Originally Posted by wader-dad (Post 963990)

I agree with you guys on lots of items but as you can see, I am not a fan of fortune 500 companies. I think that they sit on hordes of billions in cash, realize that hiring humans will not help them meet their earnings targets, but laying off 1,000's of workers, merging, outsourcing to Pah-Ke-Stan and installing robots will help meet earnings targets, The CEO's get stock options and tax breaks you and I don't see. If the stock price falls below the option exercise price, they reissue the options at a lower price. The stock price is their God and they treat hard working people like crap.

Originally Posted by spence (Post 963980)

It's a critical metric when you take over at the very tip of a massive purging of jobs. Without the job creation the unemployment rate would be in the teens...

Nobody can turn the economy around overnight and considering the depth of the recession even in a few years...can't be done in a global economy.

Today, unemployment is backing down, personal savings is up, the housing market is starting to recover and corporate profits are looking pretty good. I've read that the improving housing market could drive better than expected performance overall in 2013.

Romney is promising his policy will create 12 million new jobs, except they're already projecting 12 million new jobs under the current trajectory set by Obama's policies.

I hate to break it to you, but it's working.

-spence

Originally Posted by Jim in CT (Post 964000)

True. But not everyone is incompetent enough to add $5 trillion to the debt in 4 years, and all we have to show for it is a net gain of zero jobs and lower wages.

Originally Posted by scottw (Post 964019)

you need some new talking points :uhuh:

Election 2012 Likely Voters Trial Heat: Obama vs. Romney


hey, looks like some of the 47% are smartening up :)

apparently no candidate at 50% in a Gallup poll in mid October had ever lost...things ARE getting better Spence!

Originally Posted by spence (Post 964012)

It has nothing to do with incompetence and everything to do with larger trends.

Obama inherited a trillion + defecit and given the reduced tax revenues, war expenditures and pre-planned spending there's little a McCain president could have done to avoid adding similar debt. Sure, there's the gamble that stimulus spending was unecessary but I'm willing to wager it helped keep us slipping into a worse situation.

It has everything to do with a central government acting like a giant corporation with top-down directives on how the underlings will conduct the business. It has everthing to do with the "directors" of this giant corporation irresponsibly gambling with the earnings of the underlings and assuming unpayable debts that are transferred to some of the underlings who must sacrifice more and more of their earnings not only to pay down the unpayable debt, but to allow the "directors" to irresponsibly gamble more and accrue more debt. It has everything to do with the "directors" pitting enough of the underlings, who are allowed to pay less or nothing toward the gambling and debt accruing, against the underlings who must pay more, thus keeping enough "happy" with the gambling and debt as they are brainwashed into believing that they benefit from the gambling and unpayable debt and will have to pay less or nothing to sustain the unsustainable.

And as for those who believe that all will be, somehow, better if the "directors" would just act "responsibly," they willingly, or ignorantly, miss the point that the irresponsibility does not lie in the gambling or debt accruing, which the "directors" believe is necessary and proper and totally responsible to achieve the goals of government benevolence according to the dictates of the "directors," but the irresponsibility is in doing that which the Constitution never intended for them to do. The irresponsibility can only be corrected by the dismantling of this illegal giant government corporation, and by returning the power and responsibility of creating an "economy" to the people, in whom the Constitution originally vested such responsibility.


So you agree that nobody could turn things around overnight but the fact that things are getting better still isn't good enough, it's not fast enough for you. We could always sprinkle some magic dust on the US economy...that would fix the EU and China as well...right?

Sprinkling fairy dust, as you so often do, over the actions of our central administrative and unelected bureaucracy, in whom you have a magically unwarrented trust, will merely continue the "irresponsible" spending.

The problem right now isn't Obama, it's a political system that can't agree on even the most basic steps forward. Sure, there is plenty of blame to go around but either party would be well served to compramise with whomever is elected.

The problem is a political system that is run by a constitutionally unintended fourth branch of the federal government--the nearly 400 regulatory agencies that are responsible for most of the new, annual, regulations that fill the 80,000 new pages of the Federal Register every year. No one person, not the President, not the congressmen, not the judges, not any of the bureaucrats, reads all 80,000 pages per year. None know the totality of what's in those pages. And we are bound, as underlings of this giant corporation, to obey those regulations and run our lives and businesses accordingly. And the new regulations keep coming, and more agencies are created. And the problem is a political system that has been transformed from a limited central government to an all-powerful one that can create these agencies, and can tax at will, and spend at will, and the only barrier left to defend us against that directorate, is the uncompromising bickering among the "directors." Heaven help us if they all finally agree on how to run our lives.

