks. At the same time, they couldn’t have run a more white, Aryan-looking ticket than Romney and Ryan, and their spokespeople—Beck, Rush, Hannity—are bemoaning how they don’t know who Americans are anymore. The fact is that you can’t denigrate the very same people you are trying to bring into the fold. Republicans attacked Hispanics through their vitriolic about immigration. They alienated women because of their bizarre view of rape, birth control, and choice. They totally ignored Asians except to attack China. They characterize blacks as lazy welfare recipients. Hard to imagine why the Republicans won so few of their votes. And guess what, they are the majority anymore. If the Republicans want to bring them into the fold, they will need to develop and articulate an honest value proposition, else they will continue to be perceived as simply wanting the votes but not the inclusion.
Fiscal conservatism doesn’t mean “I’ve got mine, screw you,” or “My pork is better than yours.” Yet that is exactly what their economic reform was all about. Want to cut or privatize Medicare? Don’t except the cast majority of senior citizens who love Medicare to be supportive. Want to privatize Social Security? Don’t count on people to forget how the same Wall Street you want to turn their accounts over to was responsible for the retirement accounts that were a fraction of what they were four years ago. Want to cut taxes? Don’t pretend that eliminating capital-gains taxes and estate taxes are going to benefit anyone but the super-wealthy. Want to curtail unnecessary or harmful regulation? Don’t paint all regulation as being bad, especially when the bankers’ and Wall Street antics caused so much damage, but your party wants to not only defeat any new regulations, but scale back what we have now. And if you want to talk about welfare, don’t leave out the corporate welfare, tax loopholes, and ag subsidies that dwarf welfare fraud.
To be continued....
Those are a few suggestions if Republicans are serious about examining what happened and where to go from here. Others would include trying to game the elections through polling-place shenanigans, allowing the lunatic fringe and corporate interests drive your agenda, and the inability to listen to any opinion that does not line up with your own.
Democrats are far from perfect, and some of their philosophies and approaches are flat-out wrong, but could never argue that they want the country to fail in order to push their agenda, or that they have the one true opinion about anything, or that their “big tent” approach isn’t genuine (It actually works to their detriment), or that they party and principle trump facts and truth, or that they truly seek the greater good for all rather than their buddies. You may not like them, or may strongly disagree with them, or disagree with those assessments, but I think those were underlying themes that played out on Tuesday.
That's all, folks!
Man, That was impressive...
I'll have to think about and reply when I am on a computer, not my droid.
I will ask one question though, since you are a self proclaimed Liberal. Search G2A for the term continuum.
How far to the left do we go before we become Spain or Greece?
How can govt spending increasing faster than the GDP or CPI decade after decade work out well?
John
Are you asking me to assign values on the continuum? If so, not interested. I find labels to be unhelpful--something that I could have added to my list of suggestions for the Republicans: Grow up. I'm no more enamored with liberal pundits who call people names, but it seems that Republicans and pseudo-conservatives can't have a discussion without throwing the names and labels around, often without understandimg what they mean (e.g., Marxist, communist, socialist used interchangeably). Names and labels are divisive by their very nature and do nothing to forward constructive dialogue.
Anyway, to your question about Spain and Greece, if we have a lot of snow and cold this winter, how far are we from being Siberia?
My point is that isolating Greece's and Spain's economic problems to a liberal mindset is like suggesting that because most serial killers grew up drinking milk, we should shut down dairies.
We don't have the same type of government as Spain and Greece (although I'd love to be able to dissolve our Congress), we aren't tied to other currencies, and the U.S. economy and industry are far more diverse than theirs. So why should you isolate liberalism as a root cause, much less a cause at all, of their economic predicaments?
While we have a lot of snow and cold, our weather does not make us Siberia. Because we have a liberal President. Senate, and state government does not put us on the same path as Greece or Spain.
You passed on answering question 2. Intentional or accidental?
How can govt spending increasing faster than the GDP or CPI decade after decade work out well?
