= new reply since forum marked as read
Sid
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now the foaming at the mouth will *really* begin. Let me start: PUMA Jane Hamster Face!
Just the sort of reasoned debate we've come to know and love on DU...
(And for good measure: )
I never heard him say that. Link please.
- Or is this ''celestial position'' something that can only be observe from Canada??? Where it's safe.
Sid
The Two Great Secrets of Life:
- 1. Never tell everything you know
2.
please ignore it. Your friend, Trailrider
In fact if it is good enough for kitteh then it should be good enough for seniors everywhere.
They'll never be able to taste the difference with the leading brand of human food.
...I bet it'd taste like Pâté on a Ritz.
also called for an increase in the cap.
It was policy soup, pure garbage. People can pick what they want out of it, but overall it's a fail. It's sort of like RoboRomney.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021488253
you get to keep posing that piece claiming that "slash" is different from "cut"
Clear?
that are chastised in reporting here on DU. But, there are places on DU where one can find the information here on DU...and it's sad that so many here don't seek those groups who talk about this.
Something that is on every legitimate stock prospectus in some form - "Past performance is not a guarantee of future results.". They even think that is so important it's on the stockbroker tests, because it's against the rules to sell people stock indicating that the future performance will be good based on that past performance.
Like anybody cares about that rule
But we are operating in a far different way than they did 70 or so years ago. Back then we had HUGE government investments in people and machines from the 30's through WWII. That created an economic boom that went on for decades, aided by our having to rebuild the world we and others had reduced to rubble. But the past 20-30 years we have been selling the hard assets and dis-investing in people, while debt and leverage are used to create a semblance of what used to be, but it's really just a shadow of what was. Some think it is just a cycle, that it's not gonna be a permanent change. Some people think that about global warming too.
Look at the financial sector, growing from 12% back in the 30's to over 40% of our economy today. They replaced manufacturing, yet they make nothing we can use or eat. The market has gone hugely international, no longer reflective of our American economy. Look at not just the job loss, but at the millions and millions of mid-wage jobs that paid $40-60/hr that have been replaced with nothing, or with jobs that only pay $7-$13/hr. How are people gonna pay for a home and send the kids to college on that? Does anyone really think there will be a retirement plan for the newly minted millions of home health aides and tourist industry folks we are employing? We seem to have some "surely it will get better even though we have no plan" belief that the future is bright.
In effect prolonging this, (which keeps scavenging of the greater portion of all available income going to a very few people), our economy is being propped up by accounting rules that allow banks to hold assets at inflated values, 0% interest loans that banks can use to make profits by charging everyone else more, $40 billion buying the mortgage-backed assets of really wealthy people every month to support their value (we are told this is good for the rest of us). You've read, likely, about how total student loan debt is as great as our revolving debt for the first time in history - they reflect part of the millions of people in school, trying to avoid being out in an economy where only half will find jobs and more are moving back home to live than ever before. Even college students can't buy cheap stock if they have no money.
We are at a net loss of about 4 1/2 million jobs since 2008. We only have about the same number of jobs today as we had in 2005, yet the population grew by about 23 million - how can they thrive?
This isn't sustainable. It's like being laid off a $45/hr plus great benefits and vacation factory job and trying to live the same lifestyle on one's credit cards and serving fries at McDonalds. The economy of the government is different in some respects, because we operate by fiat, can always pay our bills, and can affect the value of money. But not producing enough and spending money not to INVEST in the American people, but to support the wealthy, must lead to less value.
And unless the Republicans get into office and enact their plan, which will very likely drive us into a second Great Depression, we have at least a couple decades of this slow conversion of our assets to debt to look forward to. In support of the wealthy.
Prices may not go in one direction forever, but it may feel like that 20 years from now.
Don't know if one is more moral than the other...
Actually you should give Obama more credit, since his total is over 5 million, iirc, as against that loss of 4.3 mill in the first year, which was handed to him like a Bjorn Borg serve to a football player.
