Yep, nothing new here.

As far as Krugman, I won't quibble the measly $13,500 difference so if you prefer $50,000 then I'll stipulate to that.

Now if you want to claim that either of those figures are enough to buy a fluff article on the company, then fine, that's not an unreasonable statement. However that's not what you said, you said:

That is what seemed to me to be a most impressive claim. That Krugman and his lousy $50K in a simple advisory role brought down a $100 *billion* dollar company, or at least that was it's valuation in 2000; 1 year *after* Krugman disassociated himself from Enron.

All hat & no cattle.

I'll make it easy for you, Mumbles: Can anyone show me a "Truth telling Politcian" list? LOL!

As long as they can preen, strut and lie with impunity, we're the victims.

As WG said, "When will America wake up and get it's head out of it's ass?"

Don't tell me that you couldn't write a $72,000 check on a day's notice.

I just get real tired of hearing people that are obviously well established in reasonably well paying professions always crying poor mouth about how much taxes they're paying.

Last year I earned $180,000 in salary and another $30,000 or so in interest income although most of that was from tax free municipal bonds. I pay $19,200 in medical insurance which is pretax money along with about $15,000 into a 401K. My total Federal taxes were about $28,000 and my state taxes were another $8,000.

All told besides my 401K, which I don't consider to be "real" money, I'm able to save well in excess of $80,000 of after tax money per year. I certainly don't feel overtaxed and I certainly don't feel sorry for anyone that makes anywhere near the amount of money I make and I have even less sympathy for people that make more than I do crying about how much taxes they pay.

You could realistically double my taxes and it wouldn't really change my lifestyle in the least. Of course I don't drive an expensive car nor do I own a McMansion. I'm perfectly happy with my 10 year old Impala and my wife's 2 year old Impala. And I simply rent a townhouse and a pair of garages because I believe real estate in Concord, Massahussetts to be a bad investment. I used to own a house in Andover, MA but I sold it and will buy a new one in a lower cost of living area once I retire.

I'm far more concerned about the middle class family that's trying to make it on two $30K incomes that live in a reasonably high cost of living area of the country. *Their* taxes can make the difference between making it and not. It's people like this that deserve the tax relief not people concerned about the highest marginal tax rate that only comes into play for earnings over $373,651 a year.

1,000% correct. Good for you... You've mirrored my sentiments precisely.

What makes you tired is your problem.  Please find the post where I complained about the taxes I'm paying.  How you make your money, what you make, and what you do with it is your business & I wish you well.  The same should apply to everyone else.  Neither of us has any business telling the other how to live.

Secondly please tell me which reply *isn't* one way or another a complaint about taxes and how much you (all) begrudge paying taxes that get spent on people that you consider to be undeserving because they are poor and you and those like you believe that the only reason someone is poor is because they are stupid, lazy or both.

You complain about the deficit and the debt. Why? Well you didn't complain about those things when Bush was in office and so it's safe to conclude that you're fine spending government money as long as it's spent giving the richest Americans tax breaks, or if it's spent on wars, or if it's spent on corporate welfare. It's only when a democrat gets elected and decides that money needs to be spent trying to help people survive the worst depression since the great depression and recover from a banking debacle that is a direct result of the elimination of financial regulation as is so favored by laissez faire capitalism and the "greed is good" crowd. And cut the crap about "I'm a conservative, not a Republican" it's just semantics.

In reality all this liberal and conservative nonsense is total bull. It's really all about the "haves" and the "have-nots" and the problem as I see it is that the "haves" have somehow deluded a significant portion of the "have-nots" to vote against their own best interests and for the interests of people that really could not care less about them.

Whether they've been able to do this because they've staked out "moral values" as one of their core beliefs or by dangling the brass ring just tantalizing out of reach of those so desperate to grab it, it really doesn't matter. The problem is that it's all fake. The neocon elite go to church on Sunday just for show but they do their real worshiping in the bank come Monday morning. What could be better than a religion that tells people not to worry about their lot in life because their true reward comes once they're dead. How convenient. They laugh all the way to the bank over that one.

And while I have been able to scrape through my life and have managed towards the end of it to come close to financial security, I am by no means deluded that I am in any way rich. $2,000,000 isn't rich. It's enough to be financially secure for the rest of my life as long as I'm careful, but hardly rich. I'm just a little bit luckier than the next guy. I was lucky enough to be born smart enough to get into MIT and to be born into a family that could afford to send me there. There was certainly work involved but to pretend there is no luck in someone's high position in life is disingenuous. I look around everyday and think there but for the grace of god go I. I'm no better than an 18th century russian peasant. A *lucky* russian peasant but a peasant nonetheless.

The middle class of this country has intentionally been targeted for elimination. All the decent paying middle class jobs have been outsourced. A lucky few escape while the rest get beaten down closer and closer to being truly poor.

