Morning Must Reads: Cerebral

Jim Russell, Republican for Congress.
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parents need to be reminded that they have a natural obligation, as essential as providing food and shelter, to instill in their children an acceptance of appropriate ethnic boundaries for socialization and for marriage

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Much more at http://www.thealbanyproject.com/diary/8818/ny18-loweys-challenger-opposes-interracial-marriage-and-school-integration-supports-eugenics
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This guy’s against interracial marriage, thinks the Jews are taking over Christianity, and is proud to be endorsed by the Republican Party. And, apparently, the GOP is proud to run a racist.
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But hey let’s spend all our time talking about Christine O’Donnell. I think I heard someone say she’s into “witchcraft”!

The problem, as I see it, with gunning for inflation is not the lower debt burden, but the very real possibility that wages don’t rise with prices. I would love for inflation and wages to rise together. I wouldn’t have to worry so much about my educational loans.
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But who is going to go to my employer and tell them they have to pay me more and pay more for everything else? How do you increase the “bandwidth” of money for everyone simultaneously?

“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, yearning to be cannon fodder…”
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If you can’t get enough of the present citizenry to enlist to support the present wars (and any others that someone might “DREAM” up in the future), welcome those newcomers with open arms (and an enlistment contract).
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Although we’ll be happy to have them under those circumstances, there’s something vaguely “mercenary” about this arrangement.

I thought we were all upset at her refusal to touch herself?

More info:
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http://www.meetup.com/rlc-120/members/1036452/?op=&memberId=1036452

Max Boot argues the military isn’t a bad place for motivated immigrants to end up.
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Grampy McCain disagrees.

Last week Harry Reid announced that he will insert the DREAM (Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors) Act into a defense authorization bill, granting permanent residency to young undocumented immigrants who honorably serve in the armed forces for two years. This infuriated Republicans, including John McCain, who called it “onerous” and “a pure political act” despite co-sponsoring the same bill in 2005, 2006, and 2007. (Colin Powell, still technically a Republican, approves of the proposal.)
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McCain has obvious political considerations — he’s up for reelection in a state hostile to immigration — but this flip-flop seems especially cynical. It blows my mind that he would threaten to block this reform. Foreign citizens have always participated in our nation’s defense, sometimes when Americans were scared to send their own children. And who in the hell would want to join the military now? No one knows if Afghanistan is winnable, and we’re going to be stuck in Iraq for years despite the official end of combat operations.

What did I miss?

Gallup, with another poll that won’t get any press coverage.

“Democrats are now ahead by a “statistically insignificant” amount in the all important Gallup generic preference poll!

This means that until next week, Obama is only Clintonian and not Carteresque, that this is 1982 not 1994, that even though this is still a right-center nation, Obama may have succeeded in ‘putting his thumb on the scale’ and moving the country left.”

DREAM Act is brilliant.
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First, it has historical precedent. New Irish and German Immigrants were taken into the Union Army during the Civil War dramatically adding to the population advantage of the North. This includes the locally famous fighting 69th once also known as the fighting Irish.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/69th_Infantry_Regiment_%28United_States%29
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Second, for those who through the military or through getting a college degree will have demonstrated to America that these are exactly the kind of people America wants and needs: brave, hard working, dedicated, motivated and intelligent.
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It would take huge effort for somebody to look down on immigrants if it is an immigrant who is the surgeon successfully operating on their mother (as is, already frequently true) and hard for any anti-immigrant group to say that new immigrants are taking “our” jobs.
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(As for the “taking our jobs” argument, I have yet to see one person who says that who is eager to wash dishes, clean out septic tanks or work minimum wage at a fast food place in the job immigrants “took from us”, but, if you’re talking about immigrants serving in combat and/or honor students, few of these critics will say that they both could and would take these positions themselves.)

Why you should take your Rasmussen with a grain of salt.

“There’s a new poll showing that Carl Paladino has escaped from a cloud of bestiality porn and is closing the gap with Andrew Cuomo in the New York Governor’s race:

‘This is Paladino’s best showing yet. It remains to be seen whether this is a short-lived post-primary bounce or a tightening of the race that Cuomo has dominated for months,’ Rasmussen said.

Ah, wait, it’s a Rasumussen poll that left out Rick Lazio, who’s running on the Conservative line, because it fits his narrative that Paladino is ‘not a joke’. A poll that doesn’t include Lazio is worthless, because the real question in the race is whether Republicans will vote for Lazio or Paladino, not whether Paladino has a chance against Cuomo.

This is a typical Rasmussen gambit, but it takes two to make a f**k-and-run. Every time Rasmussen spits out a poll that dovetails with his ideology, he gives a bunch of reporters a hook for their ‘this could happen’ story.

That will really go well in Nita Lowey’s district…NOT! Westchester County is a very diverse community, and not just being the bedroom for Wall Steeet tycoons. the Although, with the likes of this guy, itakes one really wonder who our neighbors are. (I work in White Plains, the heart of this district.)

Olympia Snowe sounds like a no.

Now that’s mavericky!

Adam, could I ask you a big favor? Please alert us Swamplanders upfront if you have a link to Politico. I made the mistake of clicking on your Stewart/Colbert link and found myself at Politico, a site I despise for it’s lazy, meme-driven, shallow reporting. I usually avoid it like the plague.

Just like CNN, Politico tries hard to show it’s non-partisan by being much harsher and negative about Dems than Repubs.

Thanks.

broken link?

Yep. All these Gallup polls are meaningless and fleeting, but the media will lavish attention over the ones that look good for Republicans and never mention the ones that look good for Democrats. Got to stick with the narrative, after all, facts be damned.

