the only gain for tax payers is that their wealth has been transferred and their government further impoverished by the privately owned Fed. The Fed made millions if not a billion on this transaction alone.
“ASSET PURCHASES$46 billion (of $52.5 billion allocated)
AIG sold insurance to banks worldwide to protect them against defaulting bonds. By buying up some of the assets in question, AIG is freed from some of those obligations.
COLLATERAL POSTS$31.9 billion
Due to a loss in value of the underlying assets, AIG has paid $22.4 billion to companies holding credit default swap insurance agreements and $9.5 billion to municipalities holding guaranteed investment agreements.
CAPITAL TO SUBSIDIARIES$22.6 billion
To adequately capitalize AIG’s subsidiaries in case of default, the insurer sent $20.9 billion in funds to life insurance units and $1.7 billion to its consumer finance divisions.
DEBT PAYMENTS$22 billion
The company spent $15.2 billion to pay down maturing debt at its troubled financial products division, and $6.8 billion to pay down other AIG debt.
REPAYMENT TO GOVERNMENT$4.6 billion
AIG has given $4.6 billion back to the government.
“Your proposition may be good,
but let’s have one thing understood –
Whatever it is, I’m against it!
And even when you’ve changed it or condensed it,
I’m against it!
I’m opposed to it.
On general principles I’m opposed to it.”
Today’s Conseratives have achieved something incredible – they’ve turned biting satire into a national political party platform.
The liberals are just as guilty of being against anything proposed by a conservative. Take for instance Paul Ryan’s plan to put the federal budget more in balance (a concept liberals must be too stupid to comprehend). The reaction was to air a commercial with a with a Paul Ryan look alike pushing a grandmother off a cliff even though Ryan’s plan specifically excluded changes to anybody on Medicare or even those not yet on but over 55. The liberal’s position so ridiculous they had to LIE to make their invalid point. Better to bankrupt the country than to deal with a huge deficit problem. They wouldn’t even consider the Obama appointed Boyle-Simpson plan. Next time you want to make a state like this, be sure to leave your hypocrisy at the door.
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate was an idea proposed by Conservatives and liberals were not against that. Amazingly though, once Liberals agreed to thsi Conservative idea, Conservatives decided they no longer liked it.
You are referring to a movement in the 80’s. We do not have all the same politicians as back then. If your arguement is that republicans come up with innovations that democrats put in by the time they are dated I agree entirely.
*rolls eyse* More OPV bull.
Furthermore: It didn’t go through. Just because they thought of it at one point doesn’t mean it should have been done. They clearly didn’t go through with it. If it had bipartisan support as you claim, then it would have went through. So are you trying to say that republicans didn’t want it to go through, or democrats? Because if it were republicans at the time they did NOT support it fully, and if it were democrats who blocked it, they blocked progress 20 years ago.
Which one OPV? Republicans also suggested the mandatory investment into a private social security type of account. I seem to remember Obama talking about it recently, making it automatic to be invested in a simple IRA or 401k when the employer matches, and you have to elect to get out of it. Same concept, 20 years later and now that it is a democrat it’s a good idea.
Bob, don’t hold your breath that TOPOV will get it. He is a committed Progressive Socialist who needs to be committed for mental disease. I wonder if he would say that Hilarycare was proposed by the Republicans. Hilary tried to ram that through and the Republicans shot it down because of many of the same flaws that Obamacare had. Not to be deterred, under Obama, they cajoled, bribed and rammed through the monstrocity in the dead of night without even reading it. It is so bad that scholars can’t read it and it will be this countries undoing if allowed to stand.
February 29, 2012 at 3:36 pm
Speedo says:
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Any politican’s plan is always a starting point for negotiation. Why would you expect liberals to whole-heartedly endorse the Ryan plan? It is a radically conservative approach to solving the budget problem (even Newt agrees with that). Nothing gets done in government without compromise. But today’s Republicans have alomst totally abandoned compromise – they wouldn’t even agree to $10 of spending cuts in exchange for $1 in tax increases. This wild-eyed ideological/partisan response pervades everything they do:
– cheering Chicago’s loss of the Olympics
– criticizing the First Lady’s obesity initiative
– holding the country hostage over the debt ceiling
The list is endless, and now includes a mainstream Republican presidential candidate calling the President a “snob” (and implying the motive is to turn young people away from religion) for encouraging young people to strive for more than a high-school diploma. This from a millionaire with 3 college degrees. Who in their right mind believes this stuff?
I won’t defend Democrats who are acting silly, but there is simply no comparison with the level of absurdity coming out of the Right these days. What used to be the fringe of the Republican party 50 years ago is now mainstream.
Obama’s plan as a whole for $10 of spending cuts for $1 of spending was not the issue.
The issue was it did nothing to change our system or direct the flaws. We have three main spending areas: Defense, Medicare, Social Security. It cut funds. It taxed more. That is not innovation to make any of those three more efficient. Our system is flawed. When McCain said the fundamentals of our economy are strong Obama called him delusional. Well, the fundamentals of our government are not strong, and republicans are telling Obama that.
On Social Security:
The republicans don’t want to cut social security and raise taxes to fix social security. See one of my posts under the article regarding Buffet recently. I’m not reposting it here. There is a method to cut social security pay outs, keep taxes the same, change the tax code, and you end up having people have the option to build up a tax free investment portfolio, which would only be tax free each time they withdraw from it if they did not take out social security funds that year. The plan would result in a low of 1.69 million with 110,000 annually for your average person at retirement in the 18 age group currently when they retire. This would indefinitely cut the cost of social security, allow us to encourage people to get off it, help the lower to middle class which will always exist finally have an option that would get them out of it, and would keep all those invesment funds into being reinvested in the market. There is a reason it is called capital “gains”.
Medicare: There are scams and frauds each year. Republicans want to cut funding in the sense that they want to get rid of that section of medicare. Every time they talk about cutting it they are specifically talking about people who abuse it. Though no one can really cut this one, not even republicans or democrats. We need it.
Defense: The defense budget was almost 900 billion last year. At the highest point in Bush’s presidency even including Iraq and Afghanistan it was more in tune with $600 billion. I did the average and it was 400 billion a year total defense spending. So far we have not dropped below 800 billion in Obama’s term. At some points in Bush’s term, even including the wars it was 300 billion. When people say how much the Iraq and Afghanistan war cost, they neglect to note that we have a percentage of the budget that goes automatically to defense spending which we use for wars. We don’t just suddenly lay off all our military or stop paying them, they don’t just suddenly grow, we don’t just suddenly build tanks, we don’t just suddenly end defense contracts or start them. Obama has not ended this spending, and it is double now what it was average under Bush. Republicans might not cut this area. But neither has or will Obama and democrats, and they already lied about how much the wars cost us to piss people off. You can’t say how much a war costs as if it is in addition to the amount we already have set aside for defense (wars) unless you intend on cutting that said amount. They didn’t. It was the same under Clinton. It was the same under Bush. It increased under Obama.
Also: The republicans granted a full year of the tax extension, after the democrats asked for it, and then the democrats refused to pass more than 2 months to start the battle up again. That is beyond the point of insanity. I remember watching the news as a republican that wanted that tax cut. At first I was upset with republicans. But they very quickly said, ok, we will do this tax cut. Then the democrats cried about it saying “WAIT!!! WE ONLY WANT TWO MONTHS!!!” and Boehner said again and again “you asked for a year, I’m giving you a year” as they said “no no it’s 2 months or nothing, why are you trying to get rid of this tax credit?” and as Boehner said again “you asked for a year, I’m giving you a year, we aren’t playing games here, I won’t support two months.”. That was insanity. Absolute insanity.
In conclusion: One party is serious on reform for social security. Neither are serious in Defense and Medicare, Medicare for good reasons.
“Obama’s plan as a whole for $10 of spending cuts for $1 of spending was not the issue.”
For you. Because you like the Ryan plan just as it is. My point was that their needs to be compromise. You have a plan to “reform” Social Seecurity. Great. Not everybody believes you have the answer, therefore you are going to have compromise, or nothing changes.
Most of the time, neither party is serious about implementing radical structural change because it’s near-impossible to do. You have to have one party in charge and a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. Obama didn’t quite have that in 2009 and 2010, so the democrats didn’t get everything they wanted.
The only thing I have to say about most of what you posted is that you’re certainly entitled to your opinion. However, as to the points I made that you chose to respond to, yes, I am serious – the republicans held the country hostage, lowered our credit rating, in a simple-minded attempt to score political points. They had an opportunity to make a real difference, but squandered it because they would not compromise.
And your comments about Obama’s supposed elitism define “grasping at straws.” As a matter of fact, college was just one of the options Obam mentioned in his speech; he wasn’t frowning on anyone. And it was Santorum, not Romney, who responded like a lunatic. Read what Santorum said about the speech. If anyone encourages an elitist mindset, it’s this crop of Republican candidates. A millionaire with 3 degrees telling others not to go to college while putting his own children through college. That’s pathetic.
March 1, 2012 at 12:48 pm
bob says:
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And one more comment:
Holding the country hostage? Are you serious? Debt has to be paid off eventually. Accumilating as much debt as we have is LITERALLY not SYMBOLIC in the meaning of “holding hostage” because someone is paying for it. While democrats like to pretend it will be the rich, even if we tax them at 100% it would not pay for our lifestyle. So who are we going to hold hostage to pay it?
