We're Lowering Your Wages

[Againsheila]

Another flawed premise. It is not the objective of a free market to raise wages (any more than it is to lower them).

The other flawed premise being the them we have been dealing with in this thread. Why should someone else make your wages go up? Why don't YOU make your wage go up? Retrain yourself, take a risk and start your own business, etc.

This blame others FIRST, having greater expectations of others than you do of yourself, is part of the problem now sealy, not some failure of the non-existant free market.

currently, there are many Americans that are receiving help from the taxpayers even though they are working. You'd be surprised the number of people that line up at the foodbank that are working people.

Why should we subsidize a business by helping their employees to survive? If you can't pay your employee a living wage, then you shouldn't be in business. Heck, Walmart does seminars to show their employees how to get help from the taxpayer. Why are we subsidizing the richest people in the world with our taxes? That's exactly what it comes down to.

Since businesses like Walmart refuse to pay their employees a living wage, rather than have the taxpayers subsidize them, let's make a law so they HAVE to pay their employees a living wage.

 

[WillowTree]

Detroit is sooooo messed up,, the Southern carmakers just don't have to pop a sweat to compete! I heard it on Fox News!

 

[sealybobo]

Detroit is sooooo messed up,, the Southern carmakers just don't have to pop a sweat to compete! I heard it on Fox News!

Would you sweat for $15 hr?

 

[sealybobo]

Detroit is sooooo messed up,, the Southern carmakers just don't have to pop a sweat to compete! I heard it on Fox News!

DSoutherners are so cheap you can buy them for $15 hr.

Who needs slavery. Hell, why don't I just buy a southerner, send them to do my job that pays $30 hr and I'll split it with them.

 

[WillowTree]

Would you sweat for $15 hr?

not me,, I don't sweat!

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

Our founding fathers are the people who came here, faught the English and got us our independence. Who do you consider Founding Fathers"?

And I've been reading things from guys like Thomas Jefferson. It turns out, conservatives today have it all wrong. They misquote things that our founding fathers said.

Trust me, they warned about corporations getting too powerful in our government. They didn't just leave England because of religion. If you believe that, then you are just wrong and you need to do a lot more studying.

And you guys try to point back to Jefferson's time when Democrats were called Republicans and you want to take credit for what the liberals back then did. Back then you would be called a Federalist.

At that time in the late 1790s, Adams was President and Jefferson was Vice President. Adams led the Federalist Party (which today could be said to have reincarnated as the Republican Party - thus the attempts by Republican historians to rehabilitate Adams' legacy and trash Jefferson), and Jefferson had just brought together two Anti-Federalist parties - the Democrats and the Republicans - into one party called The Democratic Republicans. (Today they're known as the Democratic Party, the longest-lasting political party in history. They dropped "Republican" from their name in the 1820-1830 era).

Never left England huh?

The Founding Fathers of the United States are the political leaders who signed the Declaration of Independence or otherwise participated in the American Revolution as leaders of the Patriots, or who participated in drafting the United States Constitution eleven years later. During the American Revolutionary War, the Founders were opposed by the Loyalists who supported the British monarchy and opposed independence (though most Loyalists remained in the U.S. after 1783 and supported the new government).[2]

Most of the founding fathers were born in the continental U.S., one of the exceptions being Alexander Hamilton. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were born in Virginia, John Adams in Massachusetts, etc... They never came over from England because they were already here.

You know absolutely nothing, do you? The Federalists were for a strong federal government, whereas the Republicans were for a limited government. You would have been considered a Federalist, not me. I'm a Libertarian, thus I believe in the Jeffersonian Principle of limited government. You're advocating for a stronger government, therefore you adhere to the Hamiltonian Principle. Alexander Hamilton being the head of the Federalist Party, and Jefferson's arch-rival.

Jefferson certainly did warn against corruption in government, that's why he advocated a limited federal government.

Do not tell me I need to learn my American history when you very clearly have no grasp of the facts. If you're going to debate history at least look up the facts in Google before you make a fool of yourself.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

Actually, Kevin, Paulitics, & Bern are part of the problem. They are the Bush defenders. If it weren't for Kevin, Paulitics, & Bern, Bush wouldn't have won a second term and we'd be in MUCH better shape today.