As for Spain and Greece, next look up causation vs correlation on G2A. I agree there are many factors in play, yet their Liberal financial policy must be one of the key factors. (ie more expenditures / entitlements than revenues)
FYI, the continuum is not about labels, it is about defining terms so that we understand one another. Meaningful communication is difficult when the participants say one thing and the others hear something different. (ie mars/venus)
I forgot, I assume it is also very hard to be competitive in a Global Marketplace with all those entitlements in place in your country. (ie Spain, Greece, etc) Though I must say Germany seems to be doing pretty well. I keep wanting to research why that is? First guess is that citizens are very loyal to buying German products.
As for the GOP's errors, I agree with many of them. And disagree with a few.
I think both sides fibbed and exagerated equally. Fact check org was my friend to try and keep it straight.
I think the State GOP did pretty good at limiting spending increases per their promises. (except that silly Fed money, which they could not control) The other silliness does concern me though.
I keep telling Hiram that you Liberals need better financial mgrs. My investments are back where they were before the 2009 recession. Other than my house which was over valued at the time. It seemed like great appreciation while it lasted.
And dwarf welfare... You have got to be kidding. Most of the farm bill is welfare... (ie TANF...)
And loop holes... The home mortgage deduction is probably the biggest loophole. Want to close that one. I am up for it.
As for Democrats, they will be hard to beat. They are happy to buy votes by selling themselves as Robinhood. And I am certainly unsure if that is wanting the best for everyone or being naive and power hungry. That golden goose has its limits. Ask those folks in S Europe.
I thought your second question was rhetorical, kind of like, "If you keep drinking glass after glass of water, won't you die?"
Of course limitless deficit spending won't work out well. Who’s suggesting it will? Are you honestly putting forth the "tax-and-spend" caricature of a liberal as your argument for where we are today or where we’re heading tomorrow? This after the Republican party spend hundreds of millions dollars on a second-rate campaign for an unelectable candidate, and squandered millions, betrayed the public trusts, and exacerbated an already divided state through two fatuous ballot initiatives? I’m supposed to be concerned about whether we’ll be the next Greece?
Should I hit back with, “How quickly will we be Greece-like if we cut taxes to zero for people like Romney, which is exactly what he was proposing?
We have a symphony of problems that have created our financial mess, and you seem to be castigating one side because only you think we can play note, and it isn’t enough to fill the score or provide the harmonies. You seem to have forgotten a lot of what got us here: the Bush years of spending on a credit card as a result of two unnecessary wars that drained our coffers while lining the pockets of such patriotic companies as Haliburton; the deregulation of the banking industry and subsequent criminal activity by banks and the financial industry that put our country on the brink of a depression, yet has gone unpunished; using the debt-ceiling debate as a political ploy that cost our economy greatly; the Wall Street bail-out that Republicans would like you to think occurred on Obama’s watch that sank the markets, while Republicans criticize the auto bail-out , which while not perfect, at least saved jobs for working people instead of preserving bonuses for those who instigated the financial meltdown.
You can come back with, "You’ve got to stop blaming Bush for everything." Why should I? Because you’re tired of hearing it, or because you’ve no way to refute that it’s true except to simply say it’s not? The fact is that it is largely true.
If you want to talk about a spending problem, let’s talk about the $2 billion a week we’re spending for a war no one wanted but but the beneficiaries of the military-industrial complex and the legislators they bought and paid for. Or how about the billions of dollars and thousands of lives and families that were destroyed by a bogus war in Iraq.
Let’s talk about farm subsidies and corporate welfare in the form of loopholes and credits going to such industries as oil, which is the last industry that should get a government boost. Republicans like to express outrage about welfare fraud while turning a blind eye to what farmers are getting for no good reason, or the credits that oil and gas companies get because why, they’re poor? They’ll stop looking for product? Or how about the spigot of money that can now be poured into campaigns, to the benefit of whom?
How about saving hundreds of millions of dollars by getting rid of the current health care system, which wastes millions of dollars in health care premiums and government expenditures to pay executives’ bloated salaries and wasted administrative costs. Stop using the false, anecdotal evidence of how poor single-payer health care system are in the rest of the world, and take a serious look at what others are doing, because the rest of the world is laughing at how those opposed to reform describe what Canadian and European health care systems are like. None of them want emulate our system because it is excessive and delivers poor care. Look at the data. It’s undeniable, except for those who refuse to accept facts—namely the Republican party.
