B-Man
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Posts posted by B-Man
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Without looking it up...what were some of November's economic numbers?
I'm sorry, I am not sure.............are you referring to last November? or the November of the last election?
Unemployment has risen from around 5.8% in Nov. 2008, nand likewise fallen from around 9% last November.
I don't have the stats, but the most important number, and therefore the most ignored by the media, is that the actual number of working Americans has fallen to around 63%, lowest in 30 years.
How long did the Great Depression last?
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The American public has, at best, a three-month memory. The only economic numbers that will matter will be the ones from August to October.
That is the common misconception Tom, but I respectfully disagree with you.
Certainly the 3 months you mentioned will be very important, but there are millions of people out there whose lives have been (shall we say) made worse by government policies since 2008 and they have loooooooonnng memories.
Mr Obama ran on the anti-Bush sentiment before, he has no such luxury this time.
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Ignorance! The Bush financial crash was much deeper and more severe than any "recession" we have experienced since the 1930's. Housing prices would not have recovered any faster if we went free market wild after 2008, no way. This is taking longer because it was so much more severe
You are incorrect.
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Remember though. This isn't real. It's all just a conspiracy by the MSM to make Obama look better If we were to take the number of people who did file for unemployment, divide it by the Number of jobs lost + loss of GDP - Romney's IQ and carry the 4 you'll find out that more people left the work force this past month so the fact that the economy produced more jobs is bunk.
Ha ha! You forgot the government has fixed the numbers
It should also be noted that Government, I mean General Motors, had a record profitable year and their stock shot up eight percent today. All lies, of course, but there it is
You forgot the most commonly used shallow response.
Everything bad that has occurred over the past three years is due to President Bush and not President Obama.
Therefore when the unemployment figures and other economic indicators all went south even after the great "stimulus" mirage, that was because of the previous administration
When the U.S. economy remained stagnant over the next two years (Even though the regular recovery cycle after a recession had come and passed)it was because Mr. Obama hadn't truly realized how bad President Bush had left it.
Now, almost two years passed when our recovery should have began, we are finally (and obliviously to the liberals),inevitably starting an anemic growth period.
This is a testament to the (hamstrung) U.S. capitalistic engine................we can always come back
I can only pray that the Obama campaign (along with its willing media)delude themselves and try and run on his economic record.
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You can modernize and reduce. See manufacturing.
Except thats not what he said;
President Obama promised Thursday to spend $80 billion over 10 years to maintain and modernize the nation’s nuclear arsenal, a commitment that could help win Republican support for his new arms control treaty with Russia.You do not "maintain" your nuclear arsenal by reducing it 80%, certainly some reduction is necessary, but you cannot spin away the conflicting proposals here.
It doesn't really matter what he said anyway, it was all BS just to try and buy Senate votes.
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You see, I'm an idea man. I get ideas all day long. I can't control 'em.[/i]
Night Shift reference ?..........................nice.
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The Obama administration is weighing options for sharp new cuts to the U.S. nuclear force, including a reduction of up to 80 percent in the number of deployed weapons, The Associated Press has learned.
Back to the original post, it appears our President may have been lying (?) back in May 2010, per the NYTimes
Obama Expands Modernization of Nuclear ArsenalBy PETER BAKER
Published: May 13, 2010
WASHINGTON President Obama promised Thursday to spend $80 billion over 10 years to maintain and modernize the nations nuclear arsenal, a commitment that could help win Republican support for his new arms control treaty with Russia.
The plan expands a previous proposal by Mr. Obama to upgrade nuclear infrastructure and was sent to the Senate along with the treaty and accompanying protocol and annexes. Mr. Obama called President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia as he kicked off his campaign to win Senate consent for the treaty.
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.The Kerry Kickback:Senator Secures $3.5 Billion Windfall for Massachusetts HospitalsBY: Andrew Stiles - February 15, 2012
Massachusetts hospitals are poised to receive a $3.5 billion windfall in federal funding over the next 10 years thanks to a little-known provision Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) inserted into the Affordable Care and Patient Protection Act, also known as “Obamacare.”
The increased funding—$367 million a year in the form of Medicare reimbursement payments, according to the Federal Register—would not only come at the expense of hospitals in the 49 other states, but would also directly benefit an organization that has given generously to Kerry’s campaign.
The obscure policy change was formally approved by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) in July 2011. It was prompted by a small, 15-bed hospital located on the upscale island of Nantucket, a popular vacation spot for wealthy New Englanders where Kerry and his wife own a $9 million waterfront home.
Nantucket Cottage Hospital, which had been operating under a special “critical access” status, sought a number of years ago to be reclassified as a “rural” hospital. The CMS approved the change for fiscal year 2012—a minor adjustment on paper, but one with profound implications.
