World Politics

[Hugh Januss]

lol so you think he spewed all that rhetoric about closing gitmo, detainees rights, stopping the wars, etc. as a candidate and then all of a sudden started thinking of getting assassinated once he was in office? For good life insurance he decided to go ahead expand Bush's policies and for extra coverage decided to increase the collateral damage in the evildoer lands and drop some bombs on another muslim country?

He is either the biggest opportunistic liar ever in US politics (and that is saying alot), or he was just taking you for a ride in 2008? How can you, with your political leanings, possibly defend any of his foreign policy, for whatever reason?

Maybe I'm assigning more credit than is due, but I think Obama meant to do the things he promised, however he underestimated the reality of the political machine. No matter what intentions a President might have by the time it is filtered through the lifelong professional politicians who make up the Cabinet and crew of advisors real change becomes implausible at best. Sometimes that is not the worst thing in the world, as in the case of the last guy who probably couldn't figure out how to open a can of tuna if left to his own devices. Although it's hard for me to imagine how we could have come out of that 8 years very much worse off than we did, but I digress.
To a large extent saying what you think will get you elected is the way democracy works, however it only works if you then can do what you said you would do, and ultimately it only really works if you have an intellegent and informed electorate. Therein lies our biggest problem.
But yes for whatever reason or multitude of reasons Obama has so far been disappointing to say the least.

 

[redtreviso]

lol so you think he spewed all that rhetoric about closing gitmo, detainees rights, stopping the wars, etc. as a candidate and then all of a sudden started thinking of getting assassinated once he was in office? For good life insurance he decided to go ahead expand Bush's policies and for extra coverage decided to increase the collateral damage in the evildoer lands and drop some bombs on another muslim country?

He is either the biggest opportunistic liar ever in US politics (and that is saying alot), or he was just taking you for a ride in 2008? How can you, with your political leanings, possibly defend any of his foreign policy, for whatever reason?

I'm not defending it..It just may not be in his control or the next several presidents to stop it..This perpetual momentum was put in place by Reagan and wasn't dismantled under Clinton and then very much further strengthened by W Bush.. and there could very well be some not too subtle reminders to Obama about rearranging the status quo.

OTOH.. the republicans sure hate Obama.. He must not be carrying on Bush's policies that closely.. at least in their eyes..

You can vote for Sarah Palin in 012 as protest if you like.

 

[patricknd]

I'm not defending it..It just may not be in his control or the next several presidents to stop it..This perpetual momentum was put in place by Reagan and wasn't dismantled under Clinton and then very much further strengthened by W Bush.. and there could very well be some not too subtle reminders to Obama about rearranging the status quo.

OTOH.. the republicans sure hate Obama.. He must not be carrying on Bush's policies that closely.. at least in their eyes..

You can vote for Sarah Palin in 012 as protest if you like.

Wait a minute there. Coherent post, no mention of teabaggers or drunks.

Who are you and what have you done with red?

 

[ChrisE]

I'm not defending it..It just may not be in his control or the next several presidents to stop it..This perpetual momentum was put in place by Reagan and wasn't dismantled under Clinton and then very much further strengthened by W Bush.. and there could very well be some not too subtle reminders to Obama about rearranging the status quo.

OTOH.. the republicans sure hate Obama.. He must not be carrying on Bush's policies that closely.. at least in their eyes..

You can vote for Sarah Palin in 012 as protest if you like.

Republican rubes hate Obama because this is a team sport. Facts aren't important. Call them useful idiots, who vote against their best day to day interests because of emotion. The overwhelming issue going against Obama is his skin color, even if the sheeple paid attention to issues that affect them every day there would still be those against him even if they agreed with him on policy 100%. I think you would be surprised by how many.

No thanks on Palin or any of the above. That is your binary world working overtime in this team sport.

I no longer will vote for "the lesser of two evils" when at the end of the day they are both the same in things that matter to me. My politics are not defined by either party, and I am sure yours aren't either. I don't expect utopia lockstep with what I believe in, but don't pis on my boots and tell me its raining or try to play emotional games with the voters while doing the bait and switch later like Obama has done.

So red you keep arguing with Scot but you both are only adding to the problem by voting for jackazzes from either of these parties. You keep using the excuse of the system when defending the undefendable that is Obama, Bush, Reagan, and Clinton, when at the end of the day it is our own fault things are like they are.

 

[ChrisE]

Wait a minute there. Coherent post, no mention of teabaggers or drunks.

Who are you and what have you done with red?