The republicans started that battle to emulate the battle in 1995. After that near government shut down people took things seriously. It certainly was not holding the government hostage when it happened then, and the democrats reaped the results (Clinton Specifically) Just after the 1995 shut down we had surpluses. Also, economic growth after that point was DOUBLE what it was in the years before. Coincidence? It was not holding hostage, and if you consider double the growth and surpluses of the 90’s being held hostage sign me the heck up, tie me up, cuff me.
They can criticize a bill all they want. Criticism is the only thing that gets something fine tuned.
See my other comment regarding college. Obama acts like funding education will somehow eliminate the fact that agricultural, contracting, call centers, oil jobs, hard labor, will always exist. I don’t like hierachy personally. Go to college, get a job, you’re worth something, but hey we won’t help you otherwise. That means if you are the other that is NEEDED by the way and will always exist, you are screwed, and are also paying for the people who receive financial aid. My plan above would get those people into a much higher earnings situation. What Romney didn’t like about Obama is the very fact that the crap jobs will always exist. And he does not want those people frowned apon. Ever tried dating in your early 30’s without a college education as a male? Remind me the perception of the majority of the public regarding that person when he meets the family. Please. Do remind me. Obama encourages that elitest mindset.
Obama couldn’t make changes because he didn’t have a fillibuster majority…Radical changes can’t be done. How about the health care bill? That was far more radical than what I just suggested. It isn’t an opinion. The numbers I put down are factual regarding social security. See my post in the buffet investment post recently. Those numbers are 100% concrete. The democrats have claimed that everything I just stated was radical. That’s on them. No on “the people”. I find it amazing that you say republicans should “compromise” when they do. I find it amazing you say they should compromise, but then do not hold the democrats to this same standard in reverse saying they need a fillibuster majority to get their agenda done. What agenda exactly? You haven’t shown me a compromise or a non-compromise democrat ideal that would fix our situation. Neither has any democrat. And that is also on democrats. Get your head out of the “neither party is good, neither can be radical, so democrats win” arguement. It is pardoxial, and is the only reason you are stuck on it. It makes it so no one can say a republican is better for the economy even though they are.
Regarding the credit down grade: You aren’t an agent, I can tell. That or you aren’t a good one. Agents use the AM best rating system. The politics did NOT cause the credit downgrade, and they did NOT hold the U.S. hostage. End of story. Changing the arguement on DEBT is NOT holding someone hostage. The reason quoted by the rating company was key wording stating that politics was only a measure, BECAUSE there was no chance of reform. If Obama had the reform he wanted to social security they saw that it would NOT be enough to save it. It was NOT because republicans delayed the debt ceiling being increased. If we had not had the debt ceiliing increased, we couldn’t increase debt, and let me guaranty you if we can’t increase debt, they would not have down graded our rating. They base ratings on the asset portfolio, revenues, and expenditures. Nothing else. So if anything, Obama refusing to change anything caused our downgrade. Not republicans fighting him. Get that through your head.
Speedo must be a first cousin to TOPOV. He says the Republicans need to compromise to get things done. I have observed over a period of decades how compromise has worked. One thing that is absolutely true, when a Republican compromises, it is always to accommodate the liberal Democrat position and we end up with another giant spending bill which eventually led to our spending problem. Progressive Liberals never compromise to a Conservative position. This is why I dislike the reach across the aisle guys like McCain and Graham. They are big time RINO’s who have gone along to get along, all to the detriment of the people.
March 1, 2012 at 4:24 pm
bob says:
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And further: Regarding Romney he has the right to be upset.
I find it amazing that a democrat who did NOT look into Romney’s comments is calling them extreme and radical. First of all, using the partisan politically charged wording “holding the country hostage” shows you are not bi partisan. That was only used by hardcore news agencies during the debacle. Second of all: I know more about his comments on the college incident. Provide me the quote that was extreme and I will give you a rebutal. Obama has not focused on the lower to middle class. It is not an opinion that the lower class will always exist. If Obama is stating that education is the only way, he is stating that the other way is doomed. It isn’t. The method I mentioned would save those workers. And it is snoody the way refers to those who go to college versus those who don’t. He looks down on them. And most of the democrat party absorbs this. Republicans don’t give a rats ass as long as you put in your share of work and try. Romney is tired of the hierarchy. Let’s say you do discriminatory laws. Let’s say that you do lawsuits so that someone who goes to Yale, has higher qualifications than someone who went to a community college. Let’s say you are poor. Are you going to Yale? No. Do you have the ability to get that job on paper according to discriminatory laws? NO. The rich guy who went to Yale does, or the minority who got funding from Obama. That is hierarchy. Romney may have spoken poorly but he’s sick of it. Obama is the radical, as are democrats. They have just managed to paint themselves as the only way to go, becuase they are “bi partisan” even when Boehner agrees to do a full year tax extension which is what he wanted. This game is old. Educate yourself please.
The plan I am referring to was not Ryan’s plan, and the fact that you do not know that is extremely scary to me. Ryan’s plan was an attempt at a bi-partisan reform. It was by no means pure conservative / republican.
Your liberal media sold it as extreme, which is also extremely scary. I didn’t like his plan. Putting words in my mouth is extremely annoying and will result in me talking condescending to your general ignorance in politics.
Switch to decaf. You’re so excited you’re getting confused.
“Dave” made a comment about the Ryan plan; I responded, you repsonded to me with (I guess) your solution to the country’s problems – worthy opinions, undoubtedly. I said you liked the Ryan plan, not that what you described was the Ryan plan.
“Obama couldn’t make changes because he didn’t have a fillibuster majority…Radical changes can’t be done. How about the health care bill? That was far more radical than what I just suggested.”
Not what I said. If you actually read it, you’d know I said the democrats didn’t get all they wanted. Obamacare was the best they could get, and is the result of compromise, which is why so many on the left don’t like it – it’s not radical enough for them. The fact that you think it’s too radical is just your opinion.
Your comments about the debt ceiling are irrelevant. The same republicans had many opportunities to take principled stands on the debt ceiling when they held all the cards (under Bush). They didn’t do it. The only reason for doing it last year was politics, plain and simple. We were downgraded because nothing was done about the debt crisis; nothing got done because the republicans refused Obama’s compromise. Get that through your head.
Another thing to get through your head is the difference between Romney and Santorum. Here’s what Obama said:
“I ask every American to commit to at least one year or more of higher education or career training,” Mr. Obama said in February 2009. “This can be community college or a four-year school, vocational training or an apprenticeship. But whatever the training may be, every American will need to get more than a high school diploma.”
Santorum:
Asked about that discrepancy on “This Week,” Mr. Santorum insisted that Mr. Obama had ulterior political motives in encouraging people to attend liberal colleges.
“Understand that we have some real problems at our college campuses with political correctness, with an ideology that is forced upon people who, you know, who may not agree with the politically correct left doctrine,” Mr. Santorum said.
“What a snob,” Santorum said of the president. “He wants to remake you in his image.”
Your comments don’t address this. You’re just huffing up straw man arguments. “If Obama is stating that education is the only way, he is stating that the other way is doomed. It isn’t.”
Only a purely ideological-straitjacketed partisan, or a moron, could make Santorum’s argument that President Obama is encouraging young people to go to college because he wants them indoctrinated, and that he is a snob. Santorum didn’t like his professors, and blames their “liberal bias” for the grades he got. Boo-hoo. The more he tries to wiggle out of this, the more I suspect moron.
March 2, 2012 at 1:49 pm
Xavier Cugat says:
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You go, Bob! You write some the best comments on here…keep ’em coming!
March 12, 2012 at 10:23 am
Agent says:
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To show how intractable the Democrats are about compromise to get things done, the House has sent to the Senate over 20 bills in recent months to help the economy and Dingy Harry has pronounced them all DOA. They cannot be debated or voted on due to his committed Progressive agenda. It is his way or the highway. That is what I am talking about with Democrats never compromising with the Republicans. They talk about Republicans blocking progress on the economy ad nauseum, but what is really happening is quite the opposite.
March 1, 2012 at 7:56 pm
bob says:
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Speedo:
I love your ignorance here. First of all:
If I didn’t mention Ryan’s plan I didn’t mention it. If you then chose to say I supported it, you’re a darn fool. Just so we are clear, labeling people’s ideals premptively is called stereotyping, or ignorance, take your pick.
Second: In order to have a compromise, you have to have a compromise which people wanted to have in the first place. Not taking over the health system to make universal coverage (something republicans and over half of Americans do not agree with), instead forcing everyone to buy coverage (something republicans and over half of Americans do not agree with) That is not compromise. The studies are in from the same guy who said it would cut costs, and it won’t cut costs. All it did was force you to buy a policy. I fail to see how that is anything but “radical”.
