Tavis Smiley is fighting mad.
The four front-runners in the Republican presidential race lamely cited scheduling conflicts as an excuse to avoid the “black” debate to be held at Morgan State University in Baltimore Thursday night. http://www.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/news/bal-to.smiley26sep26,0,5971022.story. This leaves the debate to be carried by former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, Sen. Sam Brownback (KS), Cong. Ron Paul (TX), Cong. Duncan Hunter (CA), and perennial candidate and gadfly Alan Keyes. Smiley successfully held a black debate for Dem candidates in the summer at Howard University in which all of the front-runners participated. http://www.pbs.org/kcet/tavissmiley/special/forums/. You’ll recall I live-blogged from that event. I’m scheduled to live-blog from Thursday’s debate as well.
Well, I’m not angry at the Republican front-runners. In fact, I admire their refreshing honesty. They are not interested in black voters. They know that the Republican nominee, whoever he is, is unlikely to get more than 10% of the black vote. And with a short primary season, they don’t have the time to indulge in the empty gesture of debating about issues of primary importance to black voters. Moreover, most of them (Giuliani, I mean you) would be hypocrites if they stood up on the stage at Morgan and suggested that any part of their former or future policies would be aimed at addressing the particular concerns of African Americans. Why should we expect these candidates to continue the lame story peddled by the Republican Party during the past 10 years that the Party is really, really interested in courting black voters? What policies, advanced by the Republican Party in the last eight years could reasonably support the idea that Party leaders understand and are responsive to problems faced by so many blacks (e.g., over-incarceration based on draconian drug laws, predatory lending, lack of health insurance, hate crimes, property tax-funded education, voter intimidation, racial profiling, sky-high college costs, lack of meaningful public transportation, a living wage, gun violence)? I admit that the Dems have tried to make progressive change on only a few of these, but the Republicans have been resistant, even hostile, to addressing any of these issues.
Perhaps the front-runners’ decision to dis’ the debate at Morgan signals a new period of candor in the Republican Party. My fervent hope is that this honesty will continue through next summer’s convention, where I hope the Party will return to featuring Alan Jackson and the Oak Ridge Boys as the evening talent. That way I can tune-out after the presentation of the nominee, instead of agonizing through every night just to watch Chaka Khan or Brian McKnight (although the deer-in-the-headlights look on Chaka’s face while she sang “Ain’t Nobody” before the disinterested throng of white delegates at the 2004 Convention was priceless).
I’m going to join Giuliani, McCain, Thompson and Romney in a show of honesty. I’m not going to attend or live-blog from the debate at Morgan on Thursday. I don’t think we’ll learn much by talking with candidates who have no hope of even approaching the nomination. In fact, I think we’ve learned all we need to know about a future Republican presidency from the decision of the Party’s most viable and popular candidates that they have better things to do on Thursday night than focus on the interests of black voters.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: ken EMAIL: IP: 70.13.210.3 URL: DATE: 09/26/2007 06:59:49 PM "What policies, advanced by the Republican Party in the last eight years could reasonably support the idea that Party leaders understand and are responsive to problems faced by so many blacks (e.g., over-incarceration based on draconian drug laws, predatory lending, lack of health insurance, hate crimes, property tax-funded education, voter intimidation, racial profiling, sky-high college costs, lack of meaningful public transportation, a living wage, gun violence)? Fortunately for most of these issues you have listed are local issues. And most of these local urban government authorities happen to be democrat. So these issues that you have been talking about for the last 10 years or so are already getting handled. The Democrats have done beautifully in these local urban utopias. Now I know you already are very satisfied with how things are going locally, but here is how the republican would handle these locally. "e.g., over-incarceration based on draconian drug laws" Likely, the republicans end up looking more to the victims of crime and still would try and remove criminals out of the mix of society. They would believe across the board enforcement and consequence would deter crime. Also they believe family structures make a difference on drug use and would look for ways to encourage families. They believe over time these changes would cause the incarceration to decrease. "predatory lending" Republicans likely will let the market handle this. It will spank both the person who did not research their biggest investment, and also the lender will go bankrupt not getting the loan money back. Republicans would be for offering financing education for borrowers. But in no way would republicans wish encourage the same type of decisions by bailing out those who make them. lack of health insurance: The first thing republicans would like to do is find out trully how many American citizens, excluding illegals, don't have health care who want it. Republicans believe health should be tweaked, but do not believe the government should have the kind of power being the single provider of the nation's helalth care would give. Republicans believe more people are served faster than in other countries as the system is right now. They also believe if there is a government health care, there will a system of health care for the rich and one for the rest. hate crimes, hate crimes are intersting, because the person who is for hate crimes also genrally doesn't think deterrants work. Republcans do think deterrents work and are interested in stopping all kinds of crime. Therefore all deterrent penalties should be set high enough to be a consideration in the criminals mind. And we should work hard enough that the criminal believes he will be caught and do time for the crime. property tax-funded education: Republicans compromised school vouchers for a lesser plan called no child left behind. Republicans would prefer to have parents be the customer of the school and the schools catering to the parents, by having the parents controlling where the money already spent for their child should go. voter intimidation: voter fraud and antimidation is handled on a local level. Statistically, still true today, voter fraud was more frequent in democrat strongholds by democrats. Republicans, like the rule of law and expect to enforce the law whenever possible. racial profiling, Republicans are against people being harrased soley because of race. However this again is a local issue, and fortunately is being handled in our urban heavens run by democrats. "sky-high college costs; Republicans have wondered when the universities will be accused of gouging the students. They have gone from having waitresses and waiters being able to work their way through college, to now having parents start saving when the child is in the womb, and still needing government assistance. The double digit increases year after year should not be rewarded with new government money, but instead more competetion in universities is needed. And other forms of eductaion to get skills. "lack of meaningful public transportation: In very few cities is this a priority or something that will serve the public. But once again this is a local matter and is being handled by the wonderful democrat controlled urban centers. a living wage, with 3 to 5% of the work force working at a minumum wage and 1% of those full time and 75% of those teen agers, skills is the best way to attain a livable wage. This will be done by involved parents armed with tools such as vouchers. And also families sticking together either making two incomes or not spending money on daycare. gun violence: Republicans are against gun violence, obviously, they also believe in the the right to bear arms. They believe more enforcement of current laws rather than making new ones that only law abiders follow is more effective. Of course by the responses to follow you will understand why time spent somewhere else is better use of one's time. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Dragon Horse EMAIL: IP: 68.106.98.16 URL: http://pmsol3.wordpress.com DATE: 09/26/2007 08:05:11 PM Prof...no disrespect to you or anyone else but... Black people should be intelligent enough to get literature on the party platforms and the candidates and make up their own mind. I get sick of racial/ethnic sucking up and clowning to get votes. I don't care if it is Bush murdering Spanish or Hillary trying to talk ghetto...all of it makes me sick. I find it condescending and frankly disgusting. I'm black...but guess what I speak English, and low and behold, I can read too. Talk to me like you would anyone else, don't try to talk down to me or "relate" to me by talking like you are some slave from 1864 or fresh out of South Central L.A. throwing gang signs. I don't need to know a candidates specific views on black people...per se...general views on race and some issues would be fine(like AA, civil rights). Other things...(most things) are not race-specific for the majority of black people in this country as they are middle class and have a lot of the exact same problems as whites of the same class. Almost all the things you mentioned are lower class black issues, which are not relevant to the majority of the black community in America in 2007. As far as Tavis Smiley and Morgan State. Forget Tavis, I'm serious. I don't like Tavis, and 95% of what he says means anything to me or has a fundamental effect on my life or what I want to accomplish. Big Government Program Tavis, Fast Talk Dyson, Messy Jesse, and Hot Comb Sharpton act as if they are the "gate keepers " for black political thought of 38 million people? Give me a damn break. There are many countries in this world that are more diverse politically with much much smaller populations than African Americans...and they have multiple avenues and options on political issues. Black political thought at the national level is monolithic, monotonous, and speaks for a minority of our community (the bottom 20% or so) not for the rest of us, and they play off of the racial solidarity formed over our history to keep us supportive even when at times some of the things they want are not in the benefit of middle class (and up) blacks and more than it is for whites or anyone else. These "leaders" have no constituency, they are not elected, they are not accountable, the are media creations that white people turn to when they want the "low down" on the "negro" and that is typically the "ghetto negro" not on the "average negro"...they can't even get that right 9 times out of 10. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: bigmaconcampus EMAIL: IP: 71.247.216.148 URL: DATE: 09/26/2007 08:15:24 PM "lack of meaningful public transportation: In very few cities is this a priority or something that will serve the public." that is an uproarious statement. you're right that it's a local issue, but you got it exactly backwards. in very few cities is this NOT something that the public needs. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Dragon Horse EMAIL: IP: 68.106.98.16 URL: http://pmsol3.wordpress.com DATE: 09/26/2007 08:18:13 PM I would like to add something Chris G said at Bookerrising.com 'I still don't think the GOP should do a debate hosted by Smiley. Why do a debate where all of the questions would basically be "When did you stop beating your wife" and "When did you go from beating your wife, to producing kiddie porn?" If Qwen Ifill or Juan Williams could do the panel, that would be fair. While Williams is a liberal, he is fair in his reporting and has been a fair critic of Bush vis a vis the war, Katrina, and healthcare. It's not that Republicans don't want the Black vote, they need all they can get. But who want to take time from amassing real votes, to genuflect before a demographic who is admittedly hostile and unwilling to hear a message. Even rich, affluent Blacks come with the "What about "Black" issues", even though they have amassed their wealth in the much maligned "free capital markets". Even if the candidates were to appear, Tavis, Tom Joyner, and all other "ear to the ground' Black media personalities would basically use the debate to broadcast to Blacks how the GOP "just don't get it" and "have no real desire to see to the advancement of Black people". So the Dog and Pony show and fake indignation is really disingenuous. Blacks do not vote for Republicans, nor do most us give them the benefit of the doubt when they try to deliver a message. At best, the message is recieved with polite applause. On the other hand, John Kerry, (who has since thrown Vick under the bus, I guess as a stab at Blacks who did not support him as he felt they should) showed up to the NAACP convention in 2004 and recieved a standing ovation and was heavily aapplauded when he stated he wanted to be the "Second Black President"'. bookerrising.blogspot.com/2007/09/quote-of-day_26.html ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Tafaraji EMAIL: IP: 205.188.117.11 URL: DATE: 09/26/2007 11:59:12 PM DH, what a booty sniffing hypocritical boor you are. You're always the first one crying and feigning insult. Yet your entire rant was filled nothing less than spiteful rhetoric and venom. You haven't changed AT ALL. But guess what? Neither have I. I still think, you're a hate-filled negative pos. People think you hate yourself, but that's not the case. You hate everyone else! Especially black folks. It's amazing how COON-servative you've suddenly become; I read your post on Booker's Rising and you have ( through cloak and dagger) turned that blog into something equivalent to StormFront. You're pathetic and should LEAVE BLACK FOLKS alone. I think the honorable host of Blackprof, should also be aware of the hateful rhetoric you've espoused about this blog and character assasinations you've made through-out the web. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Chauncey EMAIL: IP: 75.35.4.219 URL: DATE: 09/27/2007 01:36:36 AM i don't have the time or energy to respond appropriately to this barbarism (my corporate tax practice booms around this time every year). suffice it to say you're wrong about everything. ken is wrong about almost everything in his post too. republican candidates don't take blacks seriously because blacks act like clowns, crying about nonsense like "hate crimes" (which don't happen anywhere but backwards hellholes like jena) and "overincarceration" because of "draconian drug laws" (which doesn't affect good black people who obey the law and don't use drugs). black liberals love defending blacks who aren't worth defending (e.g., black drug criminals and black hooligans like mychal bell). that sort of stupidity will never be taken seriously by any political party. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Chauncey EMAIL: IP: 75.35.4.219 URL: DATE: 09/27/2007 01:44:17 AM i just read tarafagi's post. i have to say you're a bit of an idiot. melodramatic, too: which makes you some sort of wild idiot. nonetheless you're not an atypical blackprof poster. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Tafaraji EMAIL: IP: 205.188.117.11 URL: DATE: 09/27/2007 07:41:46 AM Clancey! What I say to DH has no effect on you. Or does it? Besides, there isn't anything in any dictionary that denotes melodrama as having a relationship to being wild. What is your point? I'm not an "wild idiot". Why are you calling me that? I don't call you or any other white person names. In fact, I don't even type TO YOU at all. I'm in a community of BLACK PEOPLE,sharing views good and bad. Why are you here? I feel like I'm being monitored, by you! ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: nanakwame EMAIL: IP: 71.249.189.209 URL: DATE: 09/27/2007 09:03:07 AM Tree in Jena! Cut the tree before - we learn dialoguing, kid. Roots remain hurt. Nana KAC 9/2007 ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: nanakwame EMAIL: IP: 71.249.189.209 URL: DATE: 09/27/2007 09:48:35 AM "Even rich, affluent Blacks come with the "What about "Black" issues", even though they have amassed their wealth in the much maligned "free capital markets". Our struggle was to “free” the capital markets from cronyism and racism. We never burned down striving businesses – OK or NC, out of racial hate. If socialist features were asked for, it was for the government to enforce the same privileges our counterpart were receiving, since the 1930’s in mass. DH – these hyperbolic statements are so off. If you knew African American history as you know Asian you would not agree with such BS dogmatic attacks on our ancestors’ greatest battles. 2) Whites don't have to go to a meeting and ask what is in for the black community. It is a given - look into a white males face, really look! ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: nanakwame EMAIL: IP: 71.249.189.209 URL: DATE: 09/27/2007 09:49:10 AM "Even rich, affluent Blacks come with the "What about "Black" issues", even though they have amassed their wealth in the much maligned "free capital markets". Our struggle was to “free” the capital markets from cronyism and racism. We never burned down striving businesses – OK or NC, out of racial hate. If socialist features were asked for, it was for the government to enforce the same privileges our counterpart were receiving, since the 1930’s in mass. DH – these hyperbolic statements are so off. If you knew African American history as you know Asian you would not agree with such BS dogmatic attacks on our ancestors’ greatest battles. 2) Whites don't have to go to a meeting and ask what is in for the our community. It is a given - look into a white males face, really look! ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: BT EMAIL: IP: 71.126.173.133 URL: DATE: 09/27/2007 09:54:44 AM I think this is tacit admission that the horse has left the barn for Rethuglys. If the Rethugly candidate gets over 4% of the black vote this election cycle, it will be a miracle of modern ballot box stuffing. Unless things substantially change before November 2008, the Rethugly Party will resemble George Wallace's 1968 American Independent Party - managing only to carry the deep south. The Party of Joe McCarthy, the Party of Richard Nixon, has done it again with Dumby, and a cast of clowns who betrayed every principle in their greed and avarice. The Rethuglys will always be able to find a few intellectually bereft morons, and black buffoons to make excuses - but the bottom line is that the Rejection of Rethuglanism by black folks is due wholly, and in every measure to Rethuglican racism. The Hispanic vote may now fall in line with the black vote. Dumby has alienated the most reliable source of color in the Rethugly hierarchy, by setting into place draconian rules against visitation by US Cubans to their relatives in Cuba. He has done little to benefit anyone except the multinational corporations in re entering Cuba post Castro's imminent demise. Local Rethuglys have found a new group to bash, in the form of Hispanic illegal immigrants, with the fury of a lynch mob. 95% of the black vote... 90% of the Hispanic vote... It just doesn't get any better than seeing the Rethugly barstids go down for the third time. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Dragon Horse EMAIL: IP: 162.6.232.254 URL: http://pmsol3.wordpress.com DATE: 09/27/2007 10:09:35 AM Taf: (yawn)...stay off the drugs or get on some drugs, either/or. If you have a problem with what I post on Bookerrising, take it up with Shay, the mod. She does moderate and respond to e-mails. I post at her pleasure. Her and I usually agree, when we don't she does not hesitate to say so. Don't like what I post here...take it up with the people who own the site. I do. Here is a site for your education: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluralism_%28political_philosophy%29 Racial rhetoric like "COON-servative" is not going to get you anywhere with either site mods trust me. Grow up. FYI: Poll: GOP outreach to blacks seems likely to be spurned again Posted 11/1/2006 10:35 AM ET By Nancy Benac, The Associated Press WASHINGTON — Black voters are far less likely to approve of the way President George W. Bush is doing his job than voters generally, and they are more likely to feel that the country is on the wrong track, disheartening news for a Republican Party that has been trying to curry favor with minority voters in recent years. In what could be a particularly bad sign for Republicans in next week's elections, black voters also are more likely to say that the Iraq war was a mistake and that recent disclosures of scandal and corruption in Congress will be very important to their vote, according to an Associated Press-AOL Black Voices poll conducted Oct. 23 through Monday. Black voters have historically voted Democratic, and their votes are critical to Democratic hopes to win tight Senate contests in Tennessee, Missouri and Virginia. Democrats hope to regain control of the Senate, where they need a gain of six seats, and 33 of the 100 seats are at stake. The party's chances look better in the House of Representatives, where they need to pick up 15 seats and all 435 seats are up for a vote. Unhappiness among black voters is reflected by L.C. Washington, a 41-year-old Democratic graduate student who says Bush is "the worst president in history," not to mention "the dumbest president I've ever seen — he's the devil." Washington lays blame for a laundry list of ills at the Republican Party's doorstep. "Republicans are trying to win over black voters," says Washington, but "not doing a good job. Doing a poor job — the war, gas prices, job losses and the layoffs." Even among black Republicans, there clearly still is work for the party to do. "I don't think Republicans are doing any kind of reaching out to African-Americans," said 71-year-old L.D. Harper, who's been a Republican since he was 18. While black voters say Republicans have done a poor job of representing their interests, they also have misgivings about the Democratic Party. Almost half of black voters said the Democratic Party takes their vote for granted; about a third said the party has done a poor job of representing their interests. About a fourth of blacks said they weren't confident their votes would be counted accurately. On the issues, black voters were most likely to rate the economy and health care as extremely or very important to them personally. The AP-AOL Black Voices telephone poll of 900 black adults, 361 of whom are likely voters, was conducted by Ipsos. The margin of error for the full sample is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points, 5 percentage points for the black likely voters. The overall likely voter results are from an AP-AOL poll released last week. About nine of 10 black voters have gone for the Democrats in recent elections. Republicans, particularly party chairman Ken Mehlman, have tried to reach out to minority voters in recent years. Bush's draw on the black vote inched up to a still-anemic 11% in 2004. But since then the party has taken a hit because of widespread dissatisfaction with how the Bush administration responded to Hurricane Katrina last year. Only 38% of blacks are confident the federal government would help them in a major disaster, according to the AP-AOL poll. And while the Republican Party has strongly pushed the candidacies of black Republicans in the coming elections, the survey offers little hope that black Republican candidates hold special appeal for minority voters. More than eight in 10 black likely voters say the race of the candidate makes no difference to them. "It just depends on their platform," said Kassandra Williamson-Moore, a black Democrat. "You can't just vote strictly by race." Prominent black candidates this year include Republican gubernatorial hopefuls Kenneth Blackwell in Ohio and Lynn Swann in Pennsylvania, Republican Senate candidate Michael Steele in Maryland, Democratic Senate candidate Harold Ford Jr., in Tennessee, and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Deval Patrick in Massachusetts. Republicans Steele, Blackwell and Swann are behind in the polls; Democrat Ford is running about even with his opponent, and Patrick is leading. Blacks are disproportionately unhappy with Bush, 89% of likely voters disapprove, compared with 61% of all likely voters. But blacks' approval ratings for Congress — disapproval ratings, actually — are roughly similar to those for all likely voters. Some 83% of likely black voters disapprove of the way Congress is doing its job, compared with 75% of all likely voters. David Bositis, of the Washington-based Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, said there's little variation in congressional approval numbers by race because Congress is so widely viewed as being "in the trash." Overall, Bositis said, the Republican courtship of black voters sometimes looks like a case of "one step forward, two steps back." "They're never going to succeed in attracting more African-American support until the party has some level of catastrophic failure and then decides to go back to the drawing board," he said. Curtis Gans, director of American University's Center for the Study of the American Electorate, said voter turnout among blacks tends to be lower than among adults in general, but in 2004 they, like Americans overall, turned out in higher numbers. He said voter discontent could boost turnout similarly this time, adding that: "The group that is the most uniformly anti-Republican at this time is African-Americans." Two-thirds of black registered voters say they are following news about the campaign, compared with 71% of all registered voters doing likewise. Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Dragon Horse EMAIL: IP: 162.6.232.254 URL: http://pmsol3.wordpress.com DATE: 09/27/2007 10:32:25 AM Taf: Question...what do you consider a conservative? I'm anti-neocon as I don't consider them true conservatives. I don't care for the religious right and am myself an agnostic Buddhist (if you can't figure that out don't ask as I will publically ridicule you). Not for school prayer or 10 commandments in school, etc. I support drug legalization (at least for users) or more like decriminalization. I'm not against affirmative action per se, although I'm against laws that force institutions to adopt quotas to avoid law suits. I'm more for affirmative action that pushes stupdents up not pull them up (making them competitive from the start not trying to make them competitive in 12th grade or as a college freshman). I believe in global warming. There are many things I disagree with Republicans on which is why I'm a swing voter. I am hawkish on defense and foreing policy (although I do not support Bush's execution of the Iraq situation, he is a moron). I am fiscally conservative, pro-business, pro-free trade, I do believe in austere social programs that have feedback loops which show results. I am not big on labor unions, but don't want to ban them, I'm typically pretty states rights, although I believe the education system should be more (not less) federalized and standardized. NCLB needs serious reform or just scrapping. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: BT EMAIL: IP: 71.126.173.133 URL: DATE: 09/27/2007 10:52:08 AM Rethugly lock step rejection of SCHIP yesterday, and Dumby's threatened veto should just about put the final nail in the Rethugly coffin... www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/26/AR2007092602067.html?hpid=opinionsbox1 Now for the voters with that wooden spike. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: nanakwame EMAIL: IP: 71.249.189.209 URL: DATE: 09/27/2007 12:21:20 PM "Walters condemned the noose incident, calling it "abhorrent and stupid" in a New York Times op-ed piece this week, but he said the act broke no Louisiana law. He said the U.S. attorney also could not find a federal crime on which the three students could be charged. is the statement in bold - true? ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: illogic EMAIL: IP: 208.243.230.61 URL: DATE: 09/27/2007 01:01:37 PM Ken: Calling the issues raised by Ms Ifill “local” so that you can impugn Democratic political leaders is silly and gratuitously partisan. Do you really think that blackprof.com visitors don’t understand the federal government’s roles in sentencing guidelines, regulating predatory lenders, protection voter rights, etc.? The Republican candidates themselves should have made the arguments you lay out in your comment. I agree with you on this point; Giuliani, Romney and McCain do feel that “time spent somewhere else is better use of one's time”. Like Ms Ifill, I appreciate this new candor on race issues. Hopefully, I‘ll no longer be subjected to spectacles like our president making the claim that : “we’ve got a very strong record when it comes to empowerment, when it comes to education …” http://midsouthblack.wordpress.com/2007/09/22/president-bush-speaks-out-on-race-relations-and-jena-6/ Now, perhaps, Bill O’Reilly will no longer need to hide his surprise at finding a good restaurant run by blacks. If this snub allows us to get past the question of whether Republicans respect the concerns of African Americans, it will have been a service to the black community. (My condolences to Jesse Peterson, Lashawn Barber, and the rest of the Project 21 gang) ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: BT EMAIL: IP: 71.126.173.133 URL: DATE: 09/27/2007 01:02:22 PM No = that is not true, Nana. Louisiana has Hate Crimes Statutes, and participates in reporting Hate Crimes at the Federal level: www.fbi.gov/hq/cjisd/formssummary.htm Here is a specific list of the applicable codes: www.partnersagainsthate.org/laws/list-of-hate-crime-laws.html?state=la Since the Justice Department has been totally corrupted with Federalists who don't believe in Hate Crimes laws in the first place... www.thenation.com/doc/20011001/bach Don't expect the Federal Government populated by Rethuglys to find anything wrong with a lynching. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Craka Smasha EMAIL: IP: 64.160.149.170 URL: DATE: 09/27/2007 01:15:31 PM I ... I ... I ... I ... I ... I ... I ... I ... I ... Get over yourself clown. And quit flooding the blog with your narcissistic masturbation. No body asked, no body gives a damn. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Tafaraji EMAIL: IP: 64.12.117.11 URL: DATE: 09/27/2007 03:04:01 PM I...I...I..., That's just my point, he wants to be some magic negro. DH, I'm not comfortable with the language I used, but apologies would be shallow. I apologize to the Profs, and other members as well. You've asked me what do I think a coonservative is, but that's just my point. You come off as an opportunist rather than someone with deeply rooted ideological beliefs. I believe the only reason you've aligned yourself with other COON-servatives is because they are malicious towards black people. As for Shay, if she can't see that she's being manipulated, that's on her. Perhaps she shares your views. One thing for sure, she has certainly amassed a bunch of haters. Anyway, I take back the "pos" part. I do respect your humanity, but I have strong objections to most of your rhetoric. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: ken EMAIL: IP: 24.245.18.8 URL: DATE: 09/27/2007 03:18:41 PM Illogic- "If this snub allows us to get past the question of whether Republicans respect the concerns of African Americans, it will have been a service to the black community. (My condolences to Jesse Peterson, Lashawn Barber, and the rest of the Project 21 gang)" Why is it you believe black democrats should have a say in who the republican nominee should be? The snub you are referring to is the correct assessment you are not going to be voting in the republican primary to decide who the republican candidate should be. It was right for democrat contenders to go to a democrat audience and discuss democrat issues, but why should republicans do the same? Now the election is two years away, the events would run like this. The republicans will choose who they think will best represent their views and also communicate these views. This debate will be among republicans. After this is decided than this republican will try to articulate this point of view and hopefully, more than some blacks will look past their racial hot buttons from the left that hold them captive and actually consider the issues. Its pretty clear its an uphill battle if already they consider themselves snubbed because they feel black democrats should have a right to decide who should be the republican candidate. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: BT EMAIL: IP: 71.126.173.133 URL: DATE: 09/27/2007 03:56:46 PM Speaking of why black folks despise Rethuglys... Dumby's veto of Hate Crimes Legislation: Senate passes hate crime bill that covers violence against gays The measure is attached to defense legislation, which no president has ever vetoed. Opponents say Bush will do just that. www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-hatecrime28sep28,1,6705718.story?coll=la-headlines-nation&track=crosspromo ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: BT EMAIL: IP: 71.126.173.133 URL: DATE: 09/27/2007 04:00:11 PM Breaking! Looks like the Jena 6 Prosecutor has dropped prosecuting Bell as an adult: www.cnn.com/2007/US/law/09/27/jena.six/ ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Dragon Horse EMAIL: IP: 162.6.232.254 URL: http://pmsol3.wordpress.com DATE: 09/27/2007 04:06:33 PM Taf: "You've asked me what do I think a coonservative is, but that's just my point. You come off as an opportunist rather than someone with deeply rooted ideological beliefs." Dude that is called pragnamic. If you allow ideology to run your life you are a fool. Life is far too complicated to make it conform to ideology (which is basically a theory or framework)...I take things as they come and base them on what I think is practical and what I think works or what is in my best interest. I don't give a damn about political parties per se. As far as malicious toward black people...wow tell that to my father, step mother, sister, best friend, grandparents...dude you are nuts. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Dragon Horse EMAIL: IP: 162.6.232.254 URL: http://pmsol3.wordpress.com DATE: 09/27/2007 04:08:10 PM haha I meant to say "it is called pragmatic" LOL ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Dragon Horse EMAIL: IP: 162.6.232.254 URL: http://pmsol3.wordpress.com DATE: 09/27/2007 04:11:20 PM BT said: "Breaking! Looks like the Jena 6 Prosecutor has dropped prosecuting Bell as an adult: www.cnn.com/2007/US/law/09/27/jena.six/ " That's good. Lock his criminal @$$ up as a child. let the others go on time servered and be done with it. He should have never been charged as an adult...none of them should, however due to the brutality of the crime and the previous offenses (Bell was on probation) he needs to do time...his previous vitimes I believe were black. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: BT EMAIL: IP: 71.126.173.133 URL: DATE: 09/27/2007 04:38:32 PM Sorry Lizzie - But I don't buy into the "brutality of the crime" bullsquat. A black eye is hardly a heinous offense. I do buy that Bell should be charged with simple assault, and if that violates the terms of his probation previous offense(s), then he should serve whatever time is justly due. They may well amount to time served at this point. The three students who placed the nooses in the tree should be charged with vandalism, and a Hate Crime under Louisiana's laws. Since a broken beer bottle is as dangerous a weapon as a knife, the men who attacked the 5 youth at the party should be charged with felony assault - and if they are adults, about 1/2 a dozen other things for attacking children. Lastly, the kid with the shotgun should be charged with a felony weapons charge. I imagine the jail population in Jena... Will be considerbly lighter. Ain't justice beautiful! ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: illogic EMAIL: IP: 208.243.230.61 URL: DATE: 09/27/2007 04:40:48 PM Ken: These aren’t the primaries. The Republican nominee is not going to be decided at Morgan State. I wonder if you’re familiar with black colleges. I assure you, there are more than a few conservative (small c) leaning blacks at every HBCU campus. There are many more who are aware of the shortcomings of the Democratic party and are open to fresh perspectives. It’s worth saying again that African Americans are not monolithic politically; we’re just not stupid (well, most of us anyway). I’m not bothered because “black Democrats” won’t be picking the Republican nominee. I’m bothered that a group of people who aspire to be my president can’t find the time to focus on issues that affect the African American community most directly for even one night ! Frankly, ken, I find it almost as troubling that you, with apparent earnestness, think it proper that blacks not take part in the republican platform debate. The republicans will choose who they think will best represent their views and also communicate these views. This debate will be among republicans. After this is decided than this republican will try to articulate this point of view and hopefully, more than some blacks will look past their racial hot buttons from the left that hold them captive and actually consider the issues. What’s wrong with you? Do you really think that policy is best created by white people alone? Do you really think that the 80 or 90 percent of black people who vote Democrat are all just held captive by the left and their “racial hot buttons”? Are we all just too unsophisticated to see the benefits of the free market and reckless tax cuts? I was looking forward to engaging the Republican platform you laid out point by point but I fear my effort might be wasted. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: 3D, Ph.D. EMAIL: IP: 65.66.145.75 URL: DATE: 09/27/2007 04:44:51 PM I see the "Dragon" is in full-flame on this topic, rofl! It [seems to] come a time in all black media-centric/political peoples lives when the white recessives remind them they have money but no power. Tavis needs to take the humble pill and return to empowering all the progressive melanin-rich intellectuals, advocates and visionaries who could make white people debates at black universities look like the "mold on pumpernickle" it truly is! How can Tavis invest so much energy in a presidential process that is truly decided by white electorates and dumbold computers? I heard Tavis tell a white comedian on his show, "you are blackest (meaning melanin-brotherhood) white dude I know." I thought to myself, 'Here goes another one, thinking a recessive can love you to the melanin." Can't be done because if they do it, they will go extinct. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Dragon Horse EMAIL: IP: 162.6.232.254 URL: http://pmsol3.wordpress.com DATE: 09/27/2007 04:56:51 PM Hot damn BT: we are in agreement...however a assault...for Bell is going to weigh heavy as he is already on probation and has a history of violence. If he was an adult three time loser in most states he would be going away for awhile...but I agree the prosecutor overreached however the "noose" incident had nothing to do with Bell attacking that kid. The Black investigator from the Justice Department found this. The sequence was. 1)The Nooses got hung. The kids were not expelled, the way they should have been (not due to the school, but the school board). 2) A little later two of the Jena 6 were in a fight at a party they were trying to crash with some white boys (but reports I have read said there were blacks at the party). 3) There was the fight at the convenient store where the white boy pulled a shot gun and the black kids got charged with stealing it. Also racism to me...but none of that had anything to do with teh nooses, as none of the whites involved in the nooses were involved in the fight, the fight at the store was an extension of the fight at the party. 4) Bell saw a white boy at school who he thought was "talking $#1t" about fighting his boys on a previous occassion but had nothing to do with it...and they jumped him. Bell hit him from behind, reports were he was knocked out by the time he hit the ground, he never through a punch. The other 5 boys came up and punched and stomped him unti it was broken up. That is what the court case says, look it up yourself, I did Now that is not simple assault, that is aggravated assault, but were they really intending to kill him? No, I don't believe so. Should they have been charged as adults? Well...no I don't believe so, maybe Bell but not the others. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Dragon Horse EMAIL: IP: 162.6.232.254 URL: http://pmsol3.wordpress.com DATE: 09/27/2007 05:00:09 PM I do admit BT there was a heightened racial atmosphere because of the noose incident but that is not an excuse for this...but that being said...these kids got railroaded on trump up charges...so yes they deserve justice. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Craka Smasha EMAIL: IP: 64.160.149.170 URL: DATE: 09/27/2007 05:17:57 PM Man, some fools rely too heavily on white reporting: The white Jena place said...Therefore it must be true. Stupid logic! The white witnesses said...Therefore it must be true. Dumb logic! The white victim said...Therefore it must be true. Idiotic logic! Well, you know whites don't lie about Black people. Sambo logic! Grow up, moron. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Craka Smasha EMAIL: IP: 64.160.149.170 URL: DATE: 09/27/2007 05:18:57 PM place = police ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: ken EMAIL: IP: 24.245.18.8 URL: DATE: 09/27/2007 05:49:22 PM illogic, "Frankly, ken, I find it almost as troubling that you, with apparent earnestness, think it proper that blacks not take part in the republican platform debate" I think now we are getting to the point why this would be a silly thing for republicans to go into a atmosphre where people like you are looking for words just to make a race issue out in an out of context statement. Here was the question in case you missed it: "Why is it you believe black democrats should have a say in who the republican nominee should be? I wasn't ignorant of the fact that there are some black republicans when I said this statment. This is why I said black DEMOCRATS. It’s worth saying again that African Americans are not monolithic politically; we’re just not stupid (well, most of us anyway)." You would think by your earlier distortion of me saying its is up to republicans to pick their nominee as exclusive to white, you don't really believe this. "Are we all just too unsophisticated to see the benefits of the free market and reckless tax cuts? I was looking forward to engaging the Republican platform you laid out point by point but I fear my effort might be wasted" First before we decide on your sophistication, why the word "reckless" tax cuts for a cut that actually raised the government revenue. Why do you believe tax increases automatically mean more government revenue. To help in your quest for sophistication maybe ponder this... If the tax rate were 0 how much in revenue would be collected? And if the tax rate were 100% how much revenue would be collected? ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: ken EMAIL: IP: 24.245.18.8 URL: DATE: 09/27/2007 05:58:06 PM illogic, "Frankly, ken, I find it almost as troubling that you, with apparent earnestness, think it proper that blacks not take part in the republican platform debate" I think now we are getting to the point why this would be a silly thing for republicans to go into a atmosphre where people like you are looking for words just to make a race issue out in an out of context statement. Here was the question in case you missed it: "Why is it you believe black democrats should have a say in who the republican nominee should be? I wasn't ignorant of the fact that there are some black republicans when I said this statment. This is why I said black DEMOCRATS. It’s worth saying again that African Americans are not monolithic politically; we’re just not stupid (well, most of us anyway)." You would think by your earlier distortion of me saying its is up to republicans to pick their nominee as exclusive to white, you don't really believe this. "Are we all just too unsophisticated to see the benefits of the free market and reckless tax cuts? I was looking forward to engaging the Republican platform you laid out point by point but I fear my effort might be wasted" First before we decide on your sophistication, why the word "reckless" tax cuts for a cut that actually raised the government revenue. Why do you believe tax increases automatically mean more government revenue. To help in your quest for sophistication maybe ponder this... If the tax rate were 0 how much in revenue would be collected? And if the tax rate were 100% how much revenue would be collected? ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Dragon Horse EMAIL: IP: 68.106.98.16 URL: http://pmsol3.wordpress.com/ DATE: 09/27/2007 07:27:07 PM Smasher: Grow up and respect the board: www.blackprof.com/archives/2007/09/ civility_community_and_the_reg.html How many times do the prof have to repeat themselves? Ken Good point on the tax cuts, one thing people do not know is that when taxes are too high people try to avoid them more and wealthier people have more ways to avoid them. "Under Reagan, marginal tax rates were lowered, but deductions were eliminated, and the end result was that the richest Americans actually paid more taxes. High marginal tax rates mean nothing if people avoid paying them because the tax code is riddled with loopholes." Alan Greenspan was in favor of the tax cuts...why? The budget surplus at the time. His concern was that if we keep going like that, in 10 years there will be no Treasury bonds and bills left in circulation, and how the market will manage to have benchmark interest rates! Greenspan was considering the interest rate and growth rate which most people do not considered. With interest rates around 3% and GDP around 7%, running surplus would be a bad decision for more reasons than the interest rate/inflation. My issue with the tax cuts is that they were passed separately from the spending cuts that they required. As a result, the tax cuts were passed, but the spending cuts never happened. So it was not the cuts to stimulate growth, but that he made the permanent, when the spending cuts did not pass. What he did was hedge bets based on a gamble that the spending cuts would pass and spending would not significantly increase...then came Iraq. (sigh) I'm not economist but I do know (from my minor in it) that liberal and conservative economist differ greatly on how they view government spending. If you view it entirely as consumption, no level of deficit is appropriate. If you view it entirely as investment, interest vs GDP is a great way to determine a good deficit spending level. However, the reality is probably a mix. Government spending probably doesn't quite give the return of the GDP growth rate, so some of it becomes inflation. Bush and Greenspan took the interest/GDP model...and they did manage to weigh it to keep inflation down interest rates at a moderate level as GDP did in fact grow...significantly over the last few years...but that is another issue...the growth was highly uneven. To put it simple. Government spending can cause inflation and some economist do believe (and they have models) that deficits help to control future spending...no deficits will cause inflation...too much inflation (demand pull) this will slow down the economy even more (remember the economy was slowing at the time) which will in turn require a lowering of interest rates...which will cause people to disinvest in dollar debt and the value of the dollar drops internationally which (because we import more than we export) will increase the trade gap and put pressure on companies weakening profits at best causing lay offs and bankruptcies at worst...you get the picture. This is all a delicate balancing act in the short term (although the market will correct in the long term)...it is not just as simple as "Bush helped the rich"... ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: BT EMAIL: IP: 71.126.173.133 URL: DATE: 09/27/2007 07:52:18 PM Ken tries the old tax cut and spend mantra with - "If the tax rate were 0 how much in revenue would be collected? And if the tax rate were 100% how much revenue would be collected?" It's the difference between $0 and $10 trillion, Ken. You are trying to make the Raygun VooDoo economics case, and the same deficits smothering economic growth are back. Every major Rethugly tax cut has caused massive job loss, followed by runaway inflation and deficits... Resulting in recession. You get what you pay for. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Tafaraji EMAIL: IP: 205.188.117.11 URL: DATE: 09/27/2007 08:01:50 PM How can Tavis invest so much energy in a presidential process that is truly decided by white electorates and dumbold computers? That's a GREAT question! and I think he could be very useful, even if the least of efforts only shines light of the real Republicans. That's why I find people who would demonized Tavis to be really unproductive. I mean what's the goal? If we can't allow him to establish credibility, than who? Big Government Program Tavis, Fast Talk Dyson, Messy Jesse, and Hot Comb Sharpton act as if they are the "gate keepers " for black political thought of 38 million people? Give me a damn break. Someone needs a break! ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Dragon Horse EMAIL: IP: 68.106.98.16 URL: http://pmsol3.wordpress.com/ DATE: 09/27/2007 09:22:33 PM BT: "Rethugly tax cut has caused massive job loss, followed by runaway inflation and deficits... Resulting in recession." The tax cuts were in 2001, it is now 2007. Where is the runaway inflation and job loss? However, even with the revised estimates and loss of jobs for August, unemployment remained unchanged at 4.6%, according to the report. The loss of jobs in August were reported in the goods-producing sector, manufacturing sector and construction businesses. WashingtonPost.com – Sept. 7, 2007 Not quite full employment but damn close. Deficits don't in and of themselves cause inflation...if so where is the inflation? The threat of inflation that we are facing is due to the fed lowering interest rates, which cause divestment from USD debt...but it remains to be seen if that will turn into significant inflation as imports get more expensive over the long hall, depends how fast the market corrects. Running a government surplus or reducing its deficit reduces consumer and business spending and raises unemployment. This can lower the inflation rate. That is what I was describing above and it makes perfect economic sense and this is idea is accepted by most economists. Deficit spending can actually generate growth if private investment is stimulated, that increases the ability of the economy to supply output in the long run. Also, if the government's deficit is spent on such things as infrastructure, basic research, public health, and education. These lead to greater potential productivity which lead to greater growth potential in the long term. Deficits cause inflation, but usually because there is too much money in the supply chain, or another way to look at it, too many people have too much money which they are spending too much of which causes inflation (this is why too much government spending is thought to be bad). Typically in recessions, decreasing spending and not cutting taxes (in the Great Depression) makes things worse. Roosevelt lowered taxes and spent a lot on infrastructure projects to boost the economy. There are a few ways to work out...please explain how tax cuts, deficits, and inflation occur in your view. The American economy was already in a slight recession and we had a surplus so you can't blame that on too much spending on the governments part in 2001...the entire time the economy has been growing government spending has increased but that has not had a negative effect on the economy per se. We already talked about the inflation...incomes have actually rose slightly (I believe about 1.5% or something close to that when adjusted for inflation so I don't see that inflation has been outrageous or even that high, it was higher in the 1990's... so can you elaborate? ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: ken EMAIL: IP: 24.245.18.8 URL: DATE: 09/28/2007 01:04:15 AM "Ken tries the old tax cut and spend mantra with - "If the tax rate were 0 how much in revenue would be collected? And if the tax rate were 100% how much revenue would be collected?" "It's the difference between $0 and $10 trillion." I am not sure what that means. But the correct answer is both would be 0. If 100% of everybody's income was collected then people would see no reason to produce income so the government would receive no revenue. If 0% was collected the government would also receive no revenue. So its clear that tax increase does not just automatically cause an increase in government revenues, and also decreasing taxes does not always cause a decrease revenue. Nor is the opposite of these two equations always true. I.E. tax increase decreases revenue and tax decrease increase revenue. However with our current tax rates, the decrease in taxes we have had in recent history, Reagen and Bush, have brought increases in tax revenue. There is no getting around this fact. You can talk about deficits, but without the tax cuts, the deficits would have been larger. The deficits are a product of over spending. Instead of the class war issue of tax cuts. Where only the top 50% get tax cuts, and people who pay more in taxes receive bigger tax cuts; why not discuss what percent of taxation will bring in the most revenue for the government? There must be a point on a graph where we can see a peak income amount before the graph starts turning down back to 0. "Every major Rethugly tax cut has caused massive job loss, followed by runaway inflation and deficits... Resulting in recession. You get what you pay for." Reagen came into office with double digit inflation and double digit unemployment. Two things you aren't supposed to have at the same time. The tax cuts brought on a pretty long econmic growth run. We began having a recession in 2000 and then had 9/11 and stock market manipulators who caused fear in investng and also Katrina. The tax cuts turned us away from what could have been a pretty deep recession. Today we are looking at low unemployment an economy that is still expanding, and a deficit that is going down faster than analyst predicted. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Mwafrika EMAIL: IP: 196.207.17.139 URL: DATE: 09/28/2007 04:47:04 AM From a non American's perspective. Why would the republican (or rethugly as some of you are wont to describe them) candidates snub an invitation that would address a critical segment of the American electorate? They probably been informed of the debate several months ahead, and still couldn't find time to go? Methinks? CONTEMPT!!!! ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: bigmaconcampus EMAIL: IP: 71.247.216.148 URL: DATE: 09/28/2007 06:48:07 AM "It's the difference between $0 and $10 trillion, Ken." you walked right into that one, BT. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: bigmaconcampus EMAIL: IP: 71.247.216.148 URL: DATE: 09/28/2007 06:51:12 AM "However with our current tax rates, the decrease in taxes we have had in recent history, Reagen and Bush, have brought increases in tax revenue. There is no getting around this fact." ken, a fact is something you can prove. you can't prove that bush's tax cuts created a revenue increase. you have correlation, not causation. there's a reason economists don't agree about what you call a fact: nobody actually knows. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Dragon Horse EMAIL: IP: 162.6.233.124 URL: http://pmsol3.wordpress.com DATE: 09/28/2007 08:38:30 AM Ken: Sometimes I think we let our partisenship and general hatred for one aspect of a parties ideology cloud our judgement of everything. Reality is we had stagflation in the early 80's when Reagan took office. Reality also is, when Bush took office we already had started an economic slow down...during both Presidents terms unemployment dropped considerably and under Reagan there was ridiculous economic growth. Under Bush there was considerable growth but not magnificent, but stable study growth. Both presidents cut marginal tax rates (Reagan as I pointed out did not really reduce overall taxes...because really came down hard on deductions, which is what most rich people relied on to get around taxes anyway). Since Bush had been in office, inflation has been low and study...there has been an increase in the deficit, but that obviously does not equal inflation. Unemployment dropped since 2002 and has returned closer to late 90's levels...It was over 6% in 2002, now it is 4.6%...not bad at all...full employment I believe was thought to be about 4.2% or so at least in the 1990's. Reality is that the 1990's, a lot of the growth was imaginary built around the IT bubble, wages were artificially high...that burst by 2000-2001...Bush made some quick decisions. My only problem is that he did not link the tax cuts to the spending cuts (latter did not pass). The reason is more strategic than economic. I feel we are too dependent on foreign owned debt, however...thus far that has not hurt us. Deficit spending is not causing massive inflation because it is mostly in one or two sectors (defense)...not in the general economy that touches most people. So I really don't know what BT is talking about... ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Dragon Horse EMAIL: IP: 162.6.233.124 URL: http://pmsol3.wordpress.com DATE: 09/28/2007 09:42:31 AM Mwafrika: I'm not sure how familiar you are with our politics here...but Shay on Bookerrising laid it out clearly: "The top-tier Republican presidential candidates did not show up for one reason: blacks are not a key constituency in the Republican primaries that they need to win in order to secure the GOP nomination. Thus, they knew that they could literally get more bang for the buck elsewhere and focus on their fundraising efforts. Especially given the overwhelmingly liberal, Democratic audience at Morgan State University. Right or wrong (and I would argue that it's wrong as they should have viewed that the negative publicity was not worth it for them and may hurt them down the line as they try to secure votes for the general election), that is the top-tier candidates' political calculus....even though they lacked the integrity to just state it. The second-tier candidates need all the votes and especially publicity that they can get, and hence why they were there. This is no different than when Democratic candidates make the same calculation and skip debates sponsored by self-identified values groups, knowing that is not a needed constituency to secure the Democratic nomination." http://bookerrising.blogspot.com/2007/09/gop-candidates-rip-four-who-skipped.html Tavis Smiley did comment that: "“there are some in the Republican Party who do understand the importance of reaching out to people of color,” singling out former Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman, former Speaker Newt Gingrich, former Rep. Jack Kemp of New York and former Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele. Mr. Smiley also noted that President George W. Bush last week said it was important for GOP candidates to reach out to racial minorities." I would also say that New Gingrich directly critisized those that did not show saying..."I think Republicans could have, if they had the nerve to do it, a tremendous message” for black voters." The Bush administration (not speaking directly to the debate) also said that the Republican party needs to reach out to more minorities. Still I think Shay is right. If I was Republican and I realized the audience was heavily democratic and would not vote for me no matter what I say and I could be given politically embarrassing "When did you stop beating your mother?" type questions it is more pragmatic for me to go raise money somewhere or speak to people in primary states that would actually vote for a Republican in the primaries. If blacks voted in the Republican Primaries in high numbers all of them would show up. I would also say that even a lot of black conservatives...according to a poll taken on Shay's site do not consider themselves Republican. Conservative is not necessarily Republican. I'm not a registered Republican...I'm not partisen, I'm a swing voter, so is Shay, so are most of the people at Booker Rising. There are a lot of whites who also have conservative opinions on some matters but are not party affiliated and tend to tred only slightly right of center so they will vote for someone like Bill Clinton (left of center) but not someone to the far left... ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Abelian EMAIL: IP: 134.60.11.42 URL: DATE: 09/28/2007 09:45:32 AM All this tax talk...... I am sitting out on this one ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Mwafrika EMAIL: IP: 196.207.17.139 URL: DATE: 09/28/2007 11:39:43 AM Dragon, I concur; "The top-tier Republican presidential candidates did not show up for one reason: blacks are not a key constituency in the Republican primaries that they need to win in order to secure the GOP nomination. Right or wrong (and I would argue that it's wrong as they should have viewed that the negative publicity was not worth it for them and may hurt them down the line as they try to secure votes for the general election)- SO TRUE! I would also deduce that the candidates do no justice in dispelling the "premise" that republicans don't care about blacks, and leave the black republicans in a precarious position. BTW, since you are interested in Asian affairs, hope you are aware of what is happening in Myanmar/Burma (which is regrettable). My point being - tyrants are to be found in ALL regions, as opposed to the mainstream media assertion that depicts specific people (read black africans) as being genetically predisposed to tyranny. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: The Sanity Inspector EMAIL: IP: 168.28.128.78 URL: http://atlantarofters.blogspot.com DATE: 09/28/2007 11:48:51 AM The political calculus is very simple, as Prof. Ifill said. Republicans would like black votes, but don't need them in order to get elected. Why should they attend, just to give Democrats a YouTube video of Republican candidates getting an icy welcome from a black audience? The thinking is, black voters will vote their identity, not their interests, and so will not be swayed by a campaign stop from Republicans. Giuliani in particular has a big job, just courting the traditional Republican base, so that's probably why he specifically is shying away from this event. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: BT EMAIL: IP: 71.126.173.133 URL: DATE: 09/28/2007 12:52:43 PM ken burbles - "Reagen came into office with double digit inflation and double digit unemployment. Two things you aren't supposed to have at the same time. The tax cuts brought on a pretty long econmic growth run." No, Ken - the tax cuts had absolutely nothing to do with it. the Federal Government dropping $1 trillion into the economy in the form of Defense Spending, and the stabilization of interest rates did. You cannot operate a business with rates fluctuating from 9% to 23% on a weekly basis. Interest rates, as well as taxes are a passthrough in product cost. Doesn't make a damn bit of difference whether interest rates are 50% or taxes are 50% as long as they are stable. As such, taxes do not impact economic growth whatsoever. Wealthy individuals are not the people who supply the investment money for corporations - most of that (80-90%) comes out of pension and insurance funds. Further if taxes were so onerous, why is it that the major investors in this country oppose tax cuts. If I need to raise $1 billion, I'm going to people like Soros, Rainwater, Buffet, Paul Allen... None of whom feels that tax cuts have any relevance. First "Read My Lips" Bush raised taxes, then Bill Clinton raised taxes to balance the Federal Budget. Rethuglys whimpered to the high heavens that this was going to collapse the economy... The result was the longest sustained growth in our country's history combined with the lowest unemployment. The "Clinton Tax Hike of 1993" as Cato and other Reich Wingnut sewers called it - The Heritage Foundation estimates that removing the cap would reduce the rate of U.S. economic growth by 2–3 percent. Over the next 10 years, it would cost the U.S. economy nearly $136 billion in lost growth. In addition, roughly 1.1 million jobs would be lost over the next 10 years. www.cato.org/pubs/briefs/bp93.pdf Oh Yeah! Now we are back to Dumby and VooDoo economics again and the same damn Raygun mess killing our future... ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: BT EMAIL: IP: 71.126.173.133 URL: DATE: 09/28/2007 12:59:41 PM Biggie - I'm a serial small businessman. It really comes down to big guys get rich during Rethugly Administrations and little guys get screwed. During Democrat administrations little guys get the chance to become big guys. Taxes don't have a damn thing to do with it. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: BT EMAIL: IP: 71.126.173.133 URL: DATE: 09/28/2007 01:02:53 PM Lizzie scrables - "Reality is that the 1990's, a lot of the growth was imaginary built around the IT bubble, wages were artificially high...that burst by 2000-2001...Bush made some quick decisions." There was no IT "bubble". That is a fiction of the Rethugly need to defend policies which caused the collapse. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Dragon Horse EMAIL: IP: 162.6.233.124 URL: http://pmsol3.wordpress.com DATE: 09/28/2007 02:15:54 PM Mwafrica: I have never heard a mainstream media reporter or writer say black Africans are genetically predisposed to tyranny...can you quote that? "Myanmar/Burma (which is regrettable). My point being - tyrants are to be found in ALL regions, as opposed to the mainstream media assertion that depicts specific people (read black africans) as being genetically predisposed to tyranny. " I know what you are trying to say but that is a weak argument. Myanmar (Burma) is the most backward unstable nation in SE Asia and has been for a long time. Unlike the other governments (democratic or communist) they are doing nothing in the way of improving the lives of their people, even Communist Vietnam is going the China route and improve the standard of living of its citizens. You can see by looking at the UN Human Development Index is the most backward nation in the East/Southeast Asia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Development_Index But that being said it is still superior in living standard to most nations in Sub sahara Africa despite being led by a corrupt junta for decades and the ongoing ethnically based civil wars in the hinterland. Myanmar for a SE Asian country is extremely pathetic...the corruption is higher the Philippine levels and the income inequality is one of the highest in the region, probably over 80% of capital is controlled by the military and ethnic Chinese who immigrated in from across the border...that is it... Sanity Inspector I don't know, if it was not for 18% of blacks in Ohio voting Republican Bush would have lost last election and Ohio would have went to Kerry. BT: What policies went into effect when Bush took office that causes the IT crash in 2001-2002? As I remember the economy was in a slow down before Clinton left office and it was primarily in the technology sector. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Dragon Horse EMAIL: IP: 162.6.233.124 URL: http://pmsol3.wordpress.com DATE: 09/28/2007 02:32:33 PM Mwafrika I want to say that I took a grad school course on "Authoritarian Dictators in the 20th Century" (elective). We talked about a lot of people...but only two were black. Idi Amin Papa Doc The rest were: Tito Mao Stalin Lenin Ho Chi Min Suharto Peron Pinochet Franco Hitler Se Se Seko There are a lot more...however these were the pretty much the worst...so it is pretty obvious that tyranny is not biological to black people it stretches from whites, Hispanics, East and Southeast Asians, South Asians...pretty much every region of the world has had a brutal dictator. In reality most African countries are now democratic and the last major outragenous dictator in the region is Mugabe...the others are petty... To be honest I don't even care about dictators for the most part, as much as what they do. I also don't care what some talking head jounralist who doesn't know details about any thing outside of New York, Washington, London, or Paris thinks about "Freedom" and "liberty"...what is important is...is the leader or the government improving the average life of the citizens in the country or not. That is my litmus test. Deng Xiao Ping was a dictator of sorts (although he had to answer to the Politbureau in China) however he greatly transformed the lives of his people and when he died Chinese people were much better off in the aggragate than they had been in the last 50 years. Now I can point to dozens of free democratic societies when the average person is illiterate and lives in filth, has not study work, and will likely die as poor as they were born. So what good is liberty...? You can be free to live in crap and watch your children starve...great. Some people will say without freedom you can't have economic growth without pure democracy? Bull$#1t. I would say there is a threshold after which you pass that you need to have more social freedoms, rule of law, etc...but to me that is when you have a firm middle class...stability, education, and infastructure development, attracting direct foreign investment these are all things that should come first. Anybody tell you different show them this and ask them to explain: www.grips.ac.jp/module/vietnam/materials/2PN3.pdf pg. 6-7 You should not care so much about what jounralist say about Africans and care more about what Africans are doing for Africans. For more positive journalism...on Africa http://allafrica.com/ ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: nanakwame EMAIL: IP: 71.249.189.209 URL: DATE: 09/28/2007 02:43:37 PM Ho Chi Min - don't know about that one! DH - the IT was not a crash, was a correction in the market, nothing like what is happening now. You see you are missing the finanical problems that were created by hedge funds and greed ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Dragon Horse EMAIL: IP: 162.6.233.124 URL: http://pmsol3.wordpress.com DATE: 09/28/2007 03:05:39 PM Nana: That was the class, I don't believe Ho Chi Min was a dictator...autocrat more like...he died before the real "slaughter" occured in Vietnam after the Fall of Saigon. Really he was a nationalist who wanted freedom for his people and thought Communism was the way (as so many before and after him, he was mistaken though). To bad he couldn't have taken a trip to Indonesia, Malaysia, or Singapore...even Thailand he might have saw that other way if he lived. I never said there was a "crash" it was a correction definately...but there is no crash happening now. THere might be a recession coming but that is still up for debate...I think in the next 6 months we will get a much clear picture. Hedgefunds...well there you go...and that is why I'm saying it will take a while to play out...we will see if the market corrects fast enough...if it does Barnake can stop looking hyper stressed...needs to take a lesson from Greenspan...dude always looked the same no matter what was going down. :-) ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: nanakwame EMAIL: IP: 71.249.189.209 URL: DATE: 09/28/2007 03:07:55 PM http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070928/ap_on_el_pr/bush_clinton_fatigue "The dominance of the two families in U.S. presidential politics is unprecedented. (The closest comparisons are the father-son presidencies of John Adams and John Quincy Adams, whose single terms were separated by 24 years, and the presidencies of fifth cousins Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin Roosevelt, whose collective 20 years as president were separated by a quarter-century.).... Already, for 116 million Americans, there has never been a time when there wasn't a Bush or Clinton in the White House, either as president or vice president." Boy where are we going with this. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Dragon Horse EMAIL: IP: 162.6.233.124 URL: http://pmsol3.wordpress.com DATE: 09/28/2007 03:09:02 PM Nana: I did say crash...sorry, that was my bad. LOL...there was no crash you are right. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Dragon Horse EMAIL: IP: 162.6.233.124 URL: http://pmsol3.wordpress.com DATE: 09/28/2007 03:14:32 PM Nana: where? if I was a pessimist I would say a type of political oligarchy...but it doesn't have to be repressive. In Japan the current PM's father was PM in the 1970s...the last two PM had fathers who were major party figures back in the day, the guy who almost became PM just last week also had a father who was PM. :-) President of Singapore was president for about 30 years and then they had a guy in...after him the son of the first president is in. I don't personally like entrenched power like that...but I have seen where it has not caused a problem as in people are still living well...high standard...etc, but then again...I think what I have seen is not the rule. :-O ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Abelian EMAIL: IP: 134.60.11.42 URL: DATE: 09/28/2007 03:15:37 PM Dragon; With Se Seko I bet you mean Mobutu he was African too, there are other more vicious thugs like Haile Mariam, Siad Barre, Bokassa, Nguema.. But they are a dying breed, thank God. Nana; If the predictions for the next elections are correct the Americans will have been led by two families for more than three decades.. Amazing ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: ken EMAIL: IP: 70.13.7.8 URL: DATE: 09/28/2007 03:34:55 PM BT, "Oh Yeah! Now we are back to Dumby and VooDoo economics again and the same damn Raygun mess killing our future..." We never left the economic structure of what you call Voodoo economics. The top rate when Reagen took office was 70%. He cut this to 35%. All of his other incentives to invest in the free market Now of course you don't think this made any difference. Clinton took office with a 3.9% growth rate and raised the top rate to 39.x%. Which still kept us far from the 70% top rate, and with all the market incentives in place, still very much in the shadow of what you call voodoo economics. Over the last 4 presidents we have had a inflation rate below 3.5%. The stock market in 1981 dropped to 875 from 995 in 1965. Today we are flirting with 14000. Its a great accomplishment, from the misery index figures. Now of course this great economic expansion beginning in the Reagen years, has given the government far more revenue. There is no denying this. You can say all you want. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: BT EMAIL: IP: 71.126.173.133 URL: DATE: 09/28/2007 03:44:41 PM The investment market and the stock market are two different things. Most of the investors I worked with started pulling out of the US Market in late 1999 early 2000 based on the projections that Dumby would win. The people I worked with at that time moved over $3b in assets overseas. During a Rethugly administration, what you are going to see is massive consolidation by a few favored players. Basically what we have seen the last 7 years with the "new" - old AT&T. The core of the growth during Clinton was based on wide open competition, with small players entering the market. There further was a crisis of confidence caused by the bad actors at places like Enron and WorldCom. No one expected much in terms of procsecution, nor rulemaking which might protect investors. A lot of smoke and mirrors - but few real moves to shore up investor confidence or to control illegal operations. Lastly - you look at the industries who support and buy Rethuglys. Energy, Defense, Timber... All essentially dead end industries which are net imports not generating exportable products which generate wide based wealth. You buy oil and timber from other countries which is a net negative for the US Economy. Defense is something you need, but doesn't return any wealth short term. Nothing which generates a saleable product from America to the rest of the world. Nothing which generates wealth down to a broad base. What this means is a high unemployment during Rethugly administrations with a greater concentration of wealth in fewer hands. (I know about the funny numbers released by the Dumbyoids - if you bleive those I'd suggest an investment in a bridge in Brooklyn) From an investment standpoint - that sucks. From a national "good" standpoint... It's a disaster. It is going to take about 10 years to recover from the Dumbya so called "good" economy. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Abelian EMAIL: IP: 134.60.11.42 URL: DATE: 09/28/2007 03:54:24 PM BT , Ken & Dragon ; I wish I knew what you guys are talking about.. Continue with your mysterious debate for once there is no name-calling... ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: BT EMAIL: IP: 71.126.173.133 URL: DATE: 09/28/2007 03:57:37 PM Ken whimpers - "Now of course this great economic expansion beginning in the Reagen years, has given the government far more revenue. There is no denying this. You can say all you want." Ken - You can believe that Rethugly crapola all you want. But the proof in the pudding is who do the wealthy people, and the NY Stock people support... www.theage.com.au/news/business/corporate-chiefs-desert-bush-for-democrats/2007/09/22/1189881828867.html With Morgan Stanley jumping for Clinton - and the $500 million a ticket "soft circle" players (people who individually can invest $500 million a throw) going heavily Democrat... Ain't nobody buying that tax cut crap anymore. The Party is over. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: BT EMAIL: IP: 71.126.173.133 URL: DATE: 09/28/2007 04:20:21 PM Lizzie Bleats - "I don't know, if it was not for 18% of blacks in Ohio voting Republican Bush would have lost last election and Ohio would have went to Kerry." Da Huh? That would be 16% of the black folks who were actually allowed to vote, and have their vote counted. Nationwide it was an astounding 11%, indicating that there was a whole bunch of ballot box shennanigans going on in Ohio. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: BT EMAIL: IP: 71.126.173.133 URL: DATE: 09/28/2007 04:32:20 PM AB - I'm just having fun killing one of the favorite Rethugly oxes. Democrat Presidents do better for the economy than Rethuglys - and have going back 50 years. Rethugly presidencies ALWAYS end in recession. What Rethuglys consistently do is to give a huge tax cut the first year - giving a temporary rise to the economy. That rise is short lived though - www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_05/006282.php ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Dragon Horse EMAIL: IP: 162.6.233.124 URL: http://pmsol3.wordpress.com DATE: 09/28/2007 04:46:08 PM No BT, I was born in Eastern Ohio, black folks there are pretty conservative...sorry to tell you. You do remember the first black female lieutantant gov in the country, Jennette B. Bradley, a republican from Ohio. Here is the minority break out last two elections: " President Bush has pushed for Hispanic votes, winning 35% in 2000 and 44% in 2004. In 2004, 44% of Asian Americans voted for George W. Bush.[15] In the 2006 House races, The GOP won 51% of white votes, 37% Asian votes, and 30% Hispanic votes, while winning only 10% of African American votes.[14] " Hey BT...didn't Clinton and Carter end in recession or on the way down to it? LOL ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Dragon Horse EMAIL: IP: 162.6.233.124 URL: http://pmsol3.wordpress.com DATE: 09/28/2007 04:46:50 PM BT if all REpubiblicans are so racist then why did over 1/3 of Asians vote for them and almost 1/3 of HIspanics? ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Dragon Horse EMAIL: IP: 162.6.233.124 URL: http://pmsol3.wordpress.com DATE: 09/28/2007 04:47:19 PM BT if all REpubiblicans are so racist then why did over 1/3 of Asians vote for them and almost 1/3 of HIspanics? ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Mwafrika EMAIL: IP: 195.189.142.239 URL: DATE: 09/28/2007 04:51:38 PM Can someone explain the huge american internal debt or deficit of sorts vis a vis the massive chinese surplus in foreign reserves. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: BT EMAIL: IP: 71.126.173.133 URL: DATE: 09/28/2007 05:43:22 PM Carter ended in stagflation - not recession. However, Economic growth indices -- GDP, jobs, revenues -- were all positive when Carter left office. The recession actually happened the middle 2 years of Raygun's first term created by his signing of the 1981 "Recovery Act" - a 25% across the board tax cut resulting in an $80 billion federal deficit. By November 1982, unemployment reached, nine million (11%), the highest rate since the Depression; 17,000 businesses failed, the second highest number since 1933; farmers lost their land; and many sick, elderly, and poor became homeless. The country lived through the recession for a full year before Reagan finally admitted publicly that he screwed up. What turned the economy around was raising the interest rates to control the 14% inflation, raising the taxes higher than the level before Raygun's cut, and pumping billions into the economy in defense spending while allowing the deficit to rise. Raygun's strong point wasn't the economy - it was his international relations (and a lot of help from Greenspan) There was a stock market correction after Clinton. But the recession didn't start (at least according to some Rethuglys) until after 9/11. The Dumby Tax cut for the rich exacerbated the recession, resulting in even higher unemployment (in raw numbers) and business loss greater than the Great Depression. It took nearly two years after the end of the recession for job growth to return – something that hasn't happened since the Great Depression – and once it did, the pace of growth has been anemic. The 1.7 million jobs created in the last year is weaker than any comparable period in a recovery since the 1950s and weaker than even the worst year of job growth in the Clinton administration. Meanwhile workers wages have been falling in real terms, not only over the past year, but since the recovery began in December 2001. What this means is 2-3 million people have dropped out of the workforce becuase they are unable to find jobs - so that actual unemployment rate is at least double the official figures. Which is why you get the huge disconnect between what the American people think of the economy (it stinks) and what the Rethughys are claiming (it's great). It simply breaks down to this: Democratic presidents have produced slightly more income growth for poor families than for rich families, resulting in a modest decrease in overall inequality. Republican presidents have produced a great deal more income growth for rich families than for poor families, resulting in a substantial increase in inequality. On average, families at the 95th percentile of the income distribution have experienced identical income growth under Democratic and Republican presidents, while those at the 20th percentile have experienced more than four times as much income growth under Democrats as they have under Republicans. These differences are attributable to partisan differences in unemployment (which has been 30 percent lower under Democratic presidents, on average) and GDP growth (which has been 30 percent higher under Democratic presidents, on average); both unemployment and GDP growth have much stronger effects on income growth at the bottom of the income distribution than at the top. www.princeton.edu/~bartels/income.pdf ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: BT EMAIL: IP: 71.126.173.133 URL: DATE: 09/28/2007 05:47:11 PM Lizzie spews - "BT if all REpubiblicans are so racist then why did over 1/3 of Asians vote for them and almost 1/3 of HIspanics?" So much for your "Asians are smart" theory. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Dragon Horse EMAIL: IP: 68.106.98.16 URL: http://pmsol3.wordpress.com/ DATE: 09/28/2007 06:17:40 PM Mwafrika: i think you mean the trade deficit that is different from the deficit America has due to spending, which we finance with bonds among other things. The trade deficit is simple. America buys more from China than we sell in China's market. China also (to control inflation and to make trade with various countries easier) fixes it Yuan (Riminbi) to a basket of currencies with creates very limited fluctuation with the dollar. Most nations think the Chinese currency is undervalued, so if it floated freely the currency would appreciate. What this means is, its value as to the dollar will increase, which will automatically (in the short term) shrink our deficit with them (which is large and growing) however China does not want to do this because like a lot of developed countries there banking system is still primitive and they really do not believe they can control the currency using monetary policy, however American politicians keep threatening China. Thing is some American business people (the ones who finish goods in China and import them to America for sale) want Washington to lay off because any increase in the Yuan means increase in their costs as well. Companies who compete with Chinese goods (American, Japanese, European, and Chinese owned but produced in China) want Congress to punish China obviously, that includes a lot of unions as well in America. We buy so much from China if the Yuan did radically increase we would experience inflation everyone knows that...I think Washington just wants the Yuan to float up enough to shut up their constituents, however that has not happened. BT: I have to admit you have a lot of detailed knowledge, even if I feel your analysis is bias. That was some good stuff, that I will be looking into this weekend. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: ken EMAIL: IP: 70.13.7.8 URL: DATE: 09/28/2007 07:29:20 PM BT, "AB - I'm just having fun killing one of the favorite Rethugly oxes." You aint kiddin. You started off having no idea that 100% taxation would mean 0 government revenue, But man have you turned it on since then. BT-"I'm a serial small businessman. It really comes down to big guys get rich during Rethugly Administrations and little guys get screwed. During Democrat administrations little guys get the chance to become big guys. Taxes don't have a damn thing to do with it." Got it, let me write that in my notes. BT-"The investment market and the stock market are two different things." You're talking too fast, really good info. Stock market not investment, investment market something different, got it, ok. BT-"Most of the investors I worked with started pulling out of the US Market in late 1999 early 2000 based on the projections that Dumby would win. The people I worked with at that time moved over $3b in assets overseas." Still taking notes here. People afraid Bush would be elected economy starts to slow. Clinton economy is still good if it wasn't for Bush possibly getting elected. OK. BT-"During a Rethugly administration, what you are going to see is massive consolidation by a few favored players. Basically what we have seen the last 7 years with the "new" - old AT&T. The core of the growth during Clinton was based on wide open competition, with small players entering the market." And in the same post the few favored players.... BT-"Lastly - you look at the industries who support and buy Rethuglys. Energy, Defense, Timber... All essentially dead end industries which are net imports not generating exportable products which generate wide based wealth. You buy oil and timber from other countries which is a net negative for the US Economy" Nevermind its the liberals who roadblock logging, and stop oil exploration. Just a question, aren't these the same guys in these two paragraphs. BT-"There further was a crisis of confidence caused by the bad actors at places like Enron and WorldCom. No one expected much in terms of procsecution, nor rulemaking which might protect investors" You don't mean the wide open Clinton policy in the stock market caused these scandals. Did you mean noone thought Clinton would do anything about it? Or did the scandals only start when "W" took office and the new rules installed during the Bush administration to create credibility again, which is why there was confidence again in the market to bring its growth where it is today. BT- "What this means is a high unemployment during Rethugly administrations with a greater concentration of wealth in fewer hands. (I know about the funny numbers released by the Dumbyoids - if you bleive those I'd suggest an investment in a bridge in Brooklyn" Is this like the "cooking the numbers" like George senior was accused of when the economy was turning around then? BT- "From a national "good" standpoint... It's a disaster. It is going to take about 10 years to recover from the Dumbya so called "good" economy." Maybe there is hope if we can get Bill in again, he was able to turn the Reagen/Bush economy around in days. That is if they were really "cooking the numbers". Hey I wonder if there is a pattern here? BT- "Carter ended in stagflation - not recession" How, what was the method? What changes did he bring to do this? Nothing? ok I believe you. BT- "The recession actually happened the middle 2 years of Raygun's first term created by his signing of the 1981 "Recovery Act" Because Carter had already turned everything around, right? BT- "Raygun's strong point wasn't the economy - it was his international relations" You mean when he called the Soviet's an evil empire and used an arms race to bury their economy? I never expected you would take this view. BT- "There was a stock market correction after Clinton. But the recession didn't start (at least according to some Rethuglys) until after 9/11. You mean in Bush's campaign against Gore where he was saying were in a recession, Bush didn't really believe it? BT- "The Dumby Tax cut for the rich exacerbated the recession, resulting in even higher unemployment (in raw numbers) and business loss greater than the Great Depression" Some idiots believe 9/11 or the enron scandal shaking people's trust in the market or Katrina or the Afganistan war, but you got it, it was the tax cut that caused the boondoggle were in today of low unemployment and a 13000 stock market. BT- "and once it did, the pace of growth has been anemic. The 1.7 million jobs created in the last year is weaker than any comparable period in a recovery since the 1950s" And only 6.6 million since 2003. But whose counting were "killing one of the Rethugly oxes." Thanks BT he's dead. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: ken EMAIL: IP: 70.13.7.8 URL: DATE: 09/28/2007 07:32:31 PM BT, "AB - I'm just having fun killing one of the favorite Rethugly oxes." You aint kiddin. You started off having no idea that 100% taxation would mean 0 government revenue, But man have you turned it on since then. BT-"I'm a serial small businessman. It really comes down to big guys get rich during Rethugly Administrations and little guys get screwed. During Democrat administrations little guys get the chance to become big guys. Taxes don't have a damn thing to do with it." Got it, let me write that in my notes. BT-"The investment market and the stock market are two different things." You're talking too fast, really good info. Stock market not investment, investment market something different, got it, ok. BT-"Most of the investors I worked with started pulling out of the US Market in late 1999 early 2000 based on the projections that Dumby would win. The people I worked with at that time moved over $3b in assets overseas." Still taking notes here. People afraid Bush would be elected economy starts to slow. Clinton economy is still good if it wasn't for Bush possibly getting elected. OK. BT-"During a Rethugly administration, what you are going to see is massive consolidation by a few favored players. Basically what we have seen the last 7 years with the "new" - old AT&T. The core of the growth during Clinton was based on wide open competition, with small players entering the market." And in the same post the few favored players.... BT-"Lastly - you look at the industries who support and buy Rethuglys. Energy, Defense, Timber... All essentially dead end industries which are net imports not generating exportable products which generate wide based wealth. You buy oil and timber from other countries which is a net negative for the US Economy" Nevermind its the liberals who roadblock logging, and stop oil exploration. Just a question, aren't these the same guys in these two paragraphs. BT-"There further was a crisis of confidence caused by the bad actors at places like Enron and WorldCom. No one expected much in terms of procsecution, nor rulemaking which might protect investors" You don't mean the wide open Clinton policy in the stock market caused these scandals. Did you mean noone thought Clinton would do anything about it? Or did the scandals only start when "W" took office and the new rules installed during the Bush administration to create credibility again, which is why there was confidence again in the market to bring its growth where it is today. BT- "What this means is a high unemployment during Rethugly administrations with a greater concentration of wealth in fewer hands. (I know about the funny numbers released by the Dumbyoids - if you bleive those I'd suggest an investment in a bridge in Brooklyn" Is this like the "cooking the numbers" like George senior was accused of when the economy was turning around then? BT- "From a national "good" standpoint... It's a disaster. It is going to take about 10 years to recover from the Dumbya so called "good" economy." Maybe there is hope if we can get Bill in again, he was able to turn the Reagen/Bush economy around in days. That is if they were really "cooking the numbers". Hey I wonder if there is a pattern here? BT- "Carter ended in stagflation - not recession" How, what was the method? What changes did he bring to do this? Nothing? ok I believe you. BT- "The recession actually happened the middle 2 years of Raygun's first term created by his signing of the 1981 "Recovery Act" Because Carter had already turned everything around, right? BT- "Raygun's strong point wasn't the economy - it was his international relations" You mean when he called the Soviet's an evil empire and used an arms race to bury their economy? I never expected you would take this view. BT- "There was a stock market correction after Clinton. But the recession didn't start (at least according to some Rethuglys) until after 9/11. You mean in Bush's campaign against Gore where he was saying were in a recession, Bush didn't really believe it? BT- "The Dumby Tax cut for the rich exacerbated the recession, resulting in even higher unemployment (in raw numbers) and business loss greater than the Great Depression" Some idiots believe 9/11 or the enron scandal shaking people's trust in the market or Katrina or the Afganistan war, but you got it, it was the tax cut that caused the boondoggle were in today of low unemployment and a 13000 stock market. BT- "and once it did, the pace of growth has been anemic. The 1.7 million jobs created in the last year is weaker than any comparable period in a recovery since the 1950s" And only 6.6 million since 2003. But whose counting were "killing one of the Rethugly oxes." Thanks BT he's dead. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: ken EMAIL: IP: 70.13.7.8 URL: DATE: 09/28/2007 07:35:21 PM BT, "AB - I'm just having fun killing one of the favorite Rethugly oxes." You aint kiddin. You started off having no idea that 100% taxation would mean 0 government revenue, But man have you turned it on since then. BT-"I'm a serial small businessman. It really comes down to big guys get rich during Rethugly Administrations and little guys get screwed. During Democrat administrations little guys get the chance to become big guys. Taxes don't have a damn thing to do with it." Got it, let me write that in my notes. BT-"The investment market and the stock market are two different things." You're talking too fast, really good info. Stock market not investment, investment market something different, got it, ok. BT-"Most of the investors I worked with started pulling out of the US Market in late 1999 early 2000 based on the projections that Dumby would win. The people I worked with at that time moved over $3b in assets overseas." Still taking notes here. People afraid Bush would be elected economy starts to slow. Clinton economy is still good if it wasn't for Bush possibly getting elected. OK. BT-"During a Rethugly administration, what you are going to see is massive consolidation by a few favored players. Basically what we have seen the last 7 years with the "new" - old AT&T. The core of the growth during Clinton was based on wide open competition, with small players entering the market." And in the same post the few favored players.... BT-"Lastly - you look at the industries who support and buy Rethuglys. Energy, Defense, Timber... All essentially dead end industries which are net imports not generating exportable products which generate wide based wealth. You buy oil and timber from other countries which is a net negative for the US Economy" Nevermind its the liberals who roadblock logging, and stop oil exploration. Just a question, aren't these the same guys in these two paragraphs. BT-"There further was a crisis of confidence caused by the bad actors at places like Enron and WorldCom. No one expected much in terms of procsecution, nor rulemaking which might protect investors" You don't mean the wide open Clinton policy in the stock market caused these scandals. Did you mean noone thought Clinton would do anything about it? Or did the scandals only start when "W" took office and the new rules installed during the Bush administration to create credibility again, which is why there was confidence again in the market to bring its growth where it is today. BT- "What this means is a high unemployment during Rethugly administrations with a greater concentration of wealth in fewer hands. (I know about the funny numbers released by the Dumbyoids - if you bleive those I'd suggest an investment in a bridge in Brooklyn" Is this like the "cooking the numbers" like George senior was accused of when the economy was turning around then? BT- "From a national "good" standpoint... It's a disaster. It is going to take about 10 years to recover from the Dumbya so called "good" economy." Maybe there is hope if we can get Bill in again, he was able to turn the Reagen/Bush economy around in days. That is if they were really "cooking the numbers". Hey I wonder if there is a pattern here? BT- "Carter ended in stagflation - not recession" How, what was the method? What changes did he bring to do this? Nothing? ok I believe you. BT- "The recession actually happened the middle 2 years of Raygun's first term created by his signing of the 1981 "Recovery Act" Because Carter had already turned everything around, right? BT- "Raygun's strong point wasn't the economy - it was his international relations" You mean when he called the Soviet's an evil empire and used an arms race to bury their economy? I never expected you would take this view. BT- "There was a stock market correction after Clinton. But the recession didn't start (at least according to some Rethuglys) until after 9/11. You mean in Bush's campaign against Gore where he was saying were in a recession, Bush didn't really believe it? BT- "The Dumby Tax cut for the rich exacerbated the recession, resulting in even higher unemployment (in raw numbers) and business loss greater than the Great Depression" Some idiots believe 9/11 or the enron scandal shaking people's trust in the market or Katrina or the Afganistan war, but you got it, it was the tax cut that caused the boondoggle were in today of low unemployment and a 13000 stock market. BT- "and once it did, the pace of growth has been anemic. The 1.7 million jobs created in the last year is weaker than any comparable period in a recovery since the 1950s" And only 6.6 million since 2003. But whose counting were "killing one of the Rethugly oxes." Thanks BT he's dead. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: ken EMAIL: IP: 70.13.7.8 URL: DATE: 09/28/2007 07:40:09 PM sorry kept getting an error code page not found ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Dragon Horse EMAIL: IP: 68.106.98.16 URL: DATE: 09/28/2007 10:14:19 PM Ken you should take it easy on the old folks. LOL ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Mwafrika EMAIL: IP: 196.207.17.139 URL: DATE: 09/29/2007 07:45:28 AM Dragon, You misunderstood my point. America is said to be a debt dependant economy, and the debt increased sharply during bush presidency. http://mwhodges.home.att.net/nat-debt/debt-nat-a.htm China on the other hand has a surplus in foreign reserves in American dollars. http://www.economist.com/finance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8083036 Due to above mentioned factors, I heard an economic analyst claim, American monetary fate will soon be inexorably dependent on china. Ken, BT, I can't profess to know of Reagan domestic policies and how effective they were, but will agree with BT that Reagan strong point was international relations. Fall of communism in Eastern Europe. Fall of Berlin wall and subsequent reunification of Germany. Ultimate collapse of the Soviet Union and subsequent end of the cold war – though (Russia) seems to be rising from ashes of late. Much as people hail Reagan for his international policy, a closer look reveals that only people of European stock (white) benefited from his benevolence. The rest (colored folks) were not so lucky. The 'Reagan doctrine'; Supported anti communist insurgencies in Central America - effect felt to date (political instability, gangs some of which have infiltrated America). Support of Mujaheedin fighters in Afghanistan - gave rise to the Taliban and the one and only Osama bin Laden; need I mention what suffering these two entities have wrought thanks to Reagan. Support of Saddam (Iraq), against Iran. Why did America later turned on its lackey (saddam)? Support of megalomaniac African dictators e.g. Mobutu and Jonas Savimbi - to quote abelian "thank God such leaders are a dying breed". Support of white apartheid South Africa in repressing the ANC, and causing instability in neighbouring African countries. The list goes on and on... Some international problems America is experiencing are as a result of the 'Reagan doctrine'. What goes around ... ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: BT EMAIL: IP: 71.126.173.133 URL: DATE: 09/29/2007 09:54:25 AM Ken has a hissy fit with – “You started off having no idea that 100% taxation would mean 0 government revenue, But man have you turned it on since then.” Geez. I hope you calm down this morning – you are into a regular “Lizzie” meltdown. 