He just needs somebody with an iq higher than scot's, ie above double digits, to line him out.

 

[ChrisE]

Maybe I'm assigning more credit than is due, but I think Obama meant to do the things he promised, however he underestimated the reality of the political machine. No matter what intentions a President might have by the time it is filtered through the lifelong professional politicians who make up the Cabinet and crew of advisors real change becomes implausible at best. Sometimes that is not the worst thing in the world, as in the case of the last guy who probably couldn't figure out how to open a can of tuna if left to his own devices. Although it's hard for me to imagine how we could have come out of that 8 years very much worse off than we did, but I digress.
To a large extent saying what you think will get you elected is the way democracy works, however it only works if you then can do what you said you would do, and ultimately it only really works if you have an intellegent and informed electorate. Therein lies our biggest problem.
But yes for whatever reason or multitude of reasons Obama has so far been disappointing to say the least.

I see your points, but I don't agree with the bold. He knew what he was doing, and he has so blatantly backtracked it cannot be because of his ignorance. He wasn't running a campaign with Ward and June Cleaver as his advisors.

I saw a political cartoon awhile back and it was the GOP and Obama playing poker, and Obama yelled "fold" even before the hand was dealt. Nobody can be that much of a puzzy, especially considering the "mandate" he had coming in with majorities in both houses. What did he accomplish? Acceleration of Bush detention policies, zero in terms of leaving Afghanistand and Iraq, punting on restoring the Bush tax cuts, and some watered down health bill. For good measure now that the GOP congress is holding him hostage lol he negotiated down the FICA rate, in return for something that was a political killer for the GOP (extension of unemployment), which will never come back else he will be scared to be painted as "raising taxes". That is the first step in dismantling SS.

What a waste of a presidency, or was it?

 

[redtreviso]

Republican rubes hate Obama because this is a team sport. Facts aren't important. Call them useful idiots, who vote against their best day to day interests because of emotion. The overwhelming issue going against Obama is his skin color, even if the sheeple paid attention to issues that affect them every day there would still be those against him even if they agreed with him on policy 100%. I think you would be surprised by how many.

No thanks on Palin or any of the above. That is your binary world working overtime in this team sport.

I no longer will vote for "the lesser of two evils" when at the end of the day they are both the same in things that matter to me. My politics are not defined by either party, and I am sure yours aren't either. I don't expect utopia lockstep with what I believe in, but don't pis on my boots and tell me its raining or try to play emotional games with the voters while doing the bait and switch later like Obama has done.

So red you keep arguing with Scot but you both are only adding to the problem by voting for jackazzes from either of these parties. You keep using the excuse of the system when defending the undefendable that is Obama, Bush, Reagan, and Clinton, when at the end of the day it is our own fault things are like they are.

All the scotts have no such compunction...While you will stay at home they will be out in force to elect a Palin or Bachmann or a Tim McVeigh.. I'd rather be disappointed than go full *** from the git go.

 

[Hugh Januss]

I see your points, but I don't agree with the bold. He knew what he was doing, and he has so blatantly backtracked it cannot be because of his ignorance. He wasn't running a campaign with Ward and June Cleaver as his advisors.

I saw a political cartoon awhile back and it was the GOP and Obama playing poker, and Obama yelled "fold" even before the hand was dealt. Nobody can be that much of a puzzy, especially considering the "mandate" he had coming in with majorities in both houses. What did he accomplish? Acceleration of Bush detention policies, zero in terms of leaving Afghanistand and Iraq, punting on restoring the Bush tax cuts, and some watered down health bill. For good measure now that the GOP congress is holding him hostage lol he negotiated down the FICA rate, in return for something that was a political killer for the GOP (extension of unemployment), which will never come back else he will be scared to be painted as "raising taxes". That is the first step in dismantling SS.

What a waste of a presidency, or was it?

You may well be right. I do think that he was back on his heels from the git go due to the horrendous mess of an economy that he inherited, then the Repubs trotted out the old filibuster, and it was like the second coming of Strom Thurmond. The health bill sucks and Obama has been way too "bipartisan" (chicken). Just once I wish he would have said "eff you guys, we are doing it my way or we're not doing anything at all".

 

[ChrisE]

You may well be right. I do think that he was back on his heels from the git go due to the horrendous mess of an economy that he inherited, then the Repubs trotted out the old filibuster, and it was like the second coming of Strom Thurmond. The health bill sucks and Obama has been way too "bipartisan" (chicken). Just once I wish he would have said "eff you guys, we are doing it my way or we're not doing anything at all".