The rating company specifically said, even with ANY of Obama’s potential plans they would have lowered the credit rating. The republicans blocking his plans which they already deemed too little did not result in the credit decrease. Get through your head. Further: When fighting with someone who is crippling our debt on a debt ceiling deal, it’s the right thing to do if it gets it done. It did it in 1995, and I’m sure it will work again. Regarding the debt with Bush: Subtracting his last year when the recession started, which would hinder revenues, Bush would have broken even. Sorry to say it bud, but debt wise Bush did far better than Obama. They had the cards and messed up on par with Average debt wise until the recession hit. Blame Bush for the recession all you want, that doesn’t give Obama the right to drop a bomb on it (even though I can prove it WAS the CRA regulations, which you’ll ask why didn’t they explode until 2007, and I’ll tell you that in 1992 Clinton started suing them, and Obama sued Citibank for redlining against low income borrowers. Between 1992 and 2007 as a result the CRA loan commitment erupted from 8 billion, to over 4.5 trillion. With a T. Every single one of those banks went under or close to it. WAMU, made a 750 billion commitment, blew up 6 years later. Bank of America, made 1 Trillion, almost blew up. I could go on, but each of the top ten firms that exploded made those commitments. To get a superior CRA rating you had to have innovative methods to give low income loans with little to no document evidence, and give out a percentage to people AT poverty level. That caused the flop. If you want to see CRA ratings look them up online at the government website for the CRA. While I know you will blame Bush for the recession to divert the fact that his spending was not as bad as you say it is, and the republicans of the time, I think I’ll also address the recession and the true Culprits: Clinton and Obama, which by the way Citibank went bankrupt less than 10 years after being sued for redlining against low incompe borrowers by Obama, BECAUSE of giving low income loans…HMMMM)
Over 65% of all public college attendees and over 65% of all teachers vote democratic. If you missed the indoctrination in such schools I surely did not, I believe graduating highschool that FDR was the greatest president and worker’s compensation in my state was good. Now I’m in insurance, and see it’s bad. Educational schools do paint things in a different light. There is a reason why when you change to Yale, Harvard, and the private schools the numbers switch the other way to republican graduates. His comment was perfectly merrited. Especially if Obama is trying to force everyone to attend one year of college.
You appear to have me confused with someone who is interested in learning more about your opinions regarding the economomy and the origins of the recession. Try to focus on the topic which I stated and you chose to respond to, to wit, that the conservative mainstream is against anything Obama says or does, no matter how innocuous, and refuses to compromise.
“I fail to see how that is anything but “radical”.”
Thank you for making my point. There’s a lot you fail to see, such as that there is a continuum of political opinion and your place on it. You believe the health care bill is radical, while liberals feel it is timid. It doesn’t make either of you right.
“In order to have a compromise, you have to have a compromise which people wanted to have in the first place.”
Wrong. A compromise is when everyone gives up a piece of what they wanted in order to achieve something. If one side is unwilling to give up anything, or doesn’t want to achieve anything, there is no compromise. This is why the other side sometimes takes unilateral action.
Your last paragraph was a delight. You and Santorum are keenly aware of liberal college indoctrination – how lucky we poor fools are that the two of you were somehow immune to it. Is this really what you believe? That there would be no one out there who disagreed with your world view if we could just shut up those infernal college professors? I have a hard time believing you’re even in the insurance industry when you clearly don’t understand the difference between correlation and causation. And what a low opinion you have of your fellow citizens; apparently, people can’t be trusted to think correctly if they are exposed to thoughts and opinions that don’t match yours.
Presumably, you read what Obama said. Yet you still were able to write, “Especially if Obama is trying to force everyone to attend one year of college.” Again, thank you for clearly demonstrating that no matter what Obama says or does, mainstream conservatives will figure out a way to criticize it, even if they have to lie, misquote, or deliberately misinterpret it.
March 2, 2012 at 12:08 pm
bob says:
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Speedo:
The definition of compromise included repciprocal measures of things one agrees with to counter that which one does not. If over half of Americans do not agree with both plans along with republicans then there was not a compromise. See my definition below showing the words “reciprocal”.
Regarding your Correlation does not equate to causation comment: When the numbers flip the other way for private colleges correlation means it is linked. You can’t dismiss numbers just by throwing out a cliché phrase to me. There is a degree of indoctrination at those schools. Just like there is a general understanding when you go to a business school, you are going to get a degree that will get you an auto in to a corporate position. Have you gone to such a college? No? Have you looked at the studies regarding the opinion differences between the two? No? Then don’t claim the evidence is hogwash or simply radical when you don’t agree with it.
Regarding radical: When weighing the constituion’s ability against a mandate to buy insurance, it is radical. Just because some people could not find it radical (a philosophical arguement to that which is radical? How old are you? 18?) does not mean it is not radical. I have heard this with younger democrats: I could see it as radical, so could these people, therefore it isn’t? Well you called some of my posts radical as well as Santorum. Those are YOUR opinions that you said no one in their right mind could believe. With you, you get to define radical? With a republican, you get to label them as radical and make the definitions while ignoring studies as “Correlation does not equate to causation”. You are ignorant.
Regarding me going all over in the arguement: You brought up the republicans fumble on the debt. In order to show how they DID NOT fumble on the debt we have to remove the last year when the recession hit, and prove they didn’t cause it. When doing so, we see they are about equal in history during Bush’s term, and the same congress resulted in the surpluses of 1995 onward. My comments have actually all been true, and the best you can come up with “only a fool would think that” “Correlation does not equate to causation” “that’s radical” “no one can define radical”. Just what kind of a person do you think you’re talking to? These have been your arguements. You have not debated (and won) against any of my topics. You brought up debt. You were wrong. You brought up the republicans not compromising. You were wrong. I can list at least 20 things the republicans have come up with for ideas. NONE have passed. I can think of over 20 things democrats wanted that passed. Can you think of ONE plan the republicans have been able to pass? How about in 2010 when corporations said they would bring 1 trillion dollars in off shore revenues home if they got a corporate tax rate of 15%? We had the deal ready. Democrats refused to compromise. And that’s not a small one either. Even Obama himself and Clinton has said we should lower the corporate tax rate. They agree, but will not compromise? Hold the same standard to your party.
Compromise:
a settlement of differences by mutual concessions; an agreement reached by adjustment of conflicting or opposing claims, principles, etc., by reciprocal modification of demands.
2. the result of such a settlement.
3. something intermediate between different things: The split-level is a compromise between a ranch house and a multistoried house.
“Progressive Liberals never compromise to a Conservative position. This is why I dislike the reach across the aisle guys like McCain and Graham.”
You misunderstand what compromise means. You should read bob’s definition of compromise. It talks about mutual concessions. This is the problem with mainstream conservatives. They think compromise means adopting their position. I don’t have a problem if you believe you should not compromise on any of your values and beliefs, but you can’t then claim that no one will compromise with you.
March 2, 2012 at 12:24 pm
bob says:
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And regarding your Obama college comment, why would one use that very specific wording regarding attending at least one year of college, if they did not intend on ensuring everyone would go to at least one year of college?
Let me be clear, with discriminatory laws in place, the more people you get on paper with a degree, the more those people have to be paid, and the more people who don’t go to college have to go to college to get paid. I don’t know if you’ve noticed this but the rich already caught on to this. As long as they look better on paper they can get paid 1,000,000 for a similar to degree from someone with similar responsibilities that graduated from a public university. Example: My father is an engineer. He was traveling all over the world performing duties I know for a fact (considering I insure architects and engineers) the principal of a firm would perform. However, on paper he just has a degree from the UW. They moved him into a position title that was exactly the same as a management principal, but paid him $120,000. He doesn’t complain, but if he was in the corporate position (as the firm is hundreds of employees) he would be paid over a million for doing what he is doing. His boss went to a private school. On paper his boss looks better. Off paper, his boss does not work with the businesses they work with to move operations back from China to the U.S. develop FDA compiant product procedures for their products, develop medically compliant code for their products with the entire corporation, etc. My father does that principal’s services, and doesn’t get paid for it because on PAPER he doesn’t look like that man. And I don’t know if you realize this, but that is how most $100k graduations from universities end up.
If you are encouraging and funding more people to get in to college, you are encouraging more of this. Therefore, you are forcing people to go to college.
I look for the ACTUAL result of an action, not the INTENDED. That is where liberals are weak.
“And regarding your Obama college comment, why would one use that very specific wording regarding attending at least one year of college, if they did not intend on ensuring everyone would go to at least one year of college?”
I’ve asked you twice to read the words Obama said, which I conveniently posted for you. Here it is again: “I ask every American to commit to at least one year or more of higher education or career training.” Apparently, where conservatives are weak is in reading comprehension.
What is the point of the story about you father? You say he got a job that pays him $120,000 because he went to a public college (by the way, did he get indoctrinated?), but if he had gone to a prestigious private college, he’d be paid $1,000,000. How much would the same company pay him if he had not gone to any college? Try as you might, you keep proving my points for me.
“My comments have actually all been true, and the best you can come up with “only a fool would think that” “Correlation does not equate to causation” “that’s radical” “no one can define radical”. Just what kind of a person do you think you’re talking to? These have been your arguements.”
Well, since you misquote me, avoid direct answers to direct questions, and seem incapable of understanding different points of view, I think I’m talking to a radical conservative who resents his place in life and blames liberals personally for whatever slights he has endured.