And don't look at John Kerry's physical features and shreik when I say that, because that's exactly what is wrong with the American voter.

Is Kerry a tool? Sure. But he is also a much much much better man than George W Bush.

This is class warfare, whether Kevin, Paulitics, & Bern know it or not.

Sure they make good points. How do you think they were able to win the 2000 & 2004 elections. Besides stealing Florida and Ohio that is.

But they were able to convince enough American's that it was even close.

So really, fuck Kevin, Paulitics, & Bern, because they would be arguing right now that the economy was strong if they thought they could get away with it.

How much worse would things have to get before they would admit we have a problem?

And what is their solution? Deregulate even more?

No, they make no sense to me. I get what they are saying, but in the context of "THE REAL WORLD", they don't know what the hell they are saying.

Actually I've never once tried to defend Bush, and unless you can find evidence to contrary I'd suggest you stop making this assumption about me. You've said it multiple times now, and despite my correcting you you continuously try to pass me off as a Bush supporter.

No one brought up John Kerry, and I'm pretty sure I've never said a negative thing about the man on this board. So why would you assume that I have a problem with him? Is it because you can't argue the issue at hand and would rather deflect to your partisan bullshit?

I have never said the economy was strong, even before this crisis hit. I said we were in store for rough times ahead. Get your facts straight.

I have openly admitted, in this thread even, that there is clearly a problem. I was even saying there was a problem when I registered on this board back in August.

It is you who clearly has absolutely no idea what you're talking about. Your lack of even basic economic sense leaves you completely clueless as to what we're discussing, and forces you to pollute perfectly good threads with your nonsense. If you don't understand a subject you should not try to debate it with people who do. Take that to heart.

 

[sealybobo]

Most of the founding fathers were born in the continental U.S., one of the exceptions being Alexander Hamilton. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were born in Virginia, John Adams in Massachusetts, etc... They never came over from England because they were already here.

You know absolutely nothing, do you? The Federalists were for a strong federal government, whereas the Republicans were for a limited government. You would have been considered a Federalist, not me. I'm a Libertarian, thus I believe in the Jeffersonian Principle of limited government. You're advocating for a stronger government, therefore you adhere to the Hamiltonian Principle. Alexander Hamilton being the head of the Federalist Party, and Jefferson's arch-rival.

Jefferson certainly did warn against corruption in government, that's why he advocated a limited federal government.

Do not tell me I need to learn my American history when you very clearly have no grasp of the facts. If you're going to debate history at least look up the facts in Google before you make a fool of yourself.

You, and many Conservatives have it backward. You were John Adams, I was Jefferson.

They try to re-write history - the biography of Thomas Jefferson on the Welcome to the White House website has been re-written to turn him into a man who had "assumed leadership of the Republicans," while the reality was that Jefferson's party was the Democratic-Republicans and still exists today, called the Democratic Party. (The Republican Party is much more recent, having come into national existence in 1856.)

Corporate shills like former Enron lobbyist and current GOP chairman Ed Gillespie would have us think the Republican party was born in service to corporations. But Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican president, was also the first president to actively use the power of government in support of striking workers.

In Lincoln's era, the idea of strikes was so novel the word "strike" was put in quotation marks in newspapers, but Lincoln was often on their side. "Labor," Lincoln wrote, "is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if Labor had not first existed. Labor is superior to capital, and deserves much the higher consideration."

Republicans would do well to revisit the Republican Party's campaign platform of 1872, before the era of corporate personhood, as it may hold the seeds of their redemption.

They didn't think corporations - particularly big ones - should get the kinds of freebies that corporations today regularly demand for moving into a community. Instead, resources owned by We, The People should be held in trust for, or given to, human beings, as they wrote in their platform: "We are opposed to further grants of public land to corporations and monopolies, and demand that the national domain be set apart for free homes for the people."

