Thanks for making it show up.   

Screech!

I stopped reading at this point.  It's quite ridiculous for you to state so authoritatively what Obama's motive was to attend that church.  You've lost all credibility with me.

Except I did cheat and read your second point.  Have you never seen the plethora of research that shows that Obama's plans cost less, and generate less deficit spending than McCain's?

I don't know whether there were any reasonable points in the other items in your list, but I doubt it...

This is really a more complex problem than described in this thread.

Banks have a responsibility to their shareholders to mitigate the risks of their lending.  They do that by insuring their loans through hedge funds, credit swaps, and other offerings that were resold as investments.  During the depression, a set of banking regulations were put in place that required that these offerings were to be backed up by hardened securities to prevent a banking meltdown.  In 1999, banks were deregulated, removing the securities that guaranteed the loans.  This has resulted in loan defaults that have no choice but to eat into the capital of banks and investment firms, in some cases bankrupting them.

This is far from the sole responsibility of the consumer that borrows the money.  Each bank has a credit committee that makes a decision whether a particular set of parameters around a loan product is sustainable for the bank.  In the case of sub-prime lending, banks, just like the consumers who received the loans, chose to gamble that the economy would grow at a certain rate, and it has not, especially for the broad middle class where this loan product was targeted.

There's another shoe to drop.  It's not just consumer lending that's in serious trouble.  The banks have multitudes of outstanding commercial loans, particularly commercial-residential loans (apartment houses and condos) that have not defaulted, but will.  There are at least two huge US based banks that will suffer dramatically in the next 9 months as a result of this lending.

What's the politics of this?  The deregulation never should have happened.  It was pushed through by Republicans and signed into law by Clinton.  There is a common GOP mantra that corporations, if left alone, will grow the economy of the US.  Speaking as a senior exec of a fortune 100 firm, that's a ridiculous thought.  Corporations, including these banks, will twist every opportunity to eliminate common sense and drive profit.  That's what happened to cause the sub-prime crisis.  These loans were so profitable, driving hundreds of basis points and excess fee revenue into the banks.  The banks were loving these product for the first years of their lives.  Painful as it is, we need regulation of these industries.

Wow!  Army AIT?  Congratulations, and best of luck.  For you, that's really walking the talk.  Props to you, I'm impressed.

My wife had an interesting strong reaction to this, and I wonder whether others, particularly women, will have the same reaction.

My wife and I are almost 50, and her values are rather traditional.  For what it's worth, she's a successful fortune 500 executive, and has always worked, and she strongly pushes women networking in the workplace.

Her reaction was that Palin is prioritizing ambition over motherhood and family, and with a downs baby and a pregnant minor daughter, and three other kids, she should be focused on her family more than on being vice president. 

Could it be that the issues with her family, and her desire to put more effort into her job than in her family, might collide with the pro-family stance of the GOP?

I think that as their emotions cool, they'll think twice about voting this ticket.  Most women who are militant enough to only want Hillary to win also are strongly pro-choice, and I think they'll be unwilling to support Palin.

As Al Gore learned in the 2000 election, this is the only poll that matters, and it hasn't waivered much.  In fact, there are many more electoral votes in the 'barely' category that could impact the GOP count than the DEM count.



It is interesting that there's very little chatter about why John McCain would be a good president, it's all about why Obama would be a bad president.  People don't seem to be wanting to vote for McCain, they want to vote against Obama.  I'd think that a pity, but I think  back to 2004 and the only thing that mattered to me was voting against Bush....

Glad you agree.  Conservatism includes limited thinking.


For real?  You don't even think about sex with someone besides your wife?  I don't believe it.  I know that I do, and I think it's built into the male species.  I'd never cheat on her, but that's because of a set of values and judgements that control my actions.  I don't deny that I have urges to do otherwise.  To do otherwise represses urges that are very natural.


This is what bothers me about what you wrote.  Do you, for one moment,  believe that you are more American, more entitled to patriotism than this rapper, or anyone who listens to his music?  Do you think you're better than him?  More successful?  Contribute more positively to our society?  My guess is that you would answer yes to everyone one of these questions, and that's just sad.

Actually, Neue gets the prize for posting this first in another thread, but here's lyrics from a Rap artist called Ludicris:

paint the White House black and I'm sure that's got 'em terrified
McCain don't belong in ANY chair unless he's paralyzed
Yeah I said it cause Bush is mentally handicapped
Ball up all of his speeches and I throw em like candy wrap
cause what you talking I hear nothing even relevant
and you the worst of all 43 presidents

It seems pretty predictable to me that Rap artists would align around Obama.  What was totally surprising was the Faux News Channel's reporting of it on the O'Reilley Factor.  "Is American ready for a President who seems to embrace Hip Hop."  Absolutely hilarious!  What a bunch of limited thinking lunatics conservatives are!  "OMG, his daughter has rap on her iPod!"  One might call that Ludicrous.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,397481,00.html

Yawn.  So, here's what the House Dems see.  There will be a Democrat in the White House come 2009.  Republicans will give up seats in the House, and 3 seats in the Senate.  Why push a rope now?

This is not partisanship, this is politics.  Both sides are to blame.  You've got a lame duck President threatening to veto everything, and you've got Republicans blocking progress in the Appropriations Committee. 

In a way, we're all probably better off if they accomplish nothing.

Since when is FICA 12%?

http://www.jonescpa.com/fica_tax_rates.htm


Fiction, unless you've got a source.  That's not at all what he's saying. 

Well, I kinda hate to admit this, but you're right.  I'm not sure how given the raw tax rates there can be a 70% marginal tax rate, but this is an irrefutable source, and there clearly was a potential of a top marginal tax rate of 70%.  FWIW, there was an earned income cap at 50%. 

This does show a slight decline in 1980, so I can claim to be a tiny bit right that Carter did reduce taxes a little by his reduction of capital gains taxes.

http://www.truthandpolitics.org/top-rates.php

I really can't argue with that statement!  We do need to do something.  I disagree with your proposal because I think the financial processes that we employ today could not easily handle multiple currency sources.  I believe the value of the dollar is based on the impact of the huge debt that the US carries, and that's what needs to be handled.

For what it's worth, this is my world.  I'm a corporate executive, and I have to sign off on SOX for the business that I run.  And part of my business is enabling the rest of the planet on financial regulatory compliance.  The operating cost is not zero, but also not an impact to any business that I'm aware of.  And every mature country in the world (all the EU countries, the UK, Canada, Japan, Australia etc.) have a similar regulatory requirements, and many of the emerging countries (China, India, etc.) do as well.  If you can post any proof to the contrary, I'd love to try to refute it.

A BLOG on Heritage.org?  Now that's one credible source <eye-roll>.  Not to be rude or anything, but if I posted a link to Michael Moore's site or moveon.org, you'd dismiss it in an instance. 

Here's what's ridiculous about this link.  He plainly states that the Bush tax cut will be allowed to roll back, indicating a 4% change in the marginal tax rate.  Everything else is dumb fear mongering.  He way overstates the FICA tax implication by multiples.  He then lumps in state taxes.  It's a ridiculous scenario.

But the facts are the facts, that that's what I posted.  There would be no way, absolutely no way to demonstrate marginal tax rates higher than about 35% during the Carter administration, regardless of what some clown on heritage.org wants you to believe.

Huh???   

Jimmy Carter actually was the first to reduce the capital gains tax, thus reducing the tax on the wealthy that was in place for years.

http://www.data360.org/dsg.aspx?Data_Set_Group_Id=475