– Sidewalk dining is by far the best news to come out of yesterday.
– $60 isn’t going to get us as much as $80, but let’s pass this thing.
– What could go wrong? (h/t)
– Rick Perry’s gaff machine seems to be familiar to Texans. I have a friend, a recent transplant from Austin, who was about as pissed off about him getting in the race as I’ve ever seen anyone pissed off about anything. Also, on the subject of Rick Perry, what the hell? I mean seriously. But at least there’s a good rule of thumb.
– This thread is going to keep me eating well for a while to come.
Amazing President Obama wants us to believe he finally has a plan for jobs & deficit reduction. Only he is waiting until after Labor Day to tell us what it is. What a fool. If he believes more government stimulus is the answer, it will not happen. The only thing that will work is to empower the private sector meaning repeal ObamaCare, Tax Credits for new hires, repeal regulations that are burdensome. Drill for more oil and build a couple new refineries to keep energy cost down. And cut government spending drastically including wages, benefits, time-off etc. We need a sustainable Budget without crushing the private sector and creating more inflation than we already have.
Take a look at this website which vets the government propaganda and tells us the real rates of inflation, unemployment, money supply, GDP and US Dollar value.
http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data
It’s the #1 hit website for the REAL Picture.
If you believe the government generated stats are accurate, go to the grocery store…or look at how many unemployed, underemployed folks there are.
The Obama Administration is even bragging about the massive increase in Food Stamp recipients to 46 MILLION. The rise is because “we are getting the word out”. The number of people on food stamps has been growing to record levels for 30 straight months. The latest report from the Agriculture Department showed nearly 46 million people — or one in seven Americans — were enrolled as of May in what’s formally called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
Putting a smiley face on the numbers as just a reflection of better advertising?? Sick. However, the Agriculture Department has acknowledged before, they are a sign of the economic times — with high unemployment forcing people to apply for government help to feed their families. It doesn’t fit the Obama theme song of everything is wonderful, does it? So they have to try and convince folks that massive rise is because of advertising.
Obama cannot run on his record. He must resort to scorched earth tactics on his opponents while he cries for civility. Meanwhile, his numbers plummet.
Wahat kind of god damned mother fucking idiot ARE you anyway…
…we’ve had some dumb trolls here but you, sonny are really making your mark. Whoever is paying you ought to get their money back.
http://www.econbrowser.com/arc.....s_deb.html
Reminds me of this tea-hee-bagger bullshit site that the dumb fuck Mr. Cynical used to quote all the time (NOT Rasmussen…another one. I mercifully forgot which one.).
It’s all a big conspiracy to defectives like igor…and cyniklown…and manofshit…and emperor max-minidick…and the puddybitch…and…and…ad nauseum.
Did the wanabe failed musician with a blog about a blog that nobody reads say something?
Nope….didn’t think so.
Welcome to rujaxoffs world of below mediocrity.
oooooooo…look who’s jealous.
So according to the brain surgeon here…I want to be a failed musician…which must mean I’m not.
Or something.
emperor max-minidick must need a bigger brain too.
Your sure fantasize about my jouhnson a lot.
Wonder why that is?
And I should clarify…not only are you a failed musician, you are just plain failed…on everything.
So kiddies…here’s a nappy time story for you. It starts like this. “Once upon a time there was a little jerk. He liked to make fun of other people and anything they thought. He also was greedy…and mean. He thought anybody that was not JUST LIKE HIM and his friends was really really bad and just not as good as him. So when he was writing about all the great things he did and thought and how he was really really REALLY better than EVERYBODY else he would make up names for himself. He liked to call himself after a movie guy who was tough. And ruthless. Surviving in a dangerous out of control world after a great disaster. And because he was so sure he was so much better than EVERYBODY he called himself a big name and he called his little peepee a big name too.
“11 inches of swinging max”
Isn’t that a funny story? No? It’s Not?
Well you’re right. That story is not a story about a good guy. It’s a story about a pathetic little weasel isn’t it.
rujax, you’re either jewish, or gay, or a union member, or get a check from the government, either as a worker or social security. otherwise, you’re an idiot falling for the newly minted socialist warren “take my taxes, please” buffet. a fucking billionare can afford any amount in taxes, but their real agenda is to tax “the miidle class”, to take their power away, so that all you’ll have is a welfare class, and jew millionares. thats their plan all along. fool
http://crooksandliars.com/kenn.....s-buyers-r
Right.
jackass @9…
…fuck off.
