I start a new job tomorrow. As it goes with these things, I never know how much time I’ll still have to write up posts (that likely depends on whether or not I start taking the bus). So if I stay pretty quiet for a while here, that’s why. Either way, I should be able to keep the Bird’s Eye View Contests going every Sunday.
– Sensible Washington is having a week-long money bomb. Please donate!
– Law Enforcement Against Prohibition will be holding a press conference on June 14 to mark the 40th anniversary of the “war on drugs” and call for its end.
Yeh well maybe you can get this guvment job
http://www.myfoxny.com/dpp/new.....y-20110607
She makes more than Obama!
WOW in a state that is broke…
You just gotta love these liberal idiots
I finally got to sign I-1149 by meeting the Cannabus in Centralia last week. I had to plan my day to coincide with the times they would be outside Walmart. They’re doing good work and should be praised.
There is still a problem though, thousands of folks are unable to sign 1149 because of a lack of visibility due to not having paid signature gatherers. And a look on Sensible Washington’s site at the amount of signatures returned tells me it’s highly doubtful this will be on the ballot.
Are you optimistic at all? I mean, when was the last time an initiative made the ballot without employing paid signature gatherers?
@2
My understanding is that it’s been done before, but it’s been a long time since it happened. We’re hoping that the money bomb gives us some more access to paid gatherers (some paid gatherers also collect signatures for us for free in order to attract more people to sign the other ones).
Lee,
I just wrote a check to Sensible Washington and will mail it today. {I use the old fashioned way of snail mail and paper checks.}
RE: 2 – I’m having trouble finding a place down here in Pierce County to sign the initiative. My advice to everyone is to verify that the particular site is still in business and that they have the sign-up sheet. A place I went to yesterday said they decided not to have the sign-up sheets available due to politics, etc., etc.
Keep up the good work, Lee, and good luck on the new job!
@4
I need to get places like that off the map. Thanks for letting me know.
Congrats on the new job Lee.
When will Obama and Progressives understand it is the private sector that needs to grow to create real jobs? This was just reported by the AP-
It means lower taxes, less regulations and less bureaucratic government you idiots.
@7,
Yeah, nice libertarian lecture on taxes and government.
So, how about I-1149 and ending this crazy War on Drugs?
@1: There you go, confusing LOCAL and STATE budgets. School superintendants are funded locally in New York, through property taxes.
No denying it’s ridiculous, but your statement was even sillier.
How about no recreational wars of choice, a clean environment and no spying on American’s e-mail and phone conversations without a warrant.
The private sector isn’t growing because there’s tepid demand for their products and services.
It’d be great if we built out and repaired infrastructure (like mass transit) in this country and coupled with a healthy increase in the federal gas tax so that oil doesn’t go through the roof and spark inflation.
But that would require the Congress to actually believe in solutions that work.
#7: Other reports have indicated a number of people who had “dropped out” of the job market during the height of the rescession were now re-entering it, which is absorbing job increases. Those include students who decided to stay in school and work on an advanced degree rather than fight it out in a tough job market; parents who decided they might as well stay at home and take care of the kids rather than pay day care while taking a considerable job cut; people who were laid off and decided to try being self-employed for a while; etc.
And as for liberals “not getting it”, that’s not even remotely close to the truth. What IS “not getting it” is the right wing continuing to parrot the lie that somehow if we lower taxes below the zero rate for corporations we can get them not to ship jobs overseas. We’ve tried that for the better part of the last thirty years, and it’s failed miserably. The economy was far better under the highest tax rates we ever had – during the Eisenhower administration – than now.
The economy was far better under the highest tax rates we ever had – during the Eisenhower administration – than now.
The main reason for that wasnt high taxes, it was because mfg was going gangbusters at the time. Japan and Europe were destroyed – they both needed goods to rebuild their cities, but all their mfg had been destroyed, so they relied on the US for many of their needs.
Obviously we do not have that situation now.
Funny how you progressives always seem to miss that little fact of history.
Exxon just announced it found some major new oil reserves in the Gulf of Mexico.
But on the whole, we need to acknowledge that oil, as an energy source, carries with it a very heavy hidden cost.