March 2, 2012 at 1:54 pm
bob says:
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Let me keep it simple, since your likely 20 year old something brain can’t follow:
Name what I have misquoted. Name what I have not answered. Can’t name it? Then don’t say it. Can’t grasp my comments and how they are linked? Your problem.
Just because you can’t follow what I’m saying doesn’t make it off topic. My father’s story has to do with forcing people to go to college. The actual effect of discriminatory laws combined with funding more college, is resulting in those who don’t go to college needing to go in order to get those jobs or not getting them on the low end, or makes for the middle class needing to go to certain types of schooling to compete with rich corporate people getting those jobs. Either way, it’s either forcing the lower class to get a degree for something they may not need, (Insurance jobs is a good example. People at AIG for example had a lawsuit where the top employees had the same job description, same responsibilities, only a better degree and they were paid 80k instead of huge bonuses) or the middle class to go to Yale (which they will never be able to do) to compete with the upper class. It is directly linked, but your egghead brain can’t grasp it. Forcing someone to go to college could also pertain to making them have to do it to get certain positions.
Your ignorance is getting extremely old. You probably can’t name a bill that was republican going through. And that shows there has been NO compromise on the left, and we both can list over 20 that the democrats have passed (though you’ll argue that they made compromises on the bill, that doesn’t change that not ONE republican type of idea has passed through congress) and you’ll still say until the cows come home that republicans don’t compromise. This is idiotic. And I refuse to respond to your ignorance anymore. Later!
When I say not one republican idea, I mean literally, not one republican origin bill has made it to floor. If all democrat bills come to floor, and they compromise with Republicans to pass THEIR agenda to begin with, that is not compromise. They refuse to start with a rebpulican agenda adding democrat ideas to pass. See how this is an important little tid bit when it comes to compromising? Why is it ok for them to make a democrat based item, and shave back until it is republican, and not for a republican bill and shave back until it is agreeable to democrats? The reason? THEY DON’T COMPROMISE.
March 2, 2012 at 2:26 pm
Speedo says:
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“Name what I have misquoted.”
Re-read the 4th paragraph of my previous post.
“Name what I have not answered.”
Is this really what you believe? That there would be no one out there who disagreed with your world view if we could just shut up those infernal college professors?
How much would the same company pay him if he had not gone to any college?
Did your father become a liberal through public college indoctrination?
New question: Who is forcing anybody to go to college? Your argument, if it can be called that, seems to be: Obama is forcing people to go to college who don’t need to go, and if we just stopped forcing the “lower class” (your words)to go to college, and if the “middle class” would just stop dreaming of going to prestigious schools they’ll never get in to, then, somehow, something would be better. You clearly seem to believe that going to college provides a benefit, and some colleges provide a huge benefit, but, from that, you somehow conclude that certain “classes” of people should ignore that benefit. I never said that what you were saying was off-topic, only that it is incomprehensible.
March 2, 2012 at 2:20 pm
bob says:
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And to finish:
Regarding my comment about my father and you saying how much would he have received if he had not gone to college:
That is not the point, and doesn’t prove yours. I use multiple points to make a broad concept. You like going for one pointer lines.
In my father’s circumstance, it is harmful to him for the sake of looking worse on paper in the extreme versus a rich man.
In the case of those who have not had college, like oh I don’t know say MICHAEL DELL of Dell company, how much do you suppose he would be paid working for a computer repair company at Best Buy? That guy at Best Buy would be better in every way than a licensed indvidual at Dell. And he would make what…10 an hour, or be forced to take 4 years of schooling, put himself in debt, etc? Do ya have any real world examples speedo?
And with the personal attacks: Yeah. Mature. At least I call you an idiot for stating things POLITICALLY that are not accurate. I DO NOT try to say that you have a personal vandetta, are a radical conservative who had a bad life and blamed others.
I didn’t have a bad life. I’m well off. These are real issues that have nothing to do with being whiney. They are all tangible facts, ideas, and good measures with the GOOD in mind not BAD.
I’m sorry that you seem to want to label that as being so pesimistic to try to make a better world. *rolls eyes* you’re throwing out grade school style insults. Typical
“That is not the point, and doesn’t prove yours. I use multiple points to make a broad concept. You like going for one pointer lines.”
Your style serves mainly to provide cover and avoid clarity. I find that sticking to a topic is more illuminating.
“In my father’s circumstance, it is harmful to him for the sake of looking worse on paper in the extreme versus a rich man.”
It seems someone in your father’s situation, if they had a complaint, should blame themself, as Herman Cain would say. If someone feels they are being underpaid, they can look for a different job. I still don’t see how going to college harmed him.
This is why I made the comment that you seemed resentful. You seem to resent the fact that someone with a prestigious private college degree earns more than someone with a public college degree.
As far as Michael Dell, or Bill Gates, for that matter, what do they have to do with what a Best Buy employee might want to do to improve their income potential? My son worked at Best Buy. When he got his BA, he got a better, higher-paying job. Is that real-world enough for you?
March 2, 2012 at 2:49 pm
bob says:
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Let me get this straight: I’m misquoting you, and you have one reference, which you “believe” I misquoted whereas I did not.
And let me get this straight: I said there is a “benefit” to going to college? No.
First, there are always those who will not go to college in the lower class. Michael Dell didn’t finish a prestigious school, neither did Bill Gates, he received an honorary later. I realize they managed to get to the top with their skills, but not everyone will. If they had worked at Best Buy they deserve the lower pay just because they didn’t go to college? With current discriminatory laws they literally are not ALLOWED to earn more without the degree. You find this good for people who get the degree. I find it bad for people who can’t, or would have extreme difficulty, like those who would have to work two jobs, can’t get financial aid, or alternatively would go to college for 4 years, get into debt, and might not get a job to pay for that debt for years, ruining their credit and ability to get a job (sound familiar? It’s common now, and 3 of the last people I hired were in that position). College should not be something those people are forced into. If they have the skills, they should be able to use them. If they took 2 years of computer sciences, they should be allowed to work at Microsoft at full pay to that of someone who went to Harvard, as long as they are just as good. As things stand now, they literally are not allowed to pay that 2 year degree person as much as someone with Harvard education. This igrorance is beyond insane. I can provide more examples throughout all lines of work.
Most people will be stuck in a 4 year degree, or none at all, getting a low pay. I think there are circumstances where people take advantage of college on paper through discriminatory laws, and that is a larger issue then trying to strengthen discriminatory laws regarding college, and then try to get more people to take advantage of it. You can consider that a benefit. I do not.
I have not attempted to avoid clarity. I have answered all your silly questions, and directed relevant areas. If you can’t retort don’t blame me.
That is not real world enough as it does not connect. The real world example would be someone from Bestbuy getting the certificate (which means nothing) and then the pay grade bumps up to 18 an hour. It starts at 10 if you do the same work as 18. It stays at 10 until you get the certificate no matter how good you are.
My point in Michael Dell and Bill Gates, with Michael Dell in particular he would have been in exactly that Best Buy circumstance. He was able to make his own company. But are you saying otherwise he should have been worth roughly 18 an hour? An education doesn’t make you special. And now your elitest begins to show. As I said, you share the opinion I stated regarding liberals and education. Snoody ;)
“Let me get this straight: I’m misquoting you, and you have one reference, which you “believe” I misquoted whereas I did not.”
You put quotes around words I did not say – that is the definition of misquoting. You took your intepretations of my statements and put quotes around them, implying I had said them. You are wrong.
“And let me get this straight: I said there is a “benefit” to going to college? No.”
No, I said “You clearly seem to believe that going to college provides a benefit, and some colleges provide a huge benefit.” I based this on the fact that your father went to college, and got a job that pays him $120,000. Are you now claiming your father did not benefit from a college education? That he would have got that job and pay rate if he had never gone to college?
“That is not real world enough as it does not connect. The real world example would be someone from Bestbuy getting the certificate (which means nothing) and then the pay grade bumps up to 18 an hour. It starts at 10 if you do the same work as 18. It stays at 10 until you get the certificate no matter how good you are.”
So, if I’m understanding you correctly, your complaint is that there are people with no degree or certification working for companies where if they got a degree or a certificate “which means nothing”, the same company would voluntarily pay them more. This is not elitism. This is the free market. Companies have made a determination that additional education or training is something they value and pay more for. Obama didn’t order companies to behave this way, he’s simply pointing out that if you want to have a better paying job, education and training are ways to do it. Another way is to work for a company that doesn’t believe in education and training and simply pays people for “how good you are.” I don’t have a problem with that.
Again, this only makes you sound resentful and jealous of people who try to better themselves through education and training. “An education doesn’t make you special.” To some employers, it does. Who are you to tell Best Buy how to compensate their emplyees?
February 29, 2012 at 1:56 pm
Dave says:
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Still own hundreds of millions of shares of AIG which most likely will be sold at a loss, much greater than the paltry $2.8 billion they made here.
What’s wrong with this picture?
“In the last two auctions, the New York Fed did not reveal sale prices nor the specific bonds, but said on both occasions it represented “good value for the public.”
Oh, we should trust the New York Fed? Oh I know that it knows what’s best for us. Right?????