100% taxation is pure communism, Ken – where the government owns everything. Worked fine in Russia for a number of years, although any such system will eventually grind to a halt based on inequitable distribution of benefits. Ken collects – “You're talking too fast, really good info. Stock market not investment, investment market something different, got it, ok.” No –You don’t “got it”. There are a number of distinctly different sources for money based on a businesses size, and stage of development which form the "Investment Market". There is “Angel” Capital from wealthy individuals, typically for small start ups. This may range from $20,000 to several million. Venture Capital, which may be public or private money, may be a collection of individuals or part of the investment portfolio of a Pension Fund or Insurance Company. Based on their structure they may invest between $100,000 and $100 million in a small privately held company. Then we have the Investment Banks and people like George Soros and Warren Buffet who invest in buyouts or startup companies in the range of $500 million to $10 billion. Those companies may be privately or publicly held. Where the company is a start up, most typically you take it public to pay off the debt, because the debt is secured by stock. Typically you pay these guys 2.5-3.5 times their investment in 5-6 years. Lastly there are foreign sources, typically in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. The Stock Market only serves one segment of the market, those companies which are publicly held and are driving revenue based on mature products. Neither Dow Jones or Nasdaq invest in companies, nor do they have anything to do with capitalization of privately held companies such as Mars. Ken steams – “Nevermind its the liberals who roadblock logging, and stop oil exploration. Just a question, aren't these the same guys in these two paragraphs.” I’m in “logging”, Ken as part of my “Gentleman farmership”. Some of us po’ black folks in the South still own land passed down from our ancestors despite the Rethuglys best efforts. I’ve yet to see a “liberal” hugging one of my trees, or “roadblocking” the timber company cutting trees on my land. Of course that is private land, and my purely liberal profit motive drives me to replant that land right after it is clearcut, stumped, and burned… So we can cut it again in 10-15 years, instead of 20-30. I’ve seen a lot of stupid conservatives, who clearcut and leave the land without replanting, and then complain about the “shortage” of timber. The conservative position on oil is to build gas guzzlers, and continue to drill for more oil – or pay our enemies in the Middle East. The Liberal position is to look for alternative energy sources, reducing or eliminating the need for foreign oil. If it makes you feel any better Ken, I'll confess in a spate of Liberalism to hugging one of my trees... At current timber prices, that gorgious loblolly is now worth several hundred dollars. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: BT EMAIL: IP: 71.126.173.133 URL: DATE: 09/29/2007 11:09:49 AM BT- "The recession actually happened the middle 2 years of Raygun's first term created by his signing of the 1981 "Recovery Act" Ken whistles - "Because Carter had already turned everything around, right?" Not sure where you got the idea that Carter either inherited a recession from Ford, or left Raygun a recession Ken. Raygun's policies created the worst recession at that time since the Great Depression. Raygun got his tax cuts 108 days into office in 1981. He also imposed a moratorium on all new federal regulation enforcement the moment he took office. In fact, the Reagan administration began slashing and burning existing federal regulation; it cut the Federal Register nearly in half by 1986. Those policies resulted in the S&L collapse, as well as in the near destruction of other industries. Volker tightened the money supply in an attempt to curb inflation. At the same time, Raygun started his deficit spending as a result of his tax dodge based on his tax giveaway. In 1982 the economy nearly collapsed as a result of the double whammy. GOP Senators, notably including Bob Dole, led the way on tax hikes. The economy enjoyed its recovery only after total tax increases larger than the total tax cuts were implemented. Most importantly, average annual GDP growth during the Reagan 80s was lower than during the Clinton 90s or the JFK-LBJ 60s! Raygun was an economic failure - and conservative policies always result in recessions. Go back up to my earlier post and look at the numbers of what happens every time a Rethugly gets "elected"... Conservative "tax cut and spend" is a failure. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: BT EMAIL: IP: 71.126.173.133 URL: DATE: 09/29/2007 11:22:23 AM BTW Ken - I just maxxed out on donations to Democrats supporting a bill within the first 100 days of the Democrat majority in 2009... Getting that POS Raygun's name off our National Airport. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Dragon Horse EMAIL: IP: 68.106.98.16 URL: http://pmsol3.wordpress.com/ DATE: 09/29/2007 11:34:35 AM Mwafrika: Okay I see what you are saying...you are talking about American reserves (bonds mostly) being held by China. Here is approximately how things stand... "About 66% of that 44% was held by the central banks of other countries, in particular the central banks of Japan and China. In total, lenders from Japan and China held 47% of the foreign-owned debt.[32] Some argue this exposes the United States to potential financial or political risk that either banks will stop buying Treasury securities or start selling them heavily. In fact, the debt held by Japan reached a maximum in August of 2004 and has fallen nearly 3% since then.[33] Last year, the central banks of Italy, Russia, Sweden, and the United Arab Emirates announced they would reduce their dollar holdings slightly, with Sweden moving from a 90% dollar based foreign reserve to 85%. [34] On May 20, 2007, Kuwait discontinued pegging its currency exclusively to the dollar preferring to use the dollar in a basket of currencies.[35] Syria made a similar announcement on June 4th, 2007" Typically what you will see in the next few months is less people will buy U.S. debt because Bernake (the reserve chief) just lowered the interest rate significantly, so they will get less return on their investment which also will drop the demand for dollars and lead to a weakening of the dollar value. We won't know the extent for awhile due to hedge funds and hedged contracts go into effect (that's complicated). Could China hurt American seriously? Short answer is yes. Long answer is they won't do it. China's market is far more export dependent than ours. We have a large internal market...despite the fact China has some rich cities along the coasts...most Chinese make less than $3K a year (7.5K with purchasing power parity, meaning they can buy that amount of stuff in U.S. dollars with the money they make which makes the average Chinese person way poorer than 99% of Americans, people in the ghetto live lavish lives in comparison). So they can't generate the kind of internal growth we can. Chinese are also seriously dependent on U.S., Korean, Taiwanese, Japanese, and European companies to buy their "widgets" or to employ their people in "finishing factories". What does this mean in the big picture? If China rapidly sold off all its U.S. reserves there would likely be a rush on the dollar in the international market, causing the dollar price to drop through the floor...it would put us in serious recession, maybe even depression as inflation hits the roof...Barnake would have to take money out of circulation as fast as he could and drop the interest rate significantly (which would only make less people buy debt)...it would take some time for the market to balance out. China would not do this because the effect would be Americans would not buy Chinese goods as much, they are too expensive and American companies would not buy Chinese parts to finish American goods they sell back into the U.S. either. Japanese and all those other folks who are heavily dependent on export sales to America would get hurt and have a cash flow crunch with China...what I'm saying is China would be seriously hurt economically...they will also likely go into recession, another thing that will happen is there own currency will increase (as they sold off the majority of their reserves) making them less competitive compared to South East Asia...IT WOULD BE A MESS, a global recession at best, depression at worse and China will likely destabilize in rural areas. "inexorably dependent on china." So this is true, but what you are missing is, every major economy is heavily tied into each other now. "uch as people hail Reagan for his international policy, a closer look reveals that only people of European stock (white) benefited from his benevolence. The rest (colored folks) were not so lucky. The 'Reagan doctrine" That is nonsense. East and Southeast Asians did very well after the cold war ended up until the Asian Crisis in 1997...(which hurt certain nations more than others...mostly S.Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand) but they have been experiencing rapid growth since about 2000 or so. Unless you don't consider those 1.6 or so billion people in that region as "colored folks". "Some international problems America is experiencing are as a result of the 'Reagan doctrine'." That's wrong...those had been ongoing types of policies since Eisenhower, check your history. We dealt with a lot of "devils" to try to contain communism. Mubutu was not put in power by Reagan...neither was Pinochet, Marcos, Suharto...it didn't matter if it was Ford, Kennedy, Carter, Nixon, Reagan they all pretty much kept similar policies in dealing with the third world...you were on our side or you were on the Russian side, the only thing important was you were anti-communist, other than that you can be a dictator all you wanted. You can't put that solely on Reagan that is nonsense, this had been going on for nearly 30 years before Reagan. Who was president when Communist (Soviet and Cuba) were backing and aiding in the war in Angola and on the other side America and Apartheid South Africa were supporting the non-communists (South Africa had troops). Ford was present first, but (Democrat) Carter continued the policy What I will say is that America was indifferent to the type of government you had as long as you were not communist...many East and Southeast nations took advantage of this and built up their countries and economies (like Park in Korea, Suharto in Indonesia, Chiang in Taiwan, the juntas of Thailand) none were democratic...however they were focused on economic growth and benefiting their nation (even if they skimmed some off the top for them and their families they weren't straight up looting the country like Mubuto Se Se Seko. Do you put no responsibility on the Soviet Union at all? Do you think Afghanisti were being treated well under Soviet control and occupation? LOL How about Ethiopia, you think that moron the Russians put up, Mengistu Haile Mariam did not cause significant and lasting harm there? Remember "We are the World" who do you think was starving those folks and capturing the aid and not given it to his people? Was that Reagan's fault? I can go on and on with this...there was a international war going on...with many battlefields...both sides (as usual in war) did bad things. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: bigmaconcampus EMAIL: IP: 71.247.216.148 URL: DATE: 09/29/2007 11:36:41 AM "100% taxation is pure communism, Ken – where the government owns everything. Worked fine in Russia for a number of years, although any such system will eventually grind to a halt based on inequitable distribution of benefits." i think everyone needs to stop talking about tax policy before things really get out of control. people did not pay a 100% income tax rate in the soviet union, for starters, and the statement that a totalitarian state "worked fine" is beyond bizarre, at least to anyone who believes in liberalism. here is what we know about tax policy, and it's not very much: 1. a tax rate of 0% and a tax rate of 100% both would result state revenues of zero. 2. assuming all other things are equal, lowering tax rates will spur private sector growth, and raising tax rates will retard private sector growth. 3. all other things are never equal. therefore, it is impossible to know, even in retrospect, whether lower taxes actually have increased growth or whether higher taxes have retarded growth. 5. it is also not true that higher growth is always a good thing. sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. see point #1. 5. that's because you need a certain amount of government revenue to create the conditions for markets to operate. 6. there is a level of taxation that is too high and a level of taxation that is too low. see point #1. 7. nobody knows how low is too low or how high is too high. if they say they do, they're full of shit. that's about it. in the end, the most important thing about tax policy isn't so much fairness (although that's important), it's the sustainability of our nation. it's not about deficits narrowing or widening, it's about the obvious, long-term, big-picture story of debt. i may be mistaken, but ken appears to be one of those people who thinks the national debt doesn't matter. you don't need to read tea leaves to know that's wrong in the long run. the u.s. economy continues to grow at a pretty high rate, but that may not continue forever. america's like a 45-year-old man with 8 maxed-out credit cards and a new home theater in the basement. he's doing well at his job and his income continues to rise, so he's able to meet his interest payments and buy new shit and still continue to get offers for new credit cards in the mail. but he's approaching his earning peak, and he's leveraging himself more than he ever has, even though it will never be easier to pay down his debt than it is right now. congress just raised our debt ceiling to something like $9.5 trillion. that's your bush and reagan economic policy at work. that's the big, obvious story that everyone will remember in 50 years. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: BT EMAIL: IP: 71.126.173.133 URL: DATE: 09/29/2007 02:48:14 PM Dang - Biggie ... Did you have to go and ruin my perfectly good rant? :) Actually in one aspect the Soviet System had 0 taxes, since there was no such thing as a income tax or sales tax under communism. Of course the government owned all the factories and means of production, determined how much everyone got paid, determined the cost of goods, and set the rent through ownership of the buildings, took over the family farms and turned them into collectives, and even determined the "official" foreign exchange rate... But there weren't any stinkin' "taxes". ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: ken EMAIL: IP: 70.13.237.193 URL: DATE: 09/29/2007 02:56:17 PM "i may be mistaken, but ken appears to be one of those people who thinks the national debt doesn't matter. you don't need to read tea leaves to know that's wrong in the long run. the u.s. economy continues to grow at a pretty high rate, but that may not continue forever" Way back at 1:04 yesterday I posted this: "Instead of the class war issue of tax cuts. Where only the top 50% get tax cuts, and people who pay more in taxes receive bigger tax cuts; why not discuss what percent of taxation will bring in the most