In other news, David Cameron has let everybody know he’s mounting a full-bore attack on the UK’s National Health Service, while clinging to the claim that the rioting breaking out all over the country is caused by “a few hooligans”.
add @9…
…put a couple more points on the jackass’s IQ and he’d be a geranium.
Carl — a “gaffe” is a verbal blunder; a “gaff” is a hook you use to land fish.
@13
well, maybe i’m stupid, but i’ve never met you but i know you’re a member of one of the groups i listed. not bad huh?
I, for one, don’t believe the official inflation statistics. Just this week the government predicted food inflation of 3% – 4% a year, but I see prices of food products jumping by 30% to 60% overnight at the retail level. Falling prices on products like big-screen TVs don’t mean anything to people who don’t buy them. Nor do falling home prices mean anything to people facing rising rents due to millions of people being pushed out of their homes into apartments by the lousy economy! But all this said, the guy who runs the “Shadowstats” website has weak credentials — he has only a B.A. in economics, not a Ph.D., and his advanced degree is a master’s of business administration, not a Ph.D. or even a master’s in statistics or economics.
Government statistics are hokey, and I’ve been pointing this out in the HA threads for a long time; for example, I’ve posted on HA about the gummint’s concocted “birth-death” adjustment to employment statistics. (This involves guessing how many small businesses were “born” or “died,” then making assumptions about how many jobs each such business brought into being or took with it, then adjusting the job statistics by this number — the problem being, of course, these are only statistical jobs and not real jobs.)
But the fact gummint statistics are hokey doesn’t mean we should swallow whole the statistics concocted by John Williams. This whole subject deserves careful thought, and there’s no guarantee he’s thought about it enough, or carefully enough.
I mean seriously, Igor, do you really want to give cred to a guy who uses one set of government statistics to call another set of government statistics dishonest? If you believe all government statistics are dishonest then isn’t this guy using dishonest statistics to prove his point?
@13 Now that is funny!
now i know why you all drive prius’. cause you knew peeps were going to start burning luxury cars like they’re doing in germany now.
clown @ 15…
…yeah. I’m a “jew millionare(sic)”.
PS for future reference…millionaire has TWO eyes. Like your ugly mug. Make a note of it.
@20
yeah. I’m a “jew millionare(sic)”.
i need proof of that. unless of course you inherited it, then it would be more believable.
The mortgage crisis? Hannity tells the ignorant and gullible Fox News viewer that it was due to Obama’s failed “policies” and it’s all his “fault”.
http://crooksandliars.com/john.....s-obama-mo
Pathological lying isn’t a disease, it’s a symptom – of Right-Wing Derangement Syndrome. I mean, really, can a wing-nut even open their damned mouth anymore without spewing lies? It’s really fucking sickening.
Okay, let’s talk about Peter Thiel’s idea of offshoring citizenship.
The first question that jumps into my mind is how he’ll make the economics work. (Let’s skip over the fact Thiel’s $2 million of donations is a little short of what offshore platforms cost these days.) Let’s say he acquires an offshore platform, converts it to condominiums, and parks it outside the territorial limit. He might cram 1,000 people at most on it, and assuming the thing costs about $1.5 billion, then has to find a thousand people willing to pay $1.5 million for a cramped apartment.
But let’s assume he does — the next question is, how do they support themselves? By selling origami to each other? It’s hard for me to see how they won’t be dependent on earning income on land, and then figuring out a way to get it offshore without paying taxes or running afoul of land-based authorities.
Where does food come from? He’ll have to bring out supply ships from the mainland. Disposing of garbage and dead bodies (as residents die off) is no problem; just throw them over the side and let them wash up on California’s beaches. But when a coalition of the world’s nations shows up with a naval force to put a stop to the platform’s pollution, where is Thiel going to get a military force to defend the platform’s sovereignty? Rent one from Taiwan?
The more you look at this thing, the more it looks like a leech whose existence depends on being supported by those on land.
Not to mention that, in the absence of any government or laws, the homeowners’ association will become an absolute dictator.
@1 “And cut government spending drastically including wages, benefits, time-off etc. We need a sustainable Budget without crushing the private sector …”
This isn’t just about hating taxes. I’m pretty sure Cheap Labor Conservatives are going after public sector wages so their own workers won’t complain so much.
The media isn’t likely to cover Republican town hall meetings like this one, where constituents give wing-nut Dan Webster the hell he deserves.
“You’re a damned liar!”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....r_embedded
But put two teabaggers in a room together and it’s fucking news.
