YOU don’t need to be one of the science or math whizzes President Obama hopes to mint by the thousands to understand that his State of the Union Speech, themed “Winning the Future,” very likely carried a double meaning.
And apparently, you don’t need to be science or math whizzes to write editorials for the Seattle Times. Why anybody would take fiscal advice from the publisher of a struggling newspaper is beyond me.
Hey, newspapers are cool (30 years ago) and the main way people get news (30 years ago), along with sitting down with the kids and turning on the RCA Color set and watching the “nightly news” on NBC, ABC, or CBS.
Sorry, gotta run, got a pushed RSS news update on my 4G cell phone…
How many times did President Obama mention inflation in his speech? It appears the answer is zero. I think we need to have a national discussion about inflation. I’m seeing it at the gas pump, insurance of all kinds, food stores etc.
Not sure how this is being measured these days but it needs to be addressed and on the radar screen.
@2
He didn’t mention it because he’s smart, and a Ph.D professor and all. He didn’t mention it because there isn’t any, inflation is near historic lows. Inflation on general goods across the board is near nothing (1%).
You’re confused. You’re thinking of PRICES of specific commodities vs general inflation. Oil prices go up and down, from $20 a barrel to $100. That is not inflation. That’s speculation on a commodity. Health care costs and college prices, also aren’t inflation. Those costs seem to always go up FAR MORE than inflation.
Take a look at the historic rates:
http://www.usinflationcalculat.....ion-rates/
For general information on how it’s calculated and impacts:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation
@ 2: There is CPI (crap you buy at WalMart, e.g. “all items less food and energy”), and then CPI (everything you need to live, like rent, food, clothes, etc.); most people who are poor spend all of their money on the latter, yet are supposed to believe the numbers about the former. The Dow numbers are from overseas investment and propping up banks; they have nothing to do with us, unless you are sitting on top of a few hundred grand in your 401k, in which case, hold on.
I’d like to note that, there’s nothing in the constitution that says the opposition party has to give a response to the state of the union and yet the Republicans gave two.
re 5: That’s right.
Obama also stated that he was going to end tax breaks for big oil and gas — since they didn’t seem to be having any trouble making a profit.
That’s the 6,000 year old dinosaur in the living room.
“Obama really did spend too much time and political capital on health reform.” — Republican Times
No, he didn’t. He did this exactly right. He had a rare — and fleeting — window of opportunity to accomplish something that has eluded generations of presidents, something that is critical to our nation’s future economic health, and he did it. The Republican Times is dissing this accomplishment because … well, because Republicans don’t like health reform. They want to keep our elitist health care system that takes very good care of the rich and leaves tens of millions of low income workers out in the cold just the way it is. Given that this position benefits only about 2% of the Times’ readership, it’s surprising the Times still has any readers at all.
Overall, the editorial seems like an unfocused and meandering regurgitation of Republican talking points.
@4 “The Dow numbers … have nothing to do with us”
It’s not my fault you didn’t salt away $7500 in stocks 25 years ago like I did. My $7500 has earned $35,000 since Sept. 1. I made another $1000 in the stock market today. Sure beats working for Republican no-minimum wages.
5, 6 — If it’s not in the Constitution, they don’t have the authority to do it, they said so themselves. So why did they do it? Another example of GOP hypocrisy.
If anything, he underestimated the kind of opposition he got. There is room for reasoned disagreement and principled stands against health care reform, but that’s not what happened last year. I think reasonable people (like Obama) expect other people to be reasonable. In this case, Republicans weren’t. They weren’t interested in facts, or debate, or anything other than winning political points. As a result, they didn’t get as much input as they wanted (despite the fact that the individual mandate is a REPUBLICAN idea, and has been since 1974).
John Boehner calling for another reasoned debate on the health care reform bill strikes me as hilarious, given that the first one wasn’t reasoned (or fact-based). I’d welcome an honest conversation on the topic, but Boehner spent a lot of time talking about non-existent provisions of the bill that would authorize federal funding of abortions, not talking about things that were actually in the bill.
Also, just an FYI, John, ramming a repeal through as your first real act in the majority without ANY discussion isn’t a “reasoned debate.”
@11: It is in the Constitution that they need to take an oath, but that didn’t stop the chair of the RNCC from skipping the oath to do a fundraiser in a building where political functions are explicitly banned. Clearly it’s just lip service, and they didn’t even last ten seconds in the majority before violating the Constitution (and the only specific requirement for Representatives, to boot).
