Thank You. You are very kind to understand this. RobQuote:
Originally Posted by UltraliteAngler
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Thank You. You are very kind to understand this. RobQuote:
Originally Posted by UltraliteAngler
I think it is awesome you still have your mom. I lost mine 7 years ago and think about her a lot. Enjoy your time with her:))
http://thinkprogress.org/world/2016/...rte-elections/Quote:
Originally Posted by gimmethesimplelife
If this article has merit I'm not so sure the Philippines sounds like such a great place right now.
I haven't read your article as I'm on a quick banquet serving lunch lull before reentering a hall to clear. If it's about Rodrigo Duterte, the recent president elect of the Phillipines, I'll say you have a point here and now. A very scary man. It remains to be seen how much of his agenda gets carried out and what his effects on the Phillipines will be. Also if the Australians there start fleeing I'll take note. RobQuote:
Originally Posted by jp1
I see PJ O'Rourke has decided to endorse Mrs. Clinton:
"I am endorsing Hillary, and all her lies and all her empty promises," O'Rourke said. "It's the second-worst thing that can happen to this country, but she's way behind in second place. She's wrong about absolutely everything, but she's wrong within normal parameters."
PJ is certainly part of the dwindling tribe of intellectual conservatives.
He has been on Wait! Wait! Don't Tell Me and he has actually made a few funny jokes on there!
Read Republican Party Reptile sometime.
I think they write those jokes for the Wait Wait panelists.Quote:
Originally Posted by UltraliteAngler
Based on your excerpt, I was compelled to go to the source.Quote:
Originally Posted by LDAHL
Very funny, very well-written, and too much of it is too true. I LOVE the Mr. Grinch take-off! I only take issue with a couple of things.. but most particularly "Jimmy Carter in a pantsuit." Hillary is no Jimmy Carter, for better or worse. She'd do better than Carter on foreign policy, but she's nowhere near as principled. I also disagree with Reagan being the Second Coming, although of course I acknowledge that all conservatives see him that way.
And of course, I disagree with his characterization of Bernie as being "the Donald Trump for people still living in their parents' basements." (although OK, I admit it, I chuckled).
But I did enjoy the article.
I've been a fan of O'Rourke for years. Holidays in Hell, The CEO of the Sofa, All the Trouble in the World.Quote:
Originally Posted by catherine
I'm not sure if he's the one who said "If you were raised by Helicopter Parents, then the Sanders platform makes perfect sense to you."
Well, anyone who was born and raised in Toledo Ohio necessarily must have a sense of humor to survive.
I agree with every single thing he says about Hillary Clinton except that she is "less worse" than Donald. Donald is just a mere blowhard. Hillary puts her money where her mouth is.
And I take offense to his describing the electorate as possessed by a devil and suffering from mass psychosis. Had the Republican Party fielded any serious candidates, had they cared at all about the base of their party and not left it for dead, had they not done deals with the devil at every turn and been psychotic about their own comfortable DC existence....perhaps the electorate wouldn't have decided to eat the party leaders.
Enjoy your public hug with Hillary. Ewe.
Well, I am a boomer who was not raised by helicopter parents by a long shot. I have made my own way, take responsibility for my own actions, feel entitled to nothing, and feel responsible for my fellow man. And the Sanders Plan works for me. It benefits me, not because I can't afford the ridiculous $1500/month health insurance bill I am paying, but because I don't want my fellow man to be sick or die simply because he/she isn't hooked up to an employer with a healthcare plan. It benefits me, not because I don't have the brains to earn a living but because I feel a 40 hour paycheck should allow anyone to earn a decent living. It benefits me not because I'm against wealth but because I'm for logical checks and balances in an economic system that will ensure a flow of consumption and production that works for the most number of people. As Pope Francis said, "unfettered capitalism" results in vulnerable societies.Quote:
Originally Posted by LDAHL
I paid for my kids' educations; I would hope that my grandchildren don't have to mortgage their futures because of the usury of Sallie Mae. I work my a$$ off each and every day, and I thank God that I'm not working my a$$ off only to still have to choose between dinner and a trip to the doctor.
