Tendo City

Brilliant... Lol

You just can't watch these videos once either. After you watch the main part of the video, you have to go back and read the scrolling text at the bottom. :)

Scientists genetically engineer toad to wear top hat.

Oh god... yes ;D They should have updated it... "Scientists report that genetic engineered anomaly of top hat wearing causes toad to sing but only when alone"

Obama actually axed a project that allowed him to spend money? RIDIKULIS.

Yes he's a "spendocrat" or whatever.

Guess what? ALL PRESIDENTS ARE SPENDOCRATS! Bush certainly didn't shy away from massive spending, and McCain was sure to spend billions too. The difference is simply what it gets spent on.

For the record, "bailing out" companies wasn't really the best move. At the very least the people in charge should have been replaced as a part of the deal.

Bailouts were a terrible idea, at least in the automotive industry. If a business cannot self-sustain, it dies. That's how the system worked up until now, and life went on. GM and Chrysler failed because their competitors offered better, more efficient and more reliable vehicles. The bailout amounted to a reward for poor business practices.

I agree that Bush was far too profligate with our money. Whatever about that man was conservative, his fiscal policies and expansion of government were totally spendocratic.

But, the economy is getting worse because of Obama's policies, and he's been in office long enough to where soon he won't be able to pass it off as an inherited problem anymore.

GM=Government motors

Weltall Wrote:Obama actually axed a project that allowed him to spend money? RIDIKULIS.

To be fair, the last thing Obama would spend large sums of money on is the military. :)

And yeah, government bailouts are stupid. I'm all for saving jobs, but most of that money goes into the pockets of greedy CEOs anyway.

I think it's safe to say that we'll all be dead before the US gets out of debt, if that ever happens. Liberal or conservative, neither of our last two presidents has been "conservative" with our non-existant budget and they've both been spending money "liberally." Haha, did you see that? I made puns.

Quote:But, the economy is getting worse because of Obama's policies, and he's been in office long enough to where soon he won't be able to pass it off as an inherited problem anymore.

Uh, not really. Economic problems as big as the ones we're seeing today aren't resolved in a matter of months. I don't necessarily agree with him making it worse, either. That kind of point is difficult to prove. I agree with him passing the stimulus package, although many economists think it should have been even bigger.

To be fair, Obama did promise on the campaign trail that he would try to help the industry and the citizens of Detroit. The automobile industry accounts for so many jobs there it's a bit understandable. On the other hand, bailing out the companies is sure to fail anyway, so I don't think it was a good idea in the end.

If only he didn't renege on his campaign promise to protect our civil liberties. Some of the shit he's pulling is nightmarish to Orwellian proportions.

Quote:Uh, not really. Economic problems as big as the ones we're seeing today aren't resolved in a matter of months. I don't necessarily agree with him making it worse, either. That kind of point is difficult to prove. I agree with him passing the stimulus package, although many economists think it should have been even bigger.

Bush took blame for the recession at the beginning of the decade, which started before his term. This one is much larger. I never expected that it would be resolved by this point, but the problem has deepened since Obama has been in office, and you can't absolve him of blame. Democrats have controlled Congress for three years, and now their control is almost concrete. The Republican Party is in shambles and can't mount any kind of coherent defense. Obama is King of the United States. He has few obstacles in terms of implementing policy. The policies aren't working. Unemployment continues to rise to levels not seen in decades. Mortgage default numbers continue to rise. Consumer confidence is bottoming out. After six months in office, a six months in which he rode a wave of popularity that gave him a free hand to do almost whatever he wanted, he has accomplished nothing except bailing out the institutions that helped create this mess (which, I understand, is just following an already bad precedent).

After six months, I expect some kind of progress. This recession's been in progress for almost two years, so it's not as though we're waiting for an initial drop-off to finish. A President who is working on racking up the largest national debt in the history of the free world really should have some kind of positive result for us to see by this point.

Quote:Bush took blame for the recession at the beginning of the decade, which started before his term.