The stimulus was started under Bush. Other than the bailouts, what has he done? Yes the stock market is up but what else? And, the bailouts are a direct result of being "too big to fail", which is a direct result of mergers rubberstamping and lax regulation....legacies of Reagan but continued wink-wink by Clinton who also signed off on media deregulation; galactic mistakes done by a democratic president we pay for today.

One thing I respect about the GOP is they pretty much jam you with the wackiness and try to implement it, no matter how foolish they look. The Dem leaders are puzzies, or enablers, or DINO's, or all of the above.

 

[ChrisE]

All the scotts have no such compunction...While you will stay at home they will be out in force to elect a Palin or Bachmann or a Tim McVeigh.. I'd rather be disappointed than go full *** from the git go.

LOL. BOO! Even Scott wouldn't vote for Bachman. He admitted he is not republican.

Maybe full *** is what this country needs for the idiots to wake up.

 

[redtreviso]

LOL. BOO! Even Scott wouldn't vote for Bachman. He admitted he is not republican.

Maybe full *** is what this country needs for the idiots to wake up.

oh please.. a bush who? republican.. A "who moi?" libertarian?? His kind never missed voting republican.. They only go libertarian or Independent after the fact...

 

[rhubroma]

LOL. BOO! Even Scott wouldn't vote for Bachman. He admitted he is not republican.

Maybe full *** is what this country needs for the idiots to wake up.

We will get this if Palin becomes president.

 

[rhubroma]

You may well be right. I do think that he was back on his heels from the git go due to the horrendous mess of an economy that he inherited, then the Repubs trotted out the old filibuster, and it was like the second coming of Strom Thurmond. The health bill sucks and Obama has been way too "bipartisan" (chicken). Just once I wish he would have said "eff you guys, we are doing it my way or we're not doing anything at all".

The problem is that these guys want to stay in power a second term and one round doesn't get anything accomplished. So the first go is merely a survival test and prelude to a second term. Now given that the conservative republican agenda and ideology is, by nature, less hostile to the interests of big business, they have little to worry about from that end. Whereas the democrats talk liberal social policy and structural reforms, then must walk on razors, go against their own nature, as Obama has been forced to do, to withstand the onslaught of defamatory muck that gets hurled at them from every conservative corner (and some so-called liberal ones) to politically survive before a public that tends to lean right when the going gets tough.

So far on health care, you are correct, Obama has been spineless, but this is why. Perhaps he can find some balls during his second term. If not then he will have betrayed his own principle, but what he's up against in this America of all places is frightful.

 

[rhubroma]

What I don't get though is how some folks like ChrisE can be so deluded, when it is obvious and normal that any US politician from a mainstream political party is in the hands of a system that works, on both sides, unremittingly against all forms of change.

On the other hand Americans will only vote for a republican or a democrat, not having the stomach for anything radical or unprecedented, which is too terrifying to them. As if something could be worse!

Though even if a president were to be elected from a non-mainstream party, he would still have to work within the same hostile system. Not being a monarchy or a dictatorship, that's how it works in a democracy. To the contrary, the president is completely under their thumb, those advisors of his (to say nothing of the opposition), so that nothing gets done, while the nation is locked up in an eternal stalemate and status quo to the benefit of the lobbyists. He always has his policies arranged in accordance with stupid plans made for him by others, all of them revolting individuals who call themselves political experts; those appalling specimens from Washington who come to the White House and pollute the atmosphere with their malodorous presence, so-called economists, lawyers and professors from the business schools and foreign policy think tanks - as if there was ever a more inane and contradictory term in existence for no thinking ever gets done.

By now the president is a mere political figurehead at home and in a globalized world where image, for right or wrong, counts. Unfortunately in the latter case US foreign policy has been so bad in many regions throughout the globe, that whoever is the president won't change the negative image the country has earned. On the other hand, where people such as in Europe are still disposed to seeing the president as a kind of world leader, then it becomes obvious that we can't have a Palin in office and that an Obama, as illusionary as his figure may be, nonetheless positively represents America abroad among the nation's historical allies.

Thus in terms of decorum one should swallow the bad medicine, just to make sure someone as unpresentable and unqualified for the job as a Palin does not wind up representing us to the world, which would be horrific and scandalous.

 

[Cobblestones]

Taxes are, at their core, a confiscation of labor. Period.

I acknowledge the need for government and how it is to be funded. Size and scope is the issue.

Payroll taxes are silly and one of the reasons there needs to be tax reform in this country. Just tax people and companies on earnings and be done with it. Take away all deductions, simplify the code and stop with the social engineering already.