The Balanced Budget Act of 1997 established a “rural floor” for hospital labor costs (which are used to determine reimbursement rates) mandating that hospitals in urban areas within a given state cannot be paid less than those in rural areas.
{snip}
The company, through its board members and top executives, has given generously the Kerry and other Democrats over the years. Since 2007, Partner’s employees have contributed more than $26,000 to the senator’s campaign, and are collectively his 16th biggest donor over the current cycle.
President and CEO Dr. Gary Gottlieb has given more than $45,000 to Democratic candidates and committees since 2007, including $5,300 to Kerry, according to a database maintained by the Center for Responsive Politics. Partners board chairman Jack Connors Jr. has given more than $42,000 to Democrats during that same period.
Members of the group’s board have given generously, and almost exclusively, to Democrats, including tens of thousands to Kerry. Four Partners board members in particular—Anne Finucane, Charles Gifford, Edward Lawrence, and Dorothy Terrell—have collectively contributed more than $200,000 to Democrats since 2007 and nearly $15,000 to Kerry.
Copp declined to say whether this flow of money was indicative of corporate-political cronyism at work. “Those are personal donations, and I cannot speak to them,” he told the Washington Free Beacon in an email.
Partners also maintains an active presence in Washington, D.C., having spent approximately $4.4 million on lobbying since 2008.
The new policy has drawn the ire of hospital associations in other states, which recently petitioned the White House to overturn to the change in policy. “If I could think of a better word than outrageous, I would come up with it,” Steve Brenton, president of the Wisconsin Hospital Association, told the Associated Press in response to the new rule. Herb Kuhn, president of the Missouri Hospital Association, said the Massachusetts windfall was an example of “how to manipulate the payment system.”
Because the amendment required that such payment adjustments be budget neutral at the federal level—meaning all increases for one state must be offset with reductions elsewhere—hospitals in the 49 other states will collectively lose about $367 million in annual Medicare payments to offset the additional funding for Massachusetts.
“This … provision permitted the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to manipulate the federal Medicare program, reaping an estimated $367 million annually from the other 49 states—unfairly favoring one state’s hospitals and Medicare beneficiaries to the detriment of others,” a coalition of 19 state hospital associations wrote in a Jan. 18, 2012 letter to President Obama. “Scarce Medicare funding should reward value and efficiency in health care, not be diverted based on artful manipulation of obscure payment formulas.”
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CMS actually passed a rule in 2009 explicitly designed to prevent any one state from exploiting the system to their benefit, by making reimbursement adjustment budget neutral at the state rather than federal level. The Kerry-sponsored amendment, however, overturned the rule
Some animals are more equal than others.
I'm remembering the righteous indignation they laid on anyone who questioned this bill.
This was about taking care of the working poor. This was about covering the uninsured and people with pre existing conditions. This was because we are a great nation and great nations pass legislation like this. Premiums were going to go down. The deficit would go down. Seas would calm. Sweet breezes will blow......................................
Meanwhile back in the real world we were dealing with the realization that people were getting fired and laid off in shocking numbers.
Kerry and friends were taking care of their more equal buddies.
Pelosi was parading across the grounds with a polo mallet.
Then you flip to the stimulus mess. How many green companies we funded are belly up now? Every week we discover another political contributer associated with recieving federal "stimulus money"...........after all; its the Chicago way.
By the way, to be really petty , if you click on the link and check out Sen. Kerry's picture..........it sure seems that his recent "ice hockey accident" removes bags under one's eyes........................... Who knew?
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Not "redundancy." Deterrence.
Christ...forget real sources. Has anyone on this board even read Tom Clancy???
Yep, read 'em all. I particuarly like Rainbow Six novel....................................It goes without sayinh that you are referring to the novels, not the movies and video games.
Hey, it just occurred to me.......Tom Clancy.................DC Tom.....................hmmmmmm.
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Just the idea that they think they can do it is scary. What, the 4 year old kid is going to stand up to the adult? The problem is that government employees feel entitled to get away with this schit.
Think of it from the kid's point of view...............................................
The school just told him that the lunch his own mother made for him, was not good enough
What is he to think now ?
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Food police are prone to exaggeration.
A. Barton Hinkle | February 14, 2012
“It may be better to live under robber barons,” wrote C.S. Lewis, “than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep...but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” Now there was a fellow who knew a thing or two.
Lewis would not be surprised by a recent jeremiad in the journal Nature, arguing that sugar is just as bad for you as tobacco and alcohol, and we all ought to be forced to eat a lot less of it. The authors think it would be grand if the government slapped hefty taxes on foods with added sugar, and outlawed the sale of sugary drinks to minors, and kept sugary-drink-selling stores away from schools and any place inhabited by people who are poor and fat and therefore, presumably, stupid. (Well—“low-income areas plagued by obesity” is how the news stories put it. But we all know what they meant.)
