2012 Elections - Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the little death....

[FreshFish]

Re: 2012 Elections - Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the little death....

BUT, you say, that doesn't address the cumulative national debt. That is correct, and that will only be solved by means testing benefits for both Social Security and Medicare. For SoS, I would put the savings back into the program as it is supported by dedicated revenues. I would also index the growth in benefits to a lower rate (again, already being discussed).

Yes, we are broadly in agreement. The expenditure side must be brought under control.




Technical edit: Social Security works as a giant group annuity. When you translate actuary-speak into English, what that means is that you cannot give each person a separate dedicated account solely with their name on it without greatly increasing the cost...as it operates now, the cessation of benefits to people who die early helps pay for the extension of benefits to people who live a long time.

Now, you can set it up so that each person's benefit is related to how much each person pays in....which is exactly how it operates now. Most people have forgotten that the benefit formula only applies to a capped income, not to total earned income, which is why the Social Security tax applies only to capped earned income, not to total earned income.

[Priceless]

Re: 2012 Elections - Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the little death....

The Laffer Curve again?

[Rover]

Re: 2012 Elections - Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the little death....

I'm a bit surprised that Mittens is the only candidate going back to '96 to emerge with a negative favorable rating, but here it is:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/zekejmiller/...historically-w

[duper]

Re: 2012 Elections - Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the little death....

The Dems fought every election as FDR vs Hoover for 40 years. When you have that perfect horse, you ride it as long as it stays upright.

The Clinton surplus was a result of an expanding economy from the Reagan tax reform and ...

[joecct]

Re: 2012 Elections - Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the little death....

How much of an exaggeration??

Christie: America heading toward 'paternalistic entitlement society', http://fxn.ws/Itltcx

[Priceless]

Re: 2012 Elections - Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the little death....

How much of an exaggeration??

Christie: America heading toward 'paternalistic entitlement society', http://fxn.ws/Itltcx

It's a shame that America might become a nation run by white, land-owning males. Is that really what the Founding Fathers had in mind?

Or did he mean something different when he said 'paternalistic'?

[joecct]

It's a shame that America might become a nation run by white, land-owning males. Is that really what the Founding Fathers had in mind?

Or did he mean something different when he said 'paternalistic'?

1) Don't tell Mr. and Mrs. Johnson that.
2) My impression is that he was railing against our (over)dependence on Uncle Sam.

[FreshFish]

Re: 2012 Elections - Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the little death....

Two people were having a conversation.

The first one said, "I'm really concerned about how extreme the income distribution is getting in our country."

The second replied, "yes, that concerns me too. It is unhealthy for our society to have some people so extremely rich while others languish in crushing poverty."

The first one said, "I think the government should do something about it. The government should confiscate money from the rich by force and give it to poor people."

The second replied, "Um, doesn't that 'solution' actually perpetuate the very problem you are concerned about?"

The first asked, "What do you mean?"

The second replied, "Well, once you give government the power to confiscate assets by force, don't you think that the people who work in government will first make sure that they themselves are taken care of, before they then distribute any of that money to anyone else? Aren't you then merely replacing one set of priviliged individuals with another set of privileged individuals, except now the latter set will be harder to keep in check than the first set?"

The first hemmed and hawed a little, fidgeted uncomfortably in silence for a few moments. Finally he said, "So, what do you think about Obama's re-election prospects? They look pretty good to me!"






This was a real conversation, not a made-up story. I found it interesting that the first person never asked the second person for his ideas on how to address the problem....after all, the second person said right up front that he agreed that it was a serious problem. The first person merely ignored the second and changed the subject.

In addition, after this conversation took place, an article was published that cited several academic studies during the past year, three by government agencies. All of them demonstrated that, when you look at the total compensation package (salary plus benefits) of public-sector employees compared to private-sector employees doing the same work, the former receive substantially higher total compensation compared to the latter.

The Congressional Budget Office ... last month [issued] a new report on federal employee compensation. The report—which congressional Democrats reportedly hoped would debunk our 2011 paper on federal pay—found that the federal retirement package of pensions plus retiree health care was 3.5 times more generous than private-sector plans, contributing to a 16% average federal compensation premium.

An analysis by two Bureau of Labor Statistics economists, published in the winter 2012 Journal of Economic Perspectives, concluded that the salary and current benefits of state and local government employees nationwide are 10% and 21% higher, respectively, than private-sector employees doing similar work. This study didn't even factor in the market value of public-pension benefits, nor did it include the value of retiree health coverage.

And these are the people we trust with ensuring "fairness"??



Some people are way too trusting for my comfort level...


You know who you are....as this conversation took place on this messsage board, and you have so far adroitly ignored the central challenge....

[geezer]

Re: 2012 Elections - Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the little death....

