i've got a conspiracy theory now that maybe obama and the democrats are playing a brilliant long-term game. the efficacy of trickle-down economics is so entrenched in the mainstream media and conventional wisdom that the only way to dislodge trickle-down-o-philia is to fully institute it and let it fail, which is will. then obama can say, look, we literally let the republicans have everything they want and now the debt's 20 trillion dollars, unemployment's 15 percent, we've had another bubble burst (tax cuts for the rich in an environment that rewards risky financial speculation over infrastructure investment is a recipe for another bubble), etc., etc.

then, the bombshell: obama declines to seek a second term, and whoever replaces him (who would hopefully be a firebrand rather than another establishment guy) runs on a platform of full-blown keynsianism. then the voters will be confronted with two choices: continuing on the current path (by, ironically, voting republican) or a radical departure in policy (by, ironically, voting democratic).

could be a clever strategy if that's what they're doing. it's a gambit to affect a full-on paradigm shift, which is the only way we're going to pull out of this tailspin.

i sorta think i'm wrong, though. obama's just an establishment guy, and we're just gonna keep throwing tax cuts at the problem till we (*)(*)(*)(*)in' die. but that's a hail-mary theory i wanted to throw out there and see what people thought.

Even if you hypothetical was true, it wouldn't work.  We could be living on cockroaches and human flesh while the Earth is a post-apocalyptic cinder and the Republicans would still be around and they would still demand tax cuts for the rich...even if being rich meant you got to eat bits of roasted rat while the rest of us ate fried roach eggs!
http://www.inthe00s.com/smile/12/help.gif

If only.  Obama caved, again

I'm actually sort of with the left wing on this issue. I mean the Chuck Schumer proposal I support(anyone who makes under 1 milliion dollars gets a tax cut.) Why give a tax cut to billionares?

I mean the GOP wants to make these tax cuts permanant when the federal government needs revenue to pay off the debt. This makes no sense. The GOP will lose on this issue just like the Dems lost on the Healthcare Issue.

Yes we can!

http://www.observer.com/files/full/obama_hope.jpg

Yes we can!

http://www.observer.com/files/full/obama_hope.jpg




Okay, okay already!  You don't have to rub it in!
http://www.inthe00s.com/smile/12/disgust.gif

Okay, okay already!  You don't have to rub it in!
http://www.inthe00s.com/smile/12/disgust.gif


Here, I got something for you, Max....

http://static.funnyjunk.com/pictures/4476f8c4_51dc_3119.jpg

I believe we need the rich as much as we need the poor, it's just that I wish that BOTH Democrats and Republicans wouldn't be greedy at all times!

http://www.observer.com/files/full/obama_hope.jpg


http://i.imgur.com/a5w7g.gif

ALL GLORY TO THE HYPNOTOAD!

(By the way, Max, rat's the food of the future.  I'll be rebuilding a business empire with it.

Soss, egg, beans and rat 12p.
Soss, rat and fried slice 10p.
Cream-cheese rat 9p.
Rat and beans 8p.
Rat and ketchup 7p.
Rat 4p.

Sure, I can hear you wondering 'why does ketchup cost almost as much as the rat?'  Well, have you ever tried to grow tomatoes in a radioactive wasteland, and second, have you ever tried rat without ketchup?)

http://i.imgur.com/a5w7g.gif

ALL GLORY TO THE HYPNOTOAD!

(By the way, Max, rat's the food of the future.  I'll be rebuilding a business empire with it.

Soss, egg, beans and rat 12p.
Soss, rat and fried slice 10p.
Cream-cheese rat 9p.
Rat and beans 8p.
Rat and ketchup 7p.
Rat 4p.

Sure, I can hear you wondering 'why does ketchup cost almost as much as the rat?'  Well, have you ever tried to grow tomatoes in a radioactive wasteland, and second, have you ever tried rat without ketchup?)


If it's after a thermonuclear holocaust, I'll eat either ketchup or rat or both.  The only difference is, I don't eat rat.  The more I think about it and, once is too much, the more depraved it starts to seem.