@11
They did it twice!
Darling of the Tea Bagger set gets the key to the car taken away.
I love the new acronym: Winning The Future..WTF.
PERFECT.
ya goldy…taking financial advice from the publisher of a failing newspaper is akin to taking financial advice from someone who puts on “fundraisers” to pay his mortgage and internet bill.
how ironic that you would come up with such a comment…..
@ 17
Oh, look, it’s Winnie the Pooh, bear of very little brain, spilling out the remaining contents of his noggin only to prove that he doesn’t know the difference between the words “financial” and “fiscal”.
What a stupid little fuck….
Why anybody would take fiscal advice from the publisher of a struggling newspaper is beyond me
—
Heh, heh. We’ll remember that the next time you offer any of your own, in view of the fact you relied on donations to limp through last year with an ONLINE rag that should have had at least some wind behind its back! Seeing that TWO years of donations would have been a bit much for a business model, you called it quits . . . and took a low paying salary for a PRINT rag!
Too damn funny!
The editorial’s pretty noncommittal for the most part. Surprisingly, they did identify NCLB as the Trojan horse it always was. Maybe Uncle Frank’s at least figured out that he’s not going to be able to sell his rag to people who can’t read.
@12 “Reasoning” with Boehner would require sobering him up, which ain’t likely to happen in any of our lifetimes.
@18
my guess is that Don Shmoe fell for goldy’s little tax-free trick and sent him some cash.
you know you did donny…
@15 The same thing’s nearly happened twice to the government of Orange County, Ca (ya know, the home of the original “Real” Housewives) because its chief of finance put most of the county’s cash into dicey investments.
@23
More rich people?
Why is it that rich folks are always needing bailouts?
Why Government Has To Regulate Insurance Companies
A Vietnam veteran suffering from Agent Orange-induced bone cancer lost his health insurance coverage because his wife sent an online premium payment of $326.67 instead of $326.69 — a 2-cent typographical error.
http://www.aolnews.com/2011/01.....ance-over/
Roger Rabbit Commentary: In Wingnut World, where government regulates nothing and companies can’t be sued this guy would have no recourse. But hey, we gotta “support the troops,” which as everyone now knows, is Republican code-speak for shitting on our soldiers.
1.5 Trillion defecit…Can you spell GREECE MELTDOWN
@22
donny
Heh. The stupid little fuck thinks that “Don” is a name.
@26
Well, that would generally be why those of on the left didn’t want to extend the Bush tax cuts for those who could most afford an increase. Why did the self-proclaimed deficit hawks decide otherwise?
Have you ever got hired by a poor individual
Oh come on Id take your argument to its logical end. Quit sucking up to the rich, pull yourself up by your bootstraps and start your own business.
wow; how do we unelect the zero?
I don’t know. How do we unelect the boner?
BTW, did you see how he looked? Fake tan, orange tie…why a few times there he even looked like he was going to cry.
There is this gay retired marine who watched the boner who said his gay-dar was pinging like mad. So I wonder when the boner is going to come out of the closet? Maybe when he is caught playing with some pages?
Man this xar character ain’t paying attention to facts; then again… does any HA progressive liberal?
Well well well another in the long line of moronic peeps
Butt wait there’s more for Xar’s inbred lunacy…
Sucks to be Xar. I called this last year when Stupak went Stupid. I’d suggest the database loon verification, but he may have gotten an email from Goldy requesting to get rid of his HA copy. Who knows? If not you’ll see when I called this last year.
@27
actually I think your name is fuck-tard…but Donny is easier to type.
you get owned again….
Oh, look, it’s Don Joe, the HA schmoe, who lost his brain in WordPress and is still looking for those erased links, 32077 and 32084
@ 35
actually I think
So says the stupid little fuck who is confused by the difference between “fiscal” and “finance.” Clearly, “think” is the one thing this stupid little fuck does not do.
@ 36
is still looking for those erased links
Now this is funny. The Proven Liar(TM) thinks he can regain some credibility by talking about “erased links.” Only someone as completely stupid as Puddy would try to obscure the fact that he was proven to be a liar by referring back to the most recent instance where he was proven to be a liar! This surpasses, by a very wide margin, Puddy’s attempts to prove that Alan Greenspan is a liberal based on the fact that Greenspan was an acolyte of Ayn Rand.
Seriously, we really need better trolls around here. Compared to these brain farts, Cynical was a genius.