First of all, it is a global commodity, so that there’s no guarantee that oil found in the Gulf of Mexico would end up fueling U.S. vehicles. I’m old enough to remember in the early 1980’s the broughhaha which developed when it was learned that the Alaska Pipeline, upon which the U.S. had spent considerable money and effort to rescue us from foreign oil dependence, was mostly going to fee oil to Japanese markets.
Secondly, the inter-connectedness of the global economy requires us to protect the supply of oil, wherever it may be. So while there may be all sorts of human rights abuses all over the world, we find ourselves primarily involved in wars involving oil-producing states, such as in the Middle East. Without oil, we could leave countries such as Iraq, Irqan, Libya, Saudi Arabia, etc. to deal with their own issues, on their own. The cost of the military committments to protect oil supplies is considerable.
Oil is a finite resource. No matter where it is found – in the Gulf, in the Middle East, in an Alaskan Wilderness, or in oil shale in Canada – once it is gone, it is gone. This not only effects transportation, but also the huge number of other products we create from oil – asphault for highways, plastics for products themselves and the packaging they come in, etc. Every gallon of oil burned in an internal combustion engineering is one less gallon available for use decades, or even centuries in the future.
Since housing starts are currenly at record lows due to the collapse of the housing buble, now might be a good time to get some new regulations and incentives in place to ensure less energy dependence in the future. For example, equire every new home to come with a roof equipped with solar panels. At the same time, enact legislation requiring all utilities to buy back excess energy produced by customers and have a switching/distribution system in place to bring that power back into the regional grid. The cost of solar installation now is high because it doesn’t have economy of scale, but such legislation would provide sufficient scale to bring down the per-unit price. And incorporation of the solar systems into new construction would be considerably cheaper than a retro-fit down the road.
Finally, we need to make a serious effort to make gasoline prices reflect the true cost of oil-ppowered cares, including military defense spending, highway improvement/maintenance cots, etc.
13: I would agree that WWII had an impact on the economic situation at the time. And by the late 1970’s the situation had reversed itself, because Europe and Japan had rebuilt using new technology, whereas U.S. manufacturers were still using equipment/facilities which were half a century (or more) old at the time.
But please also note that it’s considerably more complicated than that. Japan and Europe built their recovery on what the right wing here would call a “leftist/socialist” agenda, with higher taxes than here in the U.S., and a safety network which included free medical care for all citizens, etc.
So the “lower taxes” mantra is far too simplistic an answer. You can’t lower taxes, wages, etc. to the point where they are lower than our competitors in China, Malaysia, Vietnam. But that doesn’t mean we don’t try – Boeing is getting subsidies and tax breaks which give it an effective tax rate of less than -1%.
Funny how assholes like you miss the little known FACT that this country hardly exports ANYTHING anymore and that lack of industrial capacity is beoming a NATIONAL SECURITY concern.
But so fucking what right? Too bad for all those saps who bought into the “American Dream”. You republiklowns will just throw them all (and their parents, kids and grandkids) overboard.
What a motherfucking creep.
Congrats on the new job Lee…
Hope it’s a position with future, not just temping etc.
But maybe, just maybe, it’s something like Darryl’s “job”. That way you can continue post during your work hours as Darryl does…
Besides, you fucking party shill…we’re not talking about tax rates for regular tax payers, we’re talking about tax rates CORPORATIONS, MILLIONAIRES and BILLIONAIRES…which clearly YOU are not Mr. FuckingBigPants and clearly will NEVEREVER be.
So why the fuck should you care? Get your facts straight, asshole.
Continuation of 15: Remember, also, that the huge manufacturing capacity we had in the 1950’s was largely the result of taxpayer investment during WWII financed largely through deficit financing. The U.S. government provided the funds to build plants and supply tooling for anything related to war production (which was a pretty broad swath of commerce, since it included virtually every raw commodity and every stage in-between). Contracts for war goods were then parceled out on a cost-plus system, whereby the government paid the out-of-pocket costs the company incurred, plus a modest profit. It made sense at the time, since there wasn’t time for bidding, the contract specs were constantly changing, and the company didn’t need a huge profit since it was operating with no risk.
After the war, the remaining contracts were largly canceled, but the companies kept the facilities and tooling paid for by the government. The down side was that the war financing had to be paid off, hence the very large corporate income taxes. Those that benefited from it the most were going to pay the lion’s share of the cost.
