Magox

Listen, I know you have a hard time with understanding basic economics so i will cut you some slack. Here let me explain it to you in the simplest of terms. First off to your first point, which is a valid one, which is if you legalize weed it would see a 500% increase from what we are seeing today. Well that would be 100% without a doubt false and here is why. As it is right now, the cost of regular weed to produce to the market is already seeing well over a 2000% markup from producer to the end user, unless you are talking about local "regs". The reason for the markup is for a bevy of reasons. One is the risk, risk of criminal action is a huge driver of the cost. Transport, you think the **** is cheap to ship it across borders? How much do you think that could cost? What about profits? You have any idea how many middemen are involved? You have producer to distributor, to another distrubtor, to regional distrubutor, to local distributor, then it goes to retail sellers. The markup is extremely high. Now if it were to be legalized, there would be the cost to produce, taxes and then profits. Profit margins would shrink because we live in a capitalistic society, so competition would keep the margins in check, and then that leaves taxes. Taxes could be high, what is the tax level on alcohol? what about on cigarettes? Let's say you have a 500% tax, that still would leave the price of weed cheaper thanwhat you would see on the black market. So there goes your argument So if you want to effectively and rationally fight the war with the MExican gangs, you cut off their source of demand and their funding. And since we all know that many of us won't ever give up our weed, as we shouldn't have to, then the only logical answer is to legalize it. You legalize weed and then you cut a significant portion of what is driving the Mexican cartels.

And don't forget Jimmy Carter, he laid the foundation towards solving the inflationary induced recession of the early 80's.

Regulations, Mandates on businesses, a horrible housing market, unfriendly climate for businesses, extremely high unemployment, inevitability of higher taxes, uncertainty over in Europe, businesses becoming much more efficient with less human capital, lack of political will on both sides of the aisle to address the entitlements (except Paul Ryan and Ron Wyden) health care costs and ticking timebomb on US debt.

First off, I don't want to be defending Bush, because I didn't agree with half the stuff he did. But to answer your question, he entered office in 2001, the tech bubble busted and 9/11 occured right when he stepped into office. So from mid 2002 to mid 2006 he had an average GDP growth rate of close to 3.5% and then the bubble began to burst. Anyone who rationally looks at the events and/or doesn't take a partisan approach understands that Bush didn't create the Financial bubble, it had been in the makings for many many years. Who do you think repealed Glass Steagall? Where were the loans being originated? Did Fannie and Freddy play a role? Does the Federal Reserve share some of the blame? unscrupulous mortgage underwriters, what were there roles? What about the ratings agencies? What about US housing policies, did they not push banks to get as many people into homes as possible? How about consumers, yes the poor consumers, the people who decided to leverage up and buy second and third homes at pie in the sky prices that they knew they couldn't afford. Weren't they complicit along with the mortgage writers in lying on their apps? What about Wall Street? Didn't they go unchecked by creating exotic financial vehicles that leveraged the entire shitbomb to what it was? This disaster was gonna happen, no matter who was president. But that's not the point Dave, for the third time, and this will be the last time I say this, comparing an economy GDP growth rate vs an economy coming out of a major recession is ludicrous. Economies, generally speaking, just coming out of recessions should have a much higher GDP growth rates than economies that are in normal sustained periods. Also, where have I ever said to eliminate all regulations? I believe in regulations, I believe they can be prductive for our society, I believe they CAN help promote sustainability. But that doesn't necessarily mean that all regulations are created equal. Regulation born out of populism tends to be poorly written pieces of legislation. They can't be forced, they have to be well thought out and vetted over and over. I will borrow a quote "Do not ever say that the desire to "do good" by force is a good motive. Neither power-lust nor stupidity are good motives"

I can't help that you decide to ignore and say " na na na na I can't hear you" when time after time, CEO's, small business polls and economists continue to cite regulations as a factor that inhibits growth and job hiring. That is your fundamental problem. Until you allow yourself to be objective, you will never see things as they truly are.

Considering that we came out of a huge recession, 3 years into the recovery we should be experiencing growth much stronger than what we are seeing today. It is much more likely to see GDP growth at higher levels coming out of a recession as opposed to see GDP levels in a sustained period of normal activity. GDP growth is measured vs the prior quarter. So if you have low levels of economic activity, the odds of seeing a larger descrepancy (in other words higher GDP) from one quarter to another is much higher. The deeper the recession, the higher the likelyhood of seeing sustained high GDP quarters that follow. If you look for instance under the Reagan recession of 1982... We had a recovery of approximately 2 years that averaged over 6.5% GDP. The reason why we had such robust growth rates was one, it was a pretty large hole that we had come out of and two the deeper the holes the more pentup demand there are for goods and services following these down periods.

Wow! Some of you guys are real dipshits! If it wasn't for our insatiable appetite and demand for drugs, there wouldn't be this violence issue. The idea that somehow cracking on supply is gonna solve the problem is absurd. If you really want to crack down on the violence, then you legalize Weed. That way you cut off the illegal supply of weed flowing from Mexico, which weed by far is the #1 drug imported into the US from Mexico. You cut this off, then you cut off their funding, and a good portion of their reason of existence. But go ahead, and keep blaming the boogeymen.