@29
I’ve been hired by working class and middle class folks who never needed the government to bail them out. And I’ve listened to plenty of rich folk piss and moan about how they are always having to bail out “the little people.”
Uhhh Don Joe, the links are not there. No matter how much of your moronic hue and cry over past things, you can’t find them. So how am I a liar when the links are non-existent.
Here let me help you again…
http://horsesass.org/?p=32077
http://horsesass.org/?p=32084
Happy searching schmoe!
DELETE FROM “Sarah Palin Bashing” threads WHERE comment_content LIKE “%anything%” ; in horsesass.org or sumtin like dat!
@ 29
Have you ever got hired by a poor individual
I’ve never been hired by an individual. Most hiring decisions are made by a group of people.
Oh, wait. You want to argue that increasing the marginal tax rate on incomes over $250,000 would, somehow, induce some ridiculously small number of business owners to, like, actually quit their business, no? Why do people like you invoke Economic theory in one breath, and then turn around and completely ignore the implications of “marginal revenue equals marginal cost” in another?
@ 39
Oh, this is going to be fun. We get to prove that Puddy is a liar all over again.
Here let me help you again…
http://horsesass.org/?p=32077
http://horsesass.org/?p=32084
When you click on either of those links, WordPress converts the “p” in the URL to “attachment_id” before serving up the page. And, what you get is the same as what you’d get if the URL were http://horsesass.org/?attachment_id=32077.
Go ahead. Click on Puddy’s link, and view the HTML source. Then click on my link and view the HTML source. Compare them in your favorite diff tool. They’re identical
And, for the record, the comment thread that Puddy claims to have been deleted is still at: http://horsesass.org/?p=32072
Notice, when you click on that last link, the “p” does not get converted into “attachment_id”.
And, thus, Puddy is, once again, proven to be a liar. ‘Cause he knows all of this, but is still too stupid to think that no one else here knows how server-side applications like WordPress serve up web pages.
Oh, and Winnie the Pooh. Comment #41 is how you own someone.
Stupid little fuck.
Well, it looks like my initial response to Puddy is held up in moderation–not surprising, because it has four links in it. On the off chance it’ll get deleted, let’s try with fewer links.
One other point. If Puddy really wanted to prove that something got deleted, he could go find a cached version of the page on one of several search engines that cache pages. Which is why Puddy persists in this bull-shitting, yet entirely vain, attempt to restore what modicum of credibility that he thinks he still has left. He’s too stupid to realize the he has long since lost all credibility whatsoever.
‘Because It Is Wrong’
Harper’s magazine has an interview with the authors of a book about torture that is worth reading.
http://www.harpers.org/archive.....c-90007924
The book is called “Because It Is Wrong: Torture, Privacy and Presidential Power in the Age of Terror,” and is available from Amazon.
http://www.amazon.com/Because-.....038;sr=8-1
Meanwhile, a psychologist who helped the CIA design its waterboarding protocol is facing disciplinary charges in Texas. Seems to me they should also go after that other guy in Texas who authorized it.
@40 Yeah, that’s an argument I’ve never understand. People who make over $250,000 a year aren’t going to quit making $250,000 a year because they have to pay taxes on it. And no businessman ever hired a worker for any reason except to make more money for himself. So rational businessmen aren’t going to quit hiring workers to make money for themselves just because they have to pay taxes on the money they make for themselves.
By the way, I made another $1,000 in the stock market today. Yesterday was flat, I made nothing yesterday, but I made $1,000 on Monday, so that’s $2,000 in three days. My total original investment is less than $20,000 so I’ve made a 10% return on my capital in three days. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that nowadays all the money in this country goes to capitalists and workers get squat. With a system like this, why would anyone work? I don’t work. I produce nothing. All I do is rent my money out to corporations for 3.33% interest per day. Like a fool, I used to work, but I finally wised up and make money the easy way now.
Somehow, though, I get a sneaking suspicion that this whole house of cards will come crashing down someday. What I mean is, how can any economic system that pays someone like me $2,000 every 3 days for the use of $20,000 of financing capital possibly survive? That just doesn’t look sustainable to me. At some point, someone has to produce something, or you don’t have any economy at all, and I sure as hell don’t produce anything. I’m nothing but a vacuum cleaner sucking money out of what’s left of our economy.
What The Fuck? Dep’t
Palin reportedly said on Fox that Sputnik caused the collapse of the Soviet Union.