But I vividly recall Samual E. Morrison’s treatise on the war in the Pacific, specifically the chapters relating to the attempts to establish a Philipine Army immeditaly prior to WWII. Efforts were stymied by Republican insistance that no money be sent to the Philipines to assist them in training and equiping an army unless a revenue source was found, or other spending cuts made. The Roosevelt administration was reluctant to approve spending cuts for a nation just pulling itself out of the Great Depression, so it all came down to finding a tax to finance it. It finally came down to a tax on imported cane sugar. This presumably be one of the major exports from the Philipines to the U.S., and the cane sugar growers in the U.S. were very reluctant to have Philipine competition unless it was heavily taxed. So with the tax finally in place, the first of three classes of recruits into the Philipine Army was quickly summoned to report for training – a handful of weeks before war broke out between the U.S. and Japan. They barely had a chance to get some basic drill under their belts, fire an old M-1 Springfield rifle a couple of times, and a few were lucky enough to receive uniforms before they were thrown into combat.
@14 Exxon found the equivalent of 700 million barrels of oil — some of it consisting of natural gas.
How much is 700m bbls?
With global consumption at about 86m bpd, that’s an 8-day supply.
With U.S. consumption at about 18.6m bpd, that’s less than a 38-day supply.
That means, to keep ahead of depleting existing reserves, Exxon and other E & P companies have to make a similar find about once a week in perpetuity.
@16
We’re the worlds third largest exporter.
#13’s actually got it about right, but I’d add that we the high taxes to help pay for the interstate highway system and a whole bunch of dams which kept a lot of people working.
We could and should raise taxes and put people to work. The highways are falling apart, schools are falling apart. The National Forest Service has a huge backlog of work that needs done. Plenty of work out there to do.
We’re forgetting how much the Cold War drove spending decisions in the late 40’s and 50’s.
Truman had to aid Europe to keep the Soviet hegemonic drive at bay. That was the Marshal Plan and it cost 13 billion dollars which was a LOT of money back then.
Soviet foreign policy was the 9/11 back then. It drove huge spending on CIA, NSA, FBI domestic counter-intelligence and a whole host of other Cold War defense and intelligence spending.
Eisenhower had to wind down the Korean conflict – another costly bloodbath. The national highway system was started and the excuse for that national security.
We also had a “Sputnik” moment and we had to do a crash program so the Soviets wouldn’t take the high ground in space. Lots of spending on education to produce engineers that eventually resulted in the civilian space program.
All of this cost a lot of money and WE HAD NO ONE to borrow it from except ourselves. Therefore the high taxes.
700 million barrel find in the Gulf.
We use 21 million barrels a DAY. So that comes out to 34 days use – great.
The world is running out of oil. We should be finding a substitute and in the meantime taxing oil consumption to drive that.
Yes Obama was RIGHT to start rail transit investment. The more people use rail to commute the less oil we burn.
Suburbs are the biggest waste of all. They eat up arable land and drive oil consumption way up. Good government policy should encourage urban infilling in tandem with better mass transit. No we don’t have to live in skyscrapers but whatever your preference oil resource depletion is going to relegate suburbs and exurbs and hyper-commuting in gas guzzlers to a thing of the past.
# 16: I’ve complained a lot about Stonecypher, the former head of Boeing. One of my biggest complaints about him was that he artifically inflated stock value by foregoing new aircraft developement programs, instead trying to milk the existing programs until they became obsolete and the company was behind the technology curve. In the eyes of financial analysts that are only looking at last quarter’s earnings, they might find that a good characteristic to have. As long as you get out early enough, everyone will applaud you as a finanical miracle worker. But in an aerospace company, it’s a recipie for eventual failure. Stonecypher did this to McDonald-Douglas, until the merger with Boeing saved it from either bankruptcy or acquisition by EADS. As chairman of Boeing, he tried to do it again – but his ouster due to an affair with a subordinate managed to rescue the company from his clutches while it was still salvagable.
Likewise, you see lots of examples of people, companies and politicians who take for granted the investment of those who came before them, and somehow attribute success solely to their own efforts, and refuse to plan for the investment required for the next generation. To them, “deferred maintence” becomes a mantra, as the inevitable – and growing – costs keep getting kicked down the road to be handled sometime, somehow, in the indefinate future.
