Morning Must Reads: Anger

I was out sick yesterday. What did I miss?

Hope that you’re feeling better.

It’s the demand, stupid.

“Former President Bill Clinton recently provided fuel to the misguided claim of structural unemployment when he claimed that employers are having a hard time filling job openings because the unemployed workers are inadequately skilled for the available jobs. Speaking during a televised interview, Clinton noted that, ‘We are coming out of a recession but job openings are going up twice as fast as new hires….People don’t have the job skills for the jobs that are open.’

The data, however, tell a different story: that hiring has actually outpaced job openings. [...]

The fact that private employers hired 63% more people than the number of openings they had indicates that they have not had trouble finding workers with adequate skills. In fact, the ratio of hires to job openings has been higher during the current recovery than at any time during the prior recovery of the early 2000s. It is not the skills of the workforce that limit our ability to reduce unemployment, but the limited number of job openings due to a shortfall in consumer and business demand for goods and services.”

Was it the main course, side dish, veggies or dessert that made you sick?
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“‘As your governor, you’re going to be seeing a lot of me on the front page, saying ‘Governor LePage tells Obama to go to hell,” LePage said to applause.”
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So much for decorum….

Prediction: Marco Polo’s lead will evaporate.

Ahh Mr. President, Constitutional scholar: If you understand they broke the law, then they HAVE a criminal record.
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Let’s provide a pathway to citizenship for those who are already here, understanding that they broke the law, so they’re going to have to pay a fine and pay back taxes and, I think, learn English, make sure that they don’t have a criminal record,” said Obama. “There are some hoops that they’re going to have to jump through, but giving them a pathway is the right thing to do.

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/lets-not-turn-immigration-into-us-vs-them-says-president-who-is-suing-a-us-state-over-immigration-law/

So lock ‘em up, Rust-eze, lock ‘em UP!

McDonald’s: Obamacare regulations will cause 30,000 employees to lose insurance
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Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/mcdonalds-obamacare-regulations-will-cause-30000-employees-to-lose-insurance-104070558.html#ixzz111WjGN45
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“if you like your insurance you can keep…..Never mind!
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“Insurers say dozens of other employers could find themselves in the same situation as McDonald’s. Aetna Inc., one of the largest sellers of mini-med plans, provides the plans to Home Depot Inc., Disney Worldwide Services, CVS Caremark Corp., Staples Inc. and Blockbuster Inc., among others, according to an Aetna client list obtained by the Journal.”
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I guess that’s what happens when you let clueless bureaucrats write legislation and then vote on it without reading. Conservatives have said from the start that the left formulated this ObamaCare to force everyone into government HC. The left vehemently denied it. As the number of companies dropping HC climbs it will show the left either has no idea about business and economics in general or they just out and out lied. Strong cases can be made for both.

“A[n] option is for courts to accelerate foreclosures by ignoring due process, proper documentation and legal process in order to kick people out of their homes and preserve the value of senior tranches of RMBS while giving mortgage servicers a nice kickback.”

“…if you care about basic Western liberalism–the classical kind, with a Lockean understanding of freedom to own property along with freedoms of speech and religion– you should be pissed off. This is a clear-cut instance of the rich and powerful decimating other people’s property rights, rights that are supposed to protect the weak from the strong, in order to preserve their wealth and autonomy. Unless you think property rights are mere placeholders for whatever the financial sector demands are, this should be resisted. This should be viewed as a problem an order of magnitude larger than Kelo v. City of New London.

The short problem is that banks are foreclosing without showing clear ownership of the property. In addition, ‘foreclosure mills’ are processing 100,000s of foreclosures a month without doing any of the actual due diligence or legal legwork required for the state to justify the taking of property and putting people on the street. Even worse, many are faking documentation and committing other fraud in the process. The government is allowing this to happen both by not having courts block it from going forward, but also through purchasing the services of these mills. As Barney Frank noted: ‘Why is Fannie Mae using lawyers that are accused of regularly engaging in fraud to kick people out of their homes?’”

Bart Gellman’s piece is highly recommended for people on both sides.
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The rhetoric is stomach turning. And too familiar.

God backing former Satanist O’Donnell

No deport them. But you clearly have a President and the left who likes selective enforcement of the law. Maybe you can provide us a list as to the ones that should be enforced and the ones we shouldn’t enforce.
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And I think it was particularly telling the “I think learn English” view of the President. Which means the cost of these “citizens” rises and assimilation drops.

That cover piece is really chilling.

Landrieu holds nominee hostage in exchange for Big Oil concessions.

“Keep in mind, Landrieu doesn’t object to Jack Lew. On the contrary, she’s described him as an “outstanding” choice to head the OMB, and would be more to happy to vote for his confirmation. It’s just that she’s looking for a hostage, and Lew became a convenient choice to exploit — as soon as Landrieu gets what she wants, she’ll be gracious enough to let the Senate vote on a key administration nominee. Until then, she just doesn’t care about the consequences.

In this case, those consequences aren’t just minor inconveniences. The Office of Management and Budget is poised to start writing the 2012 budget, and it needs the administration’s budget director. But there is no budget director, because Mary Landrieu, in a move that’s been fairly described as “both absurd and irresponsible,” has decided her demands are more important the administration’s ability to govern.

And what are those demands? She wants oil companies to start deepwater drilling again, as well as faster permits for shallow-water drilling projects…”

What was missing from the Examiner story’s selective quoting from the Wass Street Journal? Oh the fact that these companies can and are seeking waivers and will probably get them for these mini med plans.

Steven Larsen, the HHS official who received McDonald’s email memo, said the department doesn’t want employers to drop coverage over the law. The agency says it has already given the carrier for McDonald’s and others the chance to seek exemption from new annual limits on benefit payouts.

The President is not sure illegal immigrants should learn English but the Federal Government is convinced that $27 million needs to be spent to change signs from all capital letters. Of all the things wrong n this country the DOT makes sure we spend money on lettering. I wonder if the state will to post signs “these news signs brought to you by stimulus money”
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You just can’t make this stuff up.

Federal copy editors are demanding the city change its 250,900 street signs — such as these for Perry Avenue in The Bronx — from the all-caps style used for more than a century to ones that capitalize only the first letters.

Changing BROADWAY to Broadway will save lives, the Federal Highway Administration contends in its updated Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, citing improved readability.

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/bronx/million_kuj8X4Z2VolVhXnCymfkvM#ixzz111alvMR5

The Secret World of Extreme Militias.
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“Bart Gellman has a truly chilling cover story on “twisted patriotism,” reporting on (among other things) two serious domestic terrorist threats that almost were: A man named James Cummings plotted a dirty bomb attack on D.C. and James Van Brunn, the Holocaust Museum shooter, considered targeting White House adviser David Axelrod.”
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Let’s scare the voters. Maybe then they will vote Democratic.
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There are gangs in every major city that are causing more problems than these wackos that are part of militias. Hundreds of people are killed nearly every week by gangs. Gang members out number Militia members by 1,000 to 1. Yet as the election draws near it’s time for TIME to do its part to try and scare the American voters.
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Militia = Conservative.
Conservatives = Bad
Conservatives = Republicans
Republicans = Bad
Vote Democratic
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TIME I don’t think it’s going to work this time. You have very little credibility with the American Public.
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So if they give everyone exemptions, what is the point of the law? Hoping everyone would just quietly comply? Or just another example of Democratic amateur hour in bill writing

Income inequality gap is wider than previous years, according to Census.

“The top-earning 20 percent of Americans — those making more than $100,000 each year — received 49.4 percent of all income generated in the U.S., compared with the 3.4 percent earned by those below the poverty line, according to newly released census figures. That ratio of 14.5-to-1 was an increase from 13.6 in 2008 and nearly double a low of 7.69 in 1968.

A different measure, the international Gini index, found U.S. income inequality at its highest level since the Census Bureau began tracking household income in 1967. The U.S. also has the greatest disparity among Western industrialized nations.

At the top, the wealthiest 5 percent of Americans, who earn more than $180,000, added slightly to their annual incomes last year, census data show. Families at the $50,000 median level slipped lower.

‘Income inequality is rising, and if we took into account tax data, it would be even more,’ said Timothy Smeeding, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor who specializes in poverty. ‘More than other countries, we have a very unequal income distribution where compensation goes to the top in a winner-takes-all economy.’”

I think there should be more discussion of the rise in income disparity and how that is contributing to the lack of middle class jobs. Can companies continue to pay CEOs many millions, in increasing amounts and still have money left to hire lower wage workers?

Since the early 1990s, the main driver of income inequality has been skyrocketing incomes at the top. But during the recession the main driver appears to be an increase in the poverty rate steeper than anything we’ve seen since 1994.

http://www.slate.com/id/2268981/

Lots of vegetables here, but worth a serious read.

So you read the piece?

You Can’t Make this Stuff Up.
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I am sure its because he did so well when he ran for President against GHWB. Can’t wait for the ad with Obama in a Tank.

White House gets political advice from Dukakis

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/121531-white-house-gets-political-advice-from-dukakis

“Angle has said she will not debate after Oct. 16, when early voting begins, because she wants an ‘informed electorate.’”

~ excerpt from the linked piece on Angle & Reid.

Wait, what? Is that reading right?

In other news, neither the media nor Obama and Biden has referred to Mary Landrieu as a radical extremist nor have they asked her to buck up, so the gov’t can prepare a budget.

Apparently everyone doesn’t agree anymore!
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“In a document published after a rebellion by more than 40 of its fellows, the Royal Society’s new guide to climate change says there is greater uncertainty about future temperature increases than it previously had suggested”

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/

Dream on.

“The top-earning 20 percent of Americans — those making more than $100,000 each year — received 49.4 percent of all income generated in the U.S., compared with the 3.4 percent earned by those below the poverty line, according to newly released census figures.”
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They also pay nearly 70% of the taxes versus zero at the bottom. But once again the left misses the larger more important point. The middle class was squeezed out by it own policy of more wages, more benefits to a growing number of folks. Managers of the business looked at ways to maintain or increase profits took a look at globalization and found cheaper sources of labor. The left loves the low cost of electronics, clothing, appliances etc. Look no further than the ballyhooed electric car. NIssan can build one for about $27,000 while union laden GM builds one for over $40,000. Now picture the ipod at $1000 or cell phones for $1,500. And guess what we have the 1970s economy all over again.
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Does management of companies make too much money- yes. Having struggled through inflation of the 70s they now focus on cutting costs of labor and materials continuously. The left views corporate profits as an entitlement and believes it is an never ending supply. Now they want to tax companies at higher rates for off-shore plants or impose tariffs (shades of the 1930s). The result will be precisely the opposite that they expect. Slow learners!