OMG! Even the White House is in on the "conspiracy" game with their own Economic report. Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2012/02/17/white-house-economic-report-hides-sharp-drop-in-number-of-working-americans/#ixzz1mknRmRbt Yaaay for 8.3% Unemployment

When I looked at the title of this thread I thought to myself "This oughta be good" It didn't disappoint

That's why I said, A fight for America's soul!

Health Care Reform ? He doesn't even like ever mention it Dodd Frank Bill? Nope, another net negative. A push for clean energy? Solyndra and Keystone are two huge negatives for him Out of everything you just said, the only thing positive for him to run on is the killing of Osama. And depending where he is, DADT, which would be a very very very minor achievement for an election year issue.

OMG, no you didn't?

http://www.gallup.com/poll/152753/Unemployment-Increases-Mid-February.aspx Who would of thunk it, I guess Gallup is in the conspiracy theory business as well.

Free **** for everyone is a tough message to beat. I as well truly see it as a battle for America's soul.

I would argue that the Federal Reserves action from my perspective was the true hero of the day.

No, I did. I said that if you were to make the argument that the church should have this internal discussion, I could understand it, you're the one who is incapable of attempting to see the constitutional argument and respecting the beliefs of the church. Which by definition, makes you an intolerant person on this matter.

This has 0 to do with individual conscience, it has to do with separation of church and state. Now if you were to say that you believe that the Catholic church should have an INTERNAL debate and discussion over this matter, and how they should move forward, then I could understand that. This isn't the Conservative POV, its the constitutional case. http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/charles-krauthammer-overreach--obamacare-vs-the-constitution/2012/02/16/gIQAmupcIR_story.html Read it

Please, Mayock is one of the best. You really expect someone who's job it is to rate hundreds of football players a year to have close to 100% track record? And PDADDY won't be happy with Mayocks analysis.

What are you talking about??

I remember reading in Politico and WAPO that a big reason why Obama didn't approve the Keystone pipeline really wasn't so much about his own environmental concerns but because of the money he would lose through fundraising for his re election campaign. This provides a little context. Funny how they felt compelled to respond to Buell's concerns. Basically this is a tactic, not that I disagree with the contributors tactics, but certainly a ploy in demanding that the Pipeline ends up being a no go. No honey, no money, and that's what this boils down. Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/02/15/MND61N71MS.DTL&ao=2#ixzz1me4bAphT Kinda amazing how we have a president that cares more about saving his own ass over a project that would create ALL Private sector jobs that wouldn't cost the taxpayer a dime, and actually would even generate tax revenues, not to mention lessening our dependence on Middle East Oil.

I actually agree with DC, people do have short memories, look at how peoples perception of the economy has unfolded just over the last few months. Obamas approval ratings has hit 50% on a few different polls recently, the right or wrong way indicator albeit still overwhelmingly negative as began to trend higher, plus I can feel it, I can sense a bounce in perception, and this has all happened over the past few months. Or how about the McCain campaign, he was actually leading in a few polls, but once the economy really went down the tubes and the market began to crash, so did his campaign. And DiN, where did I say that if under Romney it would be at 2% or for that matter anything that could be misconstrued that way? I'll tell you, nowhere. What I have CONSISTENTLY said over and over is with a president who actually has a basic understanding of the free market economy, that with less regulations, a more pro business relationship with the business community, more dealings with our Emerging market partners and corporate tax reform, that the recovery would be better than this anemic piece of **** of an economy that we have today. I mean for crying out loud, we are growing at 2.5% GDP, that would even suck if we had already recovered. Considering the depth of the hole we are inright now, we should be experiencing much better growth than we are 3 years into the recovery. Remember that Small business Gallup poll I posted yesterday? HALF of all small businesses cite Overregulation. Remember how I spoke to you about that, and how that was a major deterrent for growth? Remember how you scoffed at it? Well it's right there, and as the president says correctly, "Small businesses are the engine of this economy" Well the engine is sputtering and they are specifically stating overregulation, AND 85% say they don't plan on hiring at all over the next 12 months. Sorry DiN, we can do better than this.

I reall don't know anything about this and I'm sure their are some bureaucratic obstacles to go through, but it really doesn't seem like something to difficult to overcome, if there is a strong will behind it.

Ouch!

And if you count all the discouraged workers, not just the ones that they noted over the past 4 weeks, but all of them. REAL UNEMPLOYMENT is at a whopping 23% But yeah you're right, it's all a conspiracy. Don't you care to know the truth? Or does the koolaid taste too good? Look at it man! Look at it! Even since the bounce in jobs that we have been experiencing, which is an improvement, you will see that the REAL UNEMPLOYMENT rate hasn't dropped at all! Seek the truth man!

Hold on a second, you said if you take the social isues out, he's the most conservative? He's a very pro union "conservative", he voted for Medicare part D under Bush which was one of the most fiscally irresponsible pieces of legislation in GOP history, he was a huge pork barrel republican, voted for mountains and mountains of othe spending bills, and you say he is the most "conservative" if you take out the social issues? Really?? Really????