There is a little more recent data on the jobs front. You might want to take a look at it.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Employers-added-54K-jobs-rate-apf-3059717337.html?x=0&.v=5

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/aaee3aa8-8dd7-11e0-a0c4-00144feab49a.html

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/jun/3/white-house-poor-jobs-numbers-bumps-road-recovery/

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Employment-growth-brakes-rb-325963585.html?x=0&.v=3

http://www.cnbc.com/id/43268037

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-02/recovery-languishes-as-americans-await-signal-of-better-times-peter-coy.html

Taxes are not confiscation of labor, simple because you say so. How is property tax confiscation of labor for instance?

You find payroll taxes silly? Fine, show a better method to finance a welfare state. Or explain why a country is better off without unemployment benefits, medicare, social security etc.

And does any of your links separate public and private job creation? Remember that was your point of contention. I checked the first two. They talk about unemployment in general. Not private vs. public job creation. Don't cloud the issue. Put up one link with relevant numbers, not 10 irrelevant ones.

Which brings me back to my original question: you haven't ever answered why Obama should be considered anti-business. Outside of the paid lobbying companies and the usual foaming-at-the-mouth rightwing machine, I've yet to hear someone reasonable to say so. Or any convincing argument for that matter.

And by the way, Greenspan is a broken man. He used to be a believer of some of that libertarian bullsh!t, but 2007/8 showed him what it really was. What do you think happens to a man when at the age of 80 his whole worldview is turned upside down. You'll find no consistency in Greenspan statements made at different times.

 

[redtreviso]

Which brings me back to my original question: you haven't ever answered why Obama should be considered anti-business. Outside of the paid lobbying companies and the usual foaming-at-the-mouth rightwing machine, I've yet to hear someone reasonable to say so. Or any convincing argument for that matter.

And by the way, Greenspan is a broken man. He used to be a believer of some of that libertarian bullsh!t, but 2007/8 showed him what it really was. What do you think happens to a man when at the age of 80 his whole worldview is turned upside down. You'll find no consistency in Greenspan statements made at different times.

Anything left or just objective compared to this is anti-business. These people would always oppose fines on BP no matter what they did. Business is only as moral as it wants to be, the free market will just scorn a polluter into being responsible. Not the governments role...I've seen oil business people almost cry about how put upon the Exxon Corporation is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TxCWbTqz9s

 

[patricknd]

Taxes are not confiscation of labor, simple because you say so. How is property tax confiscation of labor for instance?

You find payroll taxes silly? Fine, show a better method to finance a welfare state. Or explain why a country is better off without unemployment benefits, medicare, social security etc.

And does any of your links separate public and private job creation? Remember that was your point of contention. I checked the first two. They talk about unemployment in general. Not private vs. public job creation. Don't cloud the issue. Put up one link with relevant numbers, not 10 irrelevant ones.

Which brings me back to my original question: you haven't ever answered why Obama should be considered anti-business. Outside of the paid lobbying companies and the usual foaming-at-the-mouth rightwing machine, I've yet to hear someone reasonable to say so. Or any convincing argument for that matter.

And by the way, Greenspan is a broken man. He used to be a believer of some of that libertarian bullsh!t, but 2007/8 showed him what it really was. What do you think happens to a man when at the age of 80 his whole worldview is turned upside down. You'll find no consistency in Greenspan statements made at different times.

Only 54,000 jobs were created in May, the fewest in eight months. By contrast, an average of 220,000 jobs were created in each of the previous three months. Private companies hired only 83,000 workers in May -- the fewest in nearly a year -- while state and local governments cut 30,000 jobs.

This is from the first link, there is more throughout the article. Hope this helps

 

[Anonymous]

LOL. BOO! Even Scott wouldn't vote for Bachman. He admitted he is not republican.

Maybe full *** is what this country needs for the idiots to wake up.

Are we not pretty close to full *** now??? Why the eff would you want to wake the idiots?

I am a registered independent. I vote republican the vast majority of the time but I'm under no illusions. I'm of the belief that, particularly in Washington, it does not really matter who is there. Corruption rules the day. Those of you "disappointed" with Obama just have not been paying attention. Winning elections is the number 1, 2 and 3 priority for politicians and the more power associated with the elected position the more this becomes absolute.

I vote republican mostly becuase they have at least a passive belief in a stong private enterprise being that which drives us economiclly.

Gotta tell you though, I think if Hillary were in the oval office the US economy would be in a much better place.