The Republicans of 1872 felt that the national debt (from the Civil War) should be paid off as quickly as possible, and a budget must not only be balanced but show a surplus while at the same time paying pensions to retired persons. They were also protectionists, in favor of import duties and tariffs to protect working peoples' salaries and keep manufacturing jobs from moving offshore. They proclaimed in their platform:

"The [nation's] annual revenue, after paying current expenditures, pensions, and the interest on the public debt, should furnish a moderate balance for the reduction of the principal [of the national debt]; and that revenue should be raised by duties upon importations, the details of which [duties] should be so adjusted as to aid in securing remunerative wages to labor, and promote the industries, prosperity, and growth of the whole country."
The Republicans of 1872, having just freed the slaves (in part, at least), also spoke to that era's women's struggle for equal rights. Their platform explicitly said:

"The Republican party is mindful of its obligations to the loyal women of America for their noble devotion to the cause of freedom. Their admission to wider fields of usefulness is viewed with satisfaction; and the honest demand of any class of citizens for additional rights should be treated with respectful consideration."
The Republicans of 1872 had repealed most of Lincoln's wartime abrogations of civil rights, and opposed any other Patriot Act-like interferences with civil liberties. They were rediscovering the Bill of Rights, and said so in party platform plank sixteen:

"The Republican party proposes to respect the rights reserved by the people to themselves as carefully as the powers delegated by them to the States and the Federal government. It disapproves of the resort to unconstitutional laws for the purpose of removing evils, by interference with rights not surrendered by the people to either the State or National government."

The party platform said that Republicans would embrace only "modest patriotism" and "incorruptible integrity" in their leaders, because the nation's "honor" was, in that day, "kept in the high respect throughout the world."

The party noted that since it had first achieved national power with Lincoln's election, "During eleven years of supremacy it has accepted, with grand courage, the solemn duties of the time." Republicans had "emancipated four millions of slaves, decreed the equal citizenship of all, and established universal suffrage. Exhibiting unparalleled magnanimity, it [the Republican Party] criminally punished no man for political offenses," and tax "revenues have been carefully collected and honestly applied."

"This glorious record of the past is the party's best pledge for the future," the Republicans of 1872 wrote, blissfully unaware of how corrupt their party would become.

 

[sealybobo]

Actually I've never once tried to defend Bush, and unless you can find evidence to contrary I'd suggest you stop making this assumption about me. You've said it multiple times now, and despite my correcting you you continuously try to pass me off as a Bush supporter.

No one brought up John Kerry, and I'm pretty sure I've never said a negative thing about the man on this board. So why would you assume that I have a problem with him? Is it because you can't argue the issue at hand and would rather deflect to your partisan bullshit?

I have never said the economy was strong, even before this crisis hit. I said we were in store for rough times ahead. Get your facts straight.

I have openly admitted, in this thread even, that there is clearly a problem. I was even saying there was a problem when I registered on this board back in August.

It is you who clearly has absolutely no idea what you're talking about. Your lack of even basic economic sense leaves you completely clueless as to what we're discussing, and forces you to pollute perfectly good threads with your nonsense. If you don't understand a subject you should not try to debate it with people who do. Take that to heart.

Then we can agree and move on to debating with people who disagree with us.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

You, and many Conservatives have it backward. You were John Adams, I was Jefferson.

They try to re-write history - the biography of Thomas Jefferson on the Welcome to the White House website has been re-written to turn him into a man who had "assumed leadership of the Republicans," while the reality was that Jefferson's party was the Democratic-Republicans and still exists today, called the Democratic Party. (The Republican Party is much more recent, having come into national existence in 1856.)

Corporate shills like former Enron lobbyist and current GOP chairman Ed Gillespie would have us think the Republican party was born in service to corporations. But Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican president, was also the first president to actively use the power of government in support of striking workers.

In Lincoln's era, the idea of strikes was so novel the word "strike" was put in quotation marks in newspapers, but Lincoln was often on their side. "Labor," Lincoln wrote, "is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if Labor had not first existed. Labor is superior to capital, and deserves much the higher consideration."

Republicans would do well to revisit the Republican Party's campaign platform of 1872, before the era of corporate personhood, as it may hold the seeds of their redemption.

They didn't think corporations - particularly big ones - should get the kinds of freebies that corporations today regularly demand for moving into a community. Instead, resources owned by We, The People should be held in trust for, or given to, human beings, as they wrote in their platform: "We are opposed to further grants of public land to corporations and monopolies, and demand that the national domain be set apart for free homes for the people."

