366 days until we the people speak with votes

[BodybyFisher]

Exactamundo, GTO, there is NO free lunch. This is not the era of breakneck growth and prosperity, where companies could be strong armed into giving up generous benefit packages or be extorted to do so via strikes, work stoppages, etc. There is NEGATIVE growth right now, we need as a country to get back to what works, the basics, innovation, education. We are getting our butts whipped around the world and in DC. DC of course who shouts from the highest tree that our best days are behind us and that we are bad bad people, how can you dig out from under that. American pride needs to come to the forefront again. We need to compete again. We need to insist upon a LEVEL playing field. In many ways our standard of living has dropped to the worlds standard due to our complacency. I say, pull ALL of our military back home, let OTHERS defend themselves and see what that costs in terms of people, money and politics to carry a big stick. Let them kill eachother for awhile, the US has been the worlds cop too long and it has reflected poorly on us as we are taken for granted and misunderstood. Take government out of education standards, stop PC garbage, teach all angles both positive and negative about economic systems and restore our education system back to a level where when students graduate they have what they need to succeed. Return to the days where students FAILED a grade until they make the grade. Compete or go home. Let people FAIL, teach that you either work hard or FAIL, PERIOD, you reap what you sow. Fat kid cant do 50 sit ups?, so what, but dont let him stop trying, or get a pass because he can't. There should be PHYSICAL FITNESS standards in school again that STRESS performance, conditioning and testing NOT just participation gets an A as i heard from my daughters 9th grade gym teacher. Participation gets you a D, performance moves you up the bar to an A. Lose the participation trophies. Dont get me started

[Texas Jim]

TANSTAAFL

SOMEONE....SOMEWHERE...Pays for it...

NOTHING is free...except the air you breathe...

[airmike]

I love to sit here and read these posts. The thing is -and I hate to sound stupid or uneducated-how do you tell what the REAL truth is in any story. The spin doctors write the "facts" and the winner is the one with the best spin doctor. Most any article you can read that is political can be spun two ways. I believe that is why you get the politicians elected that you get. I personally don't think it is a party problem. It is a climate of american morals. I don't mean religious morals. I mean get what you can, use the system, what can you do for me today, regardless of the future consequences. I work for a company that pays bonuses to officers that can reach a budget quota, even if it cost the railroad more in the overall picture. THAT is not what we need to make our country work.

I THINK I WILL VOTE MYSELF A RAISE, if I can get you all to elect me somehow. Thats my platform I'm running on.

[WarrenJ]

NOTHING is free...except the air you breathe...

Carbon taxes should make that a quaint memory...

[Texas Jim]

NOTHING is free...except the air you breathe...

Carbon taxes should make that a quaint memory...

OOPS....dang it, forgot about THAT.... :angry2:

[Cadillac Jim]

Here's a quick summary I got in an email today:

• U.S. Tax revenue: $2,170,000,000,000
• Fed budget: $3,820,000,000,000
• New debt: $1,650,000,000,000
• National debt: $14,271,000,000,000
• Recent budget cuts: $38,500,000,000

Remove 8 zeros to give the perspective of a household budget:

• Annual family income: $21,700
• Money the family spent: $38,200
• New debt on the credit card: $16,500
• Outstanding balance on the credit card: $142,710
• Total budget cuts: $385

The problem is as plain as day. The solution is painful, and the longer we wait the more painful it will be.

[BodybyFisher]

I like that Jim, I have seen that same analysis over the last couple of years as the debt rises, it really lays out the problem in easy understandable terms

[WarrenJ]

Here's something that might leave you thinking for a while . . .

Beware: Corporate Psychopaths Still Occupy Positions of Power

By Brian Basham, The Independent UK

31 December 11

"

utlook:

Over the years I've met my fair share of monsters – rogue individuals, for the most part. But as regulation in the UK and the US has loosened its restraints, the monsters have proliferated.

In a paper recently published in the Journal of Business Ethics entitled "The Corporate Psychopaths: Theory of the Global Financial Crisis", Clive R Boddy identifies these people as psychopaths.

"They are," he says, "simply the 1 per cent of people who have no conscience or empathy." And he argues: "Psychopaths, rising to key senior positions within modern financial corporations, where they are able to influence the moral climate of the whole organisation and yield considerable power, have largely caused the [banking] crisis'.

And Mr Boddy is not alone. In Jon Ronson's widely acclaimed book The Psychopath Test, Professor Robert Hare told the author: "I should have spent some time inside the Stock Exchange as well. Serial killer psychopaths ruin families. Corporate and political and religious psychopaths ruin economies. They ruin societies."