She allegedly said, “That was another one of those WTF moments that when (Obama) has so often repeated the ‘Sputnik Moment’ that he would aspire Americans to celebrate. He needs to remember that what happened back then with the former communist USSR and their victory in that race to space. Yeah, they won, but they also incurred so much debt at the time that it resulted in the inevitable collapse of the Soviet Union.”
http://www.newshounds.us/2011/....._union.php
This has to be a spoof. Nobody can be that fucking stupid. Can they?
Why The Soviet Union Collapsed
It’s an article of faith among wingnuts that Ronnie Raygun bluffed the Soviets into oblivion with his brilliant “Star Wars” scheme which supposedly bankrupted their economy. In fact, Reagan had nothing to do with it. The Soviet empire collapsed from internal forces.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/w.....d_01.shtml
Roger doesn’t have to make any money, because of his Pension for life. But the Pension fund has to make money to pay Roger’s pension. So if the house of cards comes tumbling down, so does Roger’s Pension.
Futures reversed their gains after a pair of disappointing data points. The Labor Department said the number of U.S. workers filing new claims for unemployment benefits unexpectedly surged last week by 51,000 to 454,000 in the week ended Jan. 22. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires had expected claims would rise by just 1,000 to 405,000.
Great Job Dems…Keep that unemployment up so the Deficits soar!
After digesting the President’s “Winning the Future” speech, I did conclude there were several WTF… moments in his talk. Is he a frikken schizophrenic? One side of his mouth says “investments” (i.e. spending) and the other side of his mouth says “spending freeze”.
He reminds me of Gollum in LOTR.
Inquiring Psychiatrists want to know. Dr. Jim McDermott(D-Baghdad/Seattle)–call your ofice.
I wonder if I should remind the idiot @51 that it was decades of beyond-stupid Republican laissez-faire policies that got us to double-digit unemployment in the first place? Nah, it wouldn’t make a dent on blockheads like him.
@50 I may starve someday but you won’t be around to see it. Because my state pension will be one of the last things in this country to get discharged in bankruptcy court, you’ll starve long before I do.
Apparently wingnut illogic works like this: Spending causes deficits, but tax cuts don’t, because as every good little wingnut knows, tax cuts increase revenue.
Therefore, according to Wingnut Wack-O-Nomics, cutting taxes to zero causes federal revenues to become infinitely large.
@56: It’s insane, isn’t it…
It’s criminal that people who spout this shit get taken seriously — at all, by anybody.
Hope schmope, there’s just no dealing with insane people.
Oh Yes Spend Spend Spend, Debt doesn’t matter and is of no concern…..In this country
Japan’s debt downgrade hits yen
http://www.cbc.ca/money/story/.....grade.html
Hows your spending power goin these days?
Oh Yes Spend Spend Spend, Debt doesn’t matter and is of no concern…..In this country
Japan’s debt downgrade hits yen
http://www.cbc.ca/money/story/.....grade.html
Hows your spending power goin these days? huh
@58 Why wasn’t spending a problem when Republicans did it?
@59 I don’t know about you, but I don’t have any debt. I own everything free and clear. When other people were borrowing against their burrows to buy toys I was paying off the note on mine. When other people were taking vacations to exotic locales I was buying up the stocks they sold cheap. I made another $460 in the stock market today. That’s $2,460 in four days. Sure beats working. The most strenuous thing I did today was pick up the phone and call my stockbroker to buy more stock! Bought 500 shares of Micron today.
The most strenuous thing I did today was pick up the phone and call my stockbroker to buy more stock! Bought 500 shares of Micron today.
—
You called your broker to buy shares? What century are you in? It figures, a frickin’ attorney who still thinks the fax is state of the art . . .
Actually, there is no structural inflation, or very little, and all the wingnut screaming about inflation is tilting at windmills. People who know what they’re talking about, which doesn’t include our friend Id, are afraid of deflation not inflation. The “inflation” that Id is complaining about is merely cyclical or seasonal fluctuation in commodity prices. So what does he want to do, repeal the laws of supply and demand, and go to a planned economy? Fucking communist! All these wingnuts are closet commies. If you don’t like paying $3.50 for gas, then walk, and buy shares of Chevron like I did. My Chevron stock is already up 22 bucks a share and it’s probably got another 30 bucks to go, because gas will hit $5 next year. The CEO of Shell said so last week. I can hear the creaking noise as oil supplies tighten! What goes down must come back up. Newton said so 500 years ago.