Yeah, give those bastards hell.
re 1:
How does one influence the other? If you attempt to reduce the deficit, you injure job creation. You don’t ‘reduce the deficit’ in a depression, Bozo.
In the Chicago neighborhoods where Obama was doing his neighborhood organizing, there is the lowest default rate in the nation on home mortgages.
This proves that Obama’s policies are right.
This guy expresses something I’ve felt and have tried myself to express here at HA. He does far better job of expressing my thoughts than I ever did – excerpted from a piece called “The Rachel Beckwith Story: Worth Another Look and Another and Another…”
http://www.groundreport.com/Bu.....-A/2940869
“I cannot look at Rachel’s picture and imagine how her heart got so big. In a time when I have stated, more than once, how kids are less than appreciative and are less than grateful, this child has done more than bring water to those without. She is, I think, a beacon of hope. A sign that there is still truly good in the world. She is a symbol of hope for parents throwing up their hands in despair over how to raise their children. It CAN be done! The Beckwith’s are proof. It’s easy to think, in light of her death, that this young woman might have changed the world had she grown to adulthood. It’d be really easy to think that…until you see what she did in her short nine years. She changed the world. It isn’t simply about the water, either. More importantly, in my opinion at least, it’s about the hope. She gives us hope. May this angel now rest in peace…and know she had a profound, lasting impact on many far outside Seattle.”
http://www.mycharitywater.org/.....n_id=16396
Somehow I don’t think things will work out so well for the Cheap Labor Conservatives, if they get their way. Think about it: How motivated is a workforce that’s paid $3 an hour? Will there even be a workforce?
If gas costs $4.50 a gallon and wages are $3 an hour, how many people will even show up? Why work at all for what Cheap Labor Conservatives want to pay? They’ll end up with a world full of Roger Rabbits. I don’t work for those guys. Do you see me working? I don’t work! When working pays nothing, neither will anyone else.
Business people understand the concept of “input costs.” So do workers. Labor, after all, isn’t just a cost to the employer; it also costs workers money to provide their labor. And just as a businessman won’t sell a product or service for less than it costs to produce it, neither will workers sell their labor for less than what it costs them to provide their labor.
It’s important to understand that what below-subsistence wage rates actually do is shift the costs of providing labor from the businesses that employ these workers to the government and therefore all taxpayers. Studies show that adult minimum-wage workers get about half of their subsistence from the government — in the form of housing assistance, food stamps, Medicaid, earned income credit, child care subsidies, etc. Thus, when employers don’t want to pay for the real cost of labor, the rest of us have to pay.
Now let’s bounce back to Peter Thiel’s idea of an offshore utopia. If one of the purposes of spending over a billion dollars to live beyond any government’s jurisdiction is to avoid paying the minimum wage (as low as it is), the next question is how do maids, cooks, laundry workers, etc., being paid less than minimum wage afford a $1.5 million condominium? And if Thiel expects his platform’s workforce to live on the mainland and commute out to the platform, who’s going to foot the cost of that?
More to the point, does he really think people will accept jobs in a place where working costs more than work pays?
Ski areas provide an example of this phenomenon. One of the problems ski area operators face is how to recruit the people needed to run the lifts, maintain the slopes, provide food service, etc. Unless the employer bears the expense of providing on-site lodging and meals for these workers, they’ll have to commute from the nearest town or city. Who’s going to spend $40 or $50 a day on gas to work at a job paying $60 to $80 a shift? What actually happens is that ski areas are hard-pressed to find willing workers when gas prices are high.
There are other problems with the cheap-labor economic model, too, and we see them in today’s economy. Conservatives have spent years beating down wages. What they’ve done is impoverish their own customers. Guess what, now there’s no demand for what they sell because their customers have no money to spend. Compare the prosperity of the 1950s, when tens of millions of people worked in union jobs, to what we have today. If you love socialism, high taxes, and deficits, then adopt a cheap-labor model for the economy so there’s no living-wage employment and everyone has to live off the government! That’s exactly where America has been going for the last 40 years.
@8
So what I get out of that is:
1. You confirmed for us that you do think about my johnson…all 11 swinging inches of it.
2. You also obsess over me quite a bit too.
Damn..too bad for me you aren’t a hot 20 something blonde gal…instead your just some 40 something loser who’s chance at making something out of life has long since passed.
What I get out of this is:
1) Reading comprehension is NOT this asshole’s long suit.
2) Who obsesses about whom? I just think the emperor max-minidick is an intemeprate ill-mannered ill-informed fucking jerk.
