jjamie12

Please think through this for just a minute. Why do lobbyists matter? What are the implications for lobbyists if no one gets re-elected? The mechanism to 'clean up' government is right there in front of all of us, but we're too busy treating political parties like our high schol sports teams. We deserve the government we get.

If you want lobbyists out, just vote every incumbent out, every time. People keep wanting to write new rules about money and lobbyists and donations and blaming this or that. The mechanism is already in place! We get the government we deserve. [/ thread hijack]

1. The owner. 2. The structure put in place by the owner. 3. The owner.

From where I sit, this remains an over-reaction by everyone involved.

Respectfully, No. His accuracy has been an identified problem since his college days. Either you can throw to the spot, or you can't. I don't believe he will ever do it consistently. Sometimes, I'm not surprised when I'm wrong; I will be completely shocked if we ever view EJ as a 'franchise'-type guy. I get what you're saying, I just don't see it with EJ. He seems like a guy who really tries hard and will do the right things, I just don't think he'll ever be very good. I mean, honestly, how many times does he have to throw the ball out of bounds on a sideline go route before we just say, eh, maybe he doesn't have it?

Very much off the EJ bandwagon. EJ is just not very good at the thing that's most important in a QB -- Accuracy. He just doesn't have it, and I don't believe that you develop it in the league. You either have it or don't by now. Someone earlier mentioned looking at the All-22 and seeing all the plays left out on the field. He just can't throw with any consistency and it's hard for me to understand how anyone can have faith in a QB that can't throw consistently.

Yes. The biggest thing you're missing (theoretically), is that employers are getting a tax break by offering benefits. If the IRS would, instead, offer the tax break to people instead of employers, then employers would just pay people more (by the value of the benefits) and we would be free to shop for our own health insurance with the extra money that the employers pay us. In theory. I'm sure someone knows more than I do about it, but that is the general thought behind it.

Your employer forces you to take health benefits from them? You may not like the alternative you can find elsewhere, but you CAN get rid of AETNA. Additionally, if AETNA is not providing your employer with the types of benefits that they expect then your employer can fire AETNA. They or you cannot get rid of the government. I definitely agree with you about severing the link between jobs and health insurance.

You can't fire the government. You can fire Aetna.

Who said anything about being oppressed? What's the issue, again?

Not that I would cast a vote in favor of awarding damages, but it IS worth noting that kids jump off that bridge to kill themselves pretty regularly. I don't have a huge problem with a jury deciding whether or not Cornell / Ithaca have done enough to try and prevent it.

I know that you were talking about the difference between an internship and a 'regular' job with your post. However. This type of thinking is just so very, very wrong. What do you think the minimum wage should be? With specifics, please.

TPS: A couple of questions for you: 1- Why do you want the metric used to be taxes as a % of GDP? Someone posed the question (or maybe they just yelled at you and called you stupid ) As someone noted: It seems like that points to (implicitly) your continuing an expansion of government? Why should the rate of government spending necessarily equal the rate of growth? If you don't believe that, it's hard for me to understand why you would choose that metric over, say, Real Tax Collection (a number I just made up -- tax collections adjusted for inflation, or something like that)? 2- As you've noted, sort of: When theory meets practice, counter-cyclical spending turns directly into more and more and more spending always. Not counter-cyclical, but counter-cyclical followed by cyclical, follwed be counter-cyclical. In other words: In practice, your 'solution' to these problems leads to an even bigger problem at some point in the future (the end game of this appears to be getting closer and closer). From an ethical perspective: Are you OK with that? From a political perspective: Aren't you worried about ever-increasing concentrations of government growth and control over the economy? At some point, we're going to cross a line that you will view as 'bad'. What is that line? Isn't it better to just not go down the path at all? Afterall, isn't crossing that line WAY too miserable to even take the chance that we cross it and don't realize it?