The Republicans of 1872 felt that the national debt (from the Civil War) should be paid off as quickly as possible, and a budget must not only be balanced but show a surplus while at the same time paying pensions to retired persons. They were also protectionists, in favor of import duties and tariffs to protect working peoples' salaries and keep manufacturing jobs from moving offshore. They proclaimed in their platform:

"The [nation's] annual revenue, after paying current expenditures, pensions, and the interest on the public debt, should furnish a moderate balance for the reduction of the principal [of the national debt]; and that revenue should be raised by duties upon importations, the details of which [duties] should be so adjusted as to aid in securing remunerative wages to labor, and promote the industries, prosperity, and growth of the whole country."
The Republicans of 1872, having just freed the slaves (in part, at least), also spoke to that era's women's struggle for equal rights. Their platform explicitly said:

"The Republican party is mindful of its obligations to the loyal women of America for their noble devotion to the cause of freedom. Their admission to wider fields of usefulness is viewed with satisfaction; and the honest demand of any class of citizens for additional rights should be treated with respectful consideration."
The Republicans of 1872 had repealed most of Lincoln's wartime abrogations of civil rights, and opposed any other Patriot Act-like interferences with civil liberties. They were rediscovering the Bill of Rights, and said so in party platform plank sixteen:

"The Republican party proposes to respect the rights reserved by the people to themselves as carefully as the powers delegated by them to the States and the Federal government. It disapproves of the resort to unconstitutional laws for the purpose of removing evils, by interference with rights not surrendered by the people to either the State or National government."

The party platform said that Republicans would embrace only "modest patriotism" and "incorruptible integrity" in their leaders, because the nation's "honor" was, in that day, "kept in the high respect throughout the world."

The party noted that since it had first achieved national power with Lincoln's election, "During eleven years of supremacy it has accepted, with grand courage, the solemn duties of the time." Republicans had "emancipated four millions of slaves, decreed the equal citizenship of all, and established universal suffrage. Exhibiting unparalleled magnanimity, it [the Republican Party] criminally punished no man for political offenses," and tax "revenues have been carefully collected and honestly applied."

"This glorious record of the past is the party's best pledge for the future," the Republicans of 1872 wrote, blissfully unaware of how corrupt their party would become.

No, I'm Kevin, not John Adams or Thomas Jefferson.

"That government is best, which governs least." - Thomas Jefferson

Thus, the Jeffersonian Principle of limited government, which I fully support. Do you support a limited government, bobo? No, you want the government to interfere in private industry and want the government to take care of people from cradle to grave.

In Lincoln's day, his Republicans (Formerly Whigs) are more akin to the Democrats of today; whereas the Democrats of his time believed in the Jeffersonian Principle of limited government. Lincoln believed in a strong federal government, just as you do, just as Henry Clay did, and just as Alexander Hamilton did.

Let me break this down for you...

Hamiltonians (Strong Government)
Alexander Hamilton - Federalist Party
Henry Clay - Whig Party
Abraham Lincoln - Republican Party
sealybobo - Democratic Party

Jeffersonians (Limited Government)
Thomas Jefferson - Republican Party
Jefferson Davis - Democratic Party
Kevin_Kennedy - Libertarian

 

[sealybobo]

Most of the founding fathers were born in the continental U.S., one of the exceptions being Alexander Hamilton. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were born in Virginia, John Adams in Massachusetts, etc... They never came over from England because they were already here.

You know absolutely nothing, do you? The Federalists were for a strong federal government, whereas the Republicans were for a limited government. You would have been considered a Federalist, not me. I'm a Libertarian, thus I believe in the Jeffersonian Principle of limited government. You're advocating for a stronger government, therefore you adhere to the Hamiltonian Principle. Alexander Hamilton being the head of the Federalist Party, and Jefferson's arch-rival.

Jefferson certainly did warn against corruption in government, that's why he advocated a limited federal government.

Do not tell me I need to learn my American history when you very clearly have no grasp of the facts. If you're going to debate history at least look up the facts in Google before you make a fool of yourself.

You know history alright. REVISIONIST HISTORY:

Have you ever heard that it was the Republicans (Lincoln) that freed the slaves? Well don't make the mistake assuming that the Republicans back then were the same Republicans we have today. Today's GOP looks/acts a lot more like the Federalists back in John Adam's day.