 

[Cobblestones]

Only 54,000 jobs were created in May, the fewest in eight months. By contrast, an average of 220,000 jobs were created in each of the previous three months. Private companies hired only 83,000 workers in May -- the fewest in nearly a year -- while state and local governments cut 30,000 jobs.

This is from the first link, there is more throughout the article. Hope this helps

Which proves my point precisely. Private job creation isn't too bad. It's the public jobs which get strangled. That's been going on for over a year (see my link about 10 pages ago).

Now if you think about it, why would Republicans (in particular the governors in Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio) clamp down on public jobs as they do? Considering that revenue through taxes is in fact quite a bit higher than expected. The money is there! It's outright stupid in such a situation to cut public jobs. It increases unemployment for no good reason. In fact what should be done is a second stimulus (in which the states could participate as spenders, not receivers of money due to the improved revenue situation). All the actual data indicate this. The least of what should be done is to stop cutting public jobs. But reason and data-driven policies hasn't been the strong side of republican thinking since Reagan's voodoo economics came into fashion.

 

[redtreviso]

Are we not pretty close to full *** now??? Why the eff would you want to wake the idiots?

I am a registered independent. I vote republican the vast majority of the time but I'm under no illusions. I'm of the belief that, particularly in Washington, it does not really matter who is there. Corruption rules the day. Those of you "disappointed" with Obama just have not been paying attention. Winning elections is the number 1, 2 and 3 priority for politicians and the more power associated with the elected position the more this becomes absolute.

I vote republican mostly becuase they have at least a passive belief in a stong private enterprise being that which drives us economiclly.

Gotta tell you though, I think if Hillary were in the oval office the US economy would be in a much better place.

that sounds like the NASCAR fan who likes billy joe bubba because he is a christian. So your republicans believe in a stRong private enterprise system( really profound there scott) and democrats, being socialists and communists and/or non white people don't.
It is also like you flying a bigger american flag than your neighbors and then getting all whiney about at least you are 5x7 patriotic compared to your not so real american neighbor who is only 4x3 patriotic.

"I believe that people ought to be free to be free and enjoy freedom of being free and having freedom!!"

YAY REPUBLICANS they have such commitment to american values!!!

 

[patricknd]

Are we not pretty close to full *** now??? Why the eff would you want to wake the idiots?

I am a registered independent. I vote republican the vast majority of the time but I'm under no illusions. I'm of the belief that, particularly in Washington, it does not really matter who is there. Corruption rules the day. Those of you "disappointed" with Obama just have not been paying attention. Winning elections is the number 1, 2 and 3 priority for politicians and the more power associated with the elected position the more this becomes absolute.

I vote republican mostly becuase they have at least a passive belief in a stong private enterprise being that which drives us economiclly.

Gotta tell you though, I think if Hillary were in the oval office the US economy would be in a much better place.

that's who i was hoping to vote for. i've said it before and i'll say it again, i thought she had more integrity than anyone in the field, and the older i get the more i realize that that is the most important qualification. (i learned the italics from rube, i think it suits me)

 

[Cobblestones]

Interesting blog post.

http://www.financialsense.com/contributors/paul-mladjenovic/job-creation-versus-job-destruction



Fire away boys....

That's your great point?

Bush ran a business... and he worked out splendidly as a job creator.

Let me repost my link.

President Obama's economic policies have created more private sector jobs in less than 2 years than did George W. Bush's economic policies did in 8.

No one posted a rebuttal because it was an absurd claim to start with. Only inside the right wing bubble could a talking point as stupid as this survive longer than it takes to say 'WTF are you smoking?'

 

[Anonymous]

Taxes are not confiscation of labor, simple because you say so. How is property tax confiscation of labor for instance?

You find payroll taxes silly? Fine, show a better method to finance a welfare state. Or explain why a country is better off without unemployment benefits, medicare, social security etc.

And does any of your links separate public and private job creation? Remember that was your point of contention. I checked the first two. They talk about unemployment in general. Not private vs. public job creation. Don't cloud the issue. Put up one link with relevant numbers, not 10 irrelevant ones.

Which brings me back to my original question: you haven't ever answered why Obama should be considered anti-business. Outside of the paid lobbying companies and the usual foaming-at-the-mouth rightwing machine, I've yet to hear someone reasonable to say so. Or any convincing argument for that matter.

And by the way, Greenspan is a broken man. He used to be a believer of some of that libertarian bullsh!t, but 2007/8 showed him what it really was. What do you think happens to a man when at the age of 80 his whole worldview is turned upside down. You'll find no consistency in Greenspan statements made at different times.