How about stopping the privatization of the prison system, which has been an utter and total failure? Or the war on drugs, which everyone acknowledges is a multi-billion dollar failure.
You want to talk about Solyndra? Let’s talk about Haliburton.
To be continued...
You want me to say unlimited deficit spending will lead us to disaster? Be glad to. I agree with you completely. Why do you ask? No one is advocating that. It’s a straw man.
If you want to have a serious discussion, I’m in. I’m no ideologue who posits talking points. I acknowledge those things I feel are wrong with liberals like me, and I don’t consider myself or the liberal faction diminished in so doing.
I’d like to work together on solutions for the serious issues we face. But name calling, testosterone-charged rhetoric, ideological lines in the sand, and the demonization of difference and compromise are all non-starters. That’s the stuff of campaigns, and the elections are over. I never gloated, although I did celebrate, but the time to celebrate is over. The tired rhetoric of the right didn’t work, and it certainly isn’t going to work now.
So don’t suggest that we’re on the verge of being another Spain or Greece. It’s neither applicable nor relevant. And don’t suggest that all government spending is wasteful, nor all private spending is "investment."
The notion that government doesn’t create jobs is total b.s. Ask the construction companies that build our schools, and the concrete companies that pave our roads whether government is a factor in their success. Ask the millions of companies that depend on military orders to keep their doors open, "Who signs the checks that have kept you in business?" Ask the police officers, firefighters, public and civil engineers, water- and food-safety personnel, air traffic controllers, IT consultants, teachers, and on and on: "Would you have a job were it not for the government?"
Chances are, at least one of your neighbors works for the government, and probably more than one works for a company that gets government contracts or otherwise benefits from government expenditures. Those people have families and spend money just like you and me. You think they are a drain on our economy and contribute nothing?
You’re not completely wrong, and I’m not completely right. But I can tell you that progress is only achieved by recognizing and grappling with reality. Straw men and caricatures are not helpful, and they don’t lead to serious discussion. I’ll put aside my bogeymen if you will, else I can visit the shockingly uninformed and depressing "Comments" section of the local newspapers if I want to engage in that type of empty entertainment.
"[Democrats]are happy to buy votes by selling themselves as Robinhood." John, did you get that out of Rush's playbook? He called the Obama Santa Clause. Tell me exactly what Obama promised that bought my vote, then tell me how you know what influenced me. Because I've yet to see any data that suggest that voters were suckered into believing they were going to get something for free from Obama.
And your scoring system on the fibbing needs calibrating. Did you read the fact checkers at after the debates? I will acknowledge that Romney was tough to nail down on his real position because he flipped so many. Among the many was the whopper about how he was going to create millions of jobs as president, yet said that government doesn't create jobs. And Paul Ryan was one lie after another, especially during the debate.
The state GOP is even worse. To this day they contend they turned a deficit into a surplus. It's a lie: We don't have a surplus.
As for holding spending, well, it's easy to do that on the backs of schools and municipalities. Check out property taxes, why don't you.
As for your other points, I don't need the continuum to define my terms. I try to do that by explaining my terms as I write because I try to choose my terms carefully instead of spewing pejoratives and hyperbole.
I guess I haven't seen your conversations with Hiram about financial managers. Why do you think liberals need new or better ones? While your and my portfolios nicely recovered, what about the millions who were on the verge of retirement and now have to work several more years to get back what they lost. Their conservative investment profiles means that it takes that much longer for them to recover.
When Republicans talk about welfare, they're not talking about farms. They're talking about the lazy-ass minorities who have SO many job opportunities but choose not to work.
If they were talking about farm subsidies, count me in. And let's throw in oil and gas company subsidies, corporate tax dodges, and exclusions for multinational companies.
Romney and people of his vast wealth didn't amass it because of the home-mortgage deduction. They did it using a tax code that heavily favors them. If he ever released his other tax returns, you would learn the strategies he uses to avoid taxes. After all, can you turn all of your earned income into capital gains so that you can pay less taxes? He did, because had the wealth to hire the high-priced attorney who built their practices on people like Romney. George Steinbrenner died a happy man because the estate tax was zero the year he died.
