Mon Jun 14 2010 11:40:06 EDT from IGnatius T Foobar @ UncensoredAnother one who isn't really aware that Sarah Palin and Tina Fey are two different people.
Not really current on that - aren't they both respected comedians?
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TheOneLaw
that was amusing
http://www.lvrj.com/opinion/barack-obama--the-great-jobs-killer-97758294.html
Excellent editorial about the immense destruction of jobs, wealth, and American well-being that are the results of The Obama Recession.
Makes me proud to be a Minnesota: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/07/12/felons-voting-illegally-franken-minnesota-study-finds/
Mon Jul 05 2010 09:35:23 PM EDT from IGnatius T Foobar @ Uncensored
http://www.lvrj.com/opinion/barack-obama--the-great-jobs-killer-97758294.html
Excellent editorial about the immense destruction of jobs, wealth, and American well-being that are the results of The Obama Recession.
Are you nuts or were you in hibernation between 2000 and 2008?
Go ahead and tell it from your perspective. But I will warn you -- simply re-bleating the sound bites fed to you by the media won't fly here.
It could amuse us, though.
But, yeah, things were not so great during Bush's years, either. Frankly, both of these presidencies have been rather shitty.
2000 GDP: 9817 billion
2008 GDP: 14265 billion
Can't find good comparable numbers for 2009 yet, but it looks like about a 3% decline, similar number for 2010. Subject to revision ad nauseum.
I take issue with your reference "the Obama Recession."
Yeah, the economy sucks. Both parties are responsible for not holding the Executive Branch's feet to the fire. Off budget wars, "Deficits don't count" Cheney, evisceration of regulatory agencies, etc. The Bush administration brought multiple catastrophes to America. Obama may yet prove inadequate to repair the damage done but blaming the next guy for Bush's criminal malfeasance won't wash.
Subject: Re: Re: Re:�Are you nuts
I refer to it, correctly, as The Obama Recession because it began in earnest as soon as it became apparent that Obama would be winning the election, and the Democrats would control all three branches of government. Take a look at the Dow; it dropped 4000 points when Obama's impending victory became clear, and another 800 points when he actually won.
Valuations are based on investors' perceptions of what they will be worth in the *future*. Investors have no confidence in a government that continues to expand its own power while draining all of the money out of the private sector.
Interesting, there's this guy from Minnesota : Ric Flair, he lives in NC, and always has had a unique opinion on politics.
I seem to recall that Bush heralded an economic slump as well.
I wonder if this slump is the same one... just kind of continued from the previous administration.
As to who is at fault.... who can say? I don't know how much control the politicians have over this kind of thing. There seems to be something of a pattern. If the pattern holds true, we'll probably pull out of this in about five years.
The President always get's the blame when things go wrong, and the glory when things go right. Mr. Clinton has this rosy reputation for a budget surplus and a great economy even though he did very little to earn it. My Bush (the younger) inherited a recession, got credit for a good economy and now is getting the blame for thing going bad. BUT (and it's a big one), Mr. Obama deserves quite a lot of criticism for extending the current recession with outdated and discredited economic policies.
if you look at economic concepts like the Laffer curve and (perhaps more importantly) Hauser's Law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hauser%27s_Law you'll see that raising taxes is actually not particularly useful.
Moreover, the "rich people" tend to be those who provide jobs and consume goods, so leaving them with less spendable income or, worse, making it more profitable for them to run their businesses in other countries, is terrible economic policy.
Israel's economy used to be fairly weak and very tied to the US economy. When the hi-tech bubble burst in 2000-2001, things went crazy here. Benyamin Netanyahu applied solid trickle-down economics, reduced welfare, reduced middle-class taxes, etc. Employment is up. The current economic crisis in the US has barely touched us. Our currency has gained value compared to the dollar and Euro. Poverty is down. And this is a country with an extremely high defense budget and government-subsidized/monitored medicine.
Btw, our taxes run about 50% when you put everything together, and there's 16% tax on quite a lot of goods. The only thing that's really wildly taxed to the hilt, though, is cars. A new corolla runs about $30K here compared to a starting price of just over $15K in the US. My parents own a '99 corolla (which is why I'm throwing that out as the model), and its blue book value is around $5K... for a car that's over 10 years old! (this is most of the reason we don't have a car. I desperately need to renew my license though, as renting a car for a day here and there as needed would be a big advantage.)
Last time I calculated it, my total taxes were in excess of 26%. I couldn't even guess what I payed in sales taxes. That 26% is still too low...I could not even guess at the imputed taxes I pay. Those are the taxes that are built into all the products you buy. Business does not pay taxes...they collect tax from thier customers.
In my opinion, business should be taxed very little if at all. Why tax the thing that provides the jobs?
I seem to recall that Bush heralded an economic slump as well.
Yes, and the Republican fanbois who were so anxious to point out that the 2000 recession started under Clinton's watch were really quick to change their tune this time around.
I think the difference this time around is that unlike the regimes that were in place during the last few decades, the Obama/Pelosi/Reid gang do not have a shred of respect for the United States or its citizens. They're on a rampage to force through as much of their ultra-left agenda as possible during the time they have this much power.
It's not difficult to see where their agenda leads. All of the spending needs to be paid for with taxes eventually. How convenient that the bulk of the new tax burden does not begin until 2013, after Comrade Obama's re-election campaign has concluded. The market looks ahead, though, and sees that a higher tax burden translates directly into less disposable income.
An "inconvenient truth" to Democrats is the proven fact that lowering taxes *always* ends up increasing the aggregate number of dollars in government tax receipts. That's bad news if you're a big-government expansionist.