Self-appointed food police have been pitching Twinkie taxes, soda taxes, and so on for years. And like advocates of every stripe, they are sometimes prone to exaggerating.
Last month researchers (including one at Virginia Tech) claimed slapping a penny-per-ounce tax on soft drinks would raise $13 billion in revenue, save $17 billion in health costs, and prevent (kid you not) 2,600 premature deaths a year—all because it would lead the average adult American to cut nine calories a day. Nine.
Meanwhile, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine has ginned up some good publicity by erecting a couple of anti-cheese billboards in Albany, New York—dairy country, that is. The billboards show a man’s fat gut and a woman’s hamhock thighs and say it’s all cheese’s fault.
The FDA, for its part, continues to move forward with plans to restrict salt. The agency started studying the issue five years ago. By last December it had published a proposal in the Federal Register seeking comments on “current and emerging approaches designed to promote sodium reduction.”
But the FDA will have to work faster if it wants to keep up with New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. His administration already is spearheading a “nationwide effort to reduce salt in restaurant and packaged foods.” It also has banned trans-fats and smoking in bars, launched a P.R. campaign against occasional smoking, and is in the process of restricting alcohol sales and advertising in the city.
Bloomberg is doing this with the approval of his own conscience: As he said at a U.N. conference last fall, making “healthy solutions the default social option” is “ultimately government’s highest duty.” New York Sen. Chuck Schumer evidently agrees and wants to get in on the action. He has asked the FDA to review and possibly ban powdered caffeine. He’s worried a new product called AeroShot could become the next “club drug.” No word yet on Schumer’s thoughts about NoDoz or coffee.
As Lewis said, such paternalism “stings with intolerable insult.” It stings all the more because in some cases the government has exacerbated the very problem supposedly requiring redress. Take high-fructose corn syrup, which the Nature piece urges regulating more tightly and which is widely used as a sweetener in the U.S.
Why is it widely used? Blame Washington’s import quotas on foreign sugar – and its massive subsidies for corn. Corn is the run-away winner in the farm subsidy Olympics: The Environmental Working Group estimates Americans have shelled out nearly $80 billion in corn subsidies over the past decade and a half.
So first we’re forced to pay on the front end for the overproduction of corn, thereby encouraging the use of high fructose corn syrup, and now we’re supposed to pay again on the back end, through soda taxes and the like, to prevent ourselves from drinking too much of it................... Brilliant.
This is not an isolated case, either. Recently the EPA imposed strict new smokestack regulations on power companies to reduce, among other things, the release of highly toxic mercury emissions from electricity generation. Wouldn’t want people to breathe that, right? At the same time, new federal light bulb standards effectively have required consumers to purchase newer and more efficient compact fluorescent (CFL) bulbs.
And hey, guess what? The average CFL bulb contains about five milligrams of mercury. According to Scientific American, when a CFL breaks, “mercury escapes as a vapor that can be inhaled and as a fine powder that can settle into carpet and other textiles.” In fact, the hazard from CFLs is significant enough that when one breaks, a certain federal agency recommends (a) evacuating all people and pets from the area, (b) opening a window and airing the room out, © shutting off your central air system, and (d) collecting the debris and powder in a sealable glass container, since a plastic bag can’t contain the vapor.
Which agency offers those recommendations? The EPA—the very same one that imposed the new smokestack emissions rules.
Lewis would not be surpised by that, either.
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This Maxine Waters................??
And guess what this liberal will be all about? This liberal will be all about socializing, uh, uh… would be about basically about taking over the government running all of your companies..
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Boo-fricken-hoo for the Greeks. They don't get a free ride through life paid for by the government anymore.
Sucks for them that they actually have to be productive for a living now.
From Spartans to Spoiled Brats, is that what you're saying Koke ?
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The West Hoke Elementary School student was in her More at Four classroom when a state agent who was inspecting lunch boxes decided that her packed lunch — which consisted of a turkey and cheese sandwich, a banana, apple juice and potato chips — “did not meet U.S. Department of Agriculture guidelines,” the Journal reports.
I think this part is the most disturbing. Food gestapo rifling through little kids private lunch boxes. Amazing.
Yeah....The Department of HomeLunch Security...............I stole that from Mark Steyn
The home-made lunch having been ruled illegal by officials, the preschooler was given a federally-approved lunch,
for which her mother has been sent a bill.
The girl didn’t care for the substitute lunch, ate only the three chicken nuggets, and left everything else on her tray untouched.