You want real tax reform? Stop looking to the middle class as a decoy for the real work to be done.
. My investments are back where they were before the 2009 recession. Other than my house which was over valued at the time. It seemed like great appreciation while it lasted.
My stocks are up too. A good rule of thumb is that Democrats in the White House are good for both the economy and the stock market. But it's also true, that for many people, their biggest single investment is their house, and value there hasn't recovered much, nor is it likely too because the peak valuations were sustained by bubble financing which won't return any time soon, and shouldn't.
The Bush years were very bad years for the middle class for the most part and then they finally blew up altogether. We just took a wrong turn as a nation. We created an illusion for ourselves that the wealthy were job creators, a special class who must be protected and who were to be given money to invest on behalf of all of us. Turned out, they weren't much interested in job creation at all. They just took the money we borrowed and gave to them and blew it at the financial equivalent of the track.
--Hiram
As for Democrats, they will be hard to beat
Everyone goes to extremes after presidential elections. The fact is, in terms of the vote, the election was very close. And while the Republicans tend to learn nothing from their policy failures, they can be quite adept and learning from their political mistakes, to the extent that they are able to put what they learn in practice. The Tea Party stands in their way here, however, by insisting on voting for really awful candidates in primaries.
We have a sense these days that right now, the presidential election process favors Democrats, but curiously the election process on which it was based, the election of members of the House of Representatives favors Republicans. The presidential election year set of voters, favors Democrats, the off years electorate favors Republicans. President Obama needs to do as much as he can in the next two years, both because he will quickly become a lame duck, but also because the Congress that will be elected in 2014 will move to the right.
--Hiram
"And don’t suggest that all government spending is wasteful, nor all private spending is "investment."
Hopefully I never have. I'll likely be covering some of your thoughts in future posts.
I am hunting the elusive white tail buck this weekend.
Hiram,
I think the 2000's were pretty great for most until the party was over.
I think the 2000's were pretty great for most until the party was over
Reminds of the guy who fell out of the fiftieth floor window who is asked as he reaches the twenty fifth floor, how things are going, who responds, "fine so far."
What little prosperity we saw in the first decade of the century was financed by a boom in the real estate market which turned out to be a bubble. For most Americans, that was a time of economic stagnation, when the tax cuts that were supposedly stimulate job creation simply disappeared in a miasma of speculation.
--Hiram
Unemployment History
That's what I thought. Life was pretty good.
"a war no one wanted" and "a bogus war in Iraq"
G2A Peace Lovers
Remember that using absolutes like "no one" shows your bias and inaccuracy. Since I am pretty sure many anti-Taliban people wanted that war very much.
As for Conservative portfolios recover more slowly. Now if they were in Conservative portfolios, they shouldn't have dropped at all. I am puzzled.
Apparently these guys need better tax lawyers. Rich Pay Less?
How do you rationalize successful people paying 30%, while the majority of citizens pay 10%? It seems their are not as many loop holes as you imply.
That's what I thought. Life was pretty good.
What I see in that chart is a generally lower rate of employment than in the Clinton years. That was also a period of low wage growth. And let's recall that unemployment was sustained by bubble financing which turned out to be illusory and a continuing failure to address long term economic problems. And of course, then it all blew up.
--Hiram
That tax chart link isn't persuasive because the link within it doesn't work. We need to know how effective rate of income is defined. Generally when this argument is made, the person making it is imputing corporate taxes to the taxpayer. In other words, Buffet's income goes up and his effective rate goes down because the income of Berkshire is imputed to him as well. I dispute that technique in this context because I don't think money that doesn't come to him in the form of a paycheck should be counted as income. In Buffett's case if you did that, for consistency's case you would also have to attribute to him the increase in the value of the corporation, or perhaps the unrealized value of his shares in that corporation.
--Hiram
How do you rationalize successful people paying 30%, while the majority of citizens pay 10%? It seems their are not as many loop holes as you imply.
People with more money pay more in taxes. That's the only way the system can work.
