dayman

...let us move away from this and just have the topic discuss his work for the work it is or otherwise just have nobody post at all...

Also two articles about what is clearly the most dicey international situation at the moment: http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2012/05/30/syria-the-risks-of-intervention/ http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2012/05/31/zakaria-obama-vs-romney-on-syria-next-steps/ As far as troops on the ground go...ugh...reading about what seems to be the MOST divided and uncertain opposition movement of the that region's current events (and THAT IS SAYING SOMETHING) ... I wouldn't commit a single US life to this...and that goes w/ a heavy heart given the massacre recently and potential future blood bath....compared to Egypt it's a mess and Egypt is having a run-off now between the Muslim Brotherhood and a Mubarak holdover...the payoff politically seems about 0. I would have to say I lean towards continued economic pressure only and just appealing to Russia regardless of how long that takes. Most agree China will come around...maybe the sooner they do the more leverage we have w/ Russia as they become increasingly isolated.

Ok well look the bottom line is you can leave the topic. If you discount opinions that you don't think in advance will reinforce whatever your natural inclination is and think that Fareed is a "lib" (used pejoratively) and thus full of **** then I guess that's fine. Go watch nothing but Fox News. I watch some Fox News....and some stuff on there I watch I really disagree with (not all). But that's besides the point, the point is...if you don't want to talk about articles Fareed writes or segments on his show then you probably shouldn't be in the topic. Those "conservatives" on the board that would like to do so can join or else I'll just sit here and talk to myself and perhaps MCD lol...I do like discussing things with people of different view points but it has to be a discussion. The guy is a smart and knowledgeable journalist and if you watch him/read him you know he's not rooting for a team and his analysis is not designed to further a domestic party's success regardless of the fact that he is an AMerican who does vote...IMO he's among the best...whether you agree with him or not. If you can't read/listen to him without prejudging everything then you can't discuss things that he talks about and you can't really participate in this topic...and once again that is OK. I would ordinarily hesitate to discuss this one first but it's basically the only full interview I can find for free on youtube. Interesting interview whether you agree with the commission or not. Personally I'm inclined to... A lot of what is said in this interview are views that I have more or less adopted for right or for wrong (and have echoed in other threads). Thoughts? I can only hope that some form of compromise is possible in the lame duck session as Bowles seems to think.

By them, by readers/watchers, by reasonable people in both parties and by leaders all over the world (just look at the guests he brings on). He's pretty rational on domestic issues which is refreshing and he's incredibly knowledgeable about world issues which lends perspective to domestic issues other journalists do not have. And watching his how/reading his columns you'll get significant world stories you won't find elsewhere and on a much "deeper" level. He doesn't stand on his head though...it's not an entertainment show.

And since I am critical of Romney often I'll post the article that I just recently read where I actually saw him talking common sense. It's strange I see the man talk common sense and applaud him for it but that's the modern GOP for ya... http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/25/romney-spending-cuts-depression-tea-party_n_1545933.html

Even Romney would "kick the can down the road" (to quote John Boehner) according to those house crazies .... in fact the only reason I still have a slim chance of watching the debates with an open mind is him thumbing his nose at the house tea party in a recent interview regarding cutting spending drastically now and how it's retarded. That one little interview gave me actual hope than America might be ok no matter who wins even if we aren't great with either guy. As for defending Obama on that particular issue...I don't know the particular details although I do remember Boehner was livid since he exerted a lot of political capital to get his crazies to compromise in slightest. The idea that he thought that deal would be good for the country and walked away to preserve a class warfare narrative is not something I believe and I think people who ACTUALLY believe that are asinine. You can believe what you want though. I do remember the story though and there is no doubt

