WorldTraveller

I would normally agree with you, but I have been heartened to see all the mainstream outlets reporting the jobs numbers for what they really are and highlighting the drop in labor particpation rate, and that the unemployment rate has mainly been dropping due to people fleeing the labor markets because of the despair that they are feeling. This undercuts the Obama administrations claim of the lowering unemployment rate, and I am sure that they were a bit surprised how the media hammered that point home.

If you go on to read that article, which I'm sure you did, you'd see that the main reason we are seeing this is due mainly to structural issues.

This is the predominant side of your brains wishful thinking that is speaking here. While the Ryan plan may not be perfect, it is a serious budget that leads to a balanced budget. Whereas Obama has never produced a long-term budget that never even comes close to addressing our long-term deficits. For independents like myself, I am fairly certain that most independents would rather support a candidate who at least addresses this issue even with a flawed budget over a candidate who would rather make a cynical calculation of not producing a budget in order to demagogue the other sides plan. Most independents are not ideological, but we care about the economy , deficits and more importantly candidates who are serious about addressing our countries challenges. And we know that president Obama is more worried about his reelection than getting serious on producing a long term plan, pandering to his environmentalist base to get huge campaign cash at the expense of jobs (keystone pipeline) and would rather focus tremendous amount of time campaigning on gimmicks like the buffet rule that virtually do nothing for the economy, but polls well. I'm sorry, but you couldn't be more off. This election will be about the economy, and right now the president is getting poor reviews, which is why you have seen independents flee from him at a rapid pace over the past month. My guess is that with this poor job report, you will see that trend continue

That video is a perfect caricature of how today's liberals view women. Remaining single throughout their lives, needing the assistance of government to live a standard life. And that is an ideal scenario. Most single women, are struggling to get by, barely making enough to pay their bills, so much so that this is their main preoccupation. Many women lean on government to help them get by, meaning that dependency is rapidly accelerating, and when dependency sets in, it becomes in most cases a permanent dependency. Dependency is not generally a good thing, it means that people learn how to adjust life around that dependency, it lessens overall self-esteem and of course it has a high fiscal cost at the expense of the tax payer not to mention it lowers overall productivity as a society.

Actually those government job losses are from the local state and local government levels. If you truly are interested in seeking blame for those losses then look no further than the powerful public sector unions and the political whores who pander to them in order to get campaign re election funds. The back room deals they made included unfounded pensions, over bloated salaries, protectionist attitudes for incompetent teachers based on an unsustainable tax revenue models that was inevitably burst, and this was at the expense of higher tax revenues and our children's education . Then when the bubble burst, these same politicians who undoubtedly were corrupt, now are complaining about austerity when it was there corruptnbackroom deals that led to the firings.

That sounds too hard, too much work involved with that. Free stuff is better

While they are at it, they should send a link to obamas cradle to grave 'Julie' website to every independent to let them know what team Obama is really about.

The main thing that worries me about Fitzpatrick is his deep ball. If he could get a few of those long passes off it would go a long way in improving this team.

When everyone was healthy last year, our offense was better than average.

Right,

Says who? You? Sorry sir, that's not how it works in the real world, unless of course you decide to preside in a cozy insular world consisting of like-minded indivduals. I clearly stated that wall street wasn't the root of our problems, bad housing, lax regulation with the GSEs and cheap money policies were at the heart of the downturnI. If you just attempted to see things from outside of your comfort zone you would recognize that wall street leveraged the whole sh*t storm. I will give you a very simplistically hypothetical example. Let's say without wall street the housing crisis would of caused a total of 250Billion dollars worth or damage. Meaning that we would of went through the down turn regardless. But with wall streets help, they leveraged what was already a bad situation that resulted in 1 Trillion dollars. The point I'm making is that they made it worse, and I find it to be a bit ummmm, what's the word? Partially displaced, hypocritical, myopic or maybe just willfully ignorant to not show the same level of outrage to wall street as well.

You're missing the point . Where is the same level of outrage over the other matters which I believe were the larger drivers?

I believe your point would be more effective if it wasn't so one-sided. Did CRA play a role? Sure, but not nearly as much as you believe. Should F/F of had more oversight in its bundling of loans and packaging them as MBS? Yep. But why no mention of the mortgage companies unscrupulous activities? Or banks predatory lending practices? Or blatant fraudulent activity? Or devastating lax underwriting? What about the Feds role with interest rate policy? What about the ratings agency? After all they gave investors the warm and fuzzies, providing a false sense of security. What about repealing glass- steagall? What about the consumers? Nd nowhere did I see you mention wall street. I mean you do understand that wall streets role in creating highly leveraged exotic investment vehicles that in many cases weren't even directly attached to a tangible product for the sole purpose of enabling and encouraging investors to engage in casino like gambling is what did more damage than anything right? Wall street wasn't the root problem, but it was certainly the most devastating issue. It is what caused the largest monetary impact out of this whole debacle. I'm guessing that you probably gripe about tax payer money being wasted, right? Well where is the outrage caused by wall street? Did they pack most of TARP? Sure, but that's not the main monetary impact caused by wall street, it's the collateral damage that matters most. Most people, incorrectly believe that the reason that our national deficit has swelled over the past few years is because Obama has layered new spending policies. Sorry to tell you folks, thats simply and factually untrue. The reason why the deficit has swelled is because of loss of tax receipts. The devastation caused by the housing crisis is the main deficit driver. And a if you want a point a finger, you have to point it everywhere, not just the GSEs and CRA. It just sounds overtly partisan when you do

Amazing how much oxygen given to this case.

