dayman

When it comes to the big stuff and certainly when it comes to missions like the one that actually did get Osama where we send people on foot into places we shouldn't be...IMO the President should exercise direct personal oversight. And generally speaking the further removed a lot of these "modern war on terror" decisions are from that office the worse off we are as a people. This isn't traditional war I mean in a full scale invasion against another army and stuff...that isn't what I'm talking about or what we will likely deal with anytime soon (hopefully). To just say "get Osama wherever he is I delegate it" or "shoot drone missiles at terrorists wherever they are I delegate it to you military man"....it has to be more than that and it has to be significantly more than that. He has to know and he should know every time where/who/how IMO. It ultimately comes down to accountability.

Pakistan is a country divided ... it's a difficult question the degree to which the anti-America sentiment is fostered by this compared to the degree to which it actually helps the pro-US forces within the government argue "see...we don't want to end up like the Taliban or Iran (w/ economic sanctions) etc" ... either way there is no doubt that the portions of internal power in Pakistan and certainly their military are friendly to the forces we are at war with ... while drone strikes may be used to foster anti-US propaganda among the common people and cause collateral damage to them occasionally I can't say that those things outweigh the benefits we get in killing terrorists and bolstering the pro-US forces within the government by showing our strength and commitment to to destroying the bad guys...I have to say if we just left and said **** it the more reasonable forces in the Pakistan would be ousted long before the unreasonable.

Non-intelligence position? The POTUS? WTF is going on in here. He's a !@#$ing intelligence position it all flows to him and w/ good reason b/c he's the commander in chief. And military experience? That's the point...we aren't Egypt. Civilians ultimately are in control of our military. Now tactics and the means by which we accomplish our goals obviously need to draw on our military experience and such and I assure you Obama and every other President has done so...I'm not saying to micromanage the tactical plan lol...but overall don't pull back too much on this Juror you were on the right path as far as I'm concerned. He should have known, and he should be involved deeply, and he should take responsibility that we didn't go get Osama then. As the Presdient get things under control. Don't just let the structure or bureaucratic system drift away and take on a life of it's own. Be an Executive. Be a Commander. Be "the decider" lol. That's my take anyway.

Ya I mean the media sucks we all know that. Just watch Fox news and see the trash stories they push, then turn on MSNBC and see the trash they push. MSNBC will have a bunch of insane spin on stuff. Fox will literally be like "no other news station will cover this but we got your back" LMFAO as Bill O'Rielly attempts to stir up some distraction over a minor story. It's terrible...not that you can't report on whatever even if it's minor but they'll take small things and push it to the front day after day and then say "the liberal media bias is why we're the only ones doing this story"...lol...my God. And a number of other stations besides MSNBC and Fox are bad....but those are clearly the worst offenders and equally so. That said I still watch them sometimes.... Of course. I'm all for talking about the media. I mean it's 2012 and we are more connected and have more technology than ever before yet it is harder (even on the internet it seems) to really just google something and find "good solid reporting" on it as opposed to partisan stuff either way. Everything has a slant. There is not very many place you can go to just watch, think critically, and form an opinion. You always have to watch 2 or more things to see the threads both sides spin and then google like crazy and scroll way down the search list to find non-campaign/propaganda...it's terrible. I mean I am into it, I do work to find it and I still don't find it! I'm a nut and it's still hard! Imagine the normal folk...it's impossible. There was a day where most journalists tried to be neutral in their reporting. And there was a day where Republicans could give an op-ed on a Democratic President that was positive over certain issues (and vis versa). No longer. It's ALL about "the team" and all about "elections." Honestly we may have elections too frequently for modern times...may have to change that.... As for the major news corporations Dan Rather spoke about this on Bill Maher and in his book: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIoI4MRaO0A And just think about when people compare law making in Washington to making sausage...**** that the media should report. And I don't care if it's boring. Show us the sausage factory day to day. And I'm not just talking CSPAN. I mean report on it, behind the scenes stuff as much as possible. FOIA and so on. Show us the boring stuff on real news stations. Let's hold people accountable for God's sake. If Washington is broken it won't fix itself. The people ultimately do have the power...but we have to empowered by information.