LOL comparing Zakaria to Stossel. Say what you want...and you don't have to agree w/ everything he says btw (I noticed people on here call everyone idiots if they say one thing they don't agree w/)...but Zakaria is almost universally respected. I don't know what you are talking about I don't recall a section on Healthcare on his show last week. Anyway if you fundamentally oppose healthcare reform he's probably not for you given he's smart and realizes it's a huge problem. He also tends to look at issues from a global perspective so I can only imagine he look around and sees places doing better than our joke of a system where we approach 20% of GDP in healthcare costs (by far the highest) while being no where near the top in terms of quality...and then he supports reform (which is probably a rational thing to support but that's just me). Anyway...like I said I didn't see what he said last week on the show if he did and if he wrote an article I haven't found a recent one. Either way I don't want to get into a healthcare debate in here there are several topics for that. Point being..."I don't agree w/ one thing he said so he's a liberal idiot" makes you an ass. EDIT: Just found the article lol I'll read it when I get a chance. http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2012/03/26/zakaria-how-to-save-american-health-care/ Different strokes for different folks. I have no doubt you can cherry pick some small section of that article and find a way to disagree Doc...but as a whole that's what is called a "good" article in my book. Not surprising coming from Fareed. To call that a worthless article is purely contrarian and you sir are "an idiot."

http://www.dailyfinance.com/2012/04/24/more-bad-news-for-social-security-and-medicare/ Actually for SSDI even insane people can't classify it as long term. It's defunct as of right now. And all previous predictions were off the mark. The government released the latest versions of the annual Social Security and Medicare Trustees Reports on Monday, and the results were troubling: The combined trust fund that holds funding reserves for the overall Social Security program is now expected to run out of money in 2033 -- three years earlier than trustees expected last year. The news for Medicare is even more dire. Its trust fund will run out of money in 2024 under current projections. That's the same as it was last year, but fully five years earlier than estimates from two years ago. Breaking down Social Security into its component parts, the retirement part of the program will use up its trust fund in 2035. But for its disability program, the news is worse still -- its trust fund will go dry in 2016, two years earlier than last year's prediction.

Well...I hear everyone saying the projection (for what it's worth) have the trust fund GONE 2024 for Medicare and Social Security like approx. 10 years after that. We all know we can't float that w/ tax revenue alone so ... "reality" is basically now I mean I agree democracies have trouble dealing with long term problems but 2024...IDK that isn't long term to me.

It's going to have to lol...IDK how but it has to...

We're going to need all 3. And just to clarify what I mean there btw we need to at the very least eliminate a large portion of tax expenditures (we don't have to raise income tax necessarily), we need to spend on wise investments in the short term and we have to cut waste and what we can now (military for starters) and certainly reform the SS and Medicare long term.

LOL thanks for that Magox. Put as simply as it possibly can be....Cut or invest. 2 options we can choose for 2012 depending on what we think will be more effective to keep us from moving backwards and help us increase the rate of recovery. And it's disappointing b/c everyone knows we can't cut, tax, or spend our way out of this. But a reasonable discussion on a balanced approach is something we cannot actually have in this election...thank you far right (far left too but let's be real the far left is actually on a leash).

Enlighten me please. If I haven't heard it and it's there I need to hear it.

So at what point would you all prefer Romney actually talk about what to do? Never?

LaBillz I hope you will consider Europe and actual policies the GOP propose. Cut spending and taxes right now will fix this? If you are not happy with 2% growth I understand...nobody should be. But radically changing course and implementing policies that cut spending stifling growth while at the same time cutting taxes (that come from the stifled base anyway) will not only hurt the economy but will balloon the debt further. It's not putting it all on Bush and saying it's not "Obama's fault" to speak the truth which is that the recovery was always going to be grueling and will continue to be so. But if we don't have the right policies in place after this election because we got frustrated we can just look across the pond and see what can happen....