If people say this, then it's misattributed to him, because he had nothing to do with the dotcom bubble bursting. That was an economic progression that isn't really relevant to the guy at the helm, unless there was some kind of regulation that could have prevented it from expanding so fast (not that I'd necessarily agree with that).

Quote: Obama is King of the United States. He has few obstacles in terms of implementing policy. The policies aren't working. Unemployment continues to rise to levels not seen in decades. Mortgage default numbers continue to rise. Consumer confidence is bottoming out. After six months in office, a six months in which he rode a wave of popularity that gave him a free hand to do almost whatever he wanted, he has accomplished nothing except bailing out the institutions that helped create this mess (which, I understand, is just following an already bad precedent).

The problem with him not being able to accomplish enough is that he's willing to reach across the aisle and compromise on too many issues. I think he should utilize the power he has, but probably not in ways that you would want, as you and I disagree politically. On the other hand, you should probably at least be thankful that he's willing to work with congressmen in the pockets of lobbyists who really prevent anything really meaningful from happening, because he'd be doing things even worse in your eyes. Did that sentence make sense? It reads a bit confusing...ly... me talk pretty one day.

Quote:After six months, I expect some kind of progress. This recession's been in progress for almost two years, so it's not as though we're waiting for an initial drop-off to finish. A President who is working on racking up the largest national debt in the history of the free world really should have some kind of positive result for us to see by this point.

Unfortunately, there's only so much the president can do. I'd like him to cut taxes for the middle class and increase taxes on the wealthy and large corporations, personally, but that seems like another campaign promise he'll renege at this point.

In any case, from what I've been hearing, the contraction of the economy is indeed slowing down. I'd be interested it hear what kind of effects the stimulus package and other legislation has played a hand in this, but even the investment in infrastructure can take a while to yield meaningful results. I'd be interested in an objective analysis that made the case of either a success or failure of Obama's efforts.

At least he isn't spending billions on cool new military toys when hardly anyone in the world is a threat to us to begin with. Which is what this topic is about. But I've heard that Clinton and Bush tried to do the same and failed, so I don't necessarily expect Lockheed Martin to lose this time.

Sacred Jellybean Wrote:I'd like him to cut taxes for the middle class and increase taxes on the wealthy and large corporations, personally, but that seems like another campaign promise he'll renege at this point.

This is the single most obvious solution to the problem of poverty and everyone in the world knows it, but it's not going to happen. The rich are always in power, not that every rich person is greedy, but enough of them are to keep any sort of major legislation from being passed. Of course, their guilty consciences (ironic, I know) force them to create the excuse that they "work harder" than the single mom who works three jobs and can barely afford to pay off the mortgage on her shack and put food on the table. They can also lob around the term "socialist" and expect everyone to just accept that as inherently evil.

Is it me or did this alarmist socialism crap start in the '08 campaign? What people don't understand is that some socialist ideas make sense. Single payer health care (or a combination of private/public care, such as seen in France, which has one of the highest rated health care systems in the world) has the effect of costs being lowered, which is the main problem with health care in this country. And people think that a public option will eventually co-opt all users of private health care, and in the same breath say we can't have it because too inefficient. Wha? If it's so inefficient, people will have incentive to spend money on better health care offered by private enterprises.

And if there was absolutely no socialism in this country, corporations would run schools, firefighters, policemen, and a whole host of things that would be nothing more than disastrous. It's just a loaded word that pundits use it to give voters the willies.

And that crap about how people will have less incentive to make money if it will bump them into a higher tax bracket, and every dollar made above X thousand will be taxed at a higher rate, is bullshit. You're telling me that on principle, an entrepreneur would prefer no additional income because he could have made a bit more if taxes were lower?

A tax hike on the rich might still happen, it IS still in the running to help pay for health care at least, I believe... and it was a campaign promise, so hopefully it will happen. The government needs all the help it can get after eight years of irresponsible tax cuts and spending increases under the Republicans.