LOL I'm not trying to attack you Bird...I'm just saying...it is what it is whatever it is and I don't feel like those men rule the world b/c of these meetings (I could be wrong but I don't think I am) ... if they rule the world it's for other reasons

You do realize there are basically 6 corporations that run all news now right? W/ a 120 big shots it should be no wonder if they ran the world as the most eager of conspiracy theorists think that silence is bought and secured. Either way, I'm sure they talk about things "the common folk" may think unsavory but I doubt there is anything malicious or unpredictable. There will always be men of power in civilization...IF these are somehow them I assure you we are still living in a golden age relative the all of human history before us. That said...I have more faith that a significant amount of shady behind the scenes action is (while not completely exposed) assumed and known by people with brains. On a personal level we all have the ability to do what we can/want. That is all you can ask for.

LOL...well nobody here has them.

Well if it were a true shadow government they would own the news corporations.

LOL clearly Jesus shined down upon the news and blessed the team

http://www.nj.com/mets/index.ssf/2012/06/no_funn_comedian_bill_maher_bu.html Figured many of the people here are conservative and also live in NY so this is particularly funny to post here. NEW YORK — No joke: Bill Maher has bought a minority ownership stake in the Mets. In a surprise announcement made by the comedian and political commentator before Sunday night's game against the Cardinals, Maher said that he purchased one of the reported 12 minority stakes available to investors over the winter. "First of all, I think it's a great investment," Maher said. "People sometimes forget that there's only one National League franchise in New York City and they're not making anymore. I'm a Met fan my whole life and I think it would be a great place." Neither Maher nor Mets officials would comment on the percentage of his ownership piece or how much he paid for it. The 56-year old Maher — who was raised in River Vale — said that he never intended to buy a piece of a sports franchise. That changed after seeing newspaper stories about the Wilpon family offering up minority ownership portions of the team due to the Mets debt, as a result of their associations with jailed Ponzi scheme orchestrator, Bernard Madoff. Maher, who lives in Los Angeles, began to become interested in purchasing a piece of his favorite baseball club. "It happened months ago," Maher said of the deal. "It's the first time I've been in New York, so we didn't say anything. But I read about it in the paper in December saying the Mets were available — that you could buy these limited partnerships." Mets Senior Vice President of Marketing and Communications, David Newman, said that Maher official title will be "New Partner." "I'm just a fan," Maher insisted. "I'm not going to get involved. I think my role is going to be bringing luck to the team — they didn't have a no-hitter for 50 years, I buy in and I come to town and there's a no-hitter. Draw your own conclusions."

What will the media cover? There is no real story other than "they meet." Maybe it is interesting for people to know powerful people meet...but it isn't news in the sense of being something new. If we want protection from a potential shadow government going nuts on this is not the way...

Stories of those protesters at this event bother me so much. I'm so sick of idiot America protesting over crap they either don't know about or can't possibly know about. Chanting scum at random cars that attend this conference lol. What fools. The Post photographer should take pictures of THEM and post that on the local section under a heading "PPP idiots." Anyway it will be interesting to watch for Mitch Daniels. No doubt about that.

On another topic. There was an interesting study discussed at the end of GPS today done by Michael Porter (a Harvard management guy) and 71% of Harvard grads in high level decision-making positions now think American competitiveness is slipping badly. He defines competiveness in 2 ways: 1) American companies competing in international markets but 2) WHILE having an increase in American's standard of living. If our companies are competing internationally by cutting wages domestically, to Porter that is a sign that we actually are NOT competitive. Ultimately he sees the path to prosperity being measured by increased productivity that justifies a high wage. And in this aspect, he proposes that we've dropped the ball. The study/survey shows that not only will factories be shifted over seas continually but R&D as well (I've seen Clinton say multiple times in recent speaking engagements posted online that manufacturers increasingly want their R&D near their plants). R&D being shifted in addition to manufacturing is particularly troubling...not having workers here sucks but not having the innovation here? That is a new level of "oh ****" for us IMO. Some reasons the majority surveyed cited for moving abroad were: -number 1 reason was that our workers were not productive enough to justify higher wages; so moving over seas turned out to be a good deal on cost/benefit analysis -about 30% surveyed said they COULD NOT find the skills they needed in America His survey also asked what companies really wanted...the most common answer? Improve the quality of the domestic work force. Not taxes, not anything like that. That is particularly interesting. He went on to say that a budding trend recently has been a bit of a turn-around in some business starting to move toward investing in domestic workforce a bit more and in some sectors bringing business activity back to teh US...a sign of businesses recognizing the tangible economic benefit from investing in what he calls "the commons." Anyway...interesting last segment there and my damn DVR actually cut the last end of the interview off. But there was both exposure to hard truths and troubling facts in his survey but some hope buried in there as well. I think it goes without saying that if we really want to get ourselves going long-term, we are going to have to fix our education problems in this country and it is going to take some real leadership from (IMO) the Federal Government on this issue. I would like to think the States could start improving themselves (and I'm not suggesting they aren't still primarily responsible) but the kind of comprehensive reform we need to improve the productivity of our future work force is going to take some sort of stronger effort from Washington (despite the questionable success of past programs that came from the Hill). That's my take anyway, I wouldn't be so quick to vilify efforts of the federal government to become MORE involved in our education. Another random article I saw recently (can cannot seem to find searching now nor can I recall the exact details) had to do with an unbelievably low percentage of American teachers having been top 20% in their class when they were educated and it compared that to Japan where an unbelievably high percentage of their teachers were top 10% when they were in school (other Asian nations follow the same trend). It cited pay, private sector forces, and the status teachers have in society over there as contributing factors. It's obvious that we should all be disgusted by the way our public education system is performing worse and costing more and the teachers we DO HAVE are a part of the problem...but we should consider the TEACHERS we WANT TO HAVE when discussion things like the Wisconsin troubles IMO. We need to get our fiscal house in order but it will all be for nothing if we fall too far behind in worker productivity. ...a loosely related video concerning education (typical interview with Doc Neil who I love...)...all these things (space, education, etc) take heavy investment the way I see it there is no other way...smart investment but investment in ourselves nonetheless....