That’s simple enough. Send all 12 million + of ‘em back to where they came (at a cost of substantial million$), split up families, leave children born in the US here and watch those jobs no one else wants to do go unfilled. No nose on YOUR face, right?

For everyone complaining about the lack of liberal Democrats, it seems the message might be if you want to survive, you better be more of a conservaDem. If you don’t like Obama’s agenda, I’m sure you’ll love even more the newer, more rightist Democratic opposition.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704416904575501760957676960.html?mod=WSJ_WSJ_US_News_3

“She wants oil companies to start deepwater drilling again, as well as faster permits for shallow-water drilling projects…”
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It’s called job creation. Maybe Obama should try it.

Absolutely correct, grape_crush.
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Is the misinformation repeated by Democratic elites like Bill Clinton a function of their ignorance, ideology or dishonesty?
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Is the Democratic chairman of the Deficit Commission, Erskine Bowles, under similar fundamental misapprehensions?
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No wonder our government’s response to the economic crises has been so inadequate. The out-going National Economic Council Chief is Larry Summers, Clinton’s Treasury Secretary. The Administration and Congress are full of Rubin-ite ideologues and corrupt opportunists.
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If the elites of both major parties say they believe things that just are not true, and which data contradicts, then aren’t we assured of further failure?
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How can Bill Clinton repeat claims that are demonstrably false? How can Republicans run on the ridiculous fantasy that lowered tax rates increase government revenue?
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Isn’t this situation sort of like economic WMD, where everybody involved –apart from us proles out here– is just sickeningly wrong, and yet there are no consequences for the failures that ultimately do not affect their lives –only ours?

Tom Coburn with another d!ck move.

“Last spring, the United States pledged nearly $1.2 billion in emergency aid to Haiti following its tragic earthquake that left hundreds of thousands of people dead and many more homeless.

Yet the Associated Press (AP) reports today that ‘not a cent of the $1.15 billion the U.S. promised for rebuilding has arrived’ to Haitians who badly the need the aid. This summer, both the House and the Senate passed a bill that would make $917 million available for Haiti reconstruction aid. Yet Congress must also pass an authorization bill that directs exactly how the money will be spent, and thus far, the U.S. Senate has failed to do.

The AP conducted its own investigation of why the Senate has failed to pass the authorization bill, and it discovered that a single senator ‘pulled it for further study.’ After calling dozens of senators’ offices, the AP discovered that the senator holding up the bill is Tom Coburn (R-OK). Coburn spokeswoman Becky Berhardt explained that the reason he is holding up the bill is because he objects to the creation of a senior Haiti coordinator — a position that would cost a paltry $5 million over five years — when the United States currently has an ambassador to the country…”

freeinpa,
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Your link doesn’t work anymore. Here one that does.
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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1316469/Royal-Society-issues-new-climate-change-guide-admits-uncertainties.html#

Let’s stop creating bureaucrats in other countries and lend ‘em our own! Yikes.

I agree, though ultimately its the wealth gap that is hardest to study and most people don’t acknowledge. Consider a citizen who goes to a state school, no rides all loans and gets a job at 30,000 a year. Then consider a private school attendee who follows the same path but has a debt burden 2xs as high. Their actual wealth gap is different and might plunge one of them into poverty.
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Now, education prices have been doubling (helped by an excess of credit (doesn’t that sound familiar?)).
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The cost of medicine has been increasing.
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The cost of transportation has been increasing.
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The cost of food has been increasing.
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But what about wages? When was the last time wages matched rising prices? Even on top of the income gap, there’s a much larger problem being fueled by the income gap. The wealth gap is a larger problem, especially among those who rely on credit.

OAK BROOK, Ill. — The fast-food restaurant chain McDonald’s Corp. has denied a report that it’s considering dropping health care coverage for some employees in response to a health care reform provision.

The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that McDonald’s, the world’s largest hamburger chain, has warned regulators it could drop its plan for some 30,000 workers unless the government waives a new requirement in the health care overhaul. The paper cited a memo from McDonald’s to federal officials.

The paper said that last week, a top McDonald’s official told regulators its insurance plan won’t meet a requirement for next year that it spend at least 80 percent to 85 percent of its premium revenue on medical care.

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20100930/us-mcdonald-s-health-care/
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So this onerous burden imposed by the new law is that the majority of premiums collected be spent on actual medical care. That’s surely reason enough to repeal it. Oh, but wait, we have to pay the insurance execs salaries!

Not to be a dick, but do we really have the money to be sending overseas while we neglect our own poor?

Unbelievable.

“[GOP Senate candidate for Wisconsin Ron] Johnson, instead told policymakers, I” think it is extremely important to consider the economic havoc and the other victims [the Wisconsin Child Victims Act] would likely create.”

In other words, if victims of child abuse seek justice, it might interfere with the economy. It’s preferable, then, to make it harder for victims to go to court. In a dispute pitting victimized children and abusers, Johnson spoke out against a measure looking out for the former.[...]

Making matters even worse, Joe Sudbay notes that Johnson served on the Green Bay Diocese Finance Council, which was being sued for its role in the sexual abuse of children at the time of his testimony, putting him in an awkward position — he urged state lawmakers to make it harder for victims to sue while at the same time helping a church at the center of an abuse scandal. “

Yeah, no kidding. Not good news to find out what’s happening in the eastern part of my state. Unfortunately, not too surprising, either.

Also pls see this link explaining that McDonald’s workers could obtain much better insurance using the same or less weekly payments in the new exchanges to be set up. Informative? yes. Likely to be covered in the MSM? er, not so much.

http://www.balloon-juice.com/2010/09/30/id-rather-have-a-plan-on-the-new-health-exchanges-than-mcdonalds-health-insurance-any-day-of-the-week/#comments

“Liberal” is jargon for people who want to take away your freedom thanks to the vocal right pundits. I can’t say I’m surprised by this turn of events, and I certainly am not looking forward to it.
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Hate to say it, but there either needs to be an offense against the right through a propaganda war, or you’ve got to find a way to create a “liberal” tea-party to counter the growing sentiment in the middle.
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Also, I’d like to point out that that growing sentiment isn’t pro-conservative, its just anti-whoever is perceived to be untrustworthy, un-american, or a thief of taxes.

…but do we really have the money to be sending overseas while we neglect our own poor?
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No, but consider:
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a) That’s not part of Coburn’s rationale…and both the House and Senate have made the funds available.
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b) If that amount of money was really a concern, what does that say for aid given to other countries, like, say Israel?
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c) We’ve pledged the money for relief efforts. It’s not really right to fail to follow through on a promise like that.

I thought the Muslims were the extreme militants?

Maybe on the next Muslim day of prayer he will say a prayer for you. He wouldn’t do it on our day of prayer. This is why so many people think he is a muslim.

http://conservativeblogscentral.blogspot.com/2010/09/bill-maher-calling-you-are-greedy.html

gumOnShoe – Yes you are a d!ck. We are not sending the money over to Haiti just because the people are starving, there was an earthquake and we pledged to send aid. How many Haitians have starved to death or died from exposure because this @sshole Tom Coburn is holding up the money. Stay classy Republicans.

O’Donnell’s misleading denial about misleading others about her edumacation.

“Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell (R-DE) has issued a statement saying the wrong information on her LinkedIn profile was posted by someone else. She’s asked that LinkedIn remove the profile, which has false information about her educational background.[...]

As we’ve been reporting, both schools say she did not attend. In the case of Oxford, O’Donnell earned a certificate from an Oxford course which her campaign said is ‘overseen’ by a summer seminar program called the Phoenix Institute.

A spokesman for Phoenix told Greg Sargent that the page was ‘misleading.’ As for Claremont, O’Donnell actually was in a fellowship program at a conservative think tank with a similar name but not affiliated with the university.

In O’Donnell’s statement, she says she ‘completed’ the Lincoln fellowship. However, O’Donnell’s bio page on her own campaign site calls that a ‘graduate fellowship.’”

I think my IQ was lowered just following this link. What is it with conservatives and LARGE text? Please do not continue to post this drivel

“That’s simple enough. Send all 12 million + of ‘em back to where they came (at a cost of substantial million$), split up families, leave children born in the US here and watch those jobs no one else wants to do go unfilled.”
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Well it seems the cost of millions is still less than an ongoing billions that they suck away from actual citizens. Why are you suggesting the families split up? The children should go with the parents When they reach the age of majority, they can decide if they wan to return.
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And what is the left telling us that with real unemployment nearing 17% no one would do those jobs. Is that the result of the entitlement culture the left had created?
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But you still avoid the question of what laws should we enforce or not enforce?

“That’s surely reason enough to repeal it. Oh, but wait, we have to pay the insurance execs salaries!”
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Right they should work for free. This comes from a political philosophy that brought AmeriCorp volunteers at $20,000+ per year. Yes payment fpor “volunteers” but let’s let government set compensation for other businesses because look at the success of the Post Office, Amtrak Fannie and Freddie. Yes they certainly know how to run a business.