Cut to a pleasantly warm evening in Bahrain. My companion, a senior UK investment banker and I, are discussing the most successful banking types we know and what makes them tick. I argue that they often conform to the characteristics displayed by social psychopaths. To my surprise, my friend agrees.

He then makes an astonishing confession: "At one major investment bank for which I worked, we used psychometric testing to recruit social psychopaths because their characteristics exactly suited them to senior corporate finance roles."

Here was one of the biggest investment banks in the world seeking psychopaths as recruits."

http://readersupport...itions-of-power

In a Bloomberg opinion piece, writer William D. Cohan comments on the above.

http://www.bloomberg...liam-cohan.html

(William D. Cohan, a former investment banker and the author of "Money and Power: How Goldman Sachs Came to Rule the World," is a Bloomberg View columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.)

[BodybyFisher]

http://www.foxnews.c...et-office-says/

BBf I tried to copy link but I don't know how. If you will notice individual revenue up 1.1 trillion up 22% To me that seems to be mostly from job increase.

You will also notice that corp taxes are going down by 6%. To me that leaves credence to the fact that some are not paying their fair share.

http://forecast.org/gdp.htm

bbf This is a org.site on the bottom graph is the gdp growth for 6 months. I tried to find interest payments as a percent of gdp but I could not.

Jim Health care is the problem (not the president) and has been long before this president. The simple fact that people that can afford health care go to ERs along with non ins. covered people. Example I had a kidney stone (bad) went to emergency room (packed waited 7 hours) Now I have paid into medicare since its inception My wife and I pay 200 month total for part B plus we have the yearly deductible around 140.00ea. I had to pay the ER co-payment of 50.00. (some one I know with no insurance has jobs on the side),had the same problem they signed a paper and paid nothing!!!!! Stop and look at that! Something is wrong!!

It gets better! My wife had a kidney stone later. Hers wasn't bad so she went to a doctor She ended up paying over 200.00 in co-payments to the docs and labs,etc. I said next time we go to the er.

I say those that can afford ins buy it and get off my back those that cant the feds will pay it That is exactly what the affordable health

care act is!! If you can afford it Pay it I have had car ins and health ins all my working life.

GTO insurance company's have been raising ins rates long before you were born .What! do you think they stopped? and now the president is responsible? Dont be misled by the rich and powerful.

This type of thinking is exactly what disturbs me and this type of thinking has infiltrated out society, I see it as a victimhood mentality.

You paid a BIG $200, for multiple doctors, lab tests, etc. Did they solve your wife's problem, is she healthy? You see me?, I would say, it is worth $200 to solve a painful health problem. You neglected to state what the total cost of of all of these services was, could you supply that? I have a feeling that the services cost somewhere in the range of $5000 and you paid $200 and your insurance company "settled" the balance, by probably shorting the doctor down to what THEY consider customary costs should be.

And now because of that $200, next time you say you are going to have her go to the EMERGENCY ROOM? Amazing

You might be surprised however, I was in an emergency room about 2 years ago, I spoke to a doctor for 10 minutes, my blood pressure and heart rate were taken, I was referred to my own doctor, I was processed, total actual service time was about 15 minute total....and... I got a BILL for $600! No tests, no services, no xrays, no lab work, 15 MINUTES, and YOU are concerned AFTER receiving SERVICES with having to pay $200. I dont get it.

Let me put this into perspective for YOU, my wife works for a major NY commercial bank, THIS year they increased the deductible to $1500 per FAMILY MEMBER! They will pay for preventative procedures but if you get sick, the deductible kicks in. How do you calculate how much that increases your health care costs? I pay the first $1500.... on each family member or a total family deductible of $4000. But you are beefing about $200, wait increases are coming to you and fast. You think the government can DICTATE that the dependent age is now 26 for insurance and it has NO IMPACT? You think the government run medicare and medicade paying less than market for care does NOT impact the system? You think uninsured people walking into the emergency room does not matter, how about uninsured immigrants that we allowed to walk in to this country? THAT HAS NO IMPACT DOES IT?

You are bothered by increasing costs?