We see that continually in politics now. Our interstate highway system was designed to last about fifty years while handling a tenth of the volume of today’s traffic. We’ve been making patch-work repairs and lane expansion only, without doing the work needed to the foundation of the roadways. Now it’s fifty years later, more or less, and not only are there no plans for the extensive re-work that will be required, but the money seems unatainable for even modest repairs and replacement of old bridges, etc.
In the 1930’s we built a hydo-electric system of dams and locks to open riverways to commercial traffic. In the 1940’s we supplied more than half the world with war supplies. In the 1950’s we built a transportation infrastructure for highways. In the 1960’s we built a system for jet air traffic, and even extra-terrestial flight.
But in the 1970’s, 1980’s, 1990’s, and 2000’s we haven’t done anything about the creeking freight railroad system, much less any high-speed passenger train system. A half-century of opportunity lost.
Soon, what was originally a manageable problem if it could have been spread out over time, will be a crisis. We will have to deal with several of these crisis simultaniously.
All because the richest 2% of Americans think that they shouldn’t have to pay a cent more in taxes than the remaining 98%.
In WWII, one of the WWII slogans to motivate the home front was “We can do it!”. Now, the mantra from the Republicans is always “We can’t afford it” – at least, not while they still have a third or fourth house they want to buy.
24 – Houses with 7 or 10 car garages, boat docks, etc.
John McSame couldn’t even keep track of all the houses he had. People forget that.
Newt Gingrich insists he is still in the race for the 2012 GOP Presidential nomination, despite having his entire senior campaign leadership staff resign. Gingrich insists that the campaign “starts anew tomorrow in Los Angeles”.
I’m not sure what is most destructive of his campaign hope:
a. His personal life, including informing his first wife he was divorcing her while she was in the hospital recovering from cancer surger, or his second divorce which was caused by a long-term affair he had with a lobbyist intern while he was calling for Bill Clinton’s resignation on moral grounds (the “other woman” is now Gingrich’s third wife). He tried to explain that his transgressions occured because he “cared too much” for his country and “worked too hard”. He might have thought this was behind him, but now everytime a politician has a marital or sex scandal, his name surfaces again in that context.
b. Changing his criticism of Obama three times in less than a week, even though his criticism was inconsistent with what he said just a few weeks before.
c. Condemning Ryan’s Medicare plan on national TV, then claiming anyone who quoted him on that was a liar, then insisting he’s been in favor of Ryan’s plan all along.
d. Having a very large Tiffany’s open account – at no interest.
e. Going on a week-long Mediterrainin cruse with his wife just as the campaign is heating up.
@22
Yep!
Dutch @ 17,
“But maybe, just maybe, it’s something like Darryl’s “job”. That way you can continue post during your work hours as Darryl does…”
Sorry, Squirt, but you have no idea what you are talking about.
If you’re in Pierce County don’t forget to sign the Dale Washam recall.
re 7: “When will Obama and Progressives understand it is the private sector that needs to grow to create real jobs?”
There is plenty of job growth in economies with slavelike working conditions.
What will happen is that the people who buy these cheaply produced goods will not have the money to purchase the goods because, well, there won’t be any jobs here — unless you want to be a mattress tester like Li’l Abner.
And in other news… Huffington Post reports that Washington Supreme Court ruled 7-1 that you can be fired from your job for testing positive for medical marijuana.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.....74461.html
@12. rhp6033 spews:
The economy was far better under the highest tax rates we ever had – during the Eisenhower administration – than now.
—————————
pure trash, you don’t understand the difference between nominal tax rates and taxes actually collected. The high nominal tax rates were simply evaded through loopholes, for example, by converting ordinary income into capital gain. The portion of national income going to pay taxes was less then than it is now.
Looks like Newt’s done.
And man did he ever go out with a bang!
BULLSHIT. the portion of national gdp going to government is about 15% the lowest in fifty years. Lower than every other dveloped economy, lower than in japan or germany.
and if you’re saying we’ve closed loopholes since the 1950’s that’d be yet another false statement. Today we have BOTH low marginal rates and more loopholes.
Sometimes it seems like every thing the right says, is a lie.
The highest growth in our economy was also in about 1939 to 1945. “That doesn’t count, that was a war, so we like to ignore that for no articulaalbe reason.”