Well we're blurring the line here of the medical cost/insurance cost discussion. I was referring the medical cost problem exclusively in that counter-point. Either way people can't pay for these theoretical x/y/z operations out of pocket...almost nobody can anyway...but what they can do is pay for a larger share and thus be forced to shop and compare competing services which is one thing that IMO will help bring down the costs of the more specialized services over time. As for being required to cover this and that...historically it's been state to state and I can't really link it directly to the cost of the operation itself...if they were affordable anyway (despite being on the steep side) maybe I could but at least what I am thinking of as "x, y, and z" are not.

I think what you meant to say is "I think it should be their right."

LOL this will be difficult since the further we go the further we get from the quoted text but I'll stay with the numbers for now. My thoughts: 1. There really is no legislation that creates the costs problems in the market. There may or may not be some things that can be improved but this medical cost explosion in this country happened organically. If there are specific pieces of legislation that created the situation we are in that you know of please let me know I'll check 'em and see what I think. 2. We'll have to agree to disagree. 3. Well the fact is they didn't...and w/ a mandate in the future they (the future "they")will...but for now we have them and at some point they have to come in...and they can't come in at market rates b/c they can't afford it...just dumping them into medicaid won't fix any of the problems they cause. The best way to deal with them, is make sure in the future they aren't there. 4a. Well...I'm not going to argue with you on that but to be honest I don't see that changing. 4b. The kind of people we're talking about that die with huge unpaid medical bills aren't leaving large estates most are broke.

Well as for the 3-4% I mean to say in relation to GDP (but realize I didn't actually write that)...fairly significant I'm sure you would agree. That would the be starting point for Romney according to the Zakaria interview w/ his chief economics adviser. As for the fixing the issue with cost...you just can't. No legislation can do that (at least not in this country). All you can do is facilitate the natural progression which is only now beginning, which we will and should do. But that doesn't mean that insurance reform should be put off for 10-20 years for the cost problem to be significantly reformed IMO. As for the small amount of people accounting for the large amount of healthcare costs...I was just referring to what you later talked about referring to the old people/chronically ill (not the uninsured) but supposedly the uninsured cost-shifting dynamic is significant according to almost any talk I see (from people of both parties) but I agree it would be nice to grasp some hard numbers. Those hard number would be tough to generate though. Either way bringing in everyone and widening a base of healthy young people seems to be the only way to maintain affordable insurance costs if we are going to allow pre-existing conditions and high-risk people into the market on an individual basis (and on a group basis to a lesser extent) and also if we are going to continue to provide the services the 5% using 50% of the care demand (and supposedly need) since the cost issue is a slow-burn. And as for the loan idea similar to student loans that is an interesting idea but as expensive as school is it really isn't close to the end of life/chronically ill/cancer/other extreme medical costs. It could allow some flow of cash for those people but the loans themselves would never be paid off....if we have a student loan bubble now the bubble that would create would be enormous. Especially considering a lot of those people will die lol...also many too sick to work and have productive income...etc...many of these people are the exact people that can't pay off the loans (the similar problem w/ current student loan bubble b/c of recession and growing education costs but at least w/ the student they theoretically will pay it off over the course of a lifetime...the old/sick not so much even in theory). We would just end up subsidizing massive default IMO. You think?