At that time in the late 1790s, Adams was President and Jefferson was Vice President. Adams led the Federalist Party (which today could be said to have reincarnated as the Republican Party - thus the attempts by Republican historians to rehabilitate Adams' legacy and trash Jefferson), and Jefferson had just brought together two Anti-Federalist parties - the Democrats and the Republicans - into one party called The Democratic Republicans. (Today they're known as the Democratic Party, the longest-lasting political party in history. They dropped "Republican" from their name in the 1820-1830 era).

Adams and his Federalist cronies, using war hysteria with France as a wedge issue, were pushing the Alien & Sedition Acts through Congress, and even threw into prison Democratic Congressman Matthew Lyon of Vermont for speaking out against the Federalists on the floor of the House of Representatives. Adams was leading the United States in the direction of a fascistic state with a spectacularly successful strategy of vilifying Jefferson and his Party as anti-American and pro-French. (SOUND FAMILIAR) Adams rhetoric was described as "manly" by the Federalist newspapers, which admiringly published dozens of his threatening rants against France, suggesting that Jefferson's Democratic Republicans were less than patriots and perhaps even traitors because of their opposition to the unnecessary war with France that Adams was simultaneously trying to gin up and saying he was working to avoid.

ThomHartmann.com - Jefferson Would Have Stood With Cindy Sheehan

 

[sealybobo]

No, I'm Kevin, not John Adams or Thomas Jefferson.

"That government is best, which governs least." - Thomas Jefferson

Thus, the Jeffersonian Principle of limited government, which I fully support. Do you support a limited government, bobo? No, you want the government to interfere in private industry and want the government to take care of people from cradle to grave.

In Lincoln's day, his Republicans (Formerly Whigs) are more akin to the Democrats of today; whereas the Democrats of his time believed in the Jeffersonian Principle of limited government. Lincoln believed in a strong federal government, just as you do, just as Henry Clay did, and just as Alexander Hamilton did.

Let me break this down for you...

Hamiltonians (Strong Government)
Alexander Hamilton - Federalist Party
Henry Clay - Whig Party
Abraham Lincoln - Republican Party
sealybobo - Democratic Party

Jeffersonians (Limited Government)
Thomas Jefferson - Republican Party
Jefferson Davis - Democratic Party
Kevin_Kennedy - Libertarian

You act like I want a bloated government beurocracy.

I was watching Fox News the other day and they were saying, "whether the GOP likes it or not, the size of the government is what it is"

They had 8 years to shrink it and instead they grew it.

So you don't want government regulating business? Wow!

If that happens, which it actually did happen between 2000-2008, then we see what happens. Unemployment, pensions lost, gas gouging.

You must be an absolute fool.

I wish you worked for the Tribune. Then you'd be singing a different tune.

Workers Pay for Debacle at Tribune


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/09/bu...html?ref=media

>

Mr. Zell literally mortgaged the future of Tribune’s employees to pursue what one analyst, Jack Newman, at the time called “a childhood fantasy.”

Mr. Zell financed much of his deal’s $13 billion of debt by borrowing against part of the future of his employees’ pension plan and taking a huge tax advantage. Tribune employees ended up with equity, and now they will probably be left with very little.

As Mr. Newman, an analyst at CreditSights, explained at the time: “If there is a problem with the company, most of the risk is on the employees, as Zell will not own Tribune shares.” He continued: “The cash will come from the sweat equity of the employees of Tribune.”

It is unclear how much Zell will lose, but one thing is clear: when creditors get in line, he gets to stand ahead of the employees.

it is worth remembering all the people who mismanaged the company beforehand and helped orchestrate this ill-fated deal — and made a lot of money in the process. They include members of the Tribune board, the company’s management and the bankers who walked away with millions of dollars for financing and advising on a transaction that many of them knew, or should have known, could end in ruin. (sound familiar? sub prime lenders)

It was Tribune’s board that sold the company to Mr. Zell — and allowed him to use the employee’s pension plan to do so. Despite early resistance, Dennis J. FitzSimons, then the company’s chief executive, backed the plan. He was paid about $17.7 million in severance and other payments. The sale also bought all the shares he owned — $23.8 million worth. The day he left, he said in a note to employees that “completing this ‘going private’ transaction is a great outcome for our shareholders, employees and customers.”