What purchased the property that is being taxed? Someone's labor (money). Money (wealth) can not be generated without labor. Even invested monies, inherited monies... the genesis of which was the result of someone's labor. Tax is confication of someone's labor, it is really simple.

Payroll taxes financing all of the above? Why couldn't that be financed from income tax... or corporate tax? Does the Welfare State check that is distrubuted know which bank accout it was drawn from?? We need a simple system that only changes very, very infrequently. One of the biggest problems with the US economy today is that private business don't know what's coming next, particularly with the tax code, the regulatory code(s) and they have no idea what the eff is happening with healthcare. The healthcare industry can't tell us and neither can the Obama admin. The latest example? Business originally was to report 1099's to the IRS for any/every vendor they made purcases of more than $600. REALLY??? So companies go out, trying to be compliant, created new job descriptions for existing employees, hire new ones, get them trained, in some cases at significant expense only to have Obama recently rescind this piece of the legislation. Is it rescinded temporarily? Is is permanent? Do YOU know??? I sure don't. This is just the latest..... there was the income tax issue before that, the healthcare fight at what that meant before that, there's the cap and trade before that.... ON AND ON AND ON, all in a 30 month time frame. Private business (except possibly GE) does not like Obama policy/plan or lack thereof mostly because of severe uncertainty and the inability to plan because of it.

Public vs Private job creation?? How about public v private job losses over, say, the last 4 years??? This recession and recovery (if you want to call it that) has been borne by the private sector for the most part. It is only just now (see stimulus money) that public employers are doing what they should have been doing all along. It does not take a scientist to know that when the private enterprise is struggling it will not be long before public enterprise struggle as well.

As for irrelevent links.... You said private job creation had not been that bad. You posted a link to back up your assertion. The links I posted are extremely relevent. Private job creation has not been strong enough to make any significant dent in the nations unemployment. If the country slips back in to recession what do you think the short and long term prospects for both private and public job creation will be??

You may remain unconvinced. That is your perogative.

 

[redtreviso]

Are we not pretty close to full *** now??? Why the eff would you want to wake the idiots?

I am a registered independent. I vote republican the vast majority of the time but I'm under no illusions. I'm of the belief that, particularly in Washington, it does not really matter who is there. Corruption rules the day. Those of you "disappointed" with Obama just have not been paying attention. Winning elections is the number 1, 2 and 3 priority for politicians and the more power associated with the elected position the more this becomes absolute.

I vote republican mostly becuase they have at least a passive belief in a stong private enterprise being that which drives us economiclly.

Gotta tell you though, I think if Hillary were in the oval office the US economy would be in a much better place.

Pro Business Republicans

""The GOP's take on the auto industry: Killing the auto industry kills the auto unions. AWESOME!

The lesson from the auto industry and the GOP's stance on saving or killing it is the lesson people keep forgetting. The GOP will pay any price to kill the Unions. Look at Wisconsin. Many of those legislators are bout to be out of a job but they are fine with that. They succeeded in weakening the Unions and that is a fair price.

The same thing is happening in education. Since they couldn't kill the teacher's unions they have decided to kill education. By doing so they will take down the strongest of all the unions. The teacher's unions scare them the most because most of the time the teachers win. See, when you advocate for children you usually win in the public eye. So... the teacher's unions must die.

And the auto union.

And the clothing manufacturers unions.

And the GOP doesn't care what the price is. They were willing to kill the entire auto industry to get their way.

They will stop at nothing.""

 

[redtreviso]

One of the biggest problems with the US economy today is that private business don't know what's coming next, particularly with the tax code, the regulatory code(s) and they have no idea what the eff is happening with healthcare. The healthcare industry can't tell us and neither can the Obama admin. The latest example? Business originally was to report 1099's to the IRS for any/every vendor they made purcases of more than $600. REALLY??? So companies go out, trying to be compliant, created new job descriptions for existing employees, hire new ones, get them trained, in some cases at significant expense only to have Obama recently rescind this piece of the legislation. Is it rescinded temporarily? Is is permanent? Do YOU know??? I sure don't. This is just the latest..... there was the income tax issue before that, the healthcare fight at what that meant before that, there's the cap and trade before that.... ON AND ON AND ON, all in a 30 month time frame. Private business (except possibly GE) does not like Obama policy/plan or lack thereof mostly because of severe uncertainty and the inability to plan because of it.

and what was the 1099 vendor limit before?