How gradually and where to cut spending is a debate the country needs to have, agreed. Slash-and-burn isn't an option, agreed. In either way, we are going to have to tolerate significant deficits in the short term. So to hit the American public over the head with "deficit, deficit, deficit" is a distraction and mucks up the discussion. Long-term deficit yes...but not this coming years budget. Entitlement reform re: SS/Medicare is really the mack daddy and that is what will determine the long term deficit issues. Thing is those are long term in a very loose usage of the word "long term" but neither Obama or Romney are serious about expending the significant political capital it would take to start that reform now...and perhaps that is wise since we still have short term issues that require immediate attention. As for taxes...the marginal rate is one thing but overall taxes are going to rise in a way Grover would not approve of. And that would be the agenda of either man running for president. Really the more Romney gets specific the less difference there is between him and Obama. Sure, there are some differences (enough to make it an actual choice) but to have had some sects of the right vilify the President to the extent he has been only to support Romney now makes little sense.

Well that may be true in some instances. Talk about lowering federal spending 3ish% over the next 4 years and then presumably getting push back about the slope of that ramp is a route to effective compromise. Slash-and-burn isn't. Well what it gets to is the overwhelming percentage of overall costs such a small percentage of people account for. To make sure the chronically ill are taken care of in a way that doesn't over-burden the overall insurance market...it seems you need to suck in the healthy people no? And that is a separate (but certainly related) issue from market oriented cost reform which we also need to occur and facilitate as best we can.

Well the free market not applying to health care well IMO is not b/c of the uncertainty, or the cost necessarily...but both combined and definitely when considering the potential incredible costs. I agree that it isn't impossible, but in practicality it's best to acknowledge that it's very difficult. I'm with Fareed in that to truly bring down the cost of insurance (especially individual insurance) everyone needs to have it... But really where we will agree is that the market for services needs to behave more like a free market...and that's the only way to control costs. Move toward the outcome oriented system (there are is some medicare experimentation in Obamacare to help nudge this forward for what it is worth but ultimately it will be a 10-20 year process that happens organically...no statute will change this), reduce waste in services (obviously no genius point there), and then put more skin in the game for specialist services so people shop (so the high dollar services function in a free market and hopefully follow the pattern we saw w/ lasik as much as possible). Either way insuring everyone and reforming the market are the two things that needs to happen. There are 2 possible ways to insure everyone and they need law. And the market reform is obvious and can be helped with policies of large government customers like medicare leading the charge for private insurers to adopt later but the service side needs time to adjust and ultimately this is just something that will take time and occur organically. To put it simply, compromise.

B-Man I'm sorry if you are tea party guy. But I don't like the tea party ideology that holds congress hostage and I'm glad to see even the mainstream GOP figure head now has policies that will basically force them to either come back to the middle or leave the party.

lmfao on the first part of the interview... congratulations on your slightly more conservative white-Obama candidate. I hope all tea party people are watching this. There are some differences which are not insignificant but as it turns out Romney won't do anything the crazies want to do. Boehner go **** yourself. I have more respect for Romney now although still difficult questions on tax exemptions. He needed to just come out and provide these details in the primary to jar the retarded republican rhetoric which controls the house away from insanity though. But of course his name isn't Obama so insane GOP house members won't block him on every little issue? Is that what we're supposed to think now?

Interview w/ Romney's senior economic adviser coming up

knock it off

Well you can take it as you will. But journalists ask questions. Having watched Fareed for a while...I can assure you that it is foolish to assume he believes the answer is "yes" (or "no") just because he asks the questions. Or to assume he even has made up his mind or thinks there is an actual definitive answer. In fact most questions Fareed asks are to facilitate good discussion and given that you think Manny's response was a good one I would say that is a good question. Just my opinion. And to assume he's anti-capitalism, anti-free market, anti-wealth...I wouldn't do that. B/c he's not. EDIT: And not honestly IMO there may be some legitimate aspects to the whole "exposing liberal media bias" movement but for the most part it seems to be to just be a way to discredit non-conservative media bias (at least in how/what it used for)....otherwise it would be "exposing balanced good media work" and would just highlight that (as short as the list may be)...the mission of exposing media liberal biased is pro-conservative otherwise it would expose all media bias and/or highlight fairly balanced reporting.