Paul,
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No he didn’t. It’s the reflexive need to make the chilling militia movement become a he she said liberals want to scare.
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Only thing is that liberals are not running around in the bush training for when Muslim radicals are running around shootin’ and a Muslim friendly president (I wonder who?) says they can’t take care of them.
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Reality being that Obama is even more aggresivly pursuing terrorist than Bush ever did, But this is not about what radical people are doing in the face of pure BS – it’s that liberals just like to use fear.
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I say this again – back in 2004 liberals complained about moving to Canada. In 2010 conservatives have threatened to use their 2nd ammendment if they don’t win in November 2nd.
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That’s the difference and 3x is blind to it since his choking on his reflexive need to make this a partisan rant.
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Personally I would feel the same aversion to militia like this if they we’re left or right leaning.

thx

This:

“They also pay nearly 70% of the taxes versus zero at the bottom.” –freeinpa

is factually false.
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Even the conservative Tax Foundation says that the top quintile (20%) paid an average total tax rate of 34.5 percent (2004 data).
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Here are the actual data, in which, when one combines all taxes, not just the cherry-picked taxes the misinformation campaigners on the right use to confuse folks like freeinpa, it is shown that percentage of taxes paid is far, far less progressive (meaning “progressive as opposed to regressive,” in economic terminology, not political terms):
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http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2009/04/13/business/economy/taxrates2.jpg
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It’s only when you focus on federal income tax, the way that rightist think thanks like Heritage do, and then don’t count the fact that that top tier collects around as much in terms of their share of total national income as they shell out, that you get these sorts of conveniently tilted numbers.
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See how that works?
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freeinpa substitutes (like he’s heard so many times in rightist media) the term “taxes” for “federal income tax,” and gets to elide the difference between tax rate and that specific set of taxes, and suddenly it seems like something terribly unfair is going on! It seems as if we’re taxing top “earners” at 70%! How crazy! How unfair! How will they have any money to spend in private markets “creating jobs,” if they can be persuaded that the government won’t further hurt these poor souls in return for their philanthropy?
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This is how elites who fundamentally believe that freeinpa is lower than them on some Darwinist scale –and therefore deserves his sorry lot in life as a non-billionaire supporting the top shelf, fighting their wars, building their nation, paying for their bailouts– get him to vote against a tax policy that favors him.
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That’s how they get ordinary folks like freeinpa to believe that the system is unfair to extremely wealthy people!
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Of course, the reality is that, when you don’t just get to pick the data you want to justify your preconceptions, the numbers say that the highest overall tax rate including all federal, state, and local taxes is 32.2 percent, with the top one percent paying even less, at 30.9 percent.
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It’s just plain wrong.
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The top money-makers in this economy do not pay all of the taxes, the middle class does.
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That’s the fact, despite some people’s ideological desperation to prove that elites deserve the grotesque amounts of wealth they’re currently able to siphon from us productive people –because they constantly bribe the government to enact policies that put more money in elite hands, and not ours.
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If we liberals can’t know the facts, and get our fellow Americans to understand the facts, then we’re not doing our job, even if it’s also true that things are stacked against us right now.
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Did you know the facts, fellow liberals?
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Did you know what to say when freeinpa trotted out Heritage Foundation’s “70%” talking point?
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Why or why not?

“Banking analyst Meredith Whitney says states’ fiscal problems pose a systemic risk.

“There’s no doubt about it,” Whitney told CNBC. “The similarities between the states and the banks are extreme, to the extent that the states have been spending dramatically, growing leverage dramatically,” Whitney said.

“I think the crisis in the states will result in at least the third attempt at a trillion-dollar bailout.”

Whitney says the problem lies with municipal, not states’ debt service.

She also notes that when her firm looked at states’ credit ratings done by Moody’s, the reasons for those overly high ratings were invisible. “Our ratings are quantitatively based,” she notes.

“(States) spending has grown way faster than revenues,” Whitney observes. State revenues have risen by 45 percent since 2007-2008, while spending has increased 60 percent.”
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Of course its because tax rates just aren’t high enough no that spending is too high.

Ivy, Agree totally, esp. after reading above that Dems like Bill Clinton are still parroting those tired old cliches about how ill-prepared we workers are for the jobs at hand. Ideas that have been used to justify so many bad economic ideas that have hurt the American worker.
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For more detailed info on income disparity, found this article on income disparity. A few years old, updated this month, yet the trends are clear and brutal:

http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html

Exactly.

Yeah, I really don’t think revulsion to home grown militia movements is a partisan issue.
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But in 2010 weather reporting has become partisan, so I am being naive.

House Dems break with majority, side with Repubs who want to increase the deficit.

“A group of 47 House Democrats has written to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., asking to extend the soon-to-expire Bush tax cuts on dividends and capital gains, echoing a similar letter sent this month by 31 House Democrats that advocates extending the tax cuts for upper-income taxpayers.

As the midterm elections approach, incumbents are eager to avoid alienating voters who are worried that their taxes would rise with the expiration of the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts. That includes not only Republicans, but many Democrats as well. It’s also one reason why the Democratic leadership in the House and Senate has decided to put off a vote on the tax cut extension until after the election.”

How I hope and pray that they will | But today I am still just a bill.

“Four Democrats and Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) voted with a united Republican caucus to block the bill, which was crafted to address the 9.6 percent unemployment rate in the run-up to November’s midterm elections. On a vote of 53 to 45, the measure failed to garner the 60 votes needed to overcome a GOP filibuster.

Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) defended the bill as a ‘simple, common-sense’ effort to ‘keep American jobs here in America’ and to ‘stop forcing taxpayers in Nevada and across the nation to pay for giveaways that reward companies for sending American jobs overseas.’ [...]

The bill under consideration Tuesday would have ended tax deductions for expenses incurred when companies shutter U.S. operations and shift the work abroad; imposed a new tax on products once made in the United States but now manufactured by foreign workers; and offered employers a two-year payroll tax holiday on jobs repatriated from overseas.

The payroll tax break would have let employers keep about $1 billion over the next decade, according to the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation, while the tax increases would have taken back about $300 billion over the same period.”

No, gumOnShoe, is not being a dick at all.
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It’s a completely reasonable question, one that doesn’t require invective in response.
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If Americans are having a hard time, our government’s first priority is to them, no matter who else in the world is miserable and justifiably deserves help.
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If we can’t help ourselves, how can we begin to help anyone else?
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These are all moral and rational positions to take, and suggest that it’s offensive or wrong to ask that sort of question betrays either a lack of understanding, or antipathy toward ordinary folks here at home who perhaps aren’t as “deserving.”
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An argument about keeping our promises is one thing, calling people dicks for asking the question is another, and it’s wrong.

Not exactly poverty line wages.
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http://www.healthreformwatch.com/2009/05/20/health-insurance-ceos-total-compensation-in-2008/

a) That’s not part of Coburn’s rationale…and both the House and Senate have made the funds available.

I’m not claiming coburn’s not an idiot. The shoe fits, as it were.

b) If that amount of money was really a concern, what does that say for aid given to other countries, like, say Israel?

Even as a Jew, I don’t think money should be sent to Isreal or any other country. That’s not what our taxes are for, in my opinion. That’s not a public good. Maybe, a world good, but certainly not a United States of a America good. And globalization arguments aside, sending money to a money shredder like Haiti is absolutely a waste of money.

c) We’ve pledged the money for relief efforts. It’s not really right to fail to follow through on a promise like that.

That’s like saying, oh we invaded Iraq so it would be wrong to say it was wrong to invade Iraq.
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Look, if you want to make a private donation, go for it. Just don’t take it out of my taxes. If I don’t want my taxes to go to wars I don’t believe in (which I don’t), I don’t want my taxes to go to lost causes either that don’t directly benefit the people in this country.
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If that makes me a dick, so be it. Coburn may be idiotically unable to make a sane argument, but it doesn’t mean the U.S. coffers are there for charity. I support social institutions in the U.S. because they make sense and improve the standard of life for everyone and because I also believe the wealth holders in America often abuse, misuse, and undercompensate their workers, not because I believe people have a moral obligation to help the needy or less fortunate.

stuart: Excellent comment, especially on a Thursday
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However, I thought freeinpa was referring to the taxes collected by the US government.
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He’s closer to being right in this case, because in 2007, the top 1% of earners paid slightly more in taxes than the bottom 95%, each about 40%. This would imply that the top 5% pay 60% of the fed income taxes collected by the IRS.
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http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/30/top-1-paid-more-in-federal-income-taxes-than-bottom-95-in-07/
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Since the rich in the US are indeed getting richer, faster, I see no reason why they should not compensate the American people accordingly…

Reason #3,923,020,380 that the democrats need an effective message machine, how can these votes not be used against the people who make them?

WikiLeaks on meltdown?

“A domino chain of resignations at the secret-spilling site WikiLeaks followed a unilateral decision by autocratic founder Julian Assange to schedule an October release of 392,000 classified U.S. documents from the war in Iraq, according to former WikiLeaks staffers.

Key members of WikiLeaks were angered to learn last month that Assange had secretly provided media outlets with embargoed access to the vast database, under an arrangement similar to the one WikiLeaks made with three newspapers that released documents from the Afghanistan war in July. WikiLeaks is set to release the Iraq trove on Oct. 18, according to ex-staffers — far too early, in the view of some of them, to properly redact the names of U.S. collaborators and informants in Iraq.”

Good try stuart. With everything you type and the amount of space you use up, one might think you are either speaking on a topic which you know anything about, or that you are giving the truth or not.
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Here are the IRS statistical data, which clearly shows that the 25% of wage earners pay 85% of the taxes in this country. The bottom 50% of wage earners pay no taxes at all in this country.
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Slice it, dice it, do whatever you may, you can’t dispute these facts and freeinpa is exactly correct in what he said.
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http://www.american.com/archive/2007/november-december-magazine-contents/guess-who-really-pays-the-taxes

Yeah, it was all because we spent too much…..
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…on the super-rich
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The Bush Administration’s Tax Cuts May Have Cost the Gov’t $2.34T
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http://wallstreetpit.com/11650-the-bush-administrations-tax-cuts-may-have-cost-the-govt-234t
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Add that to the $3 trillion we’ve spent in Iraq.
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Freepy ignores all that, though. He’d rather blame it all on ‘libtards’ wanting to insure children. Yeah, that’s the ticket…

Also, too: (Sorenson highlighted this as well)
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http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/09/cbo_extending_the_bush_tax_cut.html
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“CBO Director Doug Elmendorf testified before the Senate Budget Committee today and dropped something of a bombshell. Extending the Bush tax cuts, he said, will “probably reduce income relative to what would otherwise occur in 2020.” The reason is simple: Debt. [...]
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…as Elmendorf said, ‘Either a full or a partial extension of the tax cuts through 2012 would reduce income by much less than would a full or partial permanent extension.’ So the bottom line is that extending the tax cuts indefinitely would hurt the economy. The less you extend the tax cuts, the less damage you do to the economy. And this goes for both the Democrats and the Republicans, whose tax cut plans are much more similar to each other’s than to a plan that doesn’t extend the tax cuts, or extends them only for a couple of years.”

And your point is what? Government should set wages? Government should decide who earns enough and re-distribute it to someone else?