Seconded. If I wanted to hear what those idiots had to say, I’d just go there directly.

Once upon a time, candidates like these were laughed off of the campaign trail.

“…in today’s climate of right wing extremism, the John Birch Society has not only been re-legitimized, it’s been welcomed back into the Republican fold.

This weekend the JBS held an event in Utah, and the featured speaker was none other than Nevada’s GOP nominee for the US Senate, Sharron Angle.”

Why, yes. The title does look good in red, ‘tho. Link:
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http://www.balloon-juice.com/2010/09/21/i-woke-up-alarmed/

but, if you’re talking about immigrants serving in combat and/or honor students, few of these critics will say that they both could and would take these positions themselves.
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patrick,
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That’s the part that bothers me about this, that it is a way to get new boots on the ground to fight (and possibly die) in wars that would NOT be supported if the general population were in any way personally invested in the potential casualties through a universal service requirement.
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Parts of the DREAM Act are just a way to keep military recruitment up while keeping the level of political pain at a tolerable level for the rest of us.
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I do realize that the alternative path will be to attend college but, realistically, how many illegal immigrants will be financially able to send their children to college without other assistance? I couldn’t have afforded colllege without the GI Bill.
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Just seems like military service is being intentionally made the easier path for a reason.

“DREAM Act is brilliant”
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Still striking out Rev Jim. Brilliant? We will have law breakers taking a military oath where they swear to uphold the Constitution (they already have a great track record) and they swear allegiance to a country and laws to which they are not citizens!
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Going to college? We have citizens who are students struggling to get aid to go to college and now those precious resources will be given to non-citizens, much of it tax payer dollars.
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“As for the “taking our jobs” argument, I have yet to see one person who says that who is eager to wash dishes, clean out septic tanks or work minimum wage at a fast food place in the job immigrants “took from us”
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I strongly suggest you get out of your basement and see the real world. I lived in an area that was all septic and wells and the septic tanks were cleaned and serviced by citizens who were business owners and strong contributors to the community and not shadow members. Fast food places? Those jobs are filled by teenagers for a first job, retired people to keep busy and supplement income and special needs folks to give them life skills and a purpose. Maybe in the arrogant liberal confines of NYC its illegal immigrants but the real world is a bit different.

A chance for some Blue Dogs to remind us that they aren’t Republicans.

“Whether or not the Dems push through a vote on the Obama Plan middle class taxes comes down to a few dozen Democratic House members. About thirty of them have said they support extending all the tax cuts from 2001. But that’s not the only question. The real question is how many would vote with the Republicans to prevent Pelosi from even allowing a vote.

Just to be clear how this works, when the Democratic leadership in the House brings the bill to the floor, the Republicans can push a ‘motion to recommit.’ If they win that vote, the bill gets sent back to committee. The bill itself never even gets voted on. Of course, the Republicans are in the minority. So they need a lot of Democrats to vote with them.

Again, it’s one thing to support extend tax cuts for everyone. It’s another thing not even to vote with the Republicans to prevent the rest of the caucus from even getting a chance to vote on the bill they support.”

CNN poll that shows a majority of economists surveyed believe that the tax cuts for all should be passed. Even Chris Tingles yesterday has figured out something Obama and liberals in general fail to concede:
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:”Stop saying that giving people tax cuts is giving people money. It`s their money”
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” “A tax cut is when the government doesn`t take our money. It`s an important distinction”
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What an epiphany!

But a majority of a panel of leading economists surveyed by CNNMoney.com said that the tax cuts should be renewed for everyone

http://money.cnn.com/2010/09/19/news/economy/what_to_do_economists_survey/index.htm

…and they swear allegiance to a country and laws to which they are not citizens!
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Already happening, Free. I served with a couple of Mexican nationals while in AZ in the AF who were not citizens (they used to joke about having swam across the Rio Grande). Extremely good at their jobs.
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While I was in Korea in the ’70s, one of the radar techs was Canadian.
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I would hazard a guess that the Army is even more populated with non-citizens among the ranks, especially enlisted.

I don’t understand the wisdom of attacking liberals because they are disappointed that the Obama administration did not deliver on things they campaigned on, like the public option. Is that supposed to inspire them to go out and vote. “Yes we promised you that but it is your fault for believing us. How could you be so stupid?”

Afguy:

Were they illegals or folks here on with a green card. I have a friend whose wife is a UK citizen but a permanent alien resident here and he jokes he will have her deported. Of course she came here when assimilation was an actual goal for immigrants. That is no longer the case.

There is a difference!

Were they illegals or folks here on with a green card.
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Free,
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Truthfully, I’m not sure. They didn’t have other jobs off-base that would have required the green card and everyone just accepted them for who they were.
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The radar tech never presented himself as anything but Canadian but that was Vietnam-era and he had been in long enough to be an E-5.

Yeah that part bothers me a bit.
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Don’t be “tribal” like the TP’ers – hold your politicians’ feet to the fire when they fail to deliver – except in case of the case of a close election when you’re expected to “hold your nose” and vote the straight ticket because, you know, THEY’RE going to be so much worse than we were.
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“Cold-blooded Corruption” vs. “Pragmatic, Knee-quivering Gutlessness” – one h*ll of an electoral choice.

No, but ummm… seriously, how could you be so stupid?

afguy,

Fair enough.

