finknottle

Obama went out on a ledge on the preconditions issue (a terrible decision, IMO, but so be it). Ahmadinejad is seems to want to take him up on it. I'm not siding with Mr A, I simply want to see (1) if Obama sticks to what he was selling, and (2) if the media calls him on it. It looks like no and no. His vision of negotiations with trouble-makers without preconditions was just another bit of naivete lapped up by his base during the campaign, but which disappeared quietly and quickly once he was in office. What are your views? Has Obama abandoned his promise for negotiations?

Recall the tempest when in the primaries Obama made a big deal about the importance of talking to our adversary's instead of isolating them, extending an open hand, and so on. Obama defended his position during the debates with McCain So it was a bit of a suprise to me when to learn that Ahmadinejad has taken him up on the offer: http://www.france24.com/en/20100804-us-reb...ran-call-summit You're on, Mr President!

Some perspective please: the same phenomona came up the other way after the Kentucky primaries, when Rand Paul received fewer votes than the losing Democrat.

Something I've often wondered about. [Defaulting on issued debt, that is. Defaulting on promised social spending is quite different.] I think the real issue is what exactly our debt-holder mix is. In the simple case it is all foreign, and the ramifications are that we can no longer get financing for deficit spending. But in the more complicated case, most of it is ultimately held by Americans. Try telling grandma that her 100k retirement savings parked safely in treasuries is now worthless.

There has been some discussion about small business and whether the Administration is a help or a hinderance. Administration defenders like to point to their efforts at loosening the credit market, while detractors point to increased regulation and mandates. I found a survey which may shed some light. http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archiv...ng-level/61247/ At the bottom is a July 2010 survey asking asking small businesses what their single biggest obstacle was. Here are the choices, with the percentage listing it first in '10 followed by the percentage listing it in '09. Taxes (22, 19) Inflation (4, 5) Poor Sales (29, 34) Financing & Interest Rates (4, 5) Cost of Labor (4, 3) Regs and Red Tape (15, 11) Competition from Big Business (6, 5) Quality of Labor (4, 2) Insurance (7, 9) Other (5, 7) So the most widely perceived problem is the sales environment (no big surprise), but in the past year concern about that has receeded while concerns about taxes and regulations have grown. The financial market continues to be of little concern.

Wow. Simply wow. An improvement over the last months of Bush, but TARP was a good thing. Remind me of who came up with TARP and pushed the authorization through so that his successor wouldn't have to fight that political fight during his transition? And what has the Obama administration done to otherwise distinguish it's handling of the economic crisis? You seem to approve of Obama's handling, so admit it: you approve of Bush's stewardship during the crisis too.

Value of $909 million? Price means nothing without talking about profit. Whether borrowing or using ones own money, if the Bills cost a new owner $1 billion to acquire (to use a round number), they need something approaching $100 million in profit each year to be a worthwhile investment. What is Buffalo's profit?

If automobiles - made here, for the prices they charge - are so fashionable, then why did they need a bailout? People need cars, sure. But do they need American cars? Nope. Plenty of better, cheaper alternatives. People vote with their wallets.

A hundred years ago most middle class families had a piano in their living room. The piano industry in this country had a niche something approaching the auto industry today. Was government wrong to let the industry die? Were all those lost jobs bad for America in the long run? Or what about the commercial shipbuilding industry? It was once a significant part of our industrial base, but disappeared 1960-80. Should we have been keeping those companies afloat these past decades? There used to be alot of people employed as elevator operators, switchboard operators, and in typing pools. People depended on those jobs. Question: should the government do something to bring them back? There is a reason companies fail and sectors disappear: they no longer fill an economic need. If they did, they could charge enough to stay healthy.

I have a small S-Corp. I see nothing proposed to help me. Just more regulations that require me to spend money on outside professionals to tell me how to comply. Why is it that administration defenders point to making loans available as a big deal, then turn right around and criticize businesses because they are sitting on their cash and not hiring? Talk about a disconnect... I (and the healthy companies I deal with) have plenty of cash on hand. I wouldn't take a loan if you begged me. The problem is that I don't know what to do with what I have. It is sitting in the bank earning diddly. I won't hire while I have no idea how the new labor regulations are shaking out and what the added costs will be. And I won't risk the money on a new side-venture while tax increases threaten. The downside of failure is that I lose all my investment, while the upside of success is some as-yet-unknown but probably reduced after-tax profit. No thanks.

For what it's worth I looked up the Tennessee situation. There's one Democrat running. This telegenic fellow is one of 5 candidates on the Aug 5 Republican primary ballot. None of the pollsters are tracking him, he just happens to have signed up. There are three legitimate candidates for the nomination. There are also 13 independent candidates in the race. As the intro in this unedited piece explains, the video segment is the result of the local news station giving an equal opportunity to all registered candidates in the two major parties.