“Yes, you ignore that as it disproves the lower-taxes theory totally. IF we spur economic growth thru big govt., by making planes and tanks that are destroyed why imainge how much MORE we’d spur it by building bridges, rail, and industries.”
“[awkaward silence in response]”
“In fact, that’s what the high growth economies ARE doing right now whether China Brazil or India. And while they’re low wage…the only way that’s gonna get higher is thru this govt. led development…in fact, in China wages are rising VERY fast. Like they did when the USA industrialized. So the bottom line is if you want a big economy, do what we did from 1939 to 1981: have higher taxes and government programs that works like WPA, building shit and employing people, pumpting shitloads of demand into the system, and educating the hell out of people. NOT cutting demand, cutting jobs, reducting eduction, stopping building bridges and dams and road and letting your country rot away like it’s Guatemala ruled by the rich behind walls with broken bottles set on top.”
The FACT is we had the HIGHEST economic growth under the pressure of
34. what? spews:
BULLSHIT. the portion of national gdp going to government is about 15% the lowest in fifty years. Lower than every other dveloped economy, lower than in japan or germany.
———————————-
that’s more trash, you are ignoring state and local taxes, which are deductible at the federal level and not included in your figure.
Well yelling loser beta, that’s what we were told was gonna happen with the Porkulus Bill. Even the Auto Bailout so proudly displayed by Obummer last week for keeping a Ohio restaurant open was an EPIC FAYLE as the restaurant closed this week for good.
Now this is a great read about mob mentality.
@36. “Even the Auto Bailout so proudly displayed by Obama last week for keeping a Ohio restaurant open … the restaurant closed this week for good.”
You twist the facts to fit your agenda. If you read the article, you would read that
I can see why you didn’t give the link. It would have made it easier for us to see that you lie.
@38
The same conclusion I’ve come to many times when weighing puddy’s words.
He’s a sick, twisted little sociopath.
EXACTLY!
What a bunch of stupid morons in #38-40. Especially #38 who can’t figger out facts from the toilet paper dingle berries on his ASS.
Now why was that? No one asked them how is their restaurant doing before the speech? His speech writer didn’t know. Obummer used the restaurant as a prop for his auto plant visit talking about how the bailout helped this restaurant. Don’t you think his team should have checked on the restaurant before using it as a campaign promotion? No one checked and he used it in his speech. He could have kept his mouth closed about the restaurant and make his Chrysler speech. Now we learned they closed the restaurant.
A long dead CBS News Chief
If you can’t see the irony of what happened then you are a real bunch of morons; you three really are. Real mental midgets.
@41…
The puddybitch never met a fact he wouldn’t twist.
What a dipshit.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/.....via=blog_1
puddybitch better not go to Alabama…
@48. NO. Once again, you twist the facts to fit your agenda.
You said, and I quote
You carefully choose your words to conflate that the Auto Industry Loan that they paid back with interest was a failure because THIS restaurant closed.
This restaurant closed because of an aging population, aging owner, and lack of smokers and changing demographics. Let me repeat for you, maybe you can figure it out this time.
We still have a functioning car industry, and communities around the country are still holding on because of the Auto Industry Loan. No thanks to fools like you.
You are disingenuous because you are trying to take this one restaurant quitting business and imply every Obama policy is a failure.
Why don’t you move to Somalia. That’s the kind of country you are advocating for.
Just go. Write when you find work.
Ummm… @44 Nope you dope. This is why you are a dope with no hope. Chrysler will not totally repay back the loan. Also it was Obummer’s speech that I took issue with over the restaurant. Here is the link I got it from
Obummer’s gang never checked.
If you can’t trust the libtardo WaPo and HuffPo then who can you trust. I lurk on the HuffPo so I know what HA libtardos breathe when they visit here. EPIC FAYLE!
Stay a dope. At least you don’t need hope.
rujax, what an idiot! Doesn’t know when to fold them.
@45 Puddy, when are you moving to your low tax, low regulation utopia of Somalia?
I’m looking forward to hearing how you like it.
Wow, been flying back half way round da world and that’s the best you got Fascist Piggy@46?
Looks like the HuffPo smackdown stuck!
And as always most HA libtardos are leftist morons!