We all know how trustworthy the Fed is. After all, that is where Turbo Tax Tim came from before he was sworn in to the Treasury. His grubby paws were all over the shenanigans pulled when we had the financial meltdown.
the only gain for tax payers is that their wealth has been transferred and their government further impoverished by the privately owned Fed. The Fed made millions if not a billion on this transaction alone.
I knew that someone would have something negative to say about a taxpayer gain of $2.8 billion.
“ASSET PURCHASES$46 billion (of $52.5 billion allocated)
AIG sold insurance to banks worldwide to protect them against defaulting bonds. By buying up some of the assets in question, AIG is freed from some of those obligations.
COLLATERAL POSTS$31.9 billion
Due to a loss in value of the underlying assets, AIG has paid $22.4 billion to companies holding credit default swap insurance agreements and $9.5 billion to municipalities holding guaranteed investment agreements.
CAPITAL TO SUBSIDIARIES$22.6 billion
To adequately capitalize AIG’s subsidiaries in case of default, the insurer sent $20.9 billion in funds to life insurance units and $1.7 billion to its consumer finance divisions.
DEBT PAYMENTS$22 billion
The company spent $15.2 billion to pay down maturing debt at its troubled financial products division, and $6.8 billion to pay down other AIG debt.
REPAYMENT TO GOVERNMENT$4.6 billion
AIG has given $4.6 billion back to the government.
Total $118 billion”
http://money.cnn.com/news/storysupplement/economy/aig/index.html
—–
So the rest is on its way, has been paid back?
This is a very deceptive article….there’s still Maiden Lane III out there and the Fed has incurred a 12 Billion Dollar loss.
“Your proposition may be good,
but let’s have one thing understood –
Whatever it is, I’m against it!
And even when you’ve changed it or condensed it,
I’m against it!
I’m opposed to it.
On general principles I’m opposed to it.”
Today’s Conseratives have achieved something incredible – they’ve turned biting satire into a national political party platform.
The liberals are just as guilty of being against anything proposed by a conservative. Take for instance Paul Ryan’s plan to put the federal budget more in balance (a concept liberals must be too stupid to comprehend). The reaction was to air a commercial with a with a Paul Ryan look alike pushing a grandmother off a cliff even though Ryan’s plan specifically excluded changes to anybody on Medicare or even those not yet on but over 55. The liberal’s position so ridiculous they had to LIE to make their invalid point. Better to bankrupt the country than to deal with a huge deficit problem. They wouldn’t even consider the Obama appointed Boyle-Simpson plan. Next time you want to make a state like this, be sure to leave your hypocrisy at the door.
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate was an idea proposed by Conservatives and liberals were not against that. Amazingly though, once Liberals agreed to thsi Conservative idea, Conservatives decided they no longer liked it.
You are referring to a movement in the 80’s. We do not have all the same politicians as back then. If your arguement is that republicans come up with innovations that democrats put in by the time they are dated I agree entirely.
*rolls eyse* More OPV bull.
Furthermore: It didn’t go through. Just because they thought of it at one point doesn’t mean it should have been done. They clearly didn’t go through with it. If it had bipartisan support as you claim, then it would have went through. So are you trying to say that republicans didn’t want it to go through, or democrats? Because if it were republicans at the time they did NOT support it fully, and if it were democrats who blocked it, they blocked progress 20 years ago.
Which one OPV? Republicans also suggested the mandatory investment into a private social security type of account. I seem to remember Obama talking about it recently, making it automatic to be invested in a simple IRA or 401k when the employer matches, and you have to elect to get out of it. Same concept, 20 years later and now that it is a democrat it’s a good idea.
Get your head on straight. Your bias is showing.
Bob, don’t hold your breath that TOPOV will get it. He is a committed Progressive Socialist who needs to be committed for mental disease. I wonder if he would say that Hilarycare was proposed by the Republicans. Hilary tried to ram that through and the Republicans shot it down because of many of the same flaws that Obamacare had. Not to be deterred, under Obama, they cajoled, bribed and rammed through the monstrocity in the dead of night without even reading it. It is so bad that scholars can’t read it and it will be this countries undoing if allowed to stand.
Any politican’s plan is always a starting point for negotiation. Why would you expect liberals to whole-heartedly endorse the Ryan plan? It is a radically conservative approach to solving the budget problem (even Newt agrees with that). Nothing gets done in government without compromise. But today’s Republicans have alomst totally abandoned compromise – they wouldn’t even agree to $10 of spending cuts in exchange for $1 in tax increases. This wild-eyed ideological/partisan response pervades everything they do:
– cheering Chicago’s loss of the Olympics
– criticizing the First Lady’s obesity initiative
– holding the country hostage over the debt ceiling
The list is endless, and now includes a mainstream Republican presidential candidate calling the President a “snob” (and implying the motive is to turn young people away from religion) for encouraging young people to strive for more than a high-school diploma. This from a millionaire with 3 college degrees. Who in their right mind believes this stuff?
I won’t defend Democrats who are acting silly, but there is simply no comparison with the level of absurdity coming out of the Right these days. What used to be the fringe of the Republican party 50 years ago is now mainstream.
Obama’s plan as a whole for $10 of spending cuts for $1 of spending was not the issue.
The issue was it did nothing to change our system or direct the flaws. We have three main spending areas: Defense, Medicare, Social Security. It cut funds. It taxed more. That is not innovation to make any of those three more efficient. Our system is flawed. When McCain said the fundamentals of our economy are strong Obama called him delusional. Well, the fundamentals of our government are not strong, and republicans are telling Obama that.
On Social Security:
The republicans don’t want to cut social security and raise taxes to fix social security. See one of my posts under the article regarding Buffet recently. I’m not reposting it here. There is a method to cut social security pay outs, keep taxes the same, change the tax code, and you end up having people have the option to build up a tax free investment portfolio, which would only be tax free each time they withdraw from it if they did not take out social security funds that year. The plan would result in a low of 1.69 million with 110,000 annually for your average person at retirement in the 18 age group currently when they retire. This would indefinitely cut the cost of social security, allow us to encourage people to get off it, help the lower to middle class which will always exist finally have an option that would get them out of it, and would keep all those invesment funds into being reinvested in the market. There is a reason it is called capital “gains”.
Medicare: There are scams and frauds each year. Republicans want to cut funding in the sense that they want to get rid of that section of medicare. Every time they talk about cutting it they are specifically talking about people who abuse it. Though no one can really cut this one, not even republicans or democrats. We need it.
Defense: The defense budget was almost 900 billion last year. At the highest point in Bush’s presidency even including Iraq and Afghanistan it was more in tune with $600 billion. I did the average and it was 400 billion a year total defense spending. So far we have not dropped below 800 billion in Obama’s term. At some points in Bush’s term, even including the wars it was 300 billion. When people say how much the Iraq and Afghanistan war cost, they neglect to note that we have a percentage of the budget that goes automatically to defense spending which we use for wars. We don’t just suddenly lay off all our military or stop paying them, they don’t just suddenly grow, we don’t just suddenly build tanks, we don’t just suddenly end defense contracts or start them. Obama has not ended this spending, and it is double now what it was average under Bush. Republicans might not cut this area. But neither has or will Obama and democrats, and they already lied about how much the wars cost us to piss people off. You can’t say how much a war costs as if it is in addition to the amount we already have set aside for defense (wars) unless you intend on cutting that said amount. They didn’t. It was the same under Clinton. It was the same under Bush. It increased under Obama.
Also: The republicans granted a full year of the tax extension, after the democrats asked for it, and then the democrats refused to pass more than 2 months to start the battle up again. That is beyond the point of insanity. I remember watching the news as a republican that wanted that tax cut. At first I was upset with republicans. But they very quickly said, ok, we will do this tax cut. Then the democrats cried about it saying “WAIT!!! WE ONLY WANT TWO MONTHS!!!” and Boehner said again and again “you asked for a year, I’m giving you a year” as they said “no no it’s 2 months or nothing, why are you trying to get rid of this tax credit?” and as Boehner said again “you asked for a year, I’m giving you a year, we aren’t playing games here, I won’t support two months.”. That was insanity. Absolute insanity.
In conclusion: One party is serious on reform for social security. Neither are serious in Defense and Medicare, Medicare for good reasons.
“Obama’s plan as a whole for $10 of spending cuts for $1 of spending was not the issue.”
For you. Because you like the Ryan plan just as it is. My point was that their needs to be compromise. You have a plan to “reform” Social Seecurity. Great. Not everybody believes you have the answer, therefore you are going to have compromise, or nothing changes.
Most of the time, neither party is serious about implementing radical structural change because it’s near-impossible to do. You have to have one party in charge and a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. Obama didn’t quite have that in 2009 and 2010, so the democrats didn’t get everything they wanted.
The only thing I have to say about most of what you posted is that you’re certainly entitled to your opinion. However, as to the points I made that you chose to respond to, yes, I am serious – the republicans held the country hostage, lowered our credit rating, in a simple-minded attempt to score political points. They had an opportunity to make a real difference, but squandered it because they would not compromise.
And your comments about Obama’s supposed elitism define “grasping at straws.” As a matter of fact, college was just one of the options Obam mentioned in his speech; he wasn’t frowning on anyone. And it was Santorum, not Romney, who responded like a lunatic. Read what Santorum said about the speech. If anyone encourages an elitist mindset, it’s this crop of Republican candidates. A millionaire with 3 degrees telling others not to go to college while putting his own children through college. That’s pathetic.