This is the real source of the anger behind the tea party folks. Except the problem is that they've been convinced that they are worse off than they used to be not because of the elimination of decent manufacturing jobs for lower paying service jobs and that this has been done intentionally by the monied elite, but because they pay too much taxes and because of reverse discrimination that gives their jobs to minorities or illegal immigrants or because the poor are draining society by being on the dole.

In other words the rich have divided and conquered those below them by telling the middle class that it's the fault of the poor that they're losing ground and if only we could eliminate all these entitlements then everyone would be happy except of course the true poor who will simply die quicker once all support has been eliminated. However once the middle class has been beaten down to the poverty level what then? Who's left to blame? By then things will be more clear and there will be two sides. The side that holds the handle of the machete and the side that is the target of the blade.

I for one will do my best to be on the side of those who hold the handle.

IMO this should be prosecuted as conspiracy to commit a hate crime - I consider knowingly giving false accusations of a hate crime to be a hate crime itself. Filing a false police report is a crime, and it was certainly committed against a group based solely on their political beliefs.

Congressmen or not, four people making the same false report makes a conspiracy, and the rally was filmed by multiple people from multiple angles. If even ONE instance of an N or F word showed up in any of them, we'd be seeing it all over youtube. Two of the staffers with the Congressmen were taping the incident, almost as if they were expecting such slurs to appear. Either we're to believe that *nobody* managed to record the slurs, or that the slurs never happened and the congreessmen in question went ahead with their preplanned publicity stunt.

Now, to go on to things that actually ARE hate crimes. In your opinion, should Francois Houle be prosecuted for the Ottowa incident? It's pretty obvious Ann Coulter thinks so, but that could easily be sarcasm. Houle's behavior clearly fits the Canadian definition of a hate crime, the question is whether anyone has the balls to prosecute a liberal for a hate crime, which is the sort of activity only conservatives engage in. Hell, most of them will say that it's the ONLY activity conservatives engage in.

**Disclaimer, before Mumble goes balistic: I do not support most things Coulter says, nor do I pay any attention to her work. This came to my attention entirely through third and fourth hand sources.

And that, my friends, is what yer 700 billion+ war fund is for.... or should that be called a 'culling' fund???

If anyone can profit from war, don't worry about the casualties, it's the US Government.  It is still 'owed?' billions in war debts and war reparations from WWII... by Japan, Germany, Britain, Australia and other nations.

What really confounds me is that the horrors and expenses of WWI; WWI; Vietnam; Korea; Panama and Iraq seem almost acceptable to the US (well many in it)... like collateral damage, yet to propose a universal health fund is a no no and even considered criminal.  To me, there's some pretty fucked priorities there.

And I just get real tired of people who haven't a clue as to the motivations of others pretending they know it all, throwing up & knocking down straw man after straw man after straw man.

I refuse to accept your premise(s).

I can see how you might lack perspective there, starkers.

As long as you agree to cut the "I'm not a socialist, I'm a progressive" crap. It's just semantics. You support single payer health care. Since this means all health workers would then be de facto government employees and thus give the government control of the means of production of that industry, it fits the generally acepted definition of socialism.

How on earth is there any kind of reasonable perspective to war over humanitarian causes... such as health care???

Then, I didn't grow up in a country that made an industry out of war... in weaponising everyone cos it's better to shoot first and ask questions later.

To be honest, apart from a couple of people who've made sense, I see this thread as having devolved into a political pissing contest... that has addressed exactly nothing.  It hasn't exactly devolved into hosilities as yet, but the tone of some indicates that aggression is creeping into it and that fewer pleasantries will be exchanged between opposites of the political fence.

Oh well, since when was peace and good will a part of politics (political dsiscussion) anyhow? 

I still think brothels should come under govenment control... and that pensioner discounts should apply.

Oh, pshaw.  But there's a bit of common ground we can build upon.

That wasn't a personal dig, BTW, starkers.  In case you took it that way.  I was only referring to the lack of perspective I could envision an Aussie laboring under, as relates to US values & history.  Just as I have no perspective on Aussie history.

While not an excellent source or anything..  I found this to be an excellent interpratation of what has happened with the politics about healthcare.

Link:

http://www.frumforum.com/waterloo

For those too lazy to click.

Waterloo

March 21st, 2010 at 4:59 pm by David Frum | 189 Comments |

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Conservatives and Republicans today suffered their most crushing legislative defeat since the 1960s.

It’s hard to exaggerate the magnitude of the disaster. Conservatives may cheer themselves that they’ll compensate for today’s expected vote with a big win in the November 2010 elections. But:

(1) It’s a good bet that conservatives are over-optimistic about November – by then the economy will have improved and the immediate goodies in the healthcare bill will be reaching key voting blocs.