The top officers at Fannie and Freddie received over $6 million in compensation for costing taxpayers over $111 billion in bailout money Not poverty wages either nor under and Financial Reform either.

Please enlighten us.

“The Real Impact of Food Stamp Cuts”.

“This cut is taking something away from every other meal for children in low-income families, to help get them a better lunch. Someone in the White House last week, I saw, claimed that the child-nutrition bill will dramatically reduce child obesity.

That’s ridiculous. They are cutting the budget from kids at home to pay for kids in school. If kids eat in school every day, in a year, that’s still only 16 percent of their meals, because there are weekends, there are holidays, there are nights, there is summer. There is no way that marginally improving 16 percent of your meals is going to dramatically change your diet — especially not if you are taking away from the rest.[...]

I’ve been pulling my punches, and my progressive colleagues have been pulling their punches, because we’re rooting for this administration to succeed. But honestly, if George W. Bush did what they’re trying to do, we’d be camping out in front of the White House. Goodwill only goes so far when tens of thousands of children need food.”

kbanginmotown:
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Thanks, although the whole point is that solely focusing on federal income tax –and ignoring any other taxes paid– is what allows rightists to make that claim.
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I know that freeinpa was implying federal income taxes (whether knowingly or not), because when you go back to the source of that talking point –the Heritage Foundation– that’s what they say. Of course, people like Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, Michael Savage, Laura Ingraham, Ann Coulter, etc, frequently use the language that freeinpa used, and just say (falsely) “taxes.”
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It’s not true that federal income tax is the only tax paid by Americans. When we count all taxes, it turns out that the top quintile pays a much more comparable share.
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That’s an important distinction.
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If we don’t make that distinction, and we allow the talking point to slide around implying total taxes, then lots of folks in America get the idea that extremely wealthy people are insanely burdened by taxes, when they are basically pay as much as middle class people do overall.

And your dessert…

The war is finally over!

“The final payment of £59.5 million, writes off the crippling debt that was the price for one world war and laid the foundations for another.

Germany was forced to pay the reparations at the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 as compensation to the war-ravaged nations of Belgium and France and to pay the Allies some of the costs of waging what was then the bloodiest conflict in history, leaving nearly ten million soldiers dead.

The initial sum agreed upon for war damages in 1919 was 226 billion Reichsmarks, a sum later reduced to 132 billion, £22 billion at the time.

The bill would have been settled much earlier had Adolf Hitler not reneged on reparations during his reign.

Hatred of the settlement agreed at Versailles, which crippled Germany as it tried to shape itself into a democracy following armistice, was of significant importance in propelling the Nazis to power.

‘On Sunday the last bill is due and the First World War finally, financially at least, terminates for Germany.’ said Bild, the country’s biggest selling newspaper. “

SZ:

If you are going to go off on a deranged tirade about a post I would strongly suggest you read and understand it before you go into a blind rage.

The 70% is NOT the tax rate but percent of income taxes paid. Now you wan to argue all taxes. Ok So you agree the Social Security Trust and Medicare Trust Funds are frauds set up by the left. They have been used to support spending for years and now will need to be supplemented by the federal income tax. Or do you support raising the Social Security tax to the 20%+ level that will be needed to support it.
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What is tiresome is this “oh the misinformation from the right”. Stating that tax cuts DO NOT causes deficits–it’s spending. Its not the governments money- its the taxpayer. I
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If the government extends the tax cuts and receives the exact same amount of revenues and the deficit is increased— it is increased by spending! The tax rate needed to support the ongoing spending, the increase in entitlements would force total tax rates on those paying the vast majority of taxes would go to be 70% or higher. It amount s to nothing short of re-distribution and socialism. You can argue about textbook definition of socialism because when caught, in reality, that is what liberal do.
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So if you want to talk about misinformation– man up. State that what the goal of liberals will be to limit compensation of high earners, tax them as much as possible, provide an ever growing network of entitlements to achieve redistribution of wealth.,

Otherwise spare us the indignation about misinformation.

Your post was about McDonald’s and health insurance. I’m done responding to your moving off topic and back to not responding period. Will remember that facts never seem to make any impression.

So…Rahm out and Rouse in.
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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-09-30/emanuel-said-expected-to-resign-white-house-chief-of-staff-post-tomorrow.html

None of the real obstructionists, people like Landrieu, Lieberman, Bayh, Reid, Nelson, etc., is ever called a radical. They are referred to as “centrists” or “moderates” by the media, as we all know. The term has become meaningless. Maybe left and right are too? Perhaps we should use the terms, empiricist, idealist and mystic, instead? Those of us who believe the history of actual events is valuable input to public policy can call ourselves empiricists instead of leftists.

Maybe it’s reading Krugman these past months, and this goes right to Stuart’s post @1.1, but this has only recently occurred to me: once the right-wing became functionally insane on a steady, 30-year diet of empirically false corporatist “conservative” dogma and then dragged the pathologically centrist far enough toward them, liberals are really the only non-radicals in politics. They really are the only people left with a rational view of the world. And their just aren’t that many of them and they possess almost zero political power. What’s a sane person to do?

Anger?
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It is that Walmart add at the top of the page, it snags me all the time.

“How can Bill Clinton repeat claims that are demonstrably false? How can Republicans run on the ridiculous fantasy that lowered tax rates increase government revenue?”
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I agree with you completely.
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The answer is simple: The stimulus package was too small.
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With no customers coming in the door, businesses do not need a tax cut on money they are not making, but, need to get people in the door via an effective stimulus package.
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With no reason to hire people, it is not that our country suddenly morphed into having 10% imbeciles, like Clinton now claims, there aren’t enough customers for the businesses to hire these qualified people.
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I guess re-writing the facts of the situation is a quicker route to getting campaign donations and votes than telling the simple, boring truth.

“Well it seems the cost of millions is still less than an ongoing billions that they suck away from actual citizens.”
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Wait, are these illegal immigrants being hired by David Vitter or Elliot Spitzer?

Stuart, here’s the issue I’m seeing because you are all stating facts:
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1) The rich (depending on where you draw the line) pay 75% – 80% of all the taxes (not of their actual earnings), but if you look at total taxes collected they pay the most.
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2) The rich out of their income actually only pay 32% to the government each year.
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These are not mutually exclusive arguments. The problem here is that we are talking percentages with out relating them to each other… and most importantly without considering the base cost of living or debts accrued that eat up income at the bottom.
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When you get down to it, the poor aren’t paid enough to support paying taxes at the rate the rich are because the rich aren’t passing the money down. Because the rich people are choosing to horde more money, they have more taxes to pay. In this country the more money you have the more you pay.
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If the income imbalance were to be corrected, the rich wouldn’t have to pay nearly as many taxes. They also wouldn’t be making nearly as much money.
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Rich people pay more in taxes because they have more money. The top 20% of wealth holders own 80% of the wealth in this country.

Freakinpa,
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I have sent links several times over to you pointing out that, in order to work, these people have to get fake social security cards and give the government social security payments they will never be able to claim and pay taxes through sales taxes, income taxes and so on for services they will be unlikely to use, since many of these illegal immigrants work away from their wife and children and send money to their family.
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But if you know something about illegal immigrants who suck for money… those ladies probably do not pay an income tax.
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However, the overwhelming majority of illegals give money to the government in taxes and use no services at all.

LOL.
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That’s a pretty slick move, there, Rustydog.
.
Just listen to this smooth guy, Stephen Moore, the author of that piece:

“Q: But didn’t the Bush tax cuts favor the rich?
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A: The New York Times reported recently that the average family in America with an income of $10 million or more received a half-million-dollar tax cut, while the middle class got crumbs (less than $100 shaved off their tax bill). If we examine the taxes paid in a static world—that is, if we assume that there was no change in behavior and economic performance as a result of the tax code—then these numbers are meaningful. Most of the tax cuts went to the super wealthy.
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But Americans did respond to the tax cuts. There was more investment, more hiring by businesses, and a stronger stock market. When we compare the taxes paid under the old system with those paid after the Bush tax cuts, the rich are now actually paying a higher proportion of income taxes.
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The latest IRS data show an increase of more than $100 billion in tax payments from the wealthy by 2005 alone. The number of tax filers who claimed taxable income of more than $1 million increased from approximately 180,000 in 2003 to over 300,000 in 2005. The total taxes paid by these millionaire households rose by about 80 percent in two years, from $132 billion to $236 billion.“

Slick, slick.
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Wow, I’m actually impressed by that level of tricky talk, Rustydog.
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This guy starts with the facts, that multi-millionaires realized hundreds of thousands of dollars in the Bush tax cuts, as opposed to middle class people with their hundred dollars or so. What else can he say? It’s incontestable.
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Then he says that we should ignore those facts.
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Why? Well, says Slick Steve, we should just pretend like that massive transfer of wealth didn’t happen because…there was a “change in economic performance.”
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And what evidence does he point to, in order to demonstrate that “economic performance?” Well, Slick Steve does a little switch-around, and puts the most important part of it last, as if one thing came before the other.
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That key part is where he says “The number of tax filers who claimed taxable income of more than $1 million increased from approximately 180,000 in 2003 to over 300,000 in 2005.”
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All that means is that the number of wealthy people who received a huge tax bonus from Bush in 2003 got larger! Rich people got richer!
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Get that?
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We’re not allowed to look at the fact that multi-millionaires got substantially richer overnight, because…they got richer overnight!
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Slick Steve then goes on to do a little math-ly hyperbole (when I increase the money in my pocket from 50 cents to a dollar, is that a 50% increase or a 100% increase?), but it all boils down to the same slick argument: millionaires’ share of federal income tax revenue went up after the Bush tax cuts because there were more millionaires!
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See how that works?
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Slick Steve uses words like “behavior” and “economic performance” and “static world” and “respond to the tax cuts” as if he’s describing a vast, wealth-making apparatus that’s had its gears lubricated with money, when he’s really just describing the fact that the IRS noticed that there were more millionaires after Bush gave the well-off a gigantic tax break –while we peons (their employees) got about a hundred dollars.
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Pretty smooth!
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This is the kind of slick talk is cover for the largely discredited –except amongst hardcore rightists– “Laffer Curve” theory of how lower tax revenues somehow cause higher tax revenues, which our Slick Steve goes on to faithfully parrot:

“Q: What is the economic logic behind these lower tax rates?
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As legend has it, the famous “Laffer Curve” was first drawn by economist Arthur Laffer in 1974 on a cocktail napkin at a small dinner meeting attended by the late Wall Street Journal editor Robert Bartley and such high-powered policymakers as Richard Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld.
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Laffer showed how two different rates—one high and one low—could produce the same revenues, since the higher rate would discourage work and investment. The Laffer Curve helped launch Reaganomics here at home and ignited a frenzy of tax cutting around the globe that continues to this day.
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It’s also one of the simplest concepts in economics: lowering the tax rate on production, work, investment, and risk-taking will spur more of these activities and will often produce more tax revenue rather than less.“

Yes, as Slick Steve recounts, in 1974, our Picasso of an economist managed to pick his drink up off of the napkin, and convinced future geniuses Cheney and Rumsfeld that there was a perfectly reasonable economic theory why their “work” and “production” and “risk taking” should be taxed at rates more comparable with their employees’.
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Yes, it “ignited a frenzy of tax-cutting,” alright, culminated in what can only be described as a Bacchanalian orgy of tax-cutting during Cheney and Rumsfeld’s wartime later in 2003. And just look at what all of those “productive” people did with the fruits of their “work!” They gambled it all away, and now we suckers with our hundred-dollar checks are paying for it, aren’t we, Rustydog?
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But, returning to Slick Steve’s language for a moment, it’s telling that he uses terms like “production” and “work” instead of “wealth” and “fortune”…or “capital.” He’s apparently paid to cast multi-multi-millionaires –the people who own the places in which we do all of the work– as the “productive” people whose “activities” and “risk-taking” (in a bailout-less world, apparently) create all of the First World’s economic progress, and government revenue.
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It’s a simple concept in economics, alright, simple and thoroughly discredited, as even Ronald Reagan’s Budget Director David Stockman points out:

David Stockman, Ronald Reagan’s budget director during his first administration and one of the early proponents of supply-side economics, was concerned that the administration did not pay enough attention to cutting government spending.
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He maintained that the Laffer curve was not to be taken literally — at least not in the economic environment of the 1980s United States. In The Triumph of Politics, he writes: “[T]he whole California gang had taken [the Laffer curve] literally (and primitively). The way they talked, they seemed to expect that once the supply-side tax cut was in effect, additional revenue would start to fall, manna-like, from the heavens. Since January, I had been explaining that there is no literal Laffer curve.”[13]

That’s just what Slick Steve was spouting in that piece, Rustydog — that, once the Bush tax cut was in place, there would be money falling “manna-like, from the heavens” into everyone’s hands.
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Instead, there were just more millionaires with more money, and we got…a hundred dollar check.
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I have to thank you for linking to this guy Slick Stephen Moore’s stuff, Rustydog, I haven’t had so many laughs as the last time I revisited the bizarre, yet true tale of “the Laffer Curve.”

“Your post was about McDonald’s and health insurance. I’m done responding to your moving off topic and back to not responding period”
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In case you don’t read what you write. You brought up wages. In typical liberal fashion you see no issue with the government restricting the rights of a company or individual with a cause you dislike while ignoring the same behavior in one you favor.
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And that sweet cheeks is the topic for all the posts!

Freakinpa,
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First, you think that health care executives making less than $20 Million a year should quit, but any teacher making $70,000 or more is grossly overpaid. So, your numbers are very disturbing to say the least.
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From your right ass cheek you are saying that private sector millionaire CEOs are not overpaid but from your left ass cheek you are calling teachers, cops and everybody who works for the government for less than one percent of the pay the CEO gets as overpaid.
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Second, when you start saying things like “Government should decide who earns enough and re-distribute it to someone else?” It’s time to take your medication since that voice in your head reading the communist manifesto over and over in opera is getting too loud for you to notice what is really happening around you which is zero percent similar to wealth distribution. It is about market efficiency… but since you know zero about economics, it is pointless explaining it to you.

First off, you’re not a d!ck for asking a legitimate question. Second, some of the responses you’ve given might lead others to that conclusion.
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I don’t think money should be sent to Isreal or any other country. That’s not what our taxes are for, in my opinion.
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I don’t agree, but fair enough.
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…sending money to a money shredder like Haiti is absolutely a waste of money.
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Me, I don’t like the idea of a kid starving to death, no matter what the nationality of the kid is.
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That’s like saying, oh we invaded Iraq so it would be wrong to say it was wrong to invade Iraq.
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No, it isn’t. It’s like saying, “We promised to help you rebuild Iraq after removing Saddam Hussein from power but are choosing to go home immediately instead.”
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I don’t want my taxes to go to…
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The only way that you can choose what your taxes will and won’t pay for is to elect leaders who will fund/not fund your preferred causes.
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(Come to think of it, receiving a tax bill for X amount and then allotting it to whatever government programs and policies would be an interesting way to look at what’s important to Americans..”This is what your tax dollars are being spent on. What percentage of your tax bill would you allot to each spending category?”).
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I support social institutions in the U.S. because they make sense and improve the standard of life for everyone…
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(Not so) hypothetical question: “Would US-funded disease detection and prevention efforts in, say, the African continent stop the spread of disease to the US public?” Another: “Would helping Haitians get back on their feet help to prevent a wave of illegal immigration into the US?”
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If simple compassion doesn’t move you, then what about the bigger picture?

“Since the rich in the US are indeed getting richer, faster, I see no reason why they should not compensate the American people accordingly”
.

They should compensate the American people? Compensate implies that the is work done in exchange.For what because they are swell people or will you be over to mow my lawn or wash my car forthat compensation!. Typical liberal fashion fast and free with other people’s money.

” Can companies continue to pay CEOs many millions, in increasing amounts and still have money left to hire lower wage workers?”
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I suggest you take a business course at your local community college. Companies don’t see if they have money left over to hire workers, it is driven by demand for the product or services. If the demand rises, people are hired to help meet that demand.

It is no wonder the economy is struggling to gain jobs, liberals have no idea how the economy works.

“the right-wing became functionally insane on a steady, 30-year diet of empirically false corporatist “conservative” dogma”
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As opposed to liberals who have been functionally insane forever. All over Europe, that liberal paradise, are waking up to the fact that cradle to grave government entitlements are unsustainable. Only the best and brightest of the liberals here in the US think it is.

Yet, despite this, the right is always saying that they are being bullied by liberal dangerous people.
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Danger in America, since the Civil War has been mostly from the right wing and since the 1930s, almost always been from the right wing.
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The right wing rhetoric has people stirred up and irrational like never before.

Garbage in… garbage out?

“It’s called job creation.”
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Just think of all of the fishermen, seafood processors and people in the tourism industry got hired when BP soaked the Gulf with oil.
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No, sir, it is called job protection. It is a protection from all jobs in the gulf which are not likely to cause mammoth ecological and environmental damage.
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What’s good for the big executives in London is not necessarily what is good for New Orleans, but, with enough oil company campaign contributions, Republicans are like marionettes for big oil.

Once again MoronMom:

Its not the governments money. Tax cuts cost the government NOTHING. Spending is the cost!

Libertards is appropriate.

Any yes whenever the libs mention “for the children” I need to hold onto my watch and wallet.

freeinpa, the existence of an income gap already posits the the hypothesis that people are working and not being paid enough for the jobs they are doing at the bottom while the people at the top are being overcompensated for the work they are doing.
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No one here ever claimed we should give poor people money because they are poor, we claimed the companies which employ people aren’t distributing the money they earn fairly to begin with.

“that, in order to work, these people have to get fake social security cards”
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So they are here illegally, forging government documents and Obama wants to keep out those with criminal records. Who thinks of this stuff Colbert?

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Still waiting for hat list of laws that we should enforce and those we shouldn’t as te enlightened left sees fit.

Its not the governments money. Tax cuts cost the government NOTHING
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That’s like saying that a loss of sales doesn’t cost a business anything. I think it’s time to lay off the stupid pills. They’ve been successful in treating your flashes in sanity.

“First, you think that health care executives making less than $20 Million a year should quit, but any teacher making $70,000 or more is grossly overpaid. So, your numbers are very disturbing to say the least.”
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Rev JIm front and center once again proving why you are a college dropout and economic numb nut. The HC exec runs a business that makes a profit or loss on how it is run. If customers do not like the service they leave. People who sign up for the service do so voluntarily.
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Teachers regardless of service get increasing wages and benefits from the taxpayer who has the money forcibly seized by the government to pay for it. And while dimmbulb liberals like you and Obama pay lip service to how wonderful the system is and how under paid they are, in many instances wonted send their children to those very wonderful institutions.

“The history of European-American youth gangs extends as far back as the 1780s…”
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So, street gangs are not exactly a new thing.
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“There were at least 30,000 gangs and 800,000 gang members active across the USA in 2007…”
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gangs_in_the_United_States
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Teenagers with steak knives or, possibly, a 38 special which they do not know how to aim mostly concerned with other teenagers is not anything like these militia groups, 3X.
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You just have a fantasy that the right wing are all peaceful and loving people – like hippies but with rosaries – and liberals are tough thugs.
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Just not true.
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Freakinpa likes to warn us of the scary SEIU.
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On my first day working security at the Prudential Mall In Boston in 2002 all by myself held down a strike of about 60 SEIU janitors.
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How?
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They were as peaceful and nuns. I just stood their wearing a uniform while the guy with bullhorn calling out nearly blew my eardrum out with his shouting.
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Your militias are a more than a little bit harder than that to hold back.

“No, sir, it is called job protection. It is a protection from all jobs in the gulf which are not likely to cause mammoth ecological and environmental damage”
.

No its called you failed economics again. All of the jobs surrounding the rigs including food, from the fishing boats et al , tax revenues for your favorite teachers union has dried up because of the disappearance of oil money.
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Obama is so adamant about not drilling for US companies but seems OK with Brazil drilling in the Gulf and having the US taxpayer guarantee about $1 billion loan .

Why do liberals hate America?

Let’s scare the voters.
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No, that’s YOUR schtick, 3x. Worked well enough to keep a couple of wars going, hasn’t it?
.
On a more serious note, the repair shop called. Your brain is ready for pickup after its 71-year checkup. They noted a reduction in its size and capacity, as well as considerable corrosion around the edges.
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Their recommendation was that you try to put it to use a lot more.