And one more comment:
Holding the country hostage? Are you serious? Debt has to be paid off eventually. Accumilating as much debt as we have is LITERALLY not SYMBOLIC in the meaning of “holding hostage” because someone is paying for it. While democrats like to pretend it will be the rich, even if we tax them at 100% it would not pay for our lifestyle. So who are we going to hold hostage to pay it?
The republicans started that battle to emulate the battle in 1995. After that near government shut down people took things seriously. It certainly was not holding the government hostage when it happened then, and the democrats reaped the results (Clinton Specifically) Just after the 1995 shut down we had surpluses. Also, economic growth after that point was DOUBLE what it was in the years before. Coincidence? It was not holding hostage, and if you consider double the growth and surpluses of the 90’s being held hostage sign me the heck up, tie me up, cuff me.
I lied two more comments:
They can criticize a bill all they want. Criticism is the only thing that gets something fine tuned.
See my other comment regarding college. Obama acts like funding education will somehow eliminate the fact that agricultural, contracting, call centers, oil jobs, hard labor, will always exist. I don’t like hierachy personally. Go to college, get a job, you’re worth something, but hey we won’t help you otherwise. That means if you are the other that is NEEDED by the way and will always exist, you are screwed, and are also paying for the people who receive financial aid. My plan above would get those people into a much higher earnings situation. What Romney didn’t like about Obama is the very fact that the crap jobs will always exist. And he does not want those people frowned apon. Ever tried dating in your early 30’s without a college education as a male? Remind me the perception of the majority of the public regarding that person when he meets the family. Please. Do remind me. Obama encourages that elitest mindset.
Hahahahaha.
Ok let me get this straight:
Obama couldn’t make changes because he didn’t have a fillibuster majority…Radical changes can’t be done. How about the health care bill? That was far more radical than what I just suggested. It isn’t an opinion. The numbers I put down are factual regarding social security. See my post in the buffet investment post recently. Those numbers are 100% concrete. The democrats have claimed that everything I just stated was radical. That’s on them. No on “the people”. I find it amazing that you say republicans should “compromise” when they do. I find it amazing you say they should compromise, but then do not hold the democrats to this same standard in reverse saying they need a fillibuster majority to get their agenda done. What agenda exactly? You haven’t shown me a compromise or a non-compromise democrat ideal that would fix our situation. Neither has any democrat. And that is also on democrats. Get your head out of the “neither party is good, neither can be radical, so democrats win” arguement. It is pardoxial, and is the only reason you are stuck on it. It makes it so no one can say a republican is better for the economy even though they are.
Regarding the credit down grade: You aren’t an agent, I can tell. That or you aren’t a good one. Agents use the AM best rating system. The politics did NOT cause the credit downgrade, and they did NOT hold the U.S. hostage. End of story. Changing the arguement on DEBT is NOT holding someone hostage. The reason quoted by the rating company was key wording stating that politics was only a measure, BECAUSE there was no chance of reform. If Obama had the reform he wanted to social security they saw that it would NOT be enough to save it. It was NOT because republicans delayed the debt ceiling being increased. If we had not had the debt ceiliing increased, we couldn’t increase debt, and let me guaranty you if we can’t increase debt, they would not have down graded our rating. They base ratings on the asset portfolio, revenues, and expenditures. Nothing else. So if anything, Obama refusing to change anything caused our downgrade. Not republicans fighting him. Get that through your head.
Speedo must be a first cousin to TOPOV. He says the Republicans need to compromise to get things done. I have observed over a period of decades how compromise has worked. One thing that is absolutely true, when a Republican compromises, it is always to accommodate the liberal Democrat position and we end up with another giant spending bill which eventually led to our spending problem. Progressive Liberals never compromise to a Conservative position. This is why I dislike the reach across the aisle guys like McCain and Graham. They are big time RINO’s who have gone along to get along, all to the detriment of the people.
And further: Regarding Romney he has the right to be upset.
I find it amazing that a democrat who did NOT look into Romney’s comments is calling them extreme and radical. First of all, using the partisan politically charged wording “holding the country hostage” shows you are not bi partisan. That was only used by hardcore news agencies during the debacle. Second of all: I know more about his comments on the college incident. Provide me the quote that was extreme and I will give you a rebutal. Obama has not focused on the lower to middle class. It is not an opinion that the lower class will always exist. If Obama is stating that education is the only way, he is stating that the other way is doomed. It isn’t. The method I mentioned would save those workers. And it is snoody the way refers to those who go to college versus those who don’t. He looks down on them. And most of the democrat party absorbs this. Republicans don’t give a rats ass as long as you put in your share of work and try. Romney is tired of the hierarchy. Let’s say you do discriminatory laws. Let’s say that you do lawsuits so that someone who goes to Yale, has higher qualifications than someone who went to a community college. Let’s say you are poor. Are you going to Yale? No. Do you have the ability to get that job on paper according to discriminatory laws? NO. The rich guy who went to Yale does, or the minority who got funding from Obama. That is hierarchy. Romney may have spoken poorly but he’s sick of it. Obama is the radical, as are democrats. They have just managed to paint themselves as the only way to go, becuase they are “bi partisan” even when Boehner agrees to do a full year tax extension which is what he wanted. This game is old. Educate yourself please.
And a side side comment:
The plan I am referring to was not Ryan’s plan, and the fact that you do not know that is extremely scary to me. Ryan’s plan was an attempt at a bi-partisan reform. It was by no means pure conservative / republican.
Your liberal media sold it as extreme, which is also extremely scary. I didn’t like his plan. Putting words in my mouth is extremely annoying and will result in me talking condescending to your general ignorance in politics.
Switch to decaf. You’re so excited you’re getting confused.
“Dave” made a comment about the Ryan plan; I responded, you repsonded to me with (I guess) your solution to the country’s problems – worthy opinions, undoubtedly. I said you liked the Ryan plan, not that what you described was the Ryan plan.
“Obama couldn’t make changes because he didn’t have a fillibuster majority…Radical changes can’t be done. How about the health care bill? That was far more radical than what I just suggested.”
Not what I said. If you actually read it, you’d know I said the democrats didn’t get all they wanted. Obamacare was the best they could get, and is the result of compromise, which is why so many on the left don’t like it – it’s not radical enough for them. The fact that you think it’s too radical is just your opinion.
Your comments about the debt ceiling are irrelevant. The same republicans had many opportunities to take principled stands on the debt ceiling when they held all the cards (under Bush). They didn’t do it. The only reason for doing it last year was politics, plain and simple. We were downgraded because nothing was done about the debt crisis; nothing got done because the republicans refused Obama’s compromise. Get that through your head.
Another thing to get through your head is the difference between Romney and Santorum. Here’s what Obama said:
“I ask every American to commit to at least one year or more of higher education or career training,” Mr. Obama said in February 2009. “This can be community college or a four-year school, vocational training or an apprenticeship. But whatever the training may be, every American will need to get more than a high school diploma.”
Santorum:
Asked about that discrepancy on “This Week,” Mr. Santorum insisted that Mr. Obama had ulterior political motives in encouraging people to attend liberal colleges.
“Understand that we have some real problems at our college campuses with political correctness, with an ideology that is forced upon people who, you know, who may not agree with the politically correct left doctrine,” Mr. Santorum said.
“What a snob,” Santorum said of the president. “He wants to remake you in his image.”
Your comments don’t address this. You’re just huffing up straw man arguments. “If Obama is stating that education is the only way, he is stating that the other way is doomed. It isn’t.”
Only a purely ideological-straitjacketed partisan, or a moron, could make Santorum’s argument that President Obama is encouraging young people to go to college because he wants them indoctrinated, and that he is a snob. Santorum didn’t like his professors, and blames their “liberal bias” for the grades he got. Boo-hoo. The more he tries to wiggle out of this, the more I suspect moron.
You go, Bob! You write some the best comments on here…keep ’em coming!
To show how intractable the Democrats are about compromise to get things done, the House has sent to the Senate over 20 bills in recent months to help the economy and Dingy Harry has pronounced them all DOA. They cannot be debated or voted on due to his committed Progressive agenda. It is his way or the highway. That is what I am talking about with Democrats never compromising with the Republicans. They talk about Republicans blocking progress on the economy ad nauseum, but what is really happening is quite the opposite.
Speedo:
I love your ignorance here. First of all:
If I didn’t mention Ryan’s plan I didn’t mention it. If you then chose to say I supported it, you’re a darn fool. Just so we are clear, labeling people’s ideals premptively is called stereotyping, or ignorance, take your pick.
Second: In order to have a compromise, you have to have a compromise which people wanted to have in the first place. Not taking over the health system to make universal coverage (something republicans and over half of Americans do not agree with), instead forcing everyone to buy coverage (something republicans and over half of Americans do not agree with) That is not compromise. The studies are in from the same guy who said it would cut costs, and it won’t cut costs. All it did was force you to buy a policy. I fail to see how that is anything but “radical”.