(2) So what? Legislative majorities come and go. This healthcare bill is forever. A win in November is very poor compensation for this debacle now.

So far, I think a lot of conservatives will agree with me. Now comes the hard lesson:

A huge part of the blame for today’s disaster attaches to conservatives and Republicans ourselves.

At the beginning of this process we made a strategic decision: unlike, say, Democrats in 2001 when President Bush proposed his first tax cut, we would make no deal with the administration. No negotiations, no compromise, nothing. We were going for all the marbles. This would be Obama’s Waterloo – just as healthcare was Clinton’s in 1994.

Only, the hardliners overlooked a few key facts: Obama was elected with 53% of the vote, not Clinton’s 42%. The liberal block within the Democratic congressional caucus is bigger and stronger than it was in 1993-94. And of course the Democrats also remember their history, and also remember the consequences of their 1994 failure.

This time, when we went for all the marbles, we ended with none.

Could a deal have been reached? Who knows? But we do know that the gap between this plan and traditional Republican ideas is not very big. The Obama plan has a broad family resemblance to Mitt Romney’s Massachusetts plan. It builds on ideas developed at the Heritage Foundation in the early 1990s that formed the basis for Republican counter-proposals to Clintoncare in 1993-1994.

Barack Obama badly wanted Republican votes for his plan. Could we have leveraged his desire to align the plan more closely with conservative views? To finance it without redistributive taxes on productive enterprise – without weighing so heavily on small business – without expanding Medicaid? Too late now. They are all the law.

No illusions please: This bill will not be repealed. Even if Republicans scored a 1994 style landslide in November, how many votes could we muster to re-open the “doughnut hole” and charge seniors more for prescription drugs? How many votes to re-allow insurers to rescind policies when they discover a pre-existing condition? How many votes to banish 25 year olds from their parents’ insurance coverage? And even if the votes were there – would President Obama sign such a repeal?

We followed the most radical voices in the party and the movement, and they led us to abject and irreversible defeat.

There were leaders who knew better, who would have liked to deal. But they were trapped. Conservative talkers on Fox and talk radio had whipped the Republican voting base into such a frenzy that deal-making was rendered impossible. How do you negotiate with somebody who wants to murder your grandmother? Or – more exactly – with somebody whom your voters have been persuaded to believe wants to murder their grandmother?

I’ve been on a soapbox for months now about the harm that our overheated talk is doing to us. Yes it mobilizes supporters – but by mobilizing them with hysterical accusations and pseudo-information, overheated talk has made it impossible for representatives to represent and elected leaders to lead. The real leaders are on TV and radio, and they have very different imperatives from people in government. Talk radio thrives on confrontation and recrimination. When Rush Limbaugh said that he wanted President Obama to fail, he was intelligently explaining his own interests. What he omitted to say – but what is equally true – is that he also wants Republicans to fail. If Republicans succeed – if they govern successfully in office and negotiate attractive compromises out of office – Rush’s listeners get less angry. And if they are less angry, they listen to the radio less, and hear fewer ads for Sleepnumber beds.

So today’s defeat for free-market economics and Republican values is a huge win for the conservative entertainment industry. Their listeners and viewers will now be even more enraged, even more frustrated, even more disappointed in everybody except the responsibility-free talkers on television and radio. For them, it’s mission accomplished. For the cause they purport to represent, it’s Waterloo all right: ours.

In my opinion, this is a very reasonable explanation of why no one from the Republican party actually did anything useful to help compose the bill.  

Daiwa,

What is "history" anyway?  It's a story we tell where we always take great pains to present ourselves in the "better" light......no matter what.

Much more pertinent and closer to the "truth" than our own "history" are the facts of how we/our actions (as individuals and entire nations) are perceived abroad.

....if it walks like a duck......and talks like a duck......ahem.

All that is happening in the US is that your nation is now having to pay for the sins of purely capitalist-thinking, that is all.  Allow me to quote myself from earlier in this thread...

The fact is its obviously easier for your countrymen (as a nation) to "get behind" spending a dollar on a bullet, but god forbid the government want a penny for your neighbor's hospital visit.  No amount of knowing US-history is going to change anyones perspective on that.

the Monk

No, I didn't take it in any way personally. However, that does not change my perspective.... that it is abhorrent to me that US Government bullets and wars are more acceptable than a government run health care system... to the majority (or so it seems) of Americans.  I mean, what the heck is wrong with the idea of paying a little more to help out those less fortunate than ourselves??

Ya know, it really pisses me off that Americans can donate millions to tsunami relief and other 'feed the world' type funds, but when it comes to those less fortunate in their own country with a universal heallh plan... that's socialism and giving "hand outs" to those far less deserving.  Well, that's the way some of you Yanks come across... and when I see some American of low income, less fortunate means being labeled as "lazy" and "hanger oners"  by those Americans in far better, more priveleged circumstances, quite frankly it makes me wanna puke.