Then I guess its ok to allow ambulance chasers to put TV commercials assembling people for class action suits for reactions or side effects to drugs/medication to sue drug companies? Let me ask, did these people KNOW about potential side effects BEFORE they took the drug? You know who gets paid?, the lawyers. But who takes the beating?, the drug companies. That is why new drugs cost so much. Laywers are causing huge problems. The liability insurance doctors must carry is extremely expensive and of course it gets passed through to patients. I love the government, they dont care if their actions have unintended consequences only that they look good doing it. AND NOW, I guarantee you that Obama will start to demagogue these increases as the year goes on, demonizing insurance companies. Fraud

Oh yea, Pelosi makes this statement regarding OBAMACARE "Think of an economy where people could be an artist or a photographer or a writer without worrying about keeping their day job in order to have health insurance." You are kidding right?

See this link for the following quote

http://www.weeklysta...yed-comfortably

If Pelosi wants us to imagine it, let's do it with a few caveats, shall we? If liberal Boomers such as Nancy Pelosi insist on creating government incentives for a generation of people to be unemployed artists who nonetheless have their health care paid for by productive members of society, there will be fewer productive members of society.

If they insist on creating a generation unable to care for itself up to and past the ripe old age of 26 by incentivizing "children"—and I use to term loosely— to stay on parent's health insurance policies until they're turning the corner from Clearasil to Botox, there will be fewer educated, able-bodied people who ever learn to take care of themselves.

If they insist on creating a generation incentivized to "move out of the money-making industry" entirely and "into the helping industry," as Michelle Obama put it, with student loans forgiven by government if and only if students stay away from icky, profit-making industries, there will be fewer people making a profit.

Oh but thats right, this is all because of the RICH PEOPLE, there I agree with you, rich people like PELOSI. Everything that has come out of the democratic side of the isle has been redistribution, socialist garbage. The above is what the OCCUPY WALL STREET creeps want, to sit home doing nothing, they even want free college. Since when do you go to college and demand that your school loans be forgiven? Free health insurance?, you mean there is NO cost?, no one pays? We need to get back to basics.

This occupy group to me are the results of a liberal education, you reap what you sow

Last week, one of my neighbors who is a union HVAC mechanic comes over and tells me that all of our problem are because of the Jews, they run the media, hollywood, banking, etc. My mouth dropped. I said, I have worked in banks and I can tell you this, people rise in banking because they go to the best colleges, they go to grad school, they go to business school like Wharton and you know they just dont party, they get TOP GRADES and they work their AZZes off, they work long hours at their job, they have NO LIFE because they work so hard and they are sharp and aggressive. THAT IS how they rise to the top, hard work! Cream rises to the top. I said, you are believing the populist union hate that is so popular, this is feeling like 1939 to me. Now that is very scary to me, very.

He looked at me and said, Hitler had it right, he just went about it the wrong way. I excused myself abuptly and have not looked in his direction since. Obama is playing a divide and conquer game that is going to destroy this country.

Mike, do you really think the Cadillac suits you?, I am thinking Prius

[mike5514]

First let me say that im happy more members are replying to this post. I do notice that hate is starting to creep in.

Because this is a cadillac forum I will address this issue first we are all equal here and have one thing in common we love cadillacs.

Liberals Dont know when that became a 4 letter word. Im a registered Independent I can not vote in the primaries so I only vote for the people who win the primaries.

Health Care BBF Im sorry I wasn't more clear in my previous post. Im on medicare. I have paid into social security All my working life. I have paid into medicare since 1964. I have had private ins for most of this time. Now Im still paying for insurance I pay 100.00 month for part d (wife pays 100.00 too) plus around 140.00 yearly deductible. Plus I pay co-payments (cant remember ever not paying co-payments) so I dont go to a doctor for a sniffle or stubbed toe in fact I try to avoid doctors and hospitals. My ER visit I paid 50.00 and medicare paid a lot more than your 600.00. My wifes doctor visit in addition to my 250 co-payments medicare paid a large sum. Also we made 2 trips into town and went to 3 different buildings for the same treatment the ER did in 7 hours (most of the time I laid on a gurney in pain unattended but that's another story).

Health Care

I think the biggest issue of the day is health Care. 30 million people don't have health ins. Some can afford it and some cant, some cant even get it. Who is paying for there health care I think those of you that are paying insurance premiums (like GTO) might be paying it because the hospitals/doctors have to cover there cost and pay the stockholders so they bill the ins company's more, hence higher premiums. That makes sense to me!

Maybe its the Social Security/medicare system for that's the only game in town It is the only government agency still in the black. The gov.pension benefit guaranty corp., the FDIC bank deposits and fannie/freddy are in the red. Not sure but maybe the Docs/Hosp are over charging Medicare?