It may not have worked out all that nutritious for her, but at least it’s compliant with DCDEE/DHHS/USDA paperwork, and that’s what matters.
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From the campaign trail, then Senator Obama spoke of increased electricity prices as a means for advancing his agenda, noting that costs would "necessarily skyrocket." Energy Secretary Stephen Chu was equally blunt. "Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe [currently $8 a gallon]," Mr. Chu announced. Last year, President Obama declared that America must be the nation that leads the "clean energy economy."
So far, pushing policies that raise energy costs and bolster the case for currently unaffordable green energy sources is one promise for change that the administration seems intent to keep no matter what it costs.
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If your primary goal in "developing" a budget is Fairness (and I suspect....re-election) rather than an honest attempt to fund necessary programs and raise necessary revenue, then this Obama budget is what results.
It's not hard to understand the disincentives to job creation in Mr Obama's proposal.
If the government wants more people to quit smoking, it increases the taxes on cigarettes. Similarly, if the government wants more people to quit investing, the appropriate policy is an increase in taxes on investment income.
And if the government really wants to kill job creation and new investment, it should double the tax on capital gains.
So where's the common sense in this call for more roadblocks to investment, more disincentives for the financing of companies and startups in the private sector, when 12.8 million Americans by the government's calculations are already out of work? Millions more aren't counted as unemployed because they've given up looking for work and left the workforce and millions more are working at reduced pay or reduced hours
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And....that's why I don't have a wife!
Happy Valentines Day OC.
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That's disturbing. Seriously dude, have things really gone this far?
Now don't you worry about the "TRUTH TEAM" little citizen...............they are made up of the Sacred Trinity
AttackWatch,................................. KeepingGOPHonest,.......................... and KeepingHisWord.
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Every time a baseless attack comes to light, well arm you with the truth so you can spread the word.Actual quote from their press release...........and they wonder why we question their competence and administrative skills.
PS: kudos to Tom for the Rm#101 reference.
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That does it Magox, I'm reporting you to.........................................................................the Truth Team ! !
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You dont think white people havent done the same thing?
You really need to brush up on your history, son.
No one made any such assumption, I simply asked if you would respond to Harrison Ford's "honesty" as you did with Samuel Jackson ?
You really need to brush up on your comprehension sir.
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Two hundred years of slavery, a hundred years of institutional discrimination, and fifty years and counting of conscious or unconscious discrimination is historical context. Let me give two examples that show a least unconscious discrimination continues to this day.
resumes
selling online
Seriously ?
you're trying to claim that because of past discrimination ( and of course we could fill the board with examples) that its okay for a minority citizen to then vote for a member of their minority just to make up for past injustices?
This isnt really about that, it was a simple story about Samuel L. Jackson admitting that he voted for Mr. Obama because of his skin color and now his disappointment in him. After we got a few "he's just being honest" replies, I half-jokinngly pointed out that the reverse wouldn't be true.
Now you seem to want to grant some permission slip that we should allow for some voters to vote on color, depending on their groups history.
I respectfully disagree.
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If the next 40 presidents are black you'd definitely be justified to vote for a qualified white guy just because he's white- right now I wouldn't hold it against women if they voted for a qualified woman just because she's a woman, things have a historical context.
Sorry, thats a pretty weak attempt at justification for bias.
Just so we all can participate in this "historical context" reference..........................is forty the actual number ? or thirty ?
Is there a quota system ?
What you mean is, its certainly understandable that someone votes for a black candidate after a history of white candidates, but does that make it acceptable ?
No........voting by skin pigmentation is wrong no matter how you try to excuse it.
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As if blacks in 2008 were the first ethnic group to vote for someone solely because the candidate was "one of their own."What honesty. Good for him.
Exactly. Honesty is refreshing.
Except that "all animals are not equal"
Supposing Harrison Ford announces; "I'm voting for Romney, because he's white"
Would he rate a "good for him" for his "refreshing" honesty ? ?
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That's what I like about Sam. He just tells it like it is, because as long as it doesn't !@#$ up his tee time he simply doesn't give a ****.
Again, are you referring to Samuel L. Jackson or Obama?....................................lol
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More Good Economic News
in Politics, Polls, and Pundits
Posted
I know its a waste of time, but what the hell, I've got a few to waste.....lol
I'll use small sentences for you.
You gave examples of 2 Depressions
We, were in a Recession...........psssst, they're not the same thing.
Our latest Recession ended (per U.S. Government stats) in June of 2009.
There are many historical references that show how long it takes for us to recover from a recession , we are now in a prolonged recovery.
The current administration's economic efforts have had little effect, and perhaps even lengthened our return.
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