The one thing the inflation hawks have going for them to bolster their whining is QE2. This policy isn’t consumer-friendly, and isn’t designed to be. Its putative purpose is to boost the U.S. economy and create domestic jobs by expanding the money supply. This is poppycock. The $600 billion the Fed is pouring into circulation isn’t creating hiring, it’s merely creating a stock bubble. All that money is going straight onto the trading floor. But the Fed doesn’t care, and is going to bore straight ahead with the rest of its bond-buying scheme, because the real purpose of QE2 is to pressure the Chinese to devalue their currency and screw them if they don’t. This seems to be working, at least to the extent of pressuring the Chinese central bank, but you and are I going to pay for it at the gas pump and grocery checkout line. It’s a tax. And it will create few or no domestic jobs. Personally, I don’t like QE2, because I don’t think fiddling with the money supply, whether M2 or M3, will get businesses to hire. Business doesn’t need more cash to hire; corporations are already sitting on more cash than they know what to do with. And that $600 billion isn’t making it into business accounts anyway, it’s going straight to the NYSE, almost as if armored cars picked it up at the New York Fed and carried it down the street to the trading floor of the exchange. I don’t like QE2. It’ll cause inflation without creating jobs. Figure out some other way to fuck the Chinese. Bomb them or something. QE2 bombs retirees living on fixed incomes. Wrong target in my opinion.
@62 Of course I have a fax. So? It gets a lot of use. At least once a month.
@59 Japan’s problems are unique to Japan. The yen isn’t the world’s reserve currency. The dollar is.
The Dollar Was, until Obama’s spending spree and the debasing of the Dollar to pay for his spending spree.
The Dollar won’t be long.
Obama’s own words (if anyone still believes them)
“The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. Leadership means that ‘the buck stops here.’ Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better. I therefore intend to oppose the effort to increase America’s debt limit.”
Actually the government reports overly optimistic statistics on both inflation and unemployment. Unemployment doesn’t even report folks no longer look for jobs. Inflation numbers are also a joke. Every person has their own inflation number based on what they purchase. But this link gives a number that is way more accurate than the BS the government has been pumping out for decades.
http://www.shadowstats.com/
What number makes you feel better? The warm & fuzzy government numbers, or the real ones?
@34: The Hyde Amendment is still in effect, Puddy. The Stupak Amendment would have prevented any employer who recieved ANY federal tax breaks on health insurance premiums for PRIVATE health insurance from selecting PRIVATE health insurance that would cover abortions.
Basically, it was trying to ensure that private health insurers who rely on employer or employee purchased health insurance from covering abortions.
But that’s a separate issue. I’m talking about Boehner’s repeated citation of Section 215 as authorizing federally-funded abortions, but in fact did nothing of the sort.
Finally, I have to say that it doesn’t speak well of your maturity or the strength of your convictions that you continually fall back on ad hominem attacks and irrelevant side issues when I offer a reasoned, fact-based statement about a defenseless position held by some “conservatives.”
Well well well Xar, offering “reasoned fact-based statements”…… /snark
Everyone in the US Congress knows that Hyde is not permanent law. It’s a yearly rider that it placed on the funding bill for DHHS. It does NOT apply to this health care law. If the Hyde Amendment was still in effect:
Why in the Senate Bill did they not solidly state the Hyde Amendment is the law of the land and no abortions will occur with federal $$$? Instead they talked about something called “affordability credits”.
Why did Bart Stupak go through all those anti-abortion language machinations which effectively ended his congressional career if it was covered in the Hyde Amendment?
Why would Obama “write” a useless executive order if it was covered in the Hyde Amendment?
Why did Rahm Emanuel say what he said in the Chicago town hall meeting about abortion support in the bill if it isn’t there and he wasn’t making sure he placated Nancy Pelosi if it was in the Hyde Amendment?
Why did DUMBOCRAT Zoe Lofgren (CA) admit “abortion will be covered by one or more of the health care plans available to Americans”?
Why did the AP write that the health care bill “would allow a new government-sponsored insurance plan to cover abortions”?
You see your abortion argument is on thin slippery wet ice. Facts are facts. You need to look elsewhere if that’s all you got.
And identifying you as a drinker of kook-aid doesn’t diminish my argument. It’s just another factual statement.
Why do you hate women, Puddy?
And you don’t have to be a history major to know that the federal debt didn’t originate two years ago.
You just have to be smarter than a Republican. It’s a low bar.