Free,
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Here in West Ky, agriculture would come to a complete STANDSTILL without the illegals. NO ONE wants to cut tobacco (and ALL of the miserable tasks that go with raising it). (I did it when growing up – I know.)
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No young person wants to do the work needed to raise a large field of vegetables and do it right. It is miserable, back-breaking work, that pays poorly.
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The local Pilgrim’s Pride chicken processing plant is staffed almost completely by immigrants of a varity of nationalities (especially certain processes involved in the, um, “termination and disassembly” of said chickens).
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They tried recently to build a small mosque primarily for the late shift workers and the local city council voted it down. A recent poll of the town’s citizens was remarkably supportive of their being allowed to build it.

So much for the promise of stimulus (all of them) since the CBO is projecting unemployment to be at least 8.0% until 2012. Coincidentally that was the rate unemployment was not to breech with the first porkulus bill.The CBO presentation doesn’t seem to address whether it will drop to 8.0% as result of actual job growth or from the fact that many folks will drop out of the workforce.
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quoteblock>The Congressional Budget Office is predicting that the national unemployment rate will remain above 8 percent until 2012, the year of the next presidential election.

http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/118xx/doc11866/CBO_Presentation_to_Macroeconomic_Advisers_09-16-10.pdf

Well yes it probably was the wrong thing for the President to say or could have been said better but, when you have people like Feingold in trouble, don’t you worry that you are hurting your own cause?
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If I remember correctly even Stuart held him up as a progressive leader.

The polls shouldn’t be taken seriously unless they show that the republicans are ahead and increasing their lead. A vast majority of Americans are fed up with Obambi. I’ve read it countless times on this very site. If a left wing socialist rag like TIME reports otherwise, it just goes to show something or other.

Afguy: I don’t disagree that something needs to be done about our immigration policy if one were to call it that. I take offense to the blatant law breaking and the accompanying costs associated with it. There is little to no assimilation, money heads back t the homeland while we are stuck paying for health care, educations among other things while we shortchanging citizens of this country.
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And you might not like to hear this but not wanting to work these jobs is a partial result of our entitlement mentality in this country. We worry about obesity in children. Take away the cell phone, the gameboy and put their butts to work. Besides earning some money, they learn responsibility, discipline and self respect. Instead we have fat lazy young folks with a over developed sense of self esteem and entitlement and under developed sense responsibility.

I will agree farming is difficult. The first job I had was picking fruit. I was up at 7am in the summer and picked quarts of various berries for 5 cents a quart. It sucked but I survived it.
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” NO ONE wants to cut tobacco (and ALL of the miserable tasks that go with raising it).”
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Isn’t this a plus?(LOL) Seems the left is always complaining about it, taxing it and finding new ways to regulate it and the people who uses tobacco.

Isn’t this a plus?(LOL) Seems the left is always complaining about it, taxing it and finding new ways to regulate it and the people who uses tobacco.
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I always took some secret pleasure at watching “moral gymnastics” the good Christian people who raised tobacco went through to rationalize growing it (it was a VERY lucrative crop when they would allow the growers enough acreage to make it profitable).
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They would always say “they make rat poison” from the tobacco (even though that was a VERY SMALL part of the end use, and they KNEW it, but it made them feel better about it)
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And you might not like to hear this but not wanting to work these jobs is a partial result of our entitlement mentality in this country.
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Not an entitlement problem, IMO. A laziness problem among the kids when we went away from an agrarian society (in which dusk-to-dawn work by the whole family was the norm) to something else. Also, we HAD TO rely on each other a LOT more than we do now.
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Now, we don’t really TRUST each other – the feeling that your neighbor would screw you to make a buck if the opportunity presented itself. That’s always been that mentality, but now there’s the additonal feeling that, the week after screwing you over, they’d be back to borrow your mower as if nothing had happened. Looking out for No. 1 is just “accepted” as normal. We dont have “friends” as much as we have “interests” or “acquaintances”.
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My parents actually lived through the Depression and the experience left them with life-long friends because they were vital.

I will agree farming is difficult. The first job I had was picking fruit. I was up at 7am in the summer and picked quarts of various berries for 5 cents a quart. It sucked but I survived it.
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Strawberries, apples and peaches here.
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Delivered newspapers in HS and worked at a local gas station (when the attendants ACTUALLY pumped gas for the customers).

All I just don’t see how mocking your voters, is an effective strategy for getting them out to vote. I don’t see Obama mocking the congressman who are now demanding the wealthy get a tax cut, and who are holding up the tax cut for the middle class. What is he promising this time that he will be mocking liberals for a year from now, while remaining mum on the tea party democrats?

“Also, we HAD TO rely on each other a LOT more than we do now.”
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I agree but I differ on how we arrived here. IMO I think someone else can do it, the government will do it, its beneath me attitude sprung from entitlements.

My parents lived through the Great Depression too and I grew up in a coal mining town where everybody took care of everybody else. Every summer we had a block party and the fathers built a playground for all the kids. Both parents usually worked but if one didn’t (usually a mom) she became the designated babysitter if a kid had to miss school. Something you don;t see now, generations lived in the same house for decades.
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I guess that’s progress for you..

“Strawberries, apples and peaches here.
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Delivered newspapers in HS and worked at a local gas station (when the attendants ACTUALLY pumped gas for the customers).”
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We may have been separated at birth! I picked strawberries, blueberries and blackberries.

I had a job pumping gas ($1.25/hr) when I was in 7-8th grade. Wash windshields and checked the oil too. Then I had a paper route for 3 years. Took my senior year off.

Grape, great points about the polls. But we all know that sites like Politico have already worked out their meme for 2010 and they have no intention of actually delving more deeply into the issue.