“And just as a businessman won’t sell a product or service for less than it costs to produce it, neither will workers sell their labor for less than what it costs them to provide their labor.”
Reminds me of the old Tennessee Ford song…
Of course, this was a reference of the mining companies recruiting workers with promises of high wages, but then deducting rental charges for their tools and equipment, imposing artificially high rents for their housing, and even higher prices for food and basics purchased at the company store. Since they were paid in company script, they couldn’t shop or live elsewhere (it was too far away from anyplace else anyway), and once they were in debt to the company store. If they tried to quit and leave town the sheriff would be sent to arrest them for “fleeing the jurisdiction to avoid payment of a debt”.
In other words, ultimately workers have to be forced to work under such wages. Why do Republicans seem to like this idea so much?
@30
People are already leaving the workforce and deciding to stay out. For a lot of people, when they ditch all the spending that went along with their second job in a two job household they find that they’re better off with one of the folks just staying home or doing some part time work that doesn’t require the family to have a second or third car, a second or third (4th?) cell phone, daycare and so on.
People are also having way fewer kids and kids are expensive! With fewer bills to pay and people burned out on shop-till-you-drop and thrift on the rise, people just don’t need to work as much as they used too.
@30
Idiots in the business press like Jim Gallagher aren’t helping either:
As if we’re here to serve “the economy,” not the other way around. Dear mister Gallagher also doesn’t seem to get that “the economy” is a fluid and elastic thing. As people pay down debit and choose to spend less businesses need to find ways to continue to serve people in order to stay relevant. Mr. Gallagher seems to have gotten that one backwards as well. The fact of the matter is that we’re moving into an era where the economy is going to be smaller. But, people will still need to eat and farmers markets are booming. People still need to get around and people in the good old USA bought 19.8 million bicycles in 2010.
We’re going to see quite a few more businesses go under, but we’re also going to see family’s with more time for family stuff. We’re going to see people having more time for recreation. We’re going to see the amount of home grown and home cooked food go up and some of that will be because of economic pressure and fear which is a bad thing. But we’ll also see the rates of heart disease, obesity, and diabetes come down. We’re going to see the the amount of driving continue to go down which might be bad for Ford, GM, and your oil stocks, but it will mean cleaner air and fewer folks killed in car wrecks.
Honestly, I think the positives will outweigh the negatives and 10 years from now we’ll look back at the 90’s and the 00’s and think everyone was insane.
Rachel tops $1.16 million.
http://www.mycharitywater.org/.....n_id=16396
After a slow start, it’s been a good day for Rachel’s fund, now at $1.175 million.
http://www.mycharitywater.org/.....n_id=16396
I’m trying to talk my community into sponsoring a golf tournament and auction to raise funds for Rachel’s cause. I sure hope that I can pull this off. We’ll see.
Looking at the comments on her site, it looks like an MSNBC news story that played this afternoon might be responsible for the surge in donations over the last couple of hours.
@1. igor spews:
——————–
right
@16. Roger Rabbit spews:
——————
right
@17. Roger Rabbit spews:
I mean seriously, Igor, do you really want to give cred to a guy who uses one set of government statistics to call another set of government statistics dishonest? If you believe all government statistics are dishonest then isn’t this guy using dishonest statistics to prove his point?
———————————–
Now you are back to nonsense, what is dishonest about holding the methodology constant for the purpose of comparison;
“The CPI chart on the home page reflects our estimate of inflation for today as if it were calculated the same way it was in 1990. The CPI on the Alternate Data Series tab here reflects the CPI as if it were calculated using the methodologies in place in 1980. In general terms, methodological shifts in government reporting have depressed reported inflation, moving the concept of the CPI away from being a measure of the cost of living needed to maintain a constant standard of living.”
@22. Steve spews:
Pathological lying isn’t a disease, it’s a symptom
————————————-
Finally you talk about something you know, you lying phoney. When are you going to donate that $100K you claim to have?
@28. Irv Kupcinet spews:
In the Chicago neighborhoods where Obama was doing his neighborhood organizing, there is the lowest default rate in the nation on home mortgages.
This proves that Obama’s policies are right.
—————————————
It’s rental housing, they don’t have mortgages, you nitwit.