And that's all that needs to be said if one doesn't care about the 4.462 million increase in unemployment in the year before he took office. He didn't CAUSE them, and most people who aren't Creationists understand that. But while he didn't cause them, who takes responsibility for making sure policies encourage enough jobs being created to employ them as well? They were already ignored by one president. Don't they deserve jobs too, being as they are our neighbors and all? One either ignores them or there is a deficit of nearly 5 million in the financial crisis that started in 2008 (well, before, but that's another post). And we still have that deficit. Were it up to the right wing terrorists, I mean Republican Presidential candidates, there would be many more, obviously. But that doesn't relieve us of the responsibility of evaluating our current policies. For example, QE3, like QE 1 and QE2, is designed to support the assets of the very wealthy because it is so good for all of us. But if there are not some being trickled on, perhaps we need to do more?
And who said no one is buying stock? The market is global now, and the numbers we typically get are not directly connected to or reflective of anything but about the wealthiest 20% of people, many international funds and investors, international markets, etc.
But people with less or no money are not the ones buying it. We have more people in poverty than we had in 2009, and many more considered "working poor". 50 million on food stamps. 10 million+ homes still in some process of foreclosure, student loan totals at historic highs, and defaults are rising.
Not a lot of day traders among them, I suspect.
And
Millions of people now earn $8 to $14/hr that used to make $14 to $21. Betcha they ain't buyin' a whole lot of stock either.
Look at how few stock issues really drive the whole thing. We can grow poverty and working poor and still have a healthy stock market, perhaps for a decade or two. Don't have to build a damn thing, with the magic of leverage, debt, and serfdom.
Some investors will do ok, but that really has not much to do with a discussion about how many people are hurting.
Btw, what you said above about irrational investing is absolutely still true.
The total fertility rate is very very close to 2.1 children per woman, which is the replacement value.
:sigh:
We don't want to dabble is phraseology which will confuse the general population when austerity needs a sacrifice from future retirees.
Let them eat cake? No need!
Panhandling is always a good start 
His insight is no different than the ten thousand other opinions of people outside of the process.
But I like how he puts the Kochs and Obama together in agreement, no agenda there.
Two words: Living Wage
The SOLE 'problem' with Social Security is the decimation of working class wages over the last 35 years!! The plutocrats (i.e. "entitlement class" have been waging an economic war on the working class for over 35 years. The working class is losing.
Alternatively, put a 1% "Transfer Tax" on the sale or exchange of corporate equities (i.e. "entitlements" .
Fuck the "free-ride" entitlement class!!
From the highly respected Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (a "policy organization ... working at the federal and state levels on fiscal policy and public programs that affect low- and moderate-income families and individuals." :
The Bowles-Simpson plan included revenue and benefit changes designed to restore long-term solvency to the Social Security trust fund. For purposes of presentation, the Bowles-Simpson documents and public statements by the co-chairmen excluded the Social Security solvency proposals in some aspects of their presentation and included those proposals in others. The Social Security proposals were usually not counted in the deficit reduction totals or in the ratios of spending cuts to revenue increases, as the co-chairs described the Social Security proposals as not having been done for the purpose of deficit reduction. These proposals were included in calculations of the resulting levels of revenues, spending, deficits, and debt. In this analysis, we present the plan using the same approach as the co-chairs.
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3844
What does this mean? It means that despite all the hair-on-fire, flame-baiting (vote-suppressing) posts regarding Simpson-Bowles, when the president says he favors some of the Simpson-Bowles plan with respect to the deficit reduction (read: fiscal cliff), it is not at odds with his promise not to reduce Social Security benefits. Social Security was a separate discussion in Simpson-Bowles from the deficit.
Thank you in advance for your attention to this matter.
I love it!
I'm basically house bound now. I can't afford to go out except when in dire necessity of shopping for necessities and food. My little trips to the library, the beach and for coffee with friends have had to stop.
finally decided to join us over in the tar pits?