Anyway... no, Obama hasn't been perfect. And yes, he did misjudge how bad the economy is, it seems, and the administration (or Joe Biden at least) has admitted that. I think he should be seriously thinking about a second stimulus, not dismissing it as he has done so far; while it is true that only a small amount of the first stimulus' money has been distributed, it's clear that things are worse than that bill thought (as people like Paul Krugman were saying, he was completely right on this, the stimulus was too small!) and thus more is needed.

... Of course the issue of how to pay for it is worrying long-term. But simply, when things are this bad, not spending makes things worse. That's one of the lessons of the Great Depression, some of the lowest lows were hit when governments got worried about spending and decided to cut spending on helping the economy... the results were disastrous. The current situation isn't quite that bad, but the lesson is similar. Government spending is a major way of trying to alleviate the worst effects of a recession or depression.

... Oh, and I know it won't happen, but America badly, badly needs universal health care... I wish Obama supported it too, so there'd be a strong advocate for it in congress, but sadly not. Not implementing it now would be a huge missed opportunity -- the simple fact that the government-run health plans we have are so popular and work (Medicare, Medicaid, etc) should show how well it could potentially work, how much better care would be, and how much money would be saved compared to our current system. However, even a lesser plan would be a huge, huge improvement over what we now have... expensive, yes. But worth it, and in other ways it actually cuts costs ,such as actually getting people to see doctors BEFORE they're in the emergency room and need expensive procedures that could have been averted with simply seeing a doctor more often.

I know I haven't been around much in a long time, but I've actually slid a little more to the center in recent years.

For example, I don't know if I'm an advocate of total, universal medical coverage, but the system we have now is in a shambles. Costs are on a runaway upward spiral with no upper limit. The high cost of caring for the uninsured is passed on to those who are insured, which is why an aspirin at a hospital costs ten dollars. I do believe that every taxpayer in America deserves to have affordable, comprehensive health benefits made available to them. Yes, you can always visit the ER, but if you're uninsured and you end up requiring major surgery, you might rack up a debt of hundreds of thousands of dollars, and there's no way in hell you'll ever pay it back in one lifetime. In November, 2007, I had a kidney stone and ended up in the ER. They didn't do anything for me, really, except give me a painkiller and an MRI. I ended up passing the stone by myself within hours. That afternoon of fun cost me almost three thousand dollars, and I was insured. Had I not been, the cost would have been four or five times as much. It's insane that any person should spend potential years, knee-deep in debt, because of something that ultimately minor.

But, if we were to have comprehensive medical care, I would like it only under three conditions: One, care is provided as promptly as it is today. No horror stories like the waiting list of months and years for surgical procedures (and I know that's not just a scare story: I have a German cousin who had to travel abroad to have a heart defect repaired in a timely manner). Second, we must continue to afford medical science the current environment allowing for rapid innovation, product perfection, and testing. There's little long-term benefit for universal health care if the techniques become stratified. Three: There must be stringent fiscal oversight. I can accept paying more taxes for this idea, but if and only if that money is used as wisely and appropriated as intelligently as possible. I would prefer for the entire process to be transparent, but since that won't happen, detailed quarterly reports about overall expenditures would be very welcome.

Those are things I think we can all agree with.

And yes, it's really something that should go to tax payers. Now, don't get me wrong, leaving someone to die just because they are an illegal immigrant is immoral, but that said, that's going to be found out pretty quickly when someone has to find your records when you enter a hospital. Get the surgery, but after that, the law gets involved and you either become a legal citizen with all that involves or leave. That sounds fair.

For the record, there are things that Obama has done (or not done) that have disappointed a number of progressives. He's far from perfect, but given the two options available, was the vastly superior choice.

Social insurance health care plan?

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A Black Falcon

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Weltall

Dark Jaguar

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Sacred Jellybean

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Sacred Jellybean

Geno

Sacred Jellybean

A Black Falcon

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Dark Jaguar

alien space marine

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