And to clarify things, I have no problem with unlabeld linkage to red sites like Drudge. Everbody knows Drudge is far right on the political spectrum. It’s places like Politico who pretend to be “fair” but are actually try to establish real jounalistic cred by bashing Dems in order to prove they are not liberal.

Something you don;t see now, generations lived in the same house for decades.
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My first wife was Korean and I was around her family a LOT. Lived of-base while in Korea (all three times) and had a blast.
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The whole time I was doing that, I had the feeling that they were a LOT like the US was 100 years ago, regarding family unity and support. Their celebration of Christmas was so much more in the right spirit than we were.
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My ex-wife’s mother (who is dead but I still love dearly, as she treated me better than her own, in many ways) worked in a garden until she had a stroke and died in her ’80s.
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The Japanese and Koreans feel a lot more personal responsibility for the welfare of their parents and elders than we do now.

I agree I cringed when I read it. I do not think it was helpful at all.
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I think he thinks he can handle the two groups differently, one group is supposed to understand the other group needs kid cloves.
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Really he needs to handle them both equally. This is his failing.

Be proactive. Hover over links before you click them. If you are using Internet Explorer, make sure your status bar is on. If you use Chrome, it automatically appears. Firefox is probably one or the other. You’ll see where the link takes you at the bottom of the page.

Free,
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The REAL unemployment rate is probably around 15% or worse (including a number of those poor souls who will never be employed in a decent-paying job again)
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I’m 62 and, by the luck of how my contract was written, still employed. I have 3 sons in HS or just into college. I used to do aircraft communications repair in the AF but got my degree in Computer Science and do web work now. I have no illusions that, if I lose my job, I will be retired permanently. Arthritis in my spine (and other body parts) has pretty well made that definite.
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I had no real problem with the stimulus as being something to “stop the bleeding” (as with a seriously-injured patient). One can’t stop there, though. Had we done SOMETHING to start to generate large numbers of new jobs on the national level, it would have been a great plan. There’s just nothing there, though. And nothing on the horizon for us to see coming. I’ve stopped listening to the economists or analysts because they rely too much on a “good jobs will just appear after a while” mindset. Why??
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Greenspan was right – the economic model he trusted for so long JUST FAILED and he doesn’t know what to do now. A lot of the CNBC types are sitting there daily with this “don’t worry, it’ll happen… trust us… it always does” script, but I just get the idea they don’t actually believe it, but don’t want to admit that to themselves, because they have NO other model to replace it with.
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The only thing I’m sure of is that the country will not prosper if we are reduced to selling fries, tires and insurance policies to each other as a national plan of economic recovery.
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Any health care reform will not benefit me – too many pre-existing conditions and family history of certain “ailments” to contend with. Would like for the kids not to have to worry about such, though.

“The Japanese and Koreans feel a lot more personal responsibility for the welfare of their parents and elders than we do now.”
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In my younger days I owuld say we did as well. My grandfather lived in the house he built (my mother and father moved in when they married) until the day he died, My mothers one brother lived next door and the other brother right behind us.

My father’s family was the same. Two sister lived in a house that was owned by his one brother and wife. One sister was married and lived in one apartment. The other lived in another smaller one with my grandmother. You don’t see that among families these days.We were all better because of it. (privacy was tough sometimes)

Do you think we can expect any Republican/TPer or any reactionary on this site to condemn this guy?

Agreed afguy. Max Boot’s article was merely telling us we need the desperate, underclass to enlist to fight our wars. That is sort of our model now.

“The REAL unemployment rate is probably around 15% or worse”
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The U-6 is actually 16.7%. 62 and 3 in HS. Did you have to babysit at parent nights? I understand the arthritis. I have it in most joints from old athletic injuries, or so they tell me..

I agree the stimulus could have been affective, however it was nothing but payoff to political allies. Money did not get used to create opportunities for those losing jobs.
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I disagree with Greenspan that the model failed. It didn’t. It worked exactly as one would expect. If you maintain an easy money policy and keep interst rates near zero, assets bubbles build and they end only one way! Crappy government policy and some greed on the part of bankers were the pins for the bubble. Unfortunately, with all of the tough talk and mountains of regulation, it won’t stop the next one. The people (government & private company) that created the mess are the ones now trying to tell us how to fix it. Not a chance.

Amen to that. I wish the traditional media was less dependent of the unreliable, anonymous sourcing, Politico.

Let me add to my previous (serious) response.
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You’re basically saying that Obama shouldn’t tell voters to expect a realistic outcome because it will turn them off from voting. Meanwhile, you, a self proclaimed liberal/progressive/democrat are fine with doing essentially the same thing to him, yet its fine to call him out on it.

And I walked 10 miles to school in snow up to my hips. Come on. Every generation has the good, the bad, and the ugly. The current young generation does more volunteer work than any prior. They have the onus of a society that has much fewer jobs that offer living wages for high school graduates. College costs are through the roof.
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My niece, who wants to become a doctor, starts college today. She is attending a community college to get her required classes because of costs. She works weekends and full time in the summer. She does volunteer work for the Junior Arthritis Society. She helps take care of her ailing father. Let me put it this way, she does more than I did at that age.
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Please, get over generational superiority.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Allen_(journalist)
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Mike Allen, co-founder, Politico
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It is not liberal. Mike Allen, chief political reporter, son of right-wing, conspiracy theorist, John Birch Society member, Gary Allen…
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His pedigree argues he might be less than liberal.

Sorry gum0nshoe, I had ignored your first comment.