What to do with the sick let them die like some one in a candidate debate suggested or reform the system. The Affordable Health Care Reform Act not Obamma care has not gone into effect yet and wont until 2014 yet some people hate it to death. Have you ever thought you premiums just might come down maybe/maybe not who knows

The main mandate in the act is People that can afford ins have to buy it! Those that can not afford to, the government will pay your insurance! Im assuming the gov will not pay you actual bills.

A little politics here. Willard (mitt) Romney his health care program while governor is the basis for this heat care act. Mike

[Cadillac Jim]

Everyone has the right to health care right now. Go to any emergency room to find many posted notices that "You have the right to medical aid regardless of your ability to pay." The difference with Obamacare is that 36M uninsured will be thrown into the same system as HMO and other coverage owners with no thought to how this will function or be paid for, other than... uh... this is going into the pit of perdition at this point.

Here is a link to the Wikipedia article on the national debt. It's a little out-of-date; the national debt exceeded the total GNP of the USA around New Year's Day, not 2020 as some of the worst-case scenarios predict in the article. One of the more up-to-date graphics is given here:

The entire article is here.

[mike5514]

Warren I like your post Post 58. Beware Corporate Psychopaths I think everyone should read it. I read it a few times.

May I add my thought, Companys were more benevolent in the 50/60s, Now the profit motive is everything if a company could get you to pay them to work they would not hesitate even though that would ruin the very society they do business in.

Eisenhower warned us about the military industrial complex can you imagine if it was controlled by Psychopaths. Psychopaths with money and power.

I read that are military is bigger than the next ten nations combined and to compare Britain at is height was bigger than the next two nations.

[mike5514]

Jim. Medicare is a great example of government run health care. The gov cost of running it is around 3% of revenue while a insurance companys cost are around 20%. Most people like it would not give it up.Mike

[GTOken]

I suggest a "Dependent" party be started since that is what a lot people are comfortable with these days. Obamacare has started. Parts of it stated the day it was signed. Many doctors and care facilities have already decided its not worth staying in the healthcare business and left. Even some businesses have closed up because of obamacare. Just wait till its in full operation. Of course this is the grand plan, to run all private healthcare entities out of business and force them to be run through the government.

You may have a more feminine side than I do but I haven't seen any hate anywhere in this thread, only vastly differing opinions. I haven't heard anyone at anytime promoting just letting people die. Although Obama does have the Death Panel which is mighty close to that. Obamacare was based in large part by Romneycare. Why do you think the libs and the media are putting Romney on a pedestal? They want it to be Obama vs Romney. A sure win for Obama. I'm not sure when liberal became a bad word either, Id say over the last 40 or 50 yrs of them trying to turn this country into a socialist government.

[Cadillac Jim]

The thing that I was looking for but did not find when I posted the National Debt link (#61 above) is the ramp-up of Obamacare, which will equal all other debt in a few years and increase linearly until it brings down the Republic, which wouldn't take long. I say "wouldn't" because it's obviously unsustainable and fear of the abyss will force some action, albeit however painful, before Mexico claims the Southwest and the rest of the USA become client states of Canada.

One problem of the best of us is that some of us believe with absolute moral certitude that the best of intentions and actions therefrom are the only absolute basis for action, and that everything else must simply be worked out. The simple fact that the devil is in the details, and that not everything can be simply worked out, and that everything has a price, is not something that can penetrate the moral certitude of many people; thus their opposition must simply be evil, or self-serving, or whatever.

Another problem is that many of these same morally content people believe that they, or people that they believe in, are better suited than the rest of us to make our own decisions about how we do things, like automobile purchases and family planning.

A foreign political leader was granted an honorary Knighthood in 1924 for his utopian reforms of a European country recovering from WW I which benefited everyone with no apparent cost. But, as the chickens came home to roost, his knighthood was revoked in 1938. His programs through the 1920's look amazingly parallel to - nay, identical to - the Obama/Pelosi branch of the Democrats. He was left hanging by his heels in a tree by a mob of his own people in 1945. Today, that country has not recovered, and its currency is nearing the point of a quite possibly unavailable bailout or collapse, in spite of an apparently viable economy.