We are 4 years into the crisis, in the US the gov’t acted quickly and massively (though not massively enough as is now apparent) to stimulate the economy. In Europe by contrast many governments quickly turned to austerity measures cutting spending across the board to reduce budget deficits. The results? The US economy is expected to grow 2-3% this coming year while the Eurozone will contract .3% (a simple google search will confirm this if you do not believe me). Spain and Britain are in a double dip disaster. IMF numbers predict even Germany’s average growth rate over the next 5 years will be only 40% of what America’s will be. Ultimately Obama will return to his primary theme, “economy built to last.” The debate will be framed by his campaign as a choice between public investments v. budget cuts. He has proposed a nearly $500 billion infrastructure plan, a increase hick in R&D spending (5ish%), incentives for manufacturing and job training programs to help solve the 1 year + out of worker crowd, funds to increase pools of college students with a focus on science and engineering… Choose between these investments to spur long term growth or budget cuts. The choice is yours. That is the primary theme you will see as things get closer to the election. Things such as the buffet rule, Bain…those are regionally targeted to be honest and yes it is somewhat of a quagmire b/c nothing is regional in this environment but non-the-less they’ve chosen to go that route early in an effort to match Bain w/ the Auto bail out and win the rust belt….whether that is wise only time will tell but no doubt if you were going to play that card to win that region you had to do it earlier rather than later. The same can be said for getting women and gays on board to best of their ability. As for Romney’s theme….I am not sure what it will be other than he’s not Obama and the recovery has been too slow. The GOP screams for budget cuts and he says he’ll lower taxes on his “first day in office” so…we’ll see…how the things that stifled Europe and got them behind us coming off this crisis will allow us to leap further ahead is a mystery to me.... I believe those policies will hurt America and stifle our economy while raising our debt. But every voter can make their choice and then we will ALL live the results.

Well I don't care who starts the thread but watch and lets discuss. Also...it's well known what reputation the both of us have on this board (which would be funny if those who knew me in real life found out about since an Obama worshiper is not what I actually am)...so it would be nice if some of the "idiots" joined. And I really did think last week was a great one so check it out if you can spare the 2 bucks. And as for boring...I think what you mean (at least when it comes to Fareed) is intelligent.

Will you give GPS a shot by either watching some recent episodes or starting w/ next Sunday?

Let's try and discuss ideas in here. Whatever it may be post links to a clip/article you think is intelligent (even if you don't agree or others may not agree) and let us all discuss the ideas. Hopefully this can be a thread where everything is not about users and who is the source. It isn't meant to be non-political...but it is meant to be impersonal. Original Post: I record daily cable news shows b/c I need something to watch, but the truth is they're all trash. I do like the Meet the Press and a few other Sunday/weekly shows but in my opinion nothing beats GPS on CNN (Sundays). If you have cable, you can watch Sunday. If you have a DVR you can watch whenever. If you have internet and $2 you can watch whenever via Itunes. To me, this is arguably the most well balanced and intelligent "PPP" show on TV today. Maybe you'll disagree, if so feel free to recommend another show. Either way I think it would be fun to have a topic where the stage is set by a show with intelligent discussion about a variety of topics and then we chime in as opposed to our usual partisan hackery cherry picking source war (me included to be fair). Anyway I'll avoid going through a summary of last weeks (which I just got around to watching) but it had a number of a good stories and guests including Simpson/Bowles themselves....and as always there are a good amount of global issues covered. I strongly encourage everyone here to at least check it out, and would like to discuss some things that I watch and think about with others who watched the same thing...no better place than to do so with others hostile to most of my view points than here.

IDK about Canada but here in Florida we know that if you have business in Dade...you get in and get out asap...that said WTF this is new...

LOL at this topic. You bunch of idiots

IDK to each his own and I certainly would not want Obama's job but I personally like that he feels he needs to take moral responsibility. Personally...never had a problem w/ the means Bush took and don't mind the drone attacks now...at this point the drone attacks IMO are a better option and right after 911 it was probably better to get them and shake them down. Either way as a result of both President's actions that organization has been decimated (though not destroyed completely as that is near impossible). I'd think twice before a joined up though if I look around and realize it means I'll be dead (and dead before I even do anything for my "cause").

Well Bush had an entire different set of issues besides that....but you don't go around talking like a cowboy in this day in age (when you more than likely will have to act like one).

Agreed. This is basically the key to his foreign policy success, in a nut shell. Better to speak softly and carry a big stick...etc...

LMFAO 1billsfan. What a imagination you have.