I was just about to post this. I don't understand the drift of this thread. The point of the video as I understood it was to show the NAACP applauding her actions, not the woman herself. Which they did. Let's reframe the scenario. There is a taped Tea Party rally. A skinhead gets up and say's he hates Obama because he is black. The crowd goes wild with approval. How would the media play the story? They would focus on the tea partiers as a group and conclude they are racist. Suppose it is later revealed that the guy was a plant. Does the media change their conclusions? Of course not - all that matters is that the tea party crowd applauded racist statements. Of course the media is happy to play it otherwise when convenient to their cause. Here are Tea Partiers driving out an apparent nazi from their ranks: but ThinkProgress portrays it

I refer you to the article:

I would like to know what he thinks of the salary disparity in the NFL. The top 32 players averaged about $15 million in compensation. The other 1,500 averaged about $1.8 million. Throw in the 1,500 guys signed to contracts and cut in training camp or before the end of the season, and the average falls to more like $700k. Is it fair that a cornerback gets $20 million, while everybody else in his position busts their butts for a twentieth of that? Is he 20 times better than a rookie 6th rounder? What does that even mean?

Why do you think this is particular to capitalism? Do you think politicians in less-capitalistic countries are less beholden to the groups who put them in office? Or is it that you think that in non-capitalist countries there are no interest groups vying for influence? I'm not sure what your non-capitalist ideal is, but there are no shortage of recent illegal contribution/influence peddling/money laundering scandals in places like France, Brazil, Russia, and China.

Help me understand where you are coming from here. Are you saying that an economic problem which was caused by greed is automatically attributable to capitalist influences? That greed doesn't spawn corrupt practices in socialism, authoritarianism, or rainbowed unicornism? If not, then why should the behavior of non-capitalistic entities be blamed on capitalism? Well behaved or not, you would find very few free market capitalists supporting any government intervention into the housing markets through a FM/FM entity.

What would you point to as a non-capitalist success story? How are things looking in Europe?

Capitalism has failed because it's outcomes don't meet the 'fairness' sensibilities of its critics. 1. What you choose to do for a career shouldn't matter as much as how hard you are willing to work. Yet manual labor salaries continue to lag those of part-time IT consultants. 1. Equally talented people who perform equally ardous tasks should be equally compensated. Being an expert on the subject of 12th century farming is just as difficult as being an expert on modern financial derivatives, requires at least as much education and training, and should be compensated accordingly. It isn't. 2. In America, everybody is special. Everybody is the best at what they do. They should all be successfull. They aren't.

I don't like 80X, but it is a function of the marketplace. Justification has nothing to do with it. You might as well reject gravity and evolution, and be enraged that WNBA salaries don't match the NBA. But I think the distinction between a Fortune 500 CEO and an average CEO flew right by you, which is the only point I am trying to make. Open your copy of the White Pages and pick a company at random. It's probably a dental practice, or a bicycle shop chain, or maybe an auto parts distributor. Find out if their CEO makes 300 times the average salary - that's about 15 million a year, right? To take your example: lawyers. Sure, they don't average 2 million a year. But how much do you want to bet that the 500 best paid lawyers in the country don't average it? There are 24,000 companies in the US. If you really want to get your underwear in a bunch, it shouldn't be over the fact that the top 500 CEO's out of that group make so much. It should be over the fact that the top 500 companies dominate the US market so thoroughly: 2% of companies account for 73% of GDP. But, ironically, their success at disporportionately dominating the marketplace is something of an argument for paying their CEO's so outrageously. If you are a company doing $10 billion a year in business, what's an extra $10 million if that's what it takes to get the CEO you think might give you an edge in staying on top? Here are your choices: - use $10 million to get the CEO of your choice, - using that money to reduce prices by one one thousandth, or - give everybody in the company a one dollar a year raise (before taxes). What would you do with the money in a company that large? Which option is likely to make the most difference?

It's not the case that the average CEO makes 300 times the average workers salary. According to the article, it is CEO's of the Fortune 500, the 500 companies in the US with the largest revenues. As revenue goes up, compensation at the top goes up. The salaries at the Fortune 500 should be considered outliers. By way of comparison, the top 5 non-profit CEO's took home about $2 million apiece in salary. That's probably 80 times the average salary of an average non-profit employee. Where's the outrage?

Only after the skilled section of society runs out of the money/assets that have been supporting the rest.

Empty Suit.

And Single versus Married. If you are a single earner than the line will be much lower, but it's not clear where.

I have strong competing feelings on this topic. Over a year ago I decried in these forums the cutting of NASA's budget on foreign policy grounds. It was my experience that for PR, NASA is the best thing we have going for us. I've meet many people in the middle east - young technical people - who were hostile to this country, but would do an about face whenever our space program was brought up. NASA, with its leading role, helps this country's image more then all the presidential apologies and foreign aid ever will. They look at NASA's successes and see what a free and fairly run country can accomplish. But this business of a targeted outreach is IMO precisely the wrong way to go about it. You lead by example, by inspiration. Not by taking an apolitical endeavor seen as working on behalf of the entire world, and visibly turning it into a tool of foreign policy. When you go to pains to tell them how great they are and pretend they are technical partners, they no longer ask themselves what is right with America and wrong with their own societies that we can accomplish such things and they cannot.

Maybe what they are saying is that they are willing to settle for competent leadership? Half a loaf is better than none, and all that?