The rating company specifically said, even with ANY of Obama’s potential plans they would have lowered the credit rating. The republicans blocking his plans which they already deemed too little did not result in the credit decrease. Get through your head. Further: When fighting with someone who is crippling our debt on a debt ceiling deal, it’s the right thing to do if it gets it done. It did it in 1995, and I’m sure it will work again. Regarding the debt with Bush: Subtracting his last year when the recession started, which would hinder revenues, Bush would have broken even. Sorry to say it bud, but debt wise Bush did far better than Obama. They had the cards and messed up on par with Average debt wise until the recession hit. Blame Bush for the recession all you want, that doesn’t give Obama the right to drop a bomb on it (even though I can prove it WAS the CRA regulations, which you’ll ask why didn’t they explode until 2007, and I’ll tell you that in 1992 Clinton started suing them, and Obama sued Citibank for redlining against low income borrowers. Between 1992 and 2007 as a result the CRA loan commitment erupted from 8 billion, to over 4.5 trillion. With a T. Every single one of those banks went under or close to it. WAMU, made a 750 billion commitment, blew up 6 years later. Bank of America, made 1 Trillion, almost blew up. I could go on, but each of the top ten firms that exploded made those commitments. To get a superior CRA rating you had to have innovative methods to give low income loans with little to no document evidence, and give out a percentage to people AT poverty level. That caused the flop. If you want to see CRA ratings look them up online at the government website for the CRA. While I know you will blame Bush for the recession to divert the fact that his spending was not as bad as you say it is, and the republicans of the time, I think I’ll also address the recession and the true Culprits: Clinton and Obama, which by the way Citibank went bankrupt less than 10 years after being sued for redlining against low incompe borrowers by Obama, BECAUSE of giving low income loans…HMMMM)
Over 65% of all public college attendees and over 65% of all teachers vote democratic. If you missed the indoctrination in such schools I surely did not, I believe graduating highschool that FDR was the greatest president and worker’s compensation in my state was good. Now I’m in insurance, and see it’s bad. Educational schools do paint things in a different light. There is a reason why when you change to Yale, Harvard, and the private schools the numbers switch the other way to republican graduates. His comment was perfectly merrited. Especially if Obama is trying to force everyone to attend one year of college.
You appear to have me confused with someone who is interested in learning more about your opinions regarding the economomy and the origins of the recession. Try to focus on the topic which I stated and you chose to respond to, to wit, that the conservative mainstream is against anything Obama says or does, no matter how innocuous, and refuses to compromise.
“I fail to see how that is anything but “radical”.”
Thank you for making my point. There’s a lot you fail to see, such as that there is a continuum of political opinion and your place on it. You believe the health care bill is radical, while liberals feel it is timid. It doesn’t make either of you right.
“In order to have a compromise, you have to have a compromise which people wanted to have in the first place.”
Wrong. A compromise is when everyone gives up a piece of what they wanted in order to achieve something. If one side is unwilling to give up anything, or doesn’t want to achieve anything, there is no compromise. This is why the other side sometimes takes unilateral action.
Your last paragraph was a delight. You and Santorum are keenly aware of liberal college indoctrination – how lucky we poor fools are that the two of you were somehow immune to it. Is this really what you believe? That there would be no one out there who disagreed with your world view if we could just shut up those infernal college professors? I have a hard time believing you’re even in the insurance industry when you clearly don’t understand the difference between correlation and causation. And what a low opinion you have of your fellow citizens; apparently, people can’t be trusted to think correctly if they are exposed to thoughts and opinions that don’t match yours.
Presumably, you read what Obama said. Yet you still were able to write, “Especially if Obama is trying to force everyone to attend one year of college.” Again, thank you for clearly demonstrating that no matter what Obama says or does, mainstream conservatives will figure out a way to criticize it, even if they have to lie, misquote, or deliberately misinterpret it.
Speedo:
The definition of compromise included repciprocal measures of things one agrees with to counter that which one does not. If over half of Americans do not agree with both plans along with republicans then there was not a compromise. See my definition below showing the words “reciprocal”.
Regarding your Correlation does not equate to causation comment: When the numbers flip the other way for private colleges correlation means it is linked. You can’t dismiss numbers just by throwing out a cliché phrase to me. There is a degree of indoctrination at those schools. Just like there is a general understanding when you go to a business school, you are going to get a degree that will get you an auto in to a corporate position. Have you gone to such a college? No? Have you looked at the studies regarding the opinion differences between the two? No? Then don’t claim the evidence is hogwash or simply radical when you don’t agree with it.
Regarding radical: When weighing the constituion’s ability against a mandate to buy insurance, it is radical. Just because some people could not find it radical (a philosophical arguement to that which is radical? How old are you? 18?) does not mean it is not radical. I have heard this with younger democrats: I could see it as radical, so could these people, therefore it isn’t? Well you called some of my posts radical as well as Santorum. Those are YOUR opinions that you said no one in their right mind could believe. With you, you get to define radical? With a republican, you get to label them as radical and make the definitions while ignoring studies as “Correlation does not equate to causation”. You are ignorant.
Regarding me going all over in the arguement: You brought up the republicans fumble on the debt. In order to show how they DID NOT fumble on the debt we have to remove the last year when the recession hit, and prove they didn’t cause it. When doing so, we see they are about equal in history during Bush’s term, and the same congress resulted in the surpluses of 1995 onward. My comments have actually all been true, and the best you can come up with “only a fool would think that” “Correlation does not equate to causation” “that’s radical” “no one can define radical”. Just what kind of a person do you think you’re talking to? These have been your arguements. You have not debated (and won) against any of my topics. You brought up debt. You were wrong. You brought up the republicans not compromising. You were wrong. I can list at least 20 things the republicans have come up with for ideas. NONE have passed. I can think of over 20 things democrats wanted that passed. Can you think of ONE plan the republicans have been able to pass? How about in 2010 when corporations said they would bring 1 trillion dollars in off shore revenues home if they got a corporate tax rate of 15%? We had the deal ready. Democrats refused to compromise. And that’s not a small one either. Even Obama himself and Clinton has said we should lower the corporate tax rate. They agree, but will not compromise? Hold the same standard to your party.
Compromise:
a settlement of differences by mutual concessions; an agreement reached by adjustment of conflicting or opposing claims, principles, etc., by reciprocal modification of demands.
2. the result of such a settlement.
3. something intermediate between different things: The split-level is a compromise between a ranch house and a multistoried house.
Agent –
“Progressive Liberals never compromise to a Conservative position. This is why I dislike the reach across the aisle guys like McCain and Graham.”
You misunderstand what compromise means. You should read bob’s definition of compromise. It talks about mutual concessions. This is the problem with mainstream conservatives. They think compromise means adopting their position. I don’t have a problem if you believe you should not compromise on any of your values and beliefs, but you can’t then claim that no one will compromise with you.
And regarding your Obama college comment, why would one use that very specific wording regarding attending at least one year of college, if they did not intend on ensuring everyone would go to at least one year of college?
Let me be clear, with discriminatory laws in place, the more people you get on paper with a degree, the more those people have to be paid, and the more people who don’t go to college have to go to college to get paid. I don’t know if you’ve noticed this but the rich already caught on to this. As long as they look better on paper they can get paid 1,000,000 for a similar to degree from someone with similar responsibilities that graduated from a public university. Example: My father is an engineer. He was traveling all over the world performing duties I know for a fact (considering I insure architects and engineers) the principal of a firm would perform. However, on paper he just has a degree from the UW. They moved him into a position title that was exactly the same as a management principal, but paid him $120,000. He doesn’t complain, but if he was in the corporate position (as the firm is hundreds of employees) he would be paid over a million for doing what he is doing. His boss went to a private school. On paper his boss looks better. Off paper, his boss does not work with the businesses they work with to move operations back from China to the U.S. develop FDA compiant product procedures for their products, develop medically compliant code for their products with the entire corporation, etc. My father does that principal’s services, and doesn’t get paid for it because on PAPER he doesn’t look like that man. And I don’t know if you realize this, but that is how most $100k graduations from universities end up.
If you are encouraging and funding more people to get in to college, you are encouraging more of this. Therefore, you are forcing people to go to college.
I look for the ACTUAL result of an action, not the INTENDED. That is where liberals are weak.
“And regarding your Obama college comment, why would one use that very specific wording regarding attending at least one year of college, if they did not intend on ensuring everyone would go to at least one year of college?”
I’ve asked you twice to read the words Obama said, which I conveniently posted for you. Here it is again: “I ask every American to commit to at least one year or more of higher education or career training.” Apparently, where conservatives are weak is in reading comprehension.
What is the point of the story about you father? You say he got a job that pays him $120,000 because he went to a public college (by the way, did he get indoctrinated?), but if he had gone to a prestigious private college, he’d be paid $1,000,000. How much would the same company pay him if he had not gone to any college? Try as you might, you keep proving my points for me.
“My comments have actually all been true, and the best you can come up with “only a fool would think that” “Correlation does not equate to causation” “that’s radical” “no one can define radical”. Just what kind of a person do you think you’re talking to? These have been your arguements.”
Well, since you misquote me, avoid direct answers to direct questions, and seem incapable of understanding different points of view, I think I’m talking to a radical conservative who resents his place in life and blames liberals personally for whatever slights he has endured.