Tribune’s board was advised by a group of bankers from Citigroup and Merrill Lynch, which walked off with $35.8 million and $37 million, respectively. But those banks played both sides of the deal: they also lent Mr. Zell the money to buy the company. For that, they shared an additional $47 million pot of fees with several other banks, according to Thomson Reuters. And then there was Morgan Stanley, which wrote a “fairness opinion” blessing the deal, for which it was paid a $7.5 million fee (plus an additional $2.5 million advisory fee).

On top of that, a firm called the Valuation Research Corporation wrote a “solvency opinion” suggesting that Tribune could meet its debt covenants. Thomson Reuters, which tracks fees, estimates V.R.C. was paid $1 million for that opinion. V.R.C. was so enamored with its role that it put out a press release.

(ARE WE ALL SUCKERS? DO WE NOT SEE THE PATTERN HERE?)

But what about those employees? They had no seat at the table when the company’s own board let Mr. Zell use part of its future pension plan in exchange for $34 a share.

Mr. Newman, the analyst who predicted the trouble, said in an interview on Monday, “The employees were put in a very bad situation.” He added that while boards are typically only responsible to their shareholders, this situation may be different. “There has to be a balance,” he said, “to create sustainability for all the stakeholders.”

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

You know history alright. REVISIONIST HISTORY:

Have you ever heard that it was the Republicans (Lincoln) that freed the slaves? Well don't make the mistake assuming that the Republicans back then were the same Republicans we have today. Today's GOP looks/acts a lot more like the Federalists back in John Adam's day.

At that time in the late 1790s, Adams was President and Jefferson was Vice President. Adams led the Federalist Party (which today could be said to have reincarnated as the Republican Party - thus the attempts by Republican historians to rehabilitate Adams' legacy and trash Jefferson), and Jefferson had just brought together two Anti-Federalist parties - the Democrats and the Republicans - into one party called The Democratic Republicans. (Today they're known as the Democratic Party, the longest-lasting political party in history. They dropped "Republican" from their name in the 1820-1830 era).

Adams and his Federalist cronies, using war hysteria with France as a wedge issue, were pushing the Alien & Sedition Acts through Congress, and even threw into prison Democratic Congressman Matthew Lyon of Vermont for speaking out against the Federalists on the floor of the House of Representatives. Adams was leading the United States in the direction of a fascistic state with a spectacularly successful strategy of vilifying Jefferson and his Party as anti-American and pro-French. (SOUND FAMILIAR) Adams rhetoric was described as "manly" by the Federalist newspapers, which admiringly published dozens of his threatening rants against France, suggesting that Jefferson's Democratic Republicans were less than patriots and perhaps even traitors because of their opposition to the unnecessary war with France that Adams was simultaneously trying to gin up and saying he was working to avoid.

ThomHartmann.com - Jefferson Would Have Stood With Cindy Sheehan

I had heard a rumor he freed the slaves, yes. I would argue they're fundamentally the same today as they were then, which is a shame. I would argue that both todays Republicans and todays Democrats act like the Federalist Party of the early years.

There's certainly no major party advocating for a limited Constitutional government like Jefferson's Republicans did.

 

[Againsheila]

Then we can agree and move on to debating with people who disagree with us.

I disagree with that!

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

You act like I want a bloated government beurocracy.

I was watching Fox News the other day and they were saying, "whether the GOP likes it or not, the size of the government is what it is"

They had 8 years to shrink it and instead they grew it.

So you don't want government regulating business? Wow!

If that happens, which it actually did happen between 2000-2008, then we see what happens. Unemployment, pensions lost, gas gouging.

You must be an absolute fool.

Well you want to give the government even more control in the private sector, so yes I'm saying you want to increase the power of the government. Alexander Hamilton would be proud of you, so would Lincoln for that matter.

I don't care what FOX News says, I don't watch trash. They certainly did grow it.

Nope, I sure don't want the government interfering in the private sector, especially since they have no Constitutional authority to do so. It actually didn't happen between 2000-2008, and only a fool would believe that it did.