No, birdog, it doesn't. No one in their right mind would describe the last 6-7 years as a rising tide, so income gains since 2007 will of course be down in real terms. No one is arguing that point. The rising tide has occurred over the last 50 to 100 years. The 99%'ers living standards are better than they were 50-70-80-100 years ago, even with this down-draft over the past 6-7 years. The other charts show displays of disparate income/wealth gains. Again, there is no one here arguing that the 1% is not better off than the 99%. Nor is anyone arguing that the 1% has taken more share of any income/wealth gains made in the past few years or even in the last 50 years. The point that you keep missing is that even though that has happened, would you rather have the living standards of 1968 or of 2013? People keep telling you that, yes, the 1% is better off, but so what? So is the 99%! So yes, quite literally, a rising tide does lift all boats (including the 99%), just as a tide flowing out (think of the last 6 years) will lower all boats, disproportionally affecting the 99%. Which is why most here argue for policy decisions that will increase economic activity -- lifting the 99% ers -- while most of the policy actions you will recommend will actually decrease economic activity, by definition. Most people here are very concerned with the 99% (and the 50% and the 20% and the 10%), our view, though, is that actions that you promote would, while artificially narrowing the gap between the 99 and 1% actually HURT the very people you're trying to help the most. Consider: Would you rather have a job, or more food stamps?

None of which have anything to do with the discussion I was attempting to have with you. But OK.

I'm a little confused. You first argued against the idea that a rising tide lifts all boats. To address that, I pointed out that 'the 99%' is WAY better off today than they were 100 years ago. You know, sort of as a proof of the concept that a rising tide does, in fact, lift all boats. I agree that there are people who are 'close to the edge'. There will ALWAYS be people close to the edge. The idea is that the edge, today, is not only significantly higher in terms of living standards, but less steep and not nearly as deep. You ascribe almost no value to that and I think it's wrong to do so.

You're serious? What do you think of living standards of 'the 99%' over the past 100 years? Any improvement? Or has it all been downhill?

I read somewhere (and I don't have time to go research this) that taxing 'the 1%' at a 100% tax rate would be enough to run the government for 2 weeks. Does anyone here dispute that?

The concept is really cool. This particular investment is terrible. A buddy of mine tried to do something very similar about 5 years ago in with minor league baseball players, but MLB wouldn't go for it at all. It's too bad, because I would imagine that this would work way better with leagues that have significant 'minor leagues' associated with them. It would be way more fun to buy shares in some minor league baseball player and watch him move through the minors and be able to actively trade on what his future earnings might be based on how well he's doing.

No. What I'm saying is that 'Repubs' are NOT arguing that we should keep min. wage where it is so that companies can make more money. They're concerned that this would actually lead to less people being employed. Hurting the very people you're trying to help. In what way?

Who would this benefit?

The part that you never seem to understand is that the 'wacko cons' on this board have NEVER argued that the reason NOT to increase the minimum wage is so that companies will show a better profit margin. Until you try to fully understand why folks who are against a minimum wage increase are saying what they're saying, you and anyone having a discussion with you will continue to feel like you're each pounding your head against the wall.

Unfortunately, your explanation of how the law actually works is not in any way the same as or even close to the same as how the bill was sold. How far do you think the President and Congress would have gotten with -- "Hey, we're going to spend $800 billion (and counting) and, well, yeah, we still expect 30 million people to be uninsured. But, still."

Zero impact is my commentary. 30 million remaining uninsured is a pretty non-controversial number, though. I'll look for a link. http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/44190_EffectsAffordableCareActHealthInsuranceCoverage_2.pdf

It has already failed by the very standards that its champion(s) set for it. The BIGGEST reason that we "needed!" this law was that it was completely unacceptable in a country with as much wealth as the US that 30 million people in the United States were uninsured. Fast forward to today and the CBO predicts that (wait for it) 30 million people will still be uninsured in the United States. We spent a 800 billion (and counting) dollars to make zero impact on the number of uninsured. I don't know what your definition of failure is, and I get that you like parts of the law, but to most people who were paying attention from the beginning? Yeah. It has failed. It's not delivering on, really, any of the promises that were made in order to pass this thing. Especially the biggest one.