Let me keep it simple, since your likely 20 year old something brain can’t follow:
Name what I have misquoted. Name what I have not answered. Can’t name it? Then don’t say it. Can’t grasp my comments and how they are linked? Your problem.
Just because you can’t follow what I’m saying doesn’t make it off topic. My father’s story has to do with forcing people to go to college. The actual effect of discriminatory laws combined with funding more college, is resulting in those who don’t go to college needing to go in order to get those jobs or not getting them on the low end, or makes for the middle class needing to go to certain types of schooling to compete with rich corporate people getting those jobs. Either way, it’s either forcing the lower class to get a degree for something they may not need, (Insurance jobs is a good example. People at AIG for example had a lawsuit where the top employees had the same job description, same responsibilities, only a better degree and they were paid 80k instead of huge bonuses) or the middle class to go to Yale (which they will never be able to do) to compete with the upper class. It is directly linked, but your egghead brain can’t grasp it. Forcing someone to go to college could also pertain to making them have to do it to get certain positions.
Your ignorance is getting extremely old. You probably can’t name a bill that was republican going through. And that shows there has been NO compromise on the left, and we both can list over 20 that the democrats have passed (though you’ll argue that they made compromises on the bill, that doesn’t change that not ONE republican type of idea has passed through congress) and you’ll still say until the cows come home that republicans don’t compromise. This is idiotic. And I refuse to respond to your ignorance anymore. Later!
When I say not one republican idea, I mean literally, not one republican origin bill has made it to floor. If all democrat bills come to floor, and they compromise with Republicans to pass THEIR agenda to begin with, that is not compromise. They refuse to start with a rebpulican agenda adding democrat ideas to pass. See how this is an important little tid bit when it comes to compromising? Why is it ok for them to make a democrat based item, and shave back until it is republican, and not for a republican bill and shave back until it is agreeable to democrats? The reason? THEY DON’T COMPROMISE.
“Name what I have misquoted.”
Re-read the 4th paragraph of my previous post.
“Name what I have not answered.”
Is this really what you believe? That there would be no one out there who disagreed with your world view if we could just shut up those infernal college professors?
How much would the same company pay him if he had not gone to any college?
Did your father become a liberal through public college indoctrination?
New question: Who is forcing anybody to go to college? Your argument, if it can be called that, seems to be: Obama is forcing people to go to college who don’t need to go, and if we just stopped forcing the “lower class” (your words)to go to college, and if the “middle class” would just stop dreaming of going to prestigious schools they’ll never get in to, then, somehow, something would be better. You clearly seem to believe that going to college provides a benefit, and some colleges provide a huge benefit, but, from that, you somehow conclude that certain “classes” of people should ignore that benefit. I never said that what you were saying was off-topic, only that it is incomprehensible.
And to finish:
Regarding my comment about my father and you saying how much would he have received if he had not gone to college:
That is not the point, and doesn’t prove yours. I use multiple points to make a broad concept. You like going for one pointer lines.
In my father’s circumstance, it is harmful to him for the sake of looking worse on paper in the extreme versus a rich man.
In the case of those who have not had college, like oh I don’t know say MICHAEL DELL of Dell company, how much do you suppose he would be paid working for a computer repair company at Best Buy? That guy at Best Buy would be better in every way than a licensed indvidual at Dell. And he would make what…10 an hour, or be forced to take 4 years of schooling, put himself in debt, etc? Do ya have any real world examples speedo?
And with the personal attacks: Yeah. Mature. At least I call you an idiot for stating things POLITICALLY that are not accurate. I DO NOT try to say that you have a personal vandetta, are a radical conservative who had a bad life and blamed others.
I didn’t have a bad life. I’m well off. These are real issues that have nothing to do with being whiney. They are all tangible facts, ideas, and good measures with the GOOD in mind not BAD.
I’m sorry that you seem to want to label that as being so pesimistic to try to make a better world. *rolls eyes* you’re throwing out grade school style insults. Typical
“That is not the point, and doesn’t prove yours. I use multiple points to make a broad concept. You like going for one pointer lines.”
Your style serves mainly to provide cover and avoid clarity. I find that sticking to a topic is more illuminating.
“In my father’s circumstance, it is harmful to him for the sake of looking worse on paper in the extreme versus a rich man.”
It seems someone in your father’s situation, if they had a complaint, should blame themself, as Herman Cain would say. If someone feels they are being underpaid, they can look for a different job. I still don’t see how going to college harmed him.
This is why I made the comment that you seemed resentful. You seem to resent the fact that someone with a prestigious private college degree earns more than someone with a public college degree.
As far as Michael Dell, or Bill Gates, for that matter, what do they have to do with what a Best Buy employee might want to do to improve their income potential? My son worked at Best Buy. When he got his BA, he got a better, higher-paying job. Is that real-world enough for you?
Let me get this straight: I’m misquoting you, and you have one reference, which you “believe” I misquoted whereas I did not.
And let me get this straight: I said there is a “benefit” to going to college? No.
First, there are always those who will not go to college in the lower class. Michael Dell didn’t finish a prestigious school, neither did Bill Gates, he received an honorary later. I realize they managed to get to the top with their skills, but not everyone will. If they had worked at Best Buy they deserve the lower pay just because they didn’t go to college? With current discriminatory laws they literally are not ALLOWED to earn more without the degree. You find this good for people who get the degree. I find it bad for people who can’t, or would have extreme difficulty, like those who would have to work two jobs, can’t get financial aid, or alternatively would go to college for 4 years, get into debt, and might not get a job to pay for that debt for years, ruining their credit and ability to get a job (sound familiar? It’s common now, and 3 of the last people I hired were in that position). College should not be something those people are forced into. If they have the skills, they should be able to use them. If they took 2 years of computer sciences, they should be allowed to work at Microsoft at full pay to that of someone who went to Harvard, as long as they are just as good. As things stand now, they literally are not allowed to pay that 2 year degree person as much as someone with Harvard education. This igrorance is beyond insane. I can provide more examples throughout all lines of work.
Most people will be stuck in a 4 year degree, or none at all, getting a low pay. I think there are circumstances where people take advantage of college on paper through discriminatory laws, and that is a larger issue then trying to strengthen discriminatory laws regarding college, and then try to get more people to take advantage of it. You can consider that a benefit. I do not.
I have not attempted to avoid clarity. I have answered all your silly questions, and directed relevant areas. If you can’t retort don’t blame me.
That is not real world enough as it does not connect. The real world example would be someone from Bestbuy getting the certificate (which means nothing) and then the pay grade bumps up to 18 an hour. It starts at 10 if you do the same work as 18. It stays at 10 until you get the certificate no matter how good you are.
My point in Michael Dell and Bill Gates, with Michael Dell in particular he would have been in exactly that Best Buy circumstance. He was able to make his own company. But are you saying otherwise he should have been worth roughly 18 an hour? An education doesn’t make you special. And now your elitest begins to show. As I said, you share the opinion I stated regarding liberals and education. Snoody ;)
“Let me get this straight: I’m misquoting you, and you have one reference, which you “believe” I misquoted whereas I did not.”
You put quotes around words I did not say – that is the definition of misquoting. You took your intepretations of my statements and put quotes around them, implying I had said them. You are wrong.
“And let me get this straight: I said there is a “benefit” to going to college? No.”
No, I said “You clearly seem to believe that going to college provides a benefit, and some colleges provide a huge benefit.” I based this on the fact that your father went to college, and got a job that pays him $120,000. Are you now claiming your father did not benefit from a college education? That he would have got that job and pay rate if he had never gone to college?
“That is not real world enough as it does not connect. The real world example would be someone from Bestbuy getting the certificate (which means nothing) and then the pay grade bumps up to 18 an hour. It starts at 10 if you do the same work as 18. It stays at 10 until you get the certificate no matter how good you are.”
So, if I’m understanding you correctly, your complaint is that there are people with no degree or certification working for companies where if they got a degree or a certificate “which means nothing”, the same company would voluntarily pay them more. This is not elitism. This is the free market. Companies have made a determination that additional education or training is something they value and pay more for. Obama didn’t order companies to behave this way, he’s simply pointing out that if you want to have a better paying job, education and training are ways to do it. Another way is to work for a company that doesn’t believe in education and training and simply pays people for “how good you are.” I don’t have a problem with that.
Again, this only makes you sound resentful and jealous of people who try to better themselves through education and training. “An education doesn’t make you special.” To some employers, it does. Who are you to tell Best Buy how to compensate their emplyees?
Still own hundreds of millions of shares of AIG which most likely will be sold at a loss, much greater than the paltry $2.8 billion they made here.
Did anyone notice that the bidders were the same outfits that received TARP money to bail them out? Hmmmmmmm! What is wrong with this picture?
What’s wrong with this picture?
“In the last two auctions, the New York Fed did not reveal sale prices nor the specific bonds, but said on both occasions it represented “good value for the public.”
Oh, we should trust the New York Fed? Oh I know that it knows what’s best for us. Right?????
We all know how trustworthy the Fed is. After all, that is where Turbo Tax Tim came from before he was sworn in to the Treasury. His grubby paws were all over the shenanigans pulled when we had the financial meltdown.