Did you have to babysit at parent nights?
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No, she’d go to certain homerooms, I’d go to the others.
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I agree the stimulus could have been affective, however it was nothing but payoff to political allies. Money did not get used to create opportunities for those losing jobs.
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Being old enough to remember when the Interstate system was being built, I think those are some of the types of jobs that could nave been done. The concrete is starting to deteriorate and states no longer have the money to keep them up to previous standards.
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I remember when TVA created the lake system near here and the benefits therefrom.
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The explosion of the gas mains in San Bruno also indicate the type of work that could be done. We’ve had water mains fail here and erode the street. Waterworks here are almost 100 years old and we are not unique in that.
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South Dakota is reverting back to gravel roads because of a lack of money to maintain them. I can tell you that the roads here would not react kindly to that if it happened here. Ditches near my house have silted in, forcing water across paved roads and yards when it rains. How long before erosion starts to set in?
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Ice storm here decimated the power structure across the state. Took months to repair and it’s still vulnerable to a similar event.
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Tunnels in NY are in dire need of repair (also 100 years old) and would have great consequences economically if they fail.
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The nation is FULL of shakey bridges that are LONG overdue for replacement.
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Shuttle is being retired with NO replacement. Gonna have to rely on the Russkies for heavy lift capability.
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Government has a role to play. Used to be, gov’t would fund the high-ticket research and allow industry to benefit from the results. Now, since we’ve vilified government involvement as inherently wasteful, we are waiting for the big corporations to make advancements on their own. Currently, many are waiting for the government to subsidize their research in the form of tax breaks or grants (saves them money, right?) while they reserve the right to privatize any results. Unfortunately, there’s nothing that says those companies have to spend the money in the way it was intended. (Hello, Wall Street.)
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Our chief advancements recently have been in the realm of “financial engineering” rather than the other technical fields, and the country has suffered for it.
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Our best and brightest have become venture capitalists. They don’t have to come up with the latest new ideas – they just have to recognize one if it appears, loan the money to fund it, and take a profit for someone else’s brainstorm.
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Mitt Romney made billions off of cutting companies apart – not generating new ideas or products.

” The current young generation does more volunteer work than any prior. They have the onus of a society that has much fewer jobs that offer living wages for high school graduates. College costs are through the roof.”
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I am not sure if its true or not but what is true is they do it for different reasons. Its a resume filler for a college or a requirement for graduation in high school or part of college orientation. They may do it but more likely than not its not just to help people but themselves.

The need or opportunity (usually organized functions) are now abundant is because as a society we do less for each other as more is expected from the government or other groups. Denying that is not dealing with reality.

“Being old enough to remember when the Interstate system was being built, I think those are some of the types of jobs that could nave been done. The concrete is starting to deteriorate and states no longer have the money to keep them up to previous standards”
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I have one problem with the states. They collected gasoline taxes for years and did not rebuild. Near us we had bike and running trails put in and maintained at the cost of millions.
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I do agree that some of this could have been done. The problem there funds again were being directed to unions which again did not help those unemployed. It also increased the cost of the projects as Davis Bacon was not suspended. The tired old argument of having unqualified people doesn’t cut it. How many “qualified” laborers built the TVA or WPA projects?The concept was to help the jobless not pay back unions.

How many “qualified” laborers built the TVA or WPA projects?
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Probably not many, other than the ones at the top of each location who needed to have the vision necessary to have the oversight.
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Hoover Dam is one of those and I’m amazed at the scope, quality and reliability of what was done there.

“Our chief advancements recently have been in the realm of “financial engineering” rather than the other technical fields, and the country has suffered for it”

I agree but probably for different reasons. The technical fields like HC research or energy engineering on a Return on Investment becomes cost prohibitive because of the regulatory and legal morass. Financial engineering really doesn’t have a physical product so it escapes those issues and requires little in the way pf capital investment. Anybody with a laptop can create.
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“Mitt Romney made billions off of cutting companies apart – not generating new ideas or products.”

Another way to look at that is Romney bailed out companies and saved jobs. Yes he cut jobs because many were inefficient and unproductive which hurt competitiveness and profitability. One need to look no further than the auto companies;high cost bloated labor (allowed by crappy management) with poor products that saw market share evaporate to the Japanese. The examples of those go on and on. Yes he made billions but he took the risk with his capital, re-structured companies, saved jobs and made the companies viable again.. Its a pipe dream to believe that people will invest their money in a company and watch it run inefficiently just to keep people (many ungrateful) employed.

“His pedigree argues he might be less than liberal.”
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His pedigree? You mean by birth? Right there has never been a rebellious child who held opposite political view than their parents. Did not Hillary Clinton start as a Young Republican (as influenced by her father) and end up a liberal activist at Wellsley? And of course all of the flower children of the 60-70s came from the hippies of the 50s.
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Other than the chance of birth their is nothing in his background to suggest anything but liberal pedigree.

free: You are right. My niece does volunteer for an ulterior motive, she has juvenile arthritis. Does that make her service less important?
All I am asking is you do not denigrate an entire generation by making yours superior.
Although my family lived through the depression and served in WWII, and I admired them greatly, I never bought into the “greatest generation” theory. I think most American generations, when challenged to the extreme, will arise to meet the need.

Afguy: You are right. My father worked through the WPA building Grand Coulee Dam. Having been a farmer, he did not have an advanced degree in dam building. But, he knew how to work hard. The money from that job, among other WPA jobs, allowed him to support his family and go on to apprentice and become a master plumber.
That was real stimulus.
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The right must acknowledge, also, how many Republican governors, senators and reps are now disavowing the stimulus but taking credit for what it did accomplish.