[BodybyFisher]

Mike, I apoligize for my statement about the Prius, it was out of line, I got personal and it was wrong

January 8, 2012

Seven good reasons not to support Obama in 2012

Neil Snyder

As we approach the final leg of the 2012 presidential election campaign, it helps to examine a few statistics that tell the tale about President Barack Obama's performance in office:

Unemployment rate:

January 2008 -- less than 5%

January 2012 -- 8.5%

Workforce increases/decreases between January 2008 and January 2011:

Federal Government -- +11.79%

Private Sector -- -6.6%

Percent of people who pay no federal income taxes:

January 2008 -- 36.3%

January 2012 -- 51%

Deficit as a percent of GDP:

January 2008 -- 3.21%

January 2012 -- 6.96%

Debt as a percent of GDP:

January 2008 -- 69%

January 2012 -- more than 100%

U.S. poverty rate:

2008 -- 13.2%

2010 -- 15.1%

Percent of population on food stamps:

2008 -- 12%

2011 -- 15%

President Obama says that statistics like the ones I listed show how deep the Great Recession was and that he didn't create it.The blame, he says, belongs to President George W. Bush.

While it's true that President Bush contributed to the problems we face today, these are undeniable facts: President Bush has been out of office for 3 years; the downward spiral in every major category has accelerated under President Obama; and on President Obama's watch, the United States is rapidly becoming an insolvent nation. These are good reasons not to support Obama in 2012.

Neil Snyder is a chaired professor emeritus at the University of Virginia. His blog, SnyderTalk.com, is posted daily. His latest book is titled If You Voted for Obama in 2008 to Prove You're Not a Racist, You Need to Vote for Someone Else in 2012 to Prove You're Not an Idiot.

[KHE]

While it's true that President Bush contributed to the problems we face today, these are undeniable facts: President Bush has been out of office for 3 years; the downward spiral in every major category has accelerated under President Obama; and on President Obama's watch, the United States is rapidly becoming an insolvent nation. These are good reasons not to support Obama in 2012.

Neil Snyder is a chaired professor emeritus at the University of Virginia. His blog, SnyderTalk.com, is posted daily. His latest book is titled If You Voted for Obama in 2008 to Prove You're Not a Racist, You Need to Vote for Someone Else in 2012 to Prove You're Not an Idiot.

And, don't forget that Obama's party controlled Congress for the last two years of Bush's term.

[WarrenJ]

Can somebody tell me just exactly WHEN it will stop being Bush's fault. . . ?

[WarrenJ]

Here's a quick summary I got in an email today:

• U.S. Tax revenue: $2,170,000,000,000
• Fed budget: $3,820,000,000,000
• New debt: $1,650,000,000,000
• National debt: $14,271,000,000,000
• Recent budget cuts: $38,500,000,000

Remove 8 zeros to give the perspective of a household budget:

• Annual family income: $21,700
• Money the family spent: $38,200
• New debt on the credit card: $16,500
• Outstanding balance on the credit card: $142,710
• Total budget cuts: $385

The problem is as plain as day. The solution is painful, and the longer we wait the more painful it will be.

Someone went to the trouble of putting those numbers in a YOUtube video. Very well done.

"Uploaded by

debtlimitusa

on Nov 4, 2011

A satirical short film taking a look at the national debt and how it applies to just one family. Starring Brian Stepanek & Eddie Jemison, Produced by Seth William Meier, DP/Edited by Craig Evans, 1st AC Brian Andrews, Sound Mixer Gus Salazar, Written and Directed by Brian Stepanek."

[JimD]

Can somebody tell me just exactly WHEN it will stop being Bush's fault. . . ?

January, 2013?

An incumbent playing the blame card is a tradition. Look to FDR's assessment of the Hoover administration. And you can probably work your way backward from there to find more and better examples.

Of course, blaming the previous administration is much easier than persuading/coercing/bullying congress to implement an "effective" course correction policy for domestic stability and growth.

To keep the analogy within the memory span of most readers, Obama will be in good company joining Bush (41) and Carter as one-termers (I did not include Ford because he was not elected to the office).

[WarrenJ]

Well it doesn't seem to make the news anymore these days, but the debt ceiling was raised again. Rick Santelli goes at it in today's video.

Debt Ceiling 101, Santelli Sounds Off

"In an effort to reach the angry mob, CNBC's Rick Santelli goes all Sesame Street on the numbers behind the US Debt Ceiling Rise. Focusing for two minutes on what this practically means for every man, woman, child, and politician, the shouting Chicagoan points out that when the US breaches this new limit then the world's entire population will be on the hook for $2,346 each (and $52,409 per US person)."

If you've got 2 minutes 17 seconds to spare, give it a look.