We know how the GOP responded to Obama's win.

-spence

Originally Posted by wader-dad (Post 963990)

I am sorry to disagree. If I get a dollar in interest on my lousy money market account that is paying next to nothing and pay federal tax of 30 cents, I am not happy if the CEO of WC Bradley is paying 15 cents on each dollar of dividends he gets from the 5,000,000 shares he got when he exercised his stock options that he paid for with the sales proceeds of a portion of the option shares. So percents matter to me.

.

Originally Posted by spence (Post 964012)

It has nothing to do with incompetence and everything to do with larger trends.

Obama inherited a trillion + defecit and given the reduced tax revenues, war expenditures and pre-planned spending there's little a McCain president could have done to avoid adding similar debt. Sure, there's the gamble that stimulus spending was unecessary but I'm willing to wager it helped keep us slipping into a worse situation.




So you agree that nobody could turn things around overnight but the fact that things are getting better still isn't good enough, it's not fast enough for you. We could always sprinkle some magic dust on the US economy...that would fix the EU and China as well...right?

The problem right now isn't Obama, it's a political system that can't agree on even the most basic steps forward. Sure, there is plenty of blame to go around but either party would be well served to compramise with whomever is elected.

We know how the GOP responded to Obama's win.

-spence

Originally Posted by scottw (Post 964095)

you two would never make it very far as foxhole buddies...

.....I did say "foxhole"......:)

Originally Posted by Jim in CT (Post 964090)

"It has nothing to do with incompetence "

That's your opinion. In my opinion, 4 years is a lot of time, and $5 trillion is a lot to flush down the toilet, if all you have to show is zero jobs created and lower wages. A huge majority of business owners said the passage of Obamacare would hurt them, but Obama did it anyway. That's a big part of the 'larger trend' yuo describe, and that effect lies right at his feet.

It may be argued that Obama is extremely competent in accomplishsing HIS goals, not yours. When you argue back and forth with Spence on what are "better" economic methods and solutions, you are playing in his sandbox (and, apparently, yours) in which the problem is merely competence within a system of government that allows bureaucrats to do what they do, rather than the original sand box that would not allow such shenanigans. When arguing about competence within the parameters of the status quo (the central government's right and responsibility to control and create the "economy"), you are accepting that status quo. And it is that status quo, that system, which allows the competence or incompetence, to be the argument of who will be "better" rather than whether the federal government even has that right and responsibility

Spence, there are states that are growing and adding jobs. They are overwhelmingly red states. Pure coincidence, I supose.

There will always be sectors that will do better or worse. That's the beauty of federalism--the States being the laboratories of social, political, and economic experiments. But only insofar as they are allowed to do so. The more centralized that government becomes, the less will be the diversity of those experiments, and the more static society, the "economy", and the relationship between the citizen and the government becomes. The overall "economy" if left to the control of a central government will be diverse and evolutionary in the most limited way--only at the hands of a unitary directorate, and only change course within those limited parameters when parties can convince the electorate that their director is more competent than the other party.

"Obama inherited a trillion + defecit "

(1) Inherited from whom? Obama and Biden were members of the US Senate, and they were in the party that controlled Congress from 2006-2010. In our country, the legislature controls the legislative agenda and the purse strings. So I'm not sure I give Obama a complete 'pass' on the mess he claims to have 'inherited'. He didn't walk in off the street. He was there. I'm not saying it's all his fault. But I'm saying he bears some responsibility for what happened.

(2) He promised to cut that deficit in half.

Yes, you're absolutely right (there are absolutes, Spence). Obama bears some responsibility for the inheritance he helped to create--as do all the other members of Congress, and other Presidents and judges. And, as well, We The People bear some of that responsiblity, not only for electing them, but allowing them to transform the Constitution into a system of government that makes us underlings instead of masters.

"there's little a McCain president could have done to avoid adding similar debt"

Wrong. McCain would not have passed Obamacare, and he wouldn't have implemented a stimulus that did nothing except delay public sector layoffs for one year.