I must be, for trying to educate you.

 

[sealybobo]

I had heard a rumor he freed the slaves, yes. I would argue they're fundamentally the same today as they were then, which is a shame. I would argue that both todays Republicans and todays Democrats act like the Federalist Party of the early years.

There's certainly no major party advocating for a limited Constitutional government like Jefferson's Republicans did.

And we probably agree Kevin that the government is too big and wasting a lot of money.

I truly think Obama really is going to go through the budget and gut it of wasteful pork.

Department of Homeland Security? Isn't that where Bush grew the government? I have heard of many stories about how Bush/The GOP wasted money through that government agency. One example is how instead of giving NY and other big cities all the anti terrorism money, he spread it out to all 50 states. Why? I can only assume because NY is a Blue state?

And, you may not think it is the government's role to offer social services/programs, but I certainly do.

I like a strong defense too, but we are surely spending twice as much as we should on defense. But then the GOP will use that to suggest Obama is weak on defense. And the GOP will also, in the future, use National Security to waste money.

 

[Bern80]

Actually, Kevin, Paulitics, & Bern are part of the problem. They are the Bush defenders. If it weren't for Kevin, Paulitics, & Bern, Bush wouldn't have won a second term and we'd be in MUCH better shape today.

And don't look at John Kerry's physical features and shreik when I say that, because that's exactly what is wrong with the American voter.

Is Kerry a tool? Sure. But he is also a much much much better man than George W Bush.

This is class warfare, whether Kevin, Paulitics, & Bern know it or not.

Sure they make good points. How do you think they were able to win the 2000 & 2004 elections. Besides stealing Florida and Ohio that is.

But they were able to convince enough American's that it was even close.

So really, fuck Kevin, Paulitics, & Bern, because they would be arguing right now that the economy was strong if they thought they could get away with it.

How much worse would things have to get before they would admit we have a problem?

And what is their solution? Deregulate even more?

No, they make no sense to me. I get what they are saying, but in the context of "THE REAL WORLD", they don't know what the hell they are saying.

The problem with you sealy is that you continue to presume people's positions even when they have told you time and again your presumptions are incorrect.

This apparently is a concept that is foreign to you but we'll try it again. When you start your argument against on the basis of an inaccurate premise it renders the rest of your argument absolutely meaningless. Seriously why are YOU continueing with the discussion? There obviously is no point in someone with an alternative view having a conversation with you when you presume to know what they believe, think, will say, etc. How very convenient for you

if you want to know what I think, ask. I'll be more than happy to tell you and be honest with my answers. I am not ashamed of my beliefs and have no reason to lie about them. But DO NOT sit there you fucking sniveling little pussy and continue to attribute views to me that i don't possess.

 

[sealybobo]

Well you want to give the government even more control in the private sector, so yes I'm saying you want to increase the power of the government. Alexander Hamilton would be proud of you, so would Lincoln for that matter.

I don't care what FOX News says, I don't watch trash. They certainly did grow it.

Nope, I sure don't want the government interfering in the private sector, especially since they have no Constitutional authority to do so. It actually didn't happen between 2000-2008, and only a fool would believe that it did.

I must be, for trying to educate you.

Not more, the same control they had before Bush got into office. Just like I want the tax rates to go back to before Reagan got into office.

Does it say somewhere in the constitution that the government has no right regulating the private industry? So private industry can do whatever they want? Please explain.

The government is WE THE PEOPLE. The Government does what we need it to do. If corporations are doing something that hurts we the people, then government steps in.

This is just a rediculous argument. Government has no authority? That's a rediculous thing to say.

Can you show me where the Constitution specifically says gov. should stay out of private industry?

 

[sealybobo]

The problem with you sealy is that you continue to presume people's positions even when they have told you time and again your presumptions are incorrect.

This apparently is a concept that is foreign to you but we'll try it again. When start your argument against on the basis of an inaccurate premise it renders the rest of your argument absolutely meaningless. Seriously why are YOU continueing with the discussion? There obviously is no point in someone with an alternative view having a conversation with you when you presume to know what they believe, think, will say, etc. How very convenient for you?

if you want to know what I think, ask. I'll be more than happy to tell you and be honest with my answers. I am not ashamed of my beliefs and have no reason to lie about them. But DO NOT sit there you fucking sniveling little pussy and continue to attribute views to me that i don't possess.