Me, I don’t like the idea of a kid starving to death, no matter what the nationality of the kid is.
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I know you’re not implying I do like that idea, but hunger is an issue in this country as well. And, as I said, I have no problem with you sending your privately owned money off to another country to help them. It probably does do some good.
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But, it still stands that we can’t feed our own hungry in this country. We go gallivanting around the world helping other countries while ignoring our own problems here.
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No, it isn’t. It’s like saying, “We promised to help you rebuild Iraq after removing Saddam Hussein from power but are choosing to go home immediately instead.”
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Still not right because we didn’t cause the earth quake in Haiti. I’ll grant you that the promise was made and for diplomatic reasons should be followed up on, but I disagree that the promise should have necessarily been made to begin with.
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I don’t want my taxes to go to…
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And ultimately, this particular issue isn’t high on my list for ruling out candidates. Also, I don’t think anyone is planning to run on a “protectionist” platform and follow it when it comes to cases like these.
.
Ultimately, it might make more sense to have some sort of disaster insurance that all countries can apply into. Lord knows we never get help (ostensibly because we have the money to deal with it, but all the same…)
.
(Come to think of it, receiving a tax bill for X amount and then allotting it to whatever government programs and policies would be an interesting way to look at what’s important to Americans..”This is what your tax dollars are being spent on. What percentage of your tax bill would you allot to each spending category?”).
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Sure would be interesting, even as the grounds for a poll.
.
(Not so) hypothetical question: “Would US-funded disease detection and prevention efforts in, say, the African continent stop the spread of disease to the US public?” Another: “Would helping Haitians get back on their feet help to prevent a wave of illegal immigration into the US?”
.
Is illegal immigration from Haiti that much of a concern? I don’t know. If it could be proved that’s fine, but all of the arguments for paying them have been “we promised to do so” and “children are dying,” which I just don’t think justifies our government initially promising our tax dollars for that use.
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In the case that spending the money can be shown to benefit our country, then it makes sense, but I see taxes as a method of fueling public works for this country. Which you disagree with me on, apparently.
.
As far as my Haiti is a money shredder comment, take a look at how many times nature has pummeled that tiny country. I’m sorry, don’t expect help from me if you choose to live on the side of a volcano after its erupted so many times.

” the hypothesis that people are working and not being paid enough for the jobs they are doing at the bottom”
.
I am sorry I have of those old beliefs that this is the land of equal opportunity — not equal outcome.

By what criteria and more importantly by whom is it decided that the working are not being paid enough? and the rich are being paid too much? Unless you now want to tell us that we need huge trade tariffs (we know how well that works)and that only goods produced in the US are to be purchased here. Are you suggesting economic isolationism? In a global economy there are countries with workers who have less than the 3 TV sets, cell phones, air conditioning and ipods the poor in the US have.
.

freeinpa, can demand exist if the lower wage earners aren’t being paid enough to buy?

Seems so at first glance.
.
Maybe not the pr1ck Rham is but same insider stuff.

SZ:

You can go through your tirades of “Slick Steve” all you want. In the laboratory of the world we are seeing the “progressive” liberal countries coming to a startling conclusion that you cannot tax people at high rates and promise cradle to grave “rights” (entitlements to us less enlightened folk) and expect to remain fiscally solvent for the long term. They are cutting entitlements, privatizing services and lowering tax rates. Not because they are beholden to the rich but because liberalism is a failure.

Stuart,
.
Thanks so much for your through explanation.
.
I’ve been pointing out to the right wingers about the Laffer curve, the failure of supply side economics and how studies have since shown that only taxes above 65% or 75% with a marginal tax more than 35% discourages new income generation.
.
These right wing arguments were falling to pieces by the stock market crash of 1987 considered a total failure for any academic economist by the early 1990s (when I was in college). They were convenient excuses for class warfare against the poor by the wealthy much like the anti-global warming paid professionals try to discredit known and proven facts as well.

“What’s a sane person to do?”
.
Maintain a long-term view.

freeinpa:
.
You don’t actually believe that nonsense about lower tax revenue creating higher tax revenue, do you?
.
Do I really have to get out the list of national Republicans who just can’t bring themselves to lie to their constituents that baldly, and who have come out against that “theory?”

By what criteria and more importantly by whom is it decided that the working are not being paid enough?
.
The poverty index.
.
Interestingly, the people who get to decide whether wages are fair to begin with are the people at the top, and you’d hardly call them objective… and its hard to make the argument people can just quit when they have mortgages & other debt plus current bills, obligations, and mouths to feed.

Freakinpa,
.
I suggest that you finish junior high school before you start talking about who does not know business.
.
Demand is not some idiot like you yelling about something as you seem to think.
.
Demand is people with money in their hands. Many people with relatively small sums of money is what the economy needs the most to keep employment high.
.
15,000 Walmart workers all with $15 per day more spending $2 more per day on coffee on average would open up hundreds of coffee shops while putting that same $225,000 per day would not get the Walton family to hire hundreds of coffee shops to fill their swimming pool with coffee every day.
.
A distribution of income skewed towards the wealthiest stifles demand.
.
Stifled demand creates stifled economic growth and stifled wages.

“if you choose to live”
.
I’m not certain that the vast majority of those folks have any other choice about living on that side of an island in the middle of the ocean.
.
Even their fellow islanders, the Dominican Republic, won’t take their immigrants legally, even though they’re decent enough to provide childbirth services to expectant Hatian mothers who make the illegal trip.

In 2003, 80% of all Haitians were poor (54% in abject poverty) and 47.1% were illiterate.
.
Haiti’s per capita GDP (PPP) was $1,300 in 2008…hundreds of thousands of Haitians have migrated to the Dominican Republic, with some estimates of 800,000 Haitians in the country,[12] while others put the Haitian-born population as high as one million.[88] They usually work at low-paying and unskilled jobs…[89]

Sounds like a prison, to me.
.
You can make reasonable criticisms of Hatians, their culture, and their government, but I really don’t know if “choosing to live” there describes why they’re actually still there in any number.

“As opposed to liberals who have been functionally insane forever. All over Europe, that liberal paradise, are waking up to the fact that cradle to grave government entitlements are unsustainable”
.
Europeans have a much higher quality of life for the lower 90% than the US does and all of what you are whining about is the fact that there are protests in Western Europe against cuts in programs that the United States either does not have or has far less of than they have after the cuts.
.
While “socialistic” between WWII when their land was flattened by War, factories destroyed, a huge portion of the educated workforce dead from combat Western Europe has been growing so fast as to catch up to the US and, in some countries, exceed our per capita GDP while the US was, also, growing during that 65 year period.
.
Hence, they are examples of success. Our country has been an example of nervous bedwetters who never try anything even vaguely new especially if somebody can attach the word “socialist” to it.

“The 19-page guide says: ’It is not possible to determine exactly how much the Earth will warm or exactly how the climate will change in the future, but careful estimates of potential changes and associated uncertainties have been made.”
.
From your link.
.
It is clear that the climate is getting warmer on the basis of the average of 365 days per year 24 hours per day over the entire surface of the earth not even vaguely implying that any one spot much less all places on earth will have a temperature rise.
.
So long as it is not contested that the earth is growing warming and that it is caused by human use of fossil fuels, that uncertainty is not worth a pile of crap.

“I suggest that you finish junior high school before you start talking about who does not know business.”
.
Rev Jim try and remember you are the drop out and the failed used car salesman, failed taxi driver and rejected public servant. before you disparage anyone else.
.
“Many people with relatively small sums of money is what the economy needs the most to keep employment high.”
.”can demand exist if the lower wage earners aren’t being paid enough to buy?”
.
.
Somewhere globally yes. You and Rev Jim seem to think that the only demand is from low wage earners in the US. Time for a new Econ. book and oh yeah we are off the gold standard too!

It sounds like people are making the choice to leave when they can… and yeah, I know most of them don’t choose to be there, just like most people who grow up near a volcano don’t necessarily choose to do that either, but I still think its a pretty crap place to send charity or even think of it as an investment.
.
Haiti, as you pointed out has horrible poverty rates, its not uncommon for their infrastructure to be destroyed every few years, they have high rates of crime, etc, etc, etc. Even if you keep these people alive, you’re not fixing the issues they have by just spending money. The chances of the money being wisely spent are probably limited. Sorry if that sounds cold.
.
Also, given the state of our state, sending money through the government isn’t the most expedient or effective means of providing aid. There are millions of reasons for not having our government send money.
.
And yet, even if our government had promised nothing, the citizens still could and have done something…

“that uncertainty is not worth a pile of crap”
.

As are your “insights”. Scientific models like economic models are just that– Models!

To quote Bernard Baruch who followed John K. Galbraith at a Congressional hearing, “I think economists as a rule take for granted they know a lot of things. If they know so much, they would have all the money and we would have none!.

Global warming scientists claim to know things with certainty 50 years out but can not from day to day accurately provide a weather forecast.

“That’s like saying that a loss of sales doesn’t cost a business anything. I think it’s time to lay off the stupid pills.”
.
If company’s lose sales they cut costs to stay profitable they don’t confiscate money from someone. There is no choice .

.
I agree you should walk away from the stupid pills.

Still not right because we didn’t cause the earth quake in Haiti.
.
Meh; close enough. Catastrophic event, promise to help restore/rebuild, renege on that promise.
.
Is illegal immigration from Haiti that much of a concern? I don’t know.
.
[It was a big deal at one point, due to an ongoing man-made disaster]. Investing more money in Africa for disease research may have given us a leg up on the AIDS epidemic. A US contribution of $531 million towards the construction of Large Hadron Collider may be seed money for the Next Big Thing in energy research.
.
And so on.
.
By-the-way; great conversation. It’s nice to be able disagree and maintain civility once in a while. Thanks.

This whole thread’s epic win goes to you, grape_crush, excellent job blogging once again.

If the problem is the situation in Haiti, and the result might be illegal immigration, maybe it would be better to turn our resources towards find a way to let them come here if they want to while providing them an education. I’d be for that. More educated workers, helping people, sounds great to me.
.
The connection with AIDS research. That clearly affects our population. The LHC is something we get to do research on as well. So, both of these are still public works, even if the main body of work is happening elsewhere. Helping Haiti by giving them money, even with a plan, is not a public work that directly benefits U.S. citizens, imo.
.
Also, yeah, I agree its nice to have a disagreement with out resorting to name calling or insults. I’m used to being able to do that on the bbs where I first started posting. Its amazing how often people around here resort to fudging a name as if it makes their point stronger. :/

“On my first day working security at the Prudential Mall In Boston in 2002 all by myself held down a strike of about 60 SEIU janitors.”
.
Rev Jim is also Paul Blart- Mall cop.