@29. Steve spews:
This guy expresses something I’ve felt and have tried myself to express here at HA. He does far better job of expressing my thoughts than I ever did – excerpted from a piece called “The Rachel Beckwith Story: Worth Another Look and Another and Another…”
————————————-
Try expressing it by donating that $100K in gambling money you claim to have, you lying phoney;
“17. Steve spews:
@8 As somone (sic) involved in billions of dollars worth of development, I can tell you that development is no more a good in itself than any other value. Development is only good when and if it is good. This is Gig Harbor’s call, not yours and not the developer’s. Gig Harbor doesn’t want the big box. You’ve got issues with that? Tough shit.
As for your “I bet 99% of you” remark, would you care to back that up with a $100K bet? If not, then crawl back in your shit hole and STFU.”
07/22/2011 at 6:44 am
@39 is on the ignore list for being a goatfucker. Also for welching on a $100K bet. Geez, now I wonder if he’s Mark the Redneck Welcher? Either way, he’s obviously a goatfucker. Ignored.
@40. Steve spews:
@39 is on the ignore list for being a goatfucker. Also for welching on a $100K bet.
———————————-
Show me where I ever made a $100K bet, you lying phoney, it was only you. You are a multi-talented lying phoney; not only a big developer and high-rolling gambler–
“17. Steve spews:
@8 As somone (sic) involved in billions of dollars worth of development, I can tell you that development is no more a good in itself than any other value. Development is only good when and if it is good. This is Gig Harbor’s call, not yours and not the developer’s. Gig Harbor doesn’t want the big box. You’ve got issues with that? Tough shit.
As for your “I bet 99% of you” remark, would you care to back that up with a $100K bet? If not, then crawl back in your shit hole and STFU.”
07/22/2011 at 6:44 am
and a deadly soldier of fortune–
“26. Steve spews:
@25 I will not indulge you further, troll, other than to say that, if you ever cast a shadow on my door, you’re fucking dead. Try to understand this – I do not value your life. Not one little bit. When a life is as worthless as yours, it is undeserving of neither protection nor preservation. Fuck with me in person and I will cause you the greatest imaginable harm. And I’m quite certain that God will forgive me for the very horrible things that I will do to you, cuz I figure God sees your life as being as worthless as I do.”
08/16/2011 at 8:07 pm
but also a true friend to Max–
“65. Steve spews:
I could care less what you believe about “billions of dollars worth of development”. Hmm, I think Max was on Redwest, Pebble and Augusta. That’d be a billion for about four years work. Throw in Troon, Pinehurst, Buildings 27 and 28 and that’d be almost another billion. That’s just the project I might have shared with Max. I’ve probably done ten times that in my career so far.”
07/27/2011 at 10:24 pm
You must be one hard worker. How can you do all that and still have the time to cash your welfare checks? I know that you are a committed Democrat, but if we promise to give you a welfare check for each of your personalities can we tempt you to join the GOP?
just testing to see if im still under the awaiting moderation tag
zzzzZZZzzz
Roger Rabbit @ 16 good for you. At least someone here is smart enough to not believe every stat the government spoon feeds us. Hell, all you’ve got to do is look around at escalating prices. That Rujax guy is an angry bastard. His anger is making him dumber than he already is. It’s also interesting that Obama says we are headed in the right direction but only 15% of Americans agree with him. What a disconnect.
Hey LOOK!
Another Republican, this time the Lt. Governor of my home state, Missouri, who ‘just found’ himself in a number of seedy strip clubs. He’s even been accused of stalking one of the ‘entertainers’
This guy seems to be interested in adult women, and so may be easier for the Teahaddists, of which he is a member, to sweep it all under the rug – unlike their Republican colleagues who are into young gay men.
Of course, his Christianity ‘saved’ him – when he realized, after many years of such behavior, that patronizing seedy strip clubs was somehow frowned upon by his chosen fundamentalist sect.
Since he’s a Christian Teahaddist, all the good people of Missouri should of course elect him to be the next Governor.
There is one candidate that both the progressive-party robots and the conservative party robots both dislike(which is probably all the more reason to seriously consider him).
Can you guess who that person is?
http://videocafe.crooksandliar.....e-bachmann
Jeez…is Schaeffer talking about our very own puddybitch or does it just seem that way.
Hmmmmmnnn…
@45
Nah, put Jay Nixon in the white house and Robin Canahan in the governors chair. There’s no reason why there can’t be a hell of a lot more Democrats from MO.
Yep first comes the lie.
He should do the right thing and step down, right righties?
Dearest igor (the stupid paid troll)-
I love everybody…except stupid fucks like you.
Your bff, Rujax!
igor(the stupid paid troll) is just mad ’cause he can’t get away with his dumbass teahadii talking points here.
Try again, sonny.
Wee….