McCain would have helped to maintain the present administrative system of government, perhaps with a smaller growth in deficits and national debt. But the system would have been maintained, perhaps advanced to another level, and would be there for future mischief by bigger spenders and controllers.

"you agree that nobody could turn things around overnight "

Agree 100%. But I think you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who could have mis-managed the crisis worse than Obama has.

Again, depending on what Obama's goals are for fundamentally transforming this country and its system of government, he may be considered to have managed very well.

"the fact that things are getting better "

It's not a fact that things are better. $5 trillion added to our debt. That means that every living American is now $16,667 deeper in debt than when he took office. That works out to $67,000 for a family of 4, and the interest is now accumulating. What does that family of 4 have to show for that $67,000 IOU Obama gave to the Chinese on their behalf? Zero jobs created, and wages that are $4300 lower than they were 4 years ago. Higher healthcare costs. Astronomically higher fuel prices. How you can claim that it's a 'fact' that things are better, I simply cannot fathom.

See, that's the progressive sandbox in which you are playing. Arguing about how much rather than should they even be able.

We're not bleeding jobs like we were, that is a fact. But at what cost? And what kinds of jobs are being created - part time jobs with no healthcare. Whoop-dee-doo.

When the blood has drained so much, there is not as much left to be drained. It would have been mathematically impossible to maintain the higher number of jobs lost, but the rate at which they are presently lost in comparison to how much "blood" is left, may be as high or higher. Again, is it the Federal Government's responsibility to create jobs?

"We could always sprinkle some magic dust on the US economy"

You think that's a fair assessment of what McCain would have done, or what Romney is proposing/

That's you in a nutshell, right there, that post. You bend over backwards to heap praise on Obama, and yuo dismiss those who disagree with him as proposing to 'sprinkle magic dust'. That's very dishinest, and it's what we have all come to expect from you. I;m happy to honestly debate the merits of what Obama has actually said and done. You cannot bring yourself to do that with my side, because you know you can't reject these ideas on their merits, so all you can do is dishonestly dismiss them.

I cannot fathom that you work in finance, I can only pray that your DNA isn't on anything that will ever impact my family.

Originally Posted by BigFish (Post 964040)

Yup! I am Ronnie!! Its called a choice.......I make em'......I stand behind them.....and I live with them! I can also respect that you have a choice, I would hope I get the same respect and I certainly would not belittle you for it.

Originally Posted by Jim in CT (Post 964096)

Gallup poll just released has Romney up 6.

Originally Posted by scottw (Post 964160)

now "7" (insert Joe Castiglione screech:)) and leading in the Electoral College....WOW...Honey Boo Boo switched to Romney explaining the unlikely surge...


whatever happened to Mitt blowing it and all the trends and data pointing to a Barry Cakewalk?


McCain was gaining some ground at this point in 08'

Originally Posted by BigFish (Post 964168)

Yeah....binders full of womens names!!! That struck me as weak!!!

Originally Posted by BigFish (Post 964168)

Yeah....binders full of womens names!!! That struck me as weak!!!

Originally Posted by BigFish (Post 964168)

Yeah....binders full of womens names!!! That struck me as weak!!!

Originally Posted by Jim in CT (Post 964164)

Yes, it i snow a 7-point lead, and significantly, that poll starts to reflect the impact of the second debate. Perhaps Obama's improved performance did not stop the bleeding.

Originally Posted by spence (Post 964180)

Pretty sad when you have to dodge a valid question about equal pay with a fabrication.
-spence

Originally Posted by Piscator (Post 964193)

Call a spade a spade Spence.

Let's be serious here and agree that it is just as sad that Obama dodged valid questions in that debate as well.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

Originally Posted by spence (Post 964180)

There's one Gallup poll showing just outside of the margin, but when you look across polls Romney only has a slight lead in the popular vote.

Electoral college Obama still has the clear edge.

In other words...it's a dead heat.

-spence



I agree, why did Romney make it up? The woman who ran the company that put the binder together said his story isn't true at all. The binder was assembled for both candidates before he became gubner. At the end of Romney's tenure the % of women in his cabinet was under 30% and much lower than his successor or predecessor.

Pretty sad when you have to dodge a valid question about equal pay with a fabrication.

-spence

Originally Posted by spence (Post 964201)

Dodging questions is part of debating-spence

Originally Posted by spence (Post 964201)

Dodging questions is part of debating, I was just surprised he had to make something up to do it.

-spence