Hard to see why Harvard just didn’t give you a full academic ride. Well I guess they did but it was the boot.

“If company’s lose sales they cut costs to stay profitable they don’t confiscate money from someone.”
.
Yes, they do.
.
It’s called increasing prices. Those who do not like the price increase can go somewhere else.
.
If you can find a better country than the United States, after taxes are brought up to cover the cost of providing services we the people need, you are free to find that other country and never come back.
.
Make sure to take your pills with you.

“So they are here illegally, forging government documents…” which cuts your tax burden.
.
If cutting your share of the taxes is holy and godly you, Freakinpa, instead of kicking them in the ass all of the time should be building an alter to worship them. You should have that next to your shrine for Ronald Reagan.
.
They break the law, to lower your taxes and all you have to say is that you consider them the same as rapists?

“Do I really have to get out the list of national Republicans who just can’t bring themselves to lie to their constituents that baldly, and who have come out against that “theory?”
.

Seriously? That’s your argument and standard, a list who come against something> You have now stooped to the level of Rev JIm here. Lying. Please replay Obama’ speeches about HC. wealth re-distribution and taxes. It is lie after lie. You don’t mind because you are in agreement with the socialist shift.
.
Spare me the technical definition of socialism. When you interfere with industry (HC, financials, autos), re-distribute wealth through taxes or regulation to provide equal outcome instead of opportunity you have entitlement heaven. The high minded rhetoric of helping the poor and down-trodden is nothing more than cover for control over the masses.

Freakinpa,
.
”
Teachers regardless of service get increasing wages and benefits from the taxpayer who has the money forcibly seized by the government to pay for it”
.
Just as all reasonable people want at least a tenth grade education, all reasonable people want health insurance.
.
If you do not pay taxes, you go to a white collar minimum security jail with conjugal visits and cable television.
.
Don’t pay for your health insurance, then you die.
.
So, if you are of the age group likely to have life threatening illnesses or have children, then given a choice between not paying for your health insurance and not paying your taxes, jails with free health care look really comfy by comparison to death for yourself or your family.
.
The concept of being able to get life saving medicine is a choice is moronic.

“It’s called increasing prices. Those who do not like the price increase can go somewhere else.”
.

Paul Blart- Mall Cop.

Increasing prices is not cutting costs. Why do liberals get the shares over the term “cut spending” or “cut costs”
.

Those who don;t like the price increase also have the option to do nothing or not buy. A subtle difference you missed in your education as Mall cop.

topic: ‘Congress probes activities of foreclosure mills’

QUESTIONABLE commercial and residential real estate foreclosures via deceptive and fraudulent proceedings enable lenders to repeatedly, illegally flip properties, and enables falsified IRS form 1099-A’s. Foreclosure fraud is the best means by which unscrupulous FORECLOSURE MILL LAWYERS deceptively auction and bid (or insiders bid) and acquire those properties; and some neighborhoods blighted.

Foreclosure fraud deliberately utilizes defunct mortgage lenders companies or companies which no longer own promissory notes; huge ransom “fees makes it even harder for property owners to regain properties. Two particular companies “which benefit from fraudulent foreclosures are Wells Fargo and Freddie Mac.

Representations about Freddie Mac billion dollar losses should be weighed against the needless money that Freddie –as well as other lenders– PAY foreclosure mills and debt collectors who utilize courtrooms to outmaneuver and persecute property owners who oppose fraudulent foreclosures. Further, when justified lawsuits for fraud –as well as for OUTRAGEOUS “Unfair Debt Collection Practices,” become filed against lenders and mills, those same lawyers make additional $$$$ from litigating and concealing their own wrongdoing!

Further, THE SHOCKING fabricated pleadings filed in Bankruptcy courts for FRAUDULENT REPOSSESSION of commercial and residential real estate res ipsa loquitur is demonstration of intentional foreclosure fraud. Foreclosure fraud has many far reaching effects for people; for example: UNJUSTIFIABLE HOMELESSNESS, UNFAIRLY answerable for IRS tax bills, and undue “deficiency judgments.” ** http://open.salon.com/blog/wwwlawgraceorg/2010/08/18/case_in_point_foreclosure_mills_judicial_fraud_consumer

“All of the jobs surrounding the rigs including food, from the fishing boats et al , tax revenues for your favorite teachers union has dried up because of the disappearance of oil money.”
.
What drugs are you taking?
.
Since drilling stopped in the gulf, people in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago… all over America stopped buying seafood?
.
Either that or you believe that seafood gets to NYC, Wyoming, North Dakota and Nevada by Swimming onto people’s plates and that all of the fishing boats only feed the oilmen.
.
Seafood markets are unrelated to oil markets. School budgets are a function of tax revenue.
.
You, obviously hate teachers so much and keep bringing them up since they have given you nothing but Fs since you failed Sandbox 101 when you were in Kindergarten back in 1853.

That’s my tin foil alarm right there…. I’m out of this one. There’s no reasoning to be had here.

“Hard to see why Harvard just didn’t give you a full academic ride.”
.
I was using my hard earned money to go back to Harvard.
.
Nationally only one in three Americans went to college.
.
In Boston, it is two out of three.
.
Many of the other guards had four year degrees in criminal justice and, at the Pru, back then, two had law degrees.

I did well in my econ classes.
.
If you own a stationary store, which do you want, one man with one million dollars or two hundred thousand people with $5 to walk into your store?
.
If you own a car dealership, do you want one man with one billion dollars or fifty thousand people with twenty thousand dollars?
.
You seem to forget that Jimmy Carter is no longer the president and financial aid since the time of Carter is now a small fraction of tuition money – about twenty five percent of tuition.

“Just as all reasonable people want at least a tenth grade education, all reasonable people want health insurance.”
.
Nothing to do with the post once again but that’s not new. But here’s hoping you someday get that 10th education.
.

And yes all reasonable people want health insurance.. and a house .. and a car and … the list from liberals goes on and on. What you avoid is “who pays for it?”
.
I guess you assume the teachers are not reasonable people since they continually want health care for free. Are are you arguing everyone should get it for free?

.
“If you do not pay taxes, you go to a white collar minimum security jail with conjugal visits and cable television”

. Unless your Charlie Rangel or Geithner

Bernard Baruch was a patron of FDR and was talking about the economists who followed your favorite, Freidndrich Hayak.
.
John Mayard Keynes was a multi millionaire.

“Increasing prices is not cutting costs.”
.
Exactly!
.
But it does balance budgets.
.
Somalia is a little bit like the United States but with no gun control laws, no taxes, no FDA, no ATF, no IRS – if taxes go up, I’ll be happy to give you a ticket to Somalia.
.
Go to any other developed country in the world like Canada, you taxes go up, so, enjoy the Republican dreamland of Somalia.

Robert Reich repeated the same mantra on a news show yesterday.
. The work force needs education
. Free trade good
I get so tired of both parties claiming it is a matter of retraining people for jobs that don’t exist. Having trained people on computers to enable them to take customer service calls, I can assure you, it is not difficult and can be quickly accomplished. However, these are low paying service jobs. And even as low paying as they are, many of those jobs have been outsourced.

“Seafood markets are unrelated to oil markets. School budgets are a function of tax revenue”
.
Wow how many years of college before you figured that out. I guess all the suppliers, folks on the rigs and accompanying industries related to the platforms must eat oil an dnot food. The local restaurants must send all of their food to NYC and Phila. No that’s right they don’t. So they are out of jobs too,.

School budget function of tax revenues? The taxes paid by all of those workers, that now have falling property values are paying less in taxes as a result. But the teachers continue to eat up a bigger part of that budget regardless of revenues..

.
I would bet that who hired you to play Paul Blart was fired. You weren’t even competent enough to be a rent a cop. And we already know you could not make it to be a real one.

One would think that 130 year old universal health system would have sunk Germany by now.
,
How about Canada, they have universal health but the top end federal tax rates, for high income earners, is only 29%. How did that happen in a “socialist” nation? I blame the radical left-wing concept of amortization, myself.

I think, in your irritation, you may have missed my point, freeinpa.
.
It’s not whether or not Obama lied (remember my posting of the “cut every family’s premiums by $2500″ campaign promise?), it’s whether or not tax cuts always produce more government revenue.
.
You don’t believe that Laffer Curve nonsense, do you?
.
You don’t believe that cutting taxes always raises tax revenue, right?

“I guess you assume the teachers are not reasonable people since they continually want health care for free.”
.
No, they want to work eight to ten hours per day starting at seven in the morning one hundred and eighty days per year for health care.
.
It is never unreasonable to want something for free.
.
Teachers as asking for health care included in their work contract instead of more money to spend on health care.
.
With cheaper group rates, that is reasonable for school districts since, to pay enough for separate policies would be far more expensive.

“I guess all the suppliers, folks on the rigs and accompanying industries related to the platforms must eat oil an dnot food.”
.
Unemployment benefits are paying these oilmen enough to eat, but, the restaurants make the most money off of tourists and a huge majority of the seafood gets sold far away from the Gulf while most of what they eat that is not seafood in the Gulf comes from other places, unless you believe that when they eat Hamburger on the Gulf Coast the Cattle were raised inside of the ocean.

“I did well in my econ classes.”

Yet to be proven by anything you write here. You sit with your tin-foil hat in the basement surrounded y all the books you don’t understand and try to regurgitate what is in them without any comprehension.
.

“If you own a car dealership, do you want one man with one billion dollars or fifty thousand people with twenty thousand dollars?”
.
If you owned a Lexus dealership the former rather than the latter. You see your ridiculous analogies fail since you have no real world comprehension.

Your stationary analogy is no better.
.
“financial aid since the time of Carter is now a small fraction of tuition money – about twenty five percent of tuition.”
.
Since I never referred to Carter or tuition, I can only assume this is your pathetic attempt to excuse your being a drop out.. ANd I find it amazing that liberals get their knickers in a twist about HC cost increases but have given their union bought education pals a pass for the steep rise in costs.