Oh you possess them. Don't pretend. If you are arguing with me, you possess.

And even if I'm getting the little details wrong, you're opinions/ideas are still bad.

So what did I assume? I assumed you defended Bush? Big deal. You certainly defend a lot of his policies.

Anyways, if you are not an Obama supporter, I assume you are an idiot or wrong.

I like SOME of what Ron Paul says, but the rest is shit. Every man for himself.

And the GOP might sound good, but too bad they don't do anything they say.

So whether you are a libertarian or conservative or republican, it's all the same to me.

The little shit I assume/accuse you of really isn't important.

And don't think you guys don't lump us liberals all together.

Anyways, if you aren't with me, then you are against me.

I dont' even remember what the argument is about. Say, did you see that story about the Tribune? PERFECT example of corporations and rich owners buying companies, raiding the pension funds and now the employees are getting FUCKED!!!!

But I guess government has no role in regulating that.

But keep in mind that BUSH is the one that passed the law back during his FIRST recession that allowed companies to dip into their pension funds.

But I guess in your mind, government should have never passed the law preventing companies from dipping into their pension funds so it was ok that Bush undid that regulation.

But now the government will have to back those pensions. What do the CEO's or Bush care about the government or treasury? They view government as the enemy, right?

 

[Skull Pilot]

But one thing I would like to point out is that in today's current market, you have to have a security net to take a chance and start a new business. Most people who do take the chance know that if all else fails, they can just go live with a relative. Or their parents have enough money to give them the initial $200K you need to start a business. I know many business owners like this. No biggy if they don't make it. But they'll forget/ignore that security blanket they had and pretend like they did it all on their own. What if you failed? Most business' do fail. Most people have to try a couple times. Did you fail the first time? Then you were lucky. What if you did fail? What would you have done? Go live with a relative? Probably.

My wife and I had no safety net when we started our business. I have no family to rely on and my wife's mom is in no way able to help us at all. We risked everything to run our own business. If it failed we were going to be sleeping in our car with our 3 dogs. We worked, and saved every dime for years, took personal loans, pulled money out of our IRAs and used credit cards for start up capital and equipment.

Once again you assume too much and use broad brushes to simplify the world so that you can understand it.

And Lord knows the banks aren't going to loan me or YOU $200K in this economy. Not if you don't have any collateral.

I get offers every day for loans of up to 50K so someone is lending money

Your whole mentality is flawed. Thank god you guys didn't win the last election, otherwise your mentality would become mandated. The middle class would disappear. It already is. THank God we took control back.

And control, government control, is what you Dims are all about. Excuse me if I don't want the fucking government telling me what to pay an employee, who to hire, how much of my own money I get to keep, or that I have to fork over my m0oney to buy stock in some failing company.

I can take care of myself and believe me, I can spend my money better than the government can.

bigger more expensive more corrupt government is NOT what we need. We need to starve government into submission by slashing its revenue to the bone.

And I bet you want the Big 3 to go bankrupt. You people are something else. You think you would survive such a Depression? Well most of us would not. I doubt you would either.

Bankruptcy law exists for a reason, let them file and reorganize and start over with a more profitable more sustainable business model and not keep losing money year after year after year.

I just talked to two Republicans on my 10 oclock break. It seems they are finally waking up to how bad things are. 7 out of 10 are living paycheck to paycheck.

Good luck going out to find a new job in this economy. And if you find one, chances are it won't pay what you used to make. If you don't get that, then you don't understand simple supply and demand.

This recession is a necessary adjustment to the inflationary cycle caused by government meddling in the credit markets. the housing bubble, the mortgage meltdown etc are all just a culmination of governemt interference in the markets.

And it is corporations goal to pay as little as possible.

I can't wait to turn Walmart into a Union company.

And your goal is to pay as much to the government as you can right?

People are better off if they can keep more of the money they earn.

And you just don't understand business at all. Corporations make a profit and they distribute that profit. Every dime of distributed profit gets taxed either as a dividend or a capital gains. How much more tax do you want?