Interesting strategy coming out of the Obama camp this week. First he went after Republicans with all the "war on women" shouting and finger pointing. Then yesterday it was revealed that he has a separate (much lower) pay scale for the women that are working staff positions in his own administration. Now today, he goes after Ann Romney, saying something like, "the stupid bitch has never worked a day in her life." (more or less; see Drudge)
I'm not sure this whole line of argument is his best tack to take into the summer. I know he's **** and can stutter loudly and indignantly, but will that really carry him over the finish line again on its own now that "the thrill is gone"? I know it worked four years ago.

[Rover]

Re: 2012 Elections - Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the little death....

Interesting strategy coming out of the Obama camp this week. First he went after Republicans with all the "war on women" shouting and finger pointing. Then yesterday it was revealed that he has a separate (much lower) pay scale for the women that are working staff positions in his own administration. Now today, he goes after Ann Romney, saying something like, "the stupid bitch has never worked a day in her life." (more or less; see Drudge)
I'm not sure this whole line of argument is his best tack to take into the summer. I know he's **** and can stutter loudly and indignantly, but will that really carry him over the finish line again on its own now that "the thrill is gone"? I know it worked four years ago.

Could you please source the lower pay scale for women comment? No offense, but I'd like to see it from something more reliable than "Drudge".

Regarding Christie, a 400 pound man is complaining that Americans are getting fat and lazy and spend too much time on the couch. Anybody else see some irony here?

[geezer]

Re: 2012 Elections - Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the little death....

Could you please source the lower pay scale for women comment? No offense, but I'd like to see it from something more reliable than "Drudge".

Regarding Christie, a 400 pound man is complaining that Americans are getting fat and lazy and spend too much time on the couch. Anybody else see some irony here?

I don't know, but fyi, Drudge isn't a source. They just throw up links to everything from the NYT to the WSJ. They don't produce any content.

Regarding Christie, that's awesome. Typical politician.

So to answer your question, the data is from "2011 Report to Congress on White House Staff" as reported by "Free Beacon".

[Kepler]

Re: 2012 Elections - Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the little death....

I'm a bit surprised that Mittens is the only candidate going back to '96 to emerge with a negative favorable rating, but here it is:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/zekejmiller/...historically-w

The best thing about that link is in the Comments there are actually still Ron Paul supporters out there.

Keep reaching for that rainbow, kids.

IIRC the guy with the highest negatives to ever go on to win his first presidential election was Nixon, and his unfavorables were below 40% (he lost only because JFK had very high favorables; after all, he would go on to win twice).

To look at it another way, what usually happens in the general is a candidate's unfavorables are driven higher faster than their favorables, as the "undecided"s are sopped up. It's still possible to win with a net unfavorability (Dubya probably did) as long as you're running against someone even worse, but you can't really improve your absolute standing, only your relative one.

All of which would tell us, even if we didn't already know from how he ran the primary, that Romney's only hope is to run the most negative campaign in history. To make it worse, Romney has no credibility as a conservative so he can't run the usual "Librulz R Evil, Mmmkay?" Republican campaign. His campaign is going to have to be a direct personal attack on Obama.

Since even the most ridiculous claims gain brief influence during a campaign (Swift Boating, etc), Obama is going to have to go negative right back, but I suspect it will be negative against the whole disastrous legacy of the radical right economic experiment. This is one of those times when the GOP will be doing tactics while the Dems will be doing strategy (once again, the exact inverse of the 80's). That usually ends in a big strategic victory; we'll see.

If the economy has a setback it's still anybody's ballgame. If the economy continues to improve, even slowly, then this would be one of those possible landslide environments, except the regionalization of the GOP gives them a solid 100 EV no matter what. The Electoral College is supposed to amplify small pop vote margins into large EV mandates. I wonder whether this time around we might have the exact opposite.

[FlagDUDE08]

Re: 2012 Elections - Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the little death....

The best thing about that link is in the Comments there are actually still Ron Paul supporters out there.

Keep reaching for that rainbow, kids.

I'm considering writing in Ron Paul in the general. He's about the only one I support.

I did support Romney in 2008, though. I'm going to need to think back as to why...

[Kepler]

Re: 2012 Elections - Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the little death....

I'm considering writing in Ron Paul in the general. He's about the only one I support.

If I think Obama has it in the bag I'll throw Paul a write-in bone as a reward for speaking truth to GOP power. He may be silly, but he's the only Republican to speak out against their oil lebensraum.

[FlagDUDE08]

Re: 2012 Elections - Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the little death....

If I think Obama has it in the bag I'll throw Paul a write-in bone as a reward for speaking truth to GOP power. He may be silly, but he's the only Republican to speak out against their oil lebensraum.

Probably because he doesn't see himself as a Republican, but rather a libertarian.

I find it incredibly sad that people would vote against someone rather than for someone. This is the biggest problem with the two-party system. It's no longer about our beliefs, but rather the lesser of two evils.

Not like my vote matters anyway, given where I live.