.

Hey, wait a second…”no gun control laws“?
.
You’re right, and they have no Bill of Rights, either.

“Bernard Baruch was a patron of FDR and was talking about the economists who followed your favorite, Freidndrich Hayak”
.
Wrong again mall cop. He was speaking directly after Galbraith and it was in a response to a direct question about Galbraith. Tell me again how you excelled in your econ classes.
.
.
“John Mayard Keynes was a multi millionaire”

.
And a first rate liberal hypocrite. Keynes thought capitalism was efficient and no system worked as well bu the though tit was objectionable. He wanted to be very rich and was an elitist. He was a member of Bloomsburg an elite social club but held money in contempt.
.
Not unlike you. Contempt for the wealthy and money and yet that is exactly what you want to be. And you are a hypocrite just like Keynes

And I thought I was the only one that called him that…

freeinpa,

I seem to remember a number of other presidents who proposed Amnesty laws and though I don’t believe either of them were Constitutional scholars . . . . . . . .

One was Ronald Wilson Reagan, who actually signed and Amnesty Bill . . . . . . . . .. .

The other was George Walker Bush, who actually proposed a worker program for those who broke the law . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Of course, we know these two guys were clueless lefties like Barrack Hussain Obama.

“But it does balance budgets.”

.
Wrong again. You assume no change in behavior for the increases in taxes and you ASSume that spending does outstrip and increases in revenues.

And I am down teaching Econ to an idiot for the night
.
Somalia is a little bit like the United States but with no gun control laws, no taxes, no FDA, no ATF, no IRS – if taxes go up, I’ll be happy to give you a ticket to Somalia.
.
And its full of people who hate America and has folks who steal wealth from others.. Sounds like liberal paradise.

Scaring people is a constant with Republicans:
.
McCarthy (Commies).
John Birch Society (Commies, contamination of bodily fluids)
Nixon (paranoia fueled attacks)
Lee Atwater (the master of scare tactics)
Clinton syndrome (murderer, drug runner, more “gate” investigations than thought possible)
Rove (student of Atwater), WMD, neo-con warnings of national security perils, equate a quadruplel amputee, Max Cleland, with cowardly view of terrorism, exploit 9/11
Of course, it continues: Gingrich and Luntz have supplied the vocabulary to keep people frightened and Fox and hate radio supply the megaphone.
Death panels, scary census, socialism, swift boating, birthers, Muslims, Obama as the “other”.
.
The apocalypse is near. Vote Republican or we will perish.

Reich?
.
Oh, no.
.
I respected him. I wanted him to get Democratic nomination for governor of Massachusetts when I lived there. Unfortunately, that year Republican Mittens Romney won.
.
In the late 1990s and early …. what do you call them?… 00s?… a few years after 2000 worker retraining was important but, not just for customer service. I did customer service for a couple of years (while doing security on the weekends – I often worked two or more jobs while either taking classes or trying to save up to take classes) and didn’t need more than about 30 minutes training.

Way late to the party, but given the destructive role the US has played in Haitian history from Teddy Roosevelt onward, given that their status as a failed-state is primarily due to American foreign policy, I’d damned well say the US should contribute mightily to the island’s rebuilding.

“Contempt for the wealthy and money and yet that is exactly what you want to be. And you are a hypocrite just like Keynes.”
.
Only in your twisted imagination am I or the late grandfather of modern economics showing any contempt for wealth.
.
Communism – the real thing like your neighborhood pizza shop, your grocery store, your mechanic’s shop, your shoe store and even your house are confiscated without compensation under actual communism and without having the option of suing the government nor electing a different one – was the alternative he was talking about.
.
He got his own taxes raised using his own economic theory.
.
You, who claim you respect your ancestors who worked in coal mines – bullsh!t if I ever heard it, you’d spit on coal mine workers if you ever saw one – are the absolute hypocrite.
.
You cut out the important part of that quote:
.
“Galbraith was followed at the witness table by the aging speculator and “adviser to presidents” Bernard M. Baruch. The committee wanted to know what the Wall Street legend thought of the learned economist. “I know nothing about him to his detriment,”"
.
In other words, moron, Baruch liked the policies of Galbraith.

Here’s the link you didn’t want anybody to see, since you cut the quote to appear to say the opposite of what it said:
.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703556604575501883282762648.html

Since 1915 we have been sending troops in and out of Haiti. Up until 1934, we were training their miitary. This military helped keep repressive governments in control.
Like Iraq, we helped break it, we need to help fix it.

Nice to see you, JC, I’m going to go home, stopping by my mailbox to pick up Civ 5.

” You assume no change in behavior for the increases in taxes and you ASSume that spending does outstrip and increases in revenues.”
.
Once again, Freakinpa, here are something you hate, called facts:
.
“One study of the United States between 1959 and 1991 placed the revenue-maximizing tax rate (the point at which another marginal tax rate increase would decrease tax revenue) between 32.67% and 35.21%.[18] Pecorino (1995) argued that the peak occurred at tax rates around 65%.[19] Another empirical study found that the point of maximum tax revenue in Sweden in the 1970s would have been 70%.[20]”
.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve#Research_on_Revenue_Maximising_Tax_Rate
.
So, if the top bracket is below 65%, then revenue increases with taxes.
.
With our top bracket at 40%, we have a long way to go before the actual effect of the Laffer curve kicks in, dope.
.
“And its full of people who hate America and has folks who steal wealth from others.” Sounds like Dubbya buddy Ken Lay. Like I said, a Republican paradise.
.
I’ll pay for your ticket any time you want.

You know, since O’Donnell has used running for office as her chief source of income for years, I think she never expected to actually be nominated. She was free to lie and obscure up to that point. It is difficult for her to lie her way out of the facts of her history.

“If you owned a Lexus dealership the former rather than the latter. You see your ridiculous analogies fail since you have no real world comprehension.”
.
Of course not!
.
If you had 50k people buying Toyotas, there would be fiftyToyata salesmen making $200k per year buying 50 Lexus.
.
If it was one billionaire, then all of the Toyota salesmen would be laid off and only one Lexus would get sold.
.
Moron!

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5i1iMYHMsNbOUJOaBvP10z2VkrP_AD9IIG3403?docId=D9IIG3403
.
Proof that words and actions have consequences. 2 students, a 13 year old and 18 year old driven to suicide by the words and actions of others.
.
When Limbaugh mocks homosexuals, when Christianists demonize them, do they consider the message they send?

“Hey, wait a second…”no gun control laws”?”
.
Well, you take what is usually called a conservative stand on gun control, but, first, you do agree that convicted felons should not have guns, people register their guns and, unlike what you can get in Somalia, you most likely do not want to own your own grenade launcher.

“ANd I find it amazing that liberals get their knickers in a twist about HC cost increases but have given their union bought education pals a pass for the steep rise in costs.”
.
The median pay for a University professor is $87,925.
.
Those costs of higher education are going to things like sports teams, public relations and many things totally unrelated to teaching students.
.
Also, you miss the point of everything, as usual. The issue with the cost of health care is not exclusively that the cost is going up. It is the fact that it is five times higher for worse service than it is in places like Germany.
.
Liberals are upset about spending far more than needed, not about the cost itself. If there is no alternative and “socialized” (single payer) did not cut costs down to 20% of what we pay we would not be asking for a change towards single payer.
.
As you may know – but probably not since you listen to those voices in your head singing the Communist Manifesto in Opera rather than read the words in front of your own nose – liberals were disappointed that HCR was not single payer and did not have a public option, which would have, over a period of time, dramatically cut costs.
.
You wingnuts love inefficiency so long as it results in a few multi-millionaires and does not involve taxes.

As usual, Paul Krugman calls them out in his last column:
-
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/27/opinion/27krugman.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Sorry, here’s the link:
.
http://swz.salary.com/salarywizard/layouthtmls/swzl_compresult_national_ed03000172.html
.
University professors still earn far less than their for profit counterparts, but, it is at a market clearing price such that the best of every PhD field is split between academia and the for profit sector.
.
It is at a wage where from the best to the worst performers an equal proportion tries to be in academia since some people like to trade off fewer hours in a lower stress and a more interesting environment with fewer hours for less pay.
.
In most places, public k through 12 teachers are below a market clearing price such that the best students do not go on to teach as often as they chose far, far higher salaries in the private sector despite the easier hours and lower stress.

Apr,
.
Agree, though without troops in either location. And the other caveat is that there has to be hard evidence the money is doing good, reaching the right people. Of course, if one believes in this rationale for foreign aid (vis a vis America’s dodgy record over much of the globe) well …
.
SZ,
.
As you might guess, I had to look up Civ 5. Sounds cool. Maybe my daughter will be a gamer. B/C, contemporary Swamp mate of mine, I haven’t played a game since Galaga.

decorum is highly overrated.

Apr,
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“When Limbaugh mocks homosexuals, when Christianists demonize them, do they consider the message they send?”
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What exactly did Limbaugh and Christians have to do with this situation. Do you have any facts?
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I believe the police reports stated both were cases of bulling by fellow students.

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IMPORTANT FACTS ABOUT FORECLOSURE AND MORTGAGE FRAUD

Foreclosures via DECEPTIVE and FRAUDULENT PROCEEDINGS enables repetitive, and illegal property flipping; it enables lenders to falsify IRS form 1099-A”s; it enables unscrupulous foreclosure mill lawyers (especially because of judges who purposefully abet deceit) to deceptively hold auctions and make insider bids to acquire those
properties; and blighted neighborhoods. Fraudulent foreclosures ensure the success of FABRICATED BANKRUPTCY COURT ‘Lift Stay motions’ and false
‘Proof of Claims’.

Foreclosure via fraud is the reason for illegitimate homelessness and underhanded evictions, unjustified IRS tax bills due to false 1099-A’s, and unfair “Deficiency Judgments.” Ironically, some people who express their anger at “deadbeats” appear to be more acceptable about the manifest fraud and criminal activity being carried out by people with credentials to practice law. Equally ironic is the reality that some people pretending to be annoyed about “deadbeats” are the actual people who are participating in real estate racketeering -fully sanctioned by the majority of courts, especially Bankruptcy Courts! *more @
http://www.lawgrace.org/2010/09/30/important-facts-about-foreclosure-and-mortgage-fraud/