Dude.
The GOP fielded their best and brightest. I am not being sarcastic either.
Lyin' Ted, Florida Bush, Rubot, Mr. Boring from Ohio, The Surgeon.
Come on. This is the best of the GOP.
But I think it is less about candidates and more about ideas.
Even conservative/Republican workin' folks are getting hip to the fact that the GOP's economic policies don't do right by them.
Heck, even a few folks in Kansas got the memo on that. And we all know what's the matter with Kansas.
My parents were not chopperin' in for nothin'!
And that is exactly why I supported The Bern.
Yes, I think that the criticisms of the younger generation need to be tempered with a DEEP understanding that it we get much less for the same hours of work and have a generation on the edge of broke all the time. Logical checks and balances are necessary now, there was an understanding that supporting corporations would trickle down the wealth and they have not done that. So time for a change. If nothing else they should be ineligible for a bail out if their workers need to be on assistance to live or can't afford basic health care. If they can run a business that way without government help like we are asking our average person then great.Quote:
Originally Posted by catherine
It is so painful to see my kids struggle when they have always worked, got great feedback from employers and aren't asking for anything special. On a monthly basis they struggle, skip health care, and I am on the edge but I would help if I could (and get politically active because we shouldn't be relying on the older generations to make up for the economy being so messed up)
As of the last reports from friends who have traveled there, the DC schools are crumbling, unsafe and not supported by all of this. It should be an embarrassment that the nations schools have schools with broken basic services like toilets and falling in ceilings. But it is easier to sell out the education system to 'reformers' who have no teaching creds at all.Quote:
Originally Posted by Williamsmith
Twenty years ago I went to a convention in Detroit. I drove. As soon as you entered Michigan you started seeing crumbling infrastructure and pot holes in the roads. It was a stark contrast coming out of Ohio. Even my area of Pennsylvania was in way better shape. Now, drive around the Great Lakes and you will see that everything is rusting and crumbling.Quote:
Originally Posted by Zoe Girl
Pennsylvania did not pass a budget last year and they are headed for another impasse. All the school districts have had to borrow to keep open. So the interest is being heaped upon the tax payers as a result of politicians not doing their job. Nothing is being repaired. Pretty much everybody is fleeing to some other place or taking up residence in the ruins.
Ignoring the very real suffering out there would be cruel.Quote:
Originally Posted by catherine
Promising to fix it with the economic equivalent of magic beans is crueler still. There simply aren't enough billionaires out there to dispossess.
Perhaps, but there are enough to get us a real good start! :devil:Quote:
Originally Posted by LDAHL
Here's how I see it:Quote:
Originally Posted by Williamsmith
Clinton is promising more overweening government and truckles to tribal identity politics.
Trump is promising more overweening government and truckles to tribal identity politics. And he wants to speak for Republicans in doing so.
That makes Trump worse.
However, it does not follow from that that I would vote for Clinton. I think O'Rourke is wrong in that respect.
LDAHL, you're much too smart to draw these dramatic oversimplifications of the possibilities of needed change. No one is looking to overtake the bourgeoisie. Just looking to see how the tax code may be improved, Wall Street can be reined in, and money can be kept from their off-shore tax havens without upsetting the lifestyles of the rich and famous. I don't think it's magic--if so we need to consult with the wizards of those countries who have already conjured it up.Quote:
Originally Posted by LDAHL
One of the few public services Clinton has performed during the campaign has been to point out how unrealistic Sanders' proposed policies are.Quote:
Originally Posted by catherine
I don't think there's any magic to how the faltering welfare states of Europe work their magic. High taxes on individuals, lower taxes on corporations, weak military establishments and high unemployment. I agree with you that's more sophisticated than "soak the rich".
Where there's a will there's a way. Is our response to be "let them eat cake?"Quote:
Originally Posted by LDAHL
No. But neither does promising a free lunch.Quote:
Originally Posted by catherine
I think part of the issue is that we as a culture need to realize we don't need such big lunches or any cake for dessert.