I agree but probably for different reasons. The technical fields like HC research or energy engineering on a Return on Investment becomes cost prohibitive because of the regulatory and legal morass.
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We are using a grandchild of one of those government programs I like to use as an example – the Internet. Started off as a DARPA project between a few universities. Who would have started something like that if profit had been the sole motivator or if it had been the realm of a single company?
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Another example is our entire communications system, something that couldn’t exist without the network of satellites in place today. We wouldn’t have those without an ability to lift them into place. The launch platforms for the earliest satellites started off as converted military ICBMs. The Centaur (used for many of the comm satellite launches) is an updated Atlas, left over from the Cold War.
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We may disagree on this, but I feel that much of what we have technology-wise we owe (possibly indirectly, because it was not intentionally developed for its final use) to government-funded research of some sort that would probably never have happened if the reliance had been completely on private, for-profit industry. They would never have spent the money on that research in the first place because of overhead. Regulations and legal issues were not a problem in that they didn’t exist at that time, but no one was even visualizing a need.
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Companies that started building communication and surveillance satellites for the military branched out into the commercial arena. Hence our weather sats we use for forecasting.
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Project Apollo brought advances in heavy lift launch capability that made the ability to create network of comm sats possible. If no Apollo, then no Saturn V, therefore no advances in the engine technology that made the Shuttle possible.
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Many of the functionaries administering government today may not be fulfilling their reponsibilities properly but I think it is plain that, at least in the past, government has been quite valuable in its contributions. It is NOT, by definition, a bad thing. It can be DONE badly, as can anything.

“:Although my family lived through the depression and served in WWII, and I admired them greatly, I never bought into the “greatest generation” theory. I think most American generations, when challenged to the extreme, will arise to meet the need”
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Well Exhibit I, look what is going on now. We are not close to the problems this country faced in the 20-30s, not the comforts and the whining about “we want more handouts” has not relented. WWI WWI and the Korean War were served by folks out a sense of duty and didn’t face the back home backlash or have the soldiers disrespected as the Vietnam War and The current one. In fact the ones telling us how we need to live our lives now were part of that generation on the first bus to Canada in the 60-70s.

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We also now have a generation who we telling what to eat, how to think, education with no grades because no one is wrong, athletic events where there are no losers and everyone gets a trophy. I don’t know about superior but other generations certainly were not pampered and not for the better.
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I am glad your niece has volunteered for a real reason but I can fill volumes of “volunteer” work I have seen that is nothing but a check the box item on their way through life.

“Every generation has the good, the bad, and the ugly.”
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Thank you.
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Being from a suburban town there were no berries to pick but, I delivered newspapers in high school until I was legal working age and started working the day after my sixteenth birthday.
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I rode my bike six miles into school for awhile, too.
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I was very fit as a teenager.
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It was my grandparents, not my parents, who experienced the Great Depression and, as far as I could tell, the prevalence of the car and television is what changed neighbors into strangers in suburbia. Only in cities do you walk past your neighbors and I love how where I live in Queens is a very, very pedestrian neighborhood.
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When listening to older relatives, what I saw as the huge difference is not that children worked less (my brother and sister earned their own spending money through work, too) is the way Americans moved deep indoors inside of cars, watching TV instead of having neighbors over and never walking past anybody.
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The one and only time on the dead end road I lived on did all of the neighbors show up at the same place was when the house at the end of the road was on fire when I was about eleven years old. Other than that, it was wave from there cars from Mr what’s-his-name. If adults on my street only learned each other’s names if they had children the same age.
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As you can guess, I have put considerable thought into this. I don’t own a TV and live in a pedestrian neighborhood. I’ve always promised myself when I have children, they will have a New York City childhood with everybody and everything they need either a ten minute walk or a subway ride away.
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But, for work ethic, I think that is very exaggerated by some in the older generations and believe that calling the next generation lazy is the first thing the first human’s said to one another.
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“Back when I was your age, we used to really chase down gazelles. We didn’t have your fancy “spear” things you have today. We used to have to beat the gazelles with our fists – and we LOVED IT!”

apr2563,
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Some sort of WPA-type activity was exactly what I thought we should have done.
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Our infrastructure and industrial “house” is falling down around our ears. We could have used the stimulus to fix a LOT of these problems.

Afguy:

I don’t disagree with you. A lot of the technical aspects were started with the government many times for defense and security reasons. People could start companies to service or help them in years gone by because the barrier to entry was low and the cost of legal and regulatory issues were small. Microsoft and Apple came out of garages. Now they would be fined for breaking a city housing ordinance, need a permit to work, pay local revenue or head taxes and on and on ,but that is just to open the doors.

I saw a news cast the other day about a black women I believe in DC. She started a hair weaving business because she lost her job. One salon (without someone who weaves hair) complained to local officials who fined her, telling her she needed a work permit and that she needed a license after she did 2000 hrs of training at the local Beauty Institute. Which was great except no one at the Beauty Institute knew how to weave hair. Wasted time wasted money.
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But back to your point of government research. Most of those programs are being choked off because of budgets issues. To keep deficits only mildly out of control, these programs are cut in order to feed the entitlement beast. You can argue “Tax the rich” but as a percent of GDP are taxes are within historical range, the problem is entitlements pure and simple.

Feeinpa,
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Pick one: tax cuts should be extended since Economists know Economics better than non-Economists and we need a second stimulus package since Economists believe in it.
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Or
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Economists just take lucky guesses and are no better than palm readers and other charlatans. Who knows if we should extend tax cuts or have another stimulus package.
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Don’t cherry pick and expect respect.