I don't think rat is kosher under any circumstances.  You'd eat it if there was nothing else.  You don't think you would, but you would.  You'd fight over the bones too!!

Now the Southern American Male has earned itself the right to be racially profiled.  The Southern Baptists are just more venal than the Connecticut Episcopalians -- who, I gather were venal in their own ways. 

Predestination should go the way of Objectivism.  Both offered an easy out to sick bastards who knew how to rig the system.  See, in America, they're all about redemption.  Calvin is spinning in his grave.  Born saved or born damned.  If you THINK you're saved...you're probably damned.  I don't like that either.  The trouble with redemption (as opposed to predestination) is the state can get hold of the government and vice-versa.  If they have weird stories to tell in the Bible, why can't the Central Committee make Lenin's story more impressive?  Because we believed this other thing was true for the past 100 generations!  There will never again be another Nicene Creed in Christianity.  Too many different kinds of people practice faith in too many kinds of ways with full knowledge of one another.  Not so for the average peasant in the Holy Roman Empire.

Nowadays, we're not allowed to call people barbarian savages.  Well, the call the Afghans than, which is not altogether wrong, and which is not to say the Afghans are more "barbaric," but as one of the successful smart savages -- the humans -- The Afghans do the best they can with what they have. 
:D

If it's after a thermonuclear holocaust, I'll eat either ketchup or rat or both.  The only difference is, I don't eat rat.  The more I think about it and, once is too much, the more depraved it starts to seem. 


Look, sewer rat might taste like pumpkin pie, but you'll never know, because you wouldn't eat the filthy m*bleep*ker :)

But to get serious about theology (presume, for the sake of this paragraph, the existence of God), I could never abide by predestination once I learned that Bell's demonstration that Einstein, who suggested that "God does not play dice with the universe" was wrong, and Bohr was right: who was Einstein to tell God what to do with His dice?  Hawking's 1975 further suggestion that not only does He play dice with the universe, He sometimes throws them where they can't be seen has also thus far, accurately described reality.

Look, sewer rat might taste like pumpkin pie, but you'll never know, because you wouldn't eat the filthy m*bleep*ker :)

But to get serious about theology (presume, for the sake of this paragraph, the existence of God), I could never abide by predestination once I learned that Bell's demonstration that Einstein, who suggested that "God does not play dice with the universe" was wrong, and Bohr was right: who was Einstein to tell God what to do with His dice?  Hawking's 1975 further suggestion that not only does He play dice with the universe, He sometimes throws them where they can't be seen has also thus far, accurately described reality.


What we will do in our daily lives versus what we do to survival.  Survival is an ugly waste...and probably and ugly waist We'd resort to cannibalism as soon as we're told the guys next door do cannibalism. They're like bimbo wedding friends!\ ::)

Here, I got something for you, Max....

http://static.funnyjunk.com/pictures/4476f8c4_51dc_3119.jpg

I believe we need the rich as much as we need the poor, it's just that I wish that BOTH Democrats and Republicans wouldn't be greedy at all times!


I don't think we really need either...and don't start with the well we would all be the same...no...there is room for people with more and people with less, but the extremes should not be so glaring.

I don't think we really need either...and don't start with the well we would all be the same...no...there is room for people with more and people with less, but the extremes should not be so glaring.


I lost my pic, what the fudge happened to it? :(

This isn't heaven, and America is the closest thing we have for a free country!

the efficacy of trickle-down economics is so entrenched in the mainstream media and conventional wisdom that the only way to dislodge trickle-down-o-philia is to fully institute it and let it fail, which is will. then obama can say, look, we literally let the republicans have everything they want and now the debt's 20 trillion dollars, unemployment's 15 percent, we've had another bubble burst (tax cuts for the rich in an environment that rewards risky financial speculation over infrastructure investment is a recipe for another bubble), etc., etc.

then, the bombshell: obama declines to seek a second term, and whoever replaces him (who would hopefully be a firebrand rather than another establishment guy) runs on a platform of full-blown keynsianism.


being a note-taker, I just sat through months of economics.  as we went on through the IS/M curves and the Keynsian cross, I saw the whole thing unfold before my eyes. 
regardless, i'm prepared for this to be the last year I buy sugar and butter.

being a note-taker, I just sat through months of economics.  as we went on through the IS/M curves and the Keynsian cross, I saw the whole thing unfold before my eyes. 
regardless, i'm prepared for this to be the last year I buy sugar and butter.