Since we can't agree on whether the rich are rich enough, the poor are poor enough and middleclass screwed enough.....how bout we just start from scratch. And within a week, the rich will be rich again in the same proportions, the poor will be poor again in the same proportions and the middleclass screwed.
The carbeurator needs adjustment, this engine is running too rich.
That's the problem. Too many people think the solution is adjusting the carburetor when the world has moved on to fuel injectors.Quote:
Originally Posted by Williamsmith
Best description for Trump, courtesy of Thom Hartmann: "the Duck Dynasty version of Ronald Reagan."
Funny thing for a conservative to say. What are the fuel injectors? Rampant capitalism run amok? Or can the fuel injectors be the modulators that ensure capitalism serves its purpose? TIME Magazine's cover story is one about how the markets are choking the economy. The author says that the rules of the free-market system have been warped through an increase in "financialization" and the stifling of business and innovation.Quote:
Originally Posted by LDAHL
"Academic research shows that only a fraction of all the money washing around the financial markets these days actually makes it to Main Street businesses."
So I don't care if you're a dyed-in-the-wool free market capitalist or a Democratic socialist, you have to acknowledge that this is a marker of ill financial health. I'm not concerned about the tanned billionaires or the size of their yachts or any other part of their fiscal anatomies, but I am concerned about the stopped up plumbing of our economy.
+1Quote:
Originally Posted by UltraliteAngler
+1 I've seen this in the MegaCorp. I work for, and it's amazing to watch the CEO be so terrified of what "the markets" are going to say about our quarterly numbers. The U.S. is a corpocracy and there are several thousand people on Wall Street who are managing the show - the rest of us only get to watch and wonder how to protect ourselves from the fallout.Quote:
Originally Posted by catherine
All the liquidity sloshing around the markets is an artifact of governments struggling to keep interest rates low and currencies cheap.Quote:
Originally Posted by catherine
If anything is clogging the pipes of enterprise, it is absurd tax and regulatory regimes.
Both the Trump and Sanders campaigns are stumping for the neomerchantilist solutions of the past. They only differ in their choice of scapegoats.
Quote:
Originally Posted by LDAHL
So free market Laissez-faire capitalism which is in many ways the opposite of merchantilism is the preferred method but one of the original tenants of Adam Smith and company is that citizens must keep reign on corporations because they naturally tend towards monopolizing markets. And that has been forgotten or conveniently discarded. As you say....regulatory regimes. Thus Trump.
I don't think criticizing over-regulation is the same thing as arguing for no regulation at all.Quote:
Originally Posted by Williamsmith
What Trump (and Sanders) seem to be arguing for is an opting out of competing in international markets for labor, capital, goods and services in favor of a sort of inward-looking economic nationalism.
I may be wrong, but what I am hearing is we are foolishly enabling the global international markets to have unfair advantages; that these agreements have allowed our labor force to be undermined by cheap outsourced in some instances slave/child labor, currency manipulation and poor quality goods forced down our throats. I don't hear....opt out. I hear, quit being stupid and demand fair trade practices. 94 million unemployed people is either a potential workforce or a potential revolution. Take your pick.Quote:
Originally Posted by LDAHL
About 24 years ago, this......
http://youtu.be/Rkgx1C_S6ls
Today he may qualify as a gull dang genius.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Williamsmith
I often think about how Perot was kinda spot on about a few things.
Would a Donald Trump/ Rand Paul ticket change anybody's mind? Maybe Ron Paul?
Whoah. My first thought is "keep Rand away from the cesspool" but on secnd thought, maybe.Its a gamble. I,dnthnk Trump, if elected, will serve even 4 years.Quote:
Originally Posted by Williamsmith
I've thought that myself - one of the perks as President is enduring an entire term of criticism and abuse no matter what you do. And that's not a role Trump seems to tolerate very well.Quote:
Originally Posted by iris lilies