Like I said, Free, ANYTHING can be done badly.
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Bad bureaucrats of BOTH stripes are a pain in the a$$.
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Some see a rule book and see what they can stop from happening.
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Others look at the same rule book and think about what they are trying to get done.
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That doesn’t reflect badly on government – it does say something about the quality of the person you have hired to fill the position.
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Working in government doesn’t make anyone good or bad, any more than a person owning a private business is automatically superior.
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It’s what they do with that position.

“We also now have a generation who we telling what to eat, how to think, education with no grades because no one is wrong, athletic events where there are no losers and everyone gets a trophy.”
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Shockingly, on your small point, not your larger one, I am in complete agreement with you.
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I’m tall with short legs and, therefore, was not a champion when I was a track team runner (and, yes, did work while, also, running track – I was busy when I was a teenager) and didn’t get nor would have I wanted a “thanks for playing” trophy.
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What to do about schools, however, is where we differ and, at the end of the day, I think older children, especially in their late teens, know the hollowness of a “thanks for playing” trophy, so, it I don’t think it is as dangerous as you seem to think it is.

Now that I think about it, Freeinpa, if somebody gave me a “thank you for playing” trophy for being a half mile track team runner, I would have been as red as a beat accepting a useless trophy and would have taken it home to promptly display it in the back of my closet (or, possibly, the garbage).
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I was in high school over 20 years ago, but, I don’t think teenagers have changed as much as you seem to think they have.
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Also, I have to laugh when, growing up in the 1980s that people who went to high school in the 1970s are calling that “the good ole days”.
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“Back when I was your age, we didn’t do all of this student-government stuff after school. After we used to smoke marijuana. You kids today – damn it – don’t know how to really smoke grass like we did. On the weekends, we didn’t have a party where some kid tried to sneak in a keg. HA, a keg of beer! That was what we drank between classes when the teacher wasn’t looking! Back when I was your age, we used to boot up heroin.
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You kids with your internet sex! We used get in our Dad’s pumpkin orange car, drive out to our girlfriend’s house, do cocaine and F-k!
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Kids these days… It’s nothing like the 1970s anymore!”
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People born in the 1950s and 1960s make people born in the ’70s, ’80′s and ’90′s blush hearing about the crazy things like drunk driving people used to do.
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Then some of you are the very same wild kids turned into “back in my day” 50 and 60 somethings.

My gosh those lazy Gen Y kids just aren’t buying cars like past generations!
http://autos.yahoo.com/articles/autos_content_landing_pages/1523/generation-y-giving-cars-a-pass/
They are walking, taking mass transit, biking.
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I am well into retirement. In my youth I knew kids who were spoiled, I knew juvenile delinquents, kids that didn’t work, girls that became pregnant, and kids that dropped out of school.
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This was in an era when segregation still thrived, women were still considered second class citizens, books, music, and movies were censored and condemned, priests were still abusing kids, and we saw the rise of suburban ticky tacky and restricted neighborhoods.
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Yet, so many want to return to that “good old time” when everything and everybody was so superior.

“Working in government doesn’t make anyone good or bad, any more than a person owning a private business is automatically superior.
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It’s what they do with that position.”
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I guess, for some reason, Freeinpa is far more mellow than usual, but, Afguy, you are saying exactly what I have been saying.
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Yes, it is true that, during tax season getting a straight answer from the IRS is impossible.
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On the other hand, if you arrive at exactly the right time – and this only happened once about six months ago – I was in and out of my local DMV in less than 30 minutes!
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Try asking most banks a question and you’ll be put on hold – just like with a government agency – hearing a recording of how much they love us. I don’t want to be loved by a bank! I want a human being to answer my question and, please, don’t repeat your web address again.
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Once, after being put on hold for nearly an hour with a cell phone company, the woman on the other end heard my tone of voice and immediately asked “you’re not going to yell at me, are you?” (No, I wanted my cell phone problem cleared up, not to yell at people).
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Once, I went to Comp USA (I call them Incompetent USA). I wanted to have the laptop I had just bought looked at. I was trying them on the phone for over an hour. I got to them at closing time. I pushed the doors open and stood there asking for a manager. A nervous manager came up to me and told me that they had closed five minutes earlier and could not answer my question. I told him about spending an hour trying to ask about it on the phone. He replied, “Yes. I know. We had a meeting about answering the phone.”
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A meeting about answering the phone? Do they have training sessions on how to say “how can I help you”.
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To finish it off, they told me that to fix this minor problem I would have to give them my laptop for a week to sent to Arizona (from Boston) to be fixed. But I needed my computer! I never got that problem fixed at all.
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Comp USA, “You’ve got questions – yeah, so do we. We have no idea how this stuff works.”
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I needed to know what kind of a screw I needed to use to put on a new license plate at Home Depot. I got excellent advice – from a fellow customer! The man with the apron stood there totally dumbfounded at my question until the customer, a mechanic, told me what size and type of screw to get. I turned to the guy wearing the apron with a smirk and said, “You know, you should give this guy a paycheck.” (Sure, I could have, instead told they guy with the apron that he didn’t deserve a paycheck, but, the way I put it made the employee grin – speak well of the one who knows things rather than insult the untrained employee.)
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So, this right wing, nutty concept that incompetence does not exist and is not rampant, also, in the private sector and that competence never exists in government jobs is comical at best and politically going to drive this country into the ground at worst.
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When I hear this right wing mantra about government screw ups and private sector perfection, I have to wonder do these people have bank accounts, insurance, go to stores or do they register 40 new cars a week and only see the DMV and have their wives or mothers handle all of the private sector transactions?