I tried to get Butter and it was almost $4! And that's in Cleveland! :o

I had to get Margarine which was $1.75 for 4 sticks!

I lost my pic, what the fudge happened to it? :(

This isn't heaven, and America is the closest thing we have for a free country!


Free?  Just according to whose plan?
???

Free?  Just according to whose plan?
???


Our Founding Father's.

America isn't 100% free and if it was, we'd go streaking!

Our Founding Father's.

America isn't 100% free and if it was, we'd go streaking!


It's -7° C.  A little nippy for streaking. 

Our Founding Father's said about 100 things regarding "freedom."  You don't have to answer my question if you don't want to.

It's -7° C.  A little nippy for streaking. 

Our Founding Father's said about 100 things regarding "freedom."  You don't have to answer my question if you don't want to.



I was trying to give you the best answer, Max...that's all I could get. :-\\

Look, sewer rat might taste like pumpkin pie, but you'll never know, because you wouldn't eat the filthy m*bleep*ker :)


Cat-rat-bat-gnat, it all can be quite tasty with the right sauce.  :P

Free?  Just according to whose plan?
???


Beat me to it



Our Founding Father's.



Five "Founding Fathers" were presidents...four of them owned slaves, you can bless John Adams for not making it a total disgrace.  So calling upon them for backup is risky.

Back to the OP...even IF your scenario were true, and it failed miserably, the Republicans would still never admit they were wrong, I think that's why they call them the "right".  All of the Republicans I know think always they're right, even if you have something in black and white proving them wrong.

Let's reduce it to the truth:

10 years ago, in Pre-9/11 America, and certainly in pre-war-on-Iraq-lasted-longer-than-2004-America, the 'Pubs passed some tax cuts with an extension date of 2010, fully expecting to campaign on the issue in 2008 for the Presidency, and if necessary, in 2010's Congressional elections.

That world ceased to exist long before 2008.  So the 'Pubs played their best hand: either extend all the tax cuts (and add a few more on for good measure!) until 2012, or the Dems, in 2012, would have had to face a "Read My Lips" moment even worse than Bush I's.

(Backgrounder: In 1988, Bush I said "Read my lips: no new taxes", in much the same way as Obama said "If you make less than $200K as a single, or $250K as a couple, your taxes won't go up, not by one dime".  That promise made Bush I a one-term President, handing power to Clinton I in 1992.)

As the law was written, taxes were supposed to spike sharply higher at the end of 2010.  It was up to the Congress - whoever controlled it at the time - to stop that.  The 'Pubs and Dems alike got their fill of pork and spending, the 'Pubs permitted the Dems to let gays serve in the military, and the Dems let the 'Pubs extend not only the income tax cuts, but (more importantly to the Party's donor class) the estate tax cuts.

The real punchline is that we get to do it all over again in 2012.  If the economy recovers, there's no need to hike taxes, and if the economy continues to struggle, there's no room to raise taxes without prolonging the recession.  The astute observer will notice that the policy's already determined, and that it doesn't matter which wing of the Party wins in 2012.

The whole thing was a glorious example of political kabuki.  I'm disgusted by it, but as a benefiiciary (at least for the next two years) of the trainwreck, I can't exactly complain :)

Our Founding Father's.

America isn't 100% free and if it was, we'd go streaking!