Actually there was a lot of predatory lending going on. Federal aesignment laws were getting violated like it was going out of style. Without a doubt lenders were placing people into homes they knew they couldn't afford. Do you even know what the robo signings was all about? Talk about fraud. Geez, most banks didn't even own the original loan documents. They cut corners because of MERS, Mortgage ElectronicRegistry Systems. Lenders knowing they didn't have the Original Loan Documents, couldn't legally collect or foreclose because they didn't have these documents would hire people to forge these documents, just so they could foreclose on homeowners. Guys ever hear of"Linda green"? Google it. I could go on and on with all the violations the banks had committed, but let me just say this, everyone was guilty. I'm not trying to fully absolve all the wreck less and irresponsible homeowners, because without a doubt they were a part of the problem as well. But let's not pretend that there wasn't rampant predatory lending and fraudulent practices out there.

This is what I was referring to.

That doesn't count population increase. If you have a population increase of let's say 750,000 of able working folks, then that is counted into the mix as well. So maybe the jobs report shows a net loss of 700k, but if you factor a population increase of able working folks of 2M over the past three years then that is 2M plus 700k, making it a net loss of 2.7M.

Actually that would be quite a feat, considering that the labor participation rate just this past month hit a new 30 year high. Meaning that when you include the entire pool of employed workers, those looking for work, long- term discouraged workers looking for employment ( who don't count in the u3 gauge that we all follow ) and those who dropped out of the labor force completely ( who also aren't included in the U3), the overall percentage of people out of work is continuing to rise. In other words, things are continuing to go in the wrong direction. What I would suggest is that you look up labor participation rate and educate yourself a little.

That is true..... To an extent Usually the way I have observed similar situations is that the media, the ones you mentioned usually won't cover this story, initially. Fox will incessantly run it, specially hannity, and at some point a story such as this will eventually and begrudge ly be carried by more of the " mainstream" outlets. One way or another I suspect this will be a story

To be honest, I don't know how the DOJ escapes this without embarrassment, unless of course it truly was fabricated.

I'm guessing that you are a kid. Well for your sake , at least I hope you are

I'm afraid ANY plan that leads us to an eventual balanced budget along side serious reforms on Medicare will appear draconian. The question is do we begin to implement A plan now or do we wait till the bond markets impose one on us. And if you believe ryans plan is draconian wait until you see what an austerity plan under the pressure of bond markets will look like. I think it's fair to ask the president and his allies to offer a serious plan that puts us in a stable and sustainable fiscal path with a credible plan to reform Medicare. Don't you?

It would be nice to know that the president and his political allies in the senate would at least produce a budget that eventually leads us to a balanced budget and that would address the overburdened entitlement programs. It's easy to sit on the sidelines and demagogue the other sides budget while failing to produce one yourself. I think it's fair to say that there has been a failure of leadership from democrats on what's arguably our most pressing problem moving forward. From Paul Ryan, who I happen to respect, simply because I consider him to be a serious individual who had the gravitas to leave himself open to the predictable ridicule from his political opponents offered a solution as flawed as it may be that puts the country on a fiscal sustainable path. Those who support the president, don't you believe that he and his allies owe it to the country to at least offer a budget that leads us to a balanced budget? I'm not advocating that we balance the budget in the next few years, simply because it's unrealistic and to be honest rather silly . But at least show us some leadership in how they would do it, have the political courage to leave yourself open. Let us at least see a serious competing plan. In that regards, the president has lacked the courage of what great presidents are made of. That's just my opinion You can vehemently disagree with the man and his budget, but at least it puts our economy on a sustained fiscal path and it does extend the life of Medicare. What we do know is that the status quo achieves neither of the two and what would be radical is to continue down the path we are headed. Now if you believe that his plan is socially unfair, that could be a fair criticism but to characteriz Ryan's plan as not serious would not accurately depict his efforts.

I would hardly consider that to be a "bad" argument, of course it is subjective and that characterization largely depends on the value of the opinion of the person offering the critique. Having said that, the example you offered isn't half bad. The main difference I would offer is that most vehicular accidents are just that, involuntary mishaps. in other words accidents On the other hand the vast majority of gun incidents are willful actions committed by the party at fault. So it isn't so much a monetary compensation issue as much as a penal one. Also in regards to property damage you would be hard pressed to see many cases where physical monetary damage or the need for recourse as a result of a gun issue