It's all well and good to be in a well off position and being able to afford everything that comes along and say "if I can afford it then so can you", but not everybody has opportunities thrust upon them or dropped in their laps, and quite frankly, I'd like to see those of means do it without the  friggin'means... like millions have to because there simply is no money to access adequate health care, sufficient food, warm clothing in Winter, or a roof over their head to shelter from the storm.

Ya know, I had issue with an American who took exception to the fact that I was traveling for free on a pension concession (a once a year thing from our Gov't) while he had to pay full fare.  Yeah right!  He was a mulit-millionaire and I had an annual income (at the time) of around $7,900.  And like, how was there any skin off his nose?

Well the bastard wouldn't let up on it and he rode me about it all the way to from Brisbane to Rockhampton (about 450 miles)...  by which time I'd had a gutful and locked him in a broom closet in the male toilets on the station just prior to the train's departure.  The rest of the journey was enjoyable, not just for me but everyone... cos yeah, the Yank was obnoxious and got up everybody's nose with his 'holier than thou' attitude.

See...that would mean that people had a say or that they actually thought for themselves. There is never a vote here that the people participate in when it comes to going to war...they just do it. So much for the democracy thing. And here again they play the old tug at the heart string or the patriotism card. After 911 they were all gungho...and Bush yaking on about how Saddam Hussein was this big bad terrorist and was "somehow" a threat to us...yeah right...but the braindead people in this country for the most part bought...because someone had to pay. And this was even when North Korea actually had WMD's and was threatening to use them...and funny thing is we ignored them...because Saddam just had to go! Because he was the axis of evil dontcha know! lol

And here again...the people don't get an actual say in where/when or how much goes to these countries...it goes and we read about it in the news...even when the money is needed somewhere in our own country...and then it takes days or more just to get water to people...well...I guess they figured there was more than enough water after the big flood happened here. And people bitched about that but nothing was ever really done...pretty sure it's still a disaster area down there.

Personally...I can't wait for the shit to hit the fan here...I would love like hell to see the ones that can help and don't have to ask for help and be reminded what it's like or get their first taste of it. It would probably be the best thing that happened here in awhile. Especially people like Bill Gates...yeah yeah...he gives to charity...but more than likely for tax rightoffs...and even so...he can do far more than he has or ever will. If I were him I couldn't live with myself seeing the suffering around the world knowing I could help and not doing it. And I'm sure there are people that will come to his defense...but I really don't care...the man should be ashamed of himself and I'm not at all impressed with him. If I had his money...I would embarrass the rest of the rich in this country and publicly call them on it.

While starkers and I generally agree on so many issues that my senile brain has lost count, I don't agree re WWII. The US pretty much precipitated the war in the Pacific by preventing Japan from importing oil. That was the Industrial-Military Complex.

However, AH was evil incarnate. He attempted to destroy western civilization and replace it with a nazi nightmare (no, it doesn't rate capital letters and "may his name and memory be forever erased").  That maniac would have destroyed my people and almost succeeded in doing so. Had he succeeded, England would also look rather different.

No, WWII needed to happen...although the maniacs do seem to rise in the economic chaos caused by other mass murder events.

"Live and let live" seems to have gone by the wayside.

Just one thought: The world can support the needs of people for they are few, but not the greed of people, which is infinite.

I don't believe that the office of Presidency requires a congressional approval for going to war against a foreign invader. I think I heard or read that somewhere, could be wrong???

while I may believe in something greater than myself, religion has no part of those beliefs, but to use the term "Jesus" to mean "good" which should resonate with most of you. "What would Jesus do, start a war or heal the sick".

Have we ever heard of the hypocratic oath?  In as much... nobody is ever denied treatment at any hospital in the U.S..

The crap, "32 million people without healthcare", Obama and his power hungry minions are spewing out is a total fallacy that plays on your gullable fears.

The largest reason healthcare costs are so high is that the people with insurance are aready paying for those who ARE GETTING TREATED without insurance.

By the way... with this new law, we are forced to purchase this healthcare with the threat that if we dont, we get FINED and get JAIL TIME.  So my question is... what are people with no money or job going to do? (ie. guy who sleeps under a bridge in L.A. in a cardboard box).  Does the goverment round them all up and use them as endentured servants to cover the fine and jail sentence?

Although there is a difference between "de facto" employees by receiving all payment from the government and "actual" goverment employees. Both systems have been shown to work. Again whatever.

So feel free to call me a socialist all you want. I don't consider it to be a derrogatory term at all. However I do find being called a "traitor and communist" a bit extreme.

Even people that make 300% of the poverty level get assistence in paying for healthcare. Again that's the point.