I tried streaking, but then people found my physical presence nauseating and uncalled for so I stopped.  :-\\

I tried streaking, but then people found my physical presence nauseating and uncalled for so I stopped.  :-\\


If we're ever so desperate as to reinstitute the draft, I won't worry about the fact that I'll be showering with gay dudes.  Y'know why?  Because most of them are as professional as anyone else who serves, and even if they aren't... I'm not hot enough to attract any attention!  Woohoo!

If we're ever so desperate as to reinstitute the draft, I won't worry about the fact that I'll be showering with gay dudes.  Y'know why?  Because most of them are as professional as anyone else who serves, and even if they aren't... I'm not hot enough to attract any attention!  Woohoo!


Any dude who thinks "hit the head" means yours is asking for a Loreena Bobbitt job.  Anyway, if such a situation did, ahem, arise, I'm sure there are sexual harassment provisions in the Uniform Code.  If two guys are consensually doogering and the other guys don't want to see it (or hear it), once again, report it to your superior officer.  Post DADT, the military is going to feel the onus (I said onus) to make the decision not a regrettable one.  It's not as if they've never dealt with this issue in the armed forces!
::)

Let's reduce it to the truth:

10 years ago, in Pre-9/11 America, and certainly in pre-war-on-Iraq-lasted-longer-than-2004-America, the 'Pubs passed some tax cuts with an extension date of 2010, fully expecting to campaign on the issue in 2008 for the Presidency, and if necessary, in 2010's Congressional elections.

That world ceased to exist long before 2008.  So the 'Pubs played their best hand: either extend all the tax cuts (and add a few more on for good measure!) until 2012, or the Dems, in 2012, would have had to face a "Read My Lips" moment even worse than Bush I's.

(Backgrounder: In 1988, Bush I said "Read my lips: no new taxes", in much the same way as Obama said "If you make less than $200K as a single, or $250K as a couple, your taxes won't go up, not by one dime".  That promise made Bush I a one-term President, handing power to Clinton I in 1992.)

As the law was written, taxes were supposed to spike sharply higher at the end of 2010.  It was up to the Congress - whoever controlled it at the time - to stop that.  The 'Pubs and Dems alike got their fill of pork and spending, the 'Pubs permitted the Dems to let gays serve in the military, and the Dems let the 'Pubs extend not only the income tax cuts, but (more importantly to the Party's donor class) the estate tax cuts.

The real punchline is that we get to do it all over again in 2012.  If the economy recovers, there's no need to hike taxes, and if the economy continues to struggle, there's no room to raise taxes without prolonging the recession.  The astute observer will notice that the policy's already determined, and that it doesn't matter which wing of the Party wins in 2012.

The whole thing was a glorious example of political kabuki.  I'm disgusted by it, but as a beneficiary (at least for the next two years) of the trainwreck, I can't exactly complain :)


More like political bukkake! 

No dice, amigo, either way taxes are going to have to go up and spending is going to have to go down.  The Ronnie Reagan credit card spending spree is over.  We need hardass tariffs and a crackdown on corporate loopholes.  No more subsidizing companies to offshore jobs.  I don't have a problem with giving tax breaks to those who create jobs in this country, but they have to create them in the U.S. of A. and the tax breaks should only be doled out when the jobs are created. 

A message to Joe Schmoe:  You can live without a new flat screen TV.
A message to Uncle Sam: You want to sell flat screen TV's?  Manufacture them in the United States.
A message to Daddy Warbucks: You had a lot of fun over the past 30 years, now it's time to pay the piper.  No more Caribbean mailboxes as corporate HQ!
:)

Any dude who thinks "hit the head" means yours is asking for a Loreena Bobbitt job.  Anyway, if such a situation did, ahem, arise, I'm sure there are sexual harassment provisions in the Uniform Code.  If two guys are consensually doogering and the other guys don't want to see it (or hear it), once again, report it to your superior officer.  Post DADT, the military is going to feel the onus (I said onus) to make the decision not a regrettable one.  It's not as if they've never dealt with this issue in the armed forces!
::)


I'm pretty sure there is a military code rule about two soldiers holding their own private artillery drills in the common shower area.