Success isn't the same as being rich. Mitt Romney is a phenomenally rich man, but at the end of the day, it turned out he wasn't a successful man, one who failed to achieve his life's ambition.
--
I think you are focused on only one factor of the 2009 recession. Remember that time and home buyer greed were also factors. My company's sales were down in about 1986, 1994, 2001, 2009. Maybe Bush's biggest fault was minimizing the 2001 correction, so we had to pay more in 2009.
As for income and assets. Of course one can not be taxing asset gains that may disappear next year. That's why we wait until it is sold.
I am ok with the wealthy paying more, I am just tired of Obama's insulting the instead of praising them. (ie different rules, pay their fair share, etc)
How about we acknowledge that they are already paying most of our bills, express our gratitude and then tell them we still need more from them?
Bummer for Romney, it is hard to replace a sitting President. Especially when many people believe he will hand out Obama bucks, phones and pardons.
Remember that time and home buyer greed were also factors.
I don't think the problem with home owners who were forced to pay high prices for their homes was greed. And that wasn't really the level on which the problem occurred. The home buyer isn't the expert here, his banker is. And there is nothing wrong with making risky loans, as such. What is wrong is mispricing that risk, or engaging in strategies that obscure that risk, things home purchasers had absolutely nothing to do with.
I see no problem in taxing assets this year which may disappear next year. Property taxes do that.
"I am ok with the wealthy paying more, I am just tired of Obama's insulting the instead of praising them."
The president made one or two offhand comments that were negative about a segment of the finance industry many of whose members are lucky they are not in jail.
These folks make lots of money and shouldn't that be their own reward. Let's recall what they are not. They are not teachers, they are not firemen, they are not police. They aren't serving their countries in foreign wars. They are capitalism's croupiers, a necessary function, but hardly a heroic one.
==Hiram
No one forced them to pay high prices for their homes, they made the choice of their own free will and took the loans. Therefore they are responsible also.
And again, it is personal property not the states funds...
Every time I listen to Obama he brought up the same rules fair share mantra.
No one forced them to pay high prices for their homes, they made the choice of their own free will and took the loans.
People need a place to live. In any event, they weren't the problem. It was up to banks to evaluate risk, and it was up to them to understand that they were making riskier loans and make adjustments accordingly. They didn't do that. They bundled the loans, and dumped them on folks who should have known better but didn't. That was the source of the problem.
Every time I listen to Obama he brought up the same rules fair share mantra
Not one of my mantras, but not an unfair one. The rich have benefited enormously from what this country has to offer. It's not unfair that they should help pay for it. If they don't like the deal, they can always move to the Cayman Islands.
--Hiram
John—A few responses to your questions, then I’m gone.
You’re right, saying “Two wars no one supported” was wrong. Instead it should have been, “Two wars that the Bush Administration lied to get us into into illegally (War was never declared) and unnecessarily, and put on a credit card that his same cronies are now bitching about because of their drain on our economy.
Conservative portfolios vary. If you’re talking about people in retirement who have their money in CDs, yeah, they didn’t lose when the market crashed, but I was talking about middle-class folks who were less than five years from retirement. Typically they were invested in a combination of mutual funds, both stock and bond, which means they needed time to recover from the crash of ’08 and ’09. Scared, they went even more “conservative,” which means it will take them even longer to recover.
“How do you rationalize successful people paying 30%, while the majority of citizens pay 10%? It seems their are not as many loop holes as you imply.” Where do you get the 30% number? 30% of what? The taxes in the country or the percentage of their own income? If it’s the former, try reconciling that 1% of population holds 34% of the wealth, while the bottom half hold less than 2%. You’re hallucinating if you think there are loopholes up the wazoo for the wealthy.
“Bummer for Romney, it is hard to replace a sitting President. Especially when many people believe he will hand out Obama bucks, phones and pardons.” Ah, the true John shows his cards. You think Romney lost the election because voters were promised a pay-off by Obama. Stop feigning an interest in what liberals think, John.
I've wasted a lot of time talking to just another Republican bullshitter.
No I simply see things differently than you.
Why do you think people voted for Obama? Not against Romney, but for Obama?
I am pretty sure wealth transfer and green cards sure helped.
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