“…And of course all of the flower children of the 60-70s came from the hippies of the 50s…”
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Of course none of the conservatives came from liberal New Deal parents who worked for these government agencies and had children who grew up to call Ronald Reagan God and spit on every program that got their parents a chance to move up in the world.
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You’re right Freeinpa, but, it does go both ways. In the 1980s everybody joked that half of Wall Street’s most prominent young Republican donors were, in college, stoned hippies.

I think this should, also, be a peace time policy.
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Also, at another point you made a comment about a draft after 9/11. I was 30 when 9/11 happened and even at that time believed that I should have been getting a draft letter in the mail. To me (as I believe you would say) any long term combat situation should mandate a draft. Only needing about 5% of the people we needed during World War II, perhaps the draft could have offered many exemptions or very high fitness, health and exam status, but, we should have called a draft.
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Then, like I said, there is no way middle class and privileged kids would have stood by and watched when the talk started about invading Iraq. Every parent, every man and every woman who has a brother, boyfriend or husband under the age of 35 would have been reading and watching every word about that so-called proof that Husein had WMD. We would have stayed out of Iraq if non-military families had to risk losing their own children.

I guess, for some reason, Freeinpa is far more mellow than usual, but, Afguy, you are saying exactly what I have been saying.
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I think what happened is that Free and I found out we had a lot in common and were talking TO each other, rather than AT each other. Hope that continues.
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We don’t completely agree on the entitlement angle but he does have points of view I respect and can see.
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I’ve had it happen a time or two. With someone like Rusty, I’m not holding my breath. He’s entirely too proud of himself and his station in life.

I am not cherry picking. Economic forecast like global warming models are just what they are mathematical equations wrapped around a guess. They are a guide and no more.

Economic models telling you that X will happen will be surprised when the supposed inanimate, emotionless people react differently than expected. Proof #1 the stimulus package and the unemployment rate. Not even close.

Global warming models no different. Estimating temperatures, wind patterns, ice melting 20-30 years ahead and with other models can’t tell me with any certainty if it will rain tomorrow.

They are guides you place your bet and take your chances.

Oh and taxes, they should be extended because it is the people’s money and they know better than economists, politicians or pundits how best to spend their money.

But I suggest you follow you own advice, pick which you believe economist forecast or not . Don’t cherry pick.

Yet, so many want to return to that “good old time” when everything and everybody was so superior.
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We’re aware of the negatives of the period, but it WAS a time when people were actually more aware of and inter-dependent on others.
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THAT part was more conducive to a closer country. The politicians were more likable and cooperative and the extremes of either party were kept in the shadows (for the most part).

“I guess, for some reason, Freeinpa is far more mellow than usual, but, Afguy, you are saying exactly what I have been saying.”
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No Afguy and I have been having a reasonable discussion even though we disagree about many things. He speaks from the heart with experience and world based knowledge. It is refreshing. Other here go on and on and say nothing.
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“Like I said, Free, ANYTHING can be done badly.
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Bad bureaucrats of BOTH stripes are a pain in the a$$”

Could not agree more.. And with that I am going to see my physician: Dr. Jack Daniels for the evening.
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“But I suggest you follow you own advice, pick which you believe economist forecast or not . Don’t cherry pick.”
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I didn’t say it was wrong as you do everything else economists, biologists, physicists, geologists, climatologists, historians and mathematicians say.
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But economists were not wrong about the stimulus package. A stimulus package creates more jobs than there would have been if there were no stimulus package. If there were none, our official unemployment rate would be approaching 20% and our total number of people unable to work (including people out of work more than six months outside of the workforce automatically and called “discouraged laborers” in economic jargon) would be about 25%.
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But, if economists are not more valuable the psychics, then post our presidents daily astrology report from your local newspaper, too.
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(BTW: Unlike Reagan, I think Astrologers are the worst con artists since they, usually, totally fool themselves before they unintentionally deceive others – much like the long extinct proponents of Supply Side Economics.)

“We have citizens who are students struggling to get aid to go to college and now those precious resources will be given to non-citizens, much of it tax payer dollars.”
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Welcome to the 1990s. I would love to say “welcome to 2010″ but, starting when I was in college in 1990, the government only gave out loans and they were then about $2k per year against $8K to $22K in tuition. Now these loans are up to $5k against $15K to $50K in tuition.
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I thought I told you that only in Republican fantasies to student loans cover more than one third of the tution.
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If parents and students do not work full time and work together with the student staying at his parents’ home (so as not to cost more for housing) the tuition can not be paid with very, very few colleges as an exception who charge as little as $5k per year.

Enjoy, Free.
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Doesn’t he have a close cousin named Johnny Walker?

Although my family lived through the depression and served in WWII, and I admired them greatly, I never bought into the “greatest generation” theory. I think most American generations, when challenged to the extreme, will arise to meet the need.
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apr2563,
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Not sure I do either but there was a definite difference. During WWII, nearly the entire Yankees infield was in the Navy. Ted Williams was a pilot in both WWII and Korea. A number of actors were in active combat. Clark Gable was a waist gunner on B-24s. Eddie Albert (“Green Acres”) was a landing craft driver. Jimmy Stewart was a Wing Commander flying B-17s over Europe. John Kennedy and his brother Joseph both had their families work to get them INTO the war, NOT out of it.
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During Vietnam, Cheney had “other priorities”, as did others in past administrations. There are those eligible for Vietnam where I go to church whose marriages and pregnancies coincided with changes in the draft laws (by their own admission). The Vietnam-era draft had too many loopholes for those with the contacts or funding to tke advantage of them. It was FAR from “universal”.
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Not sure what changed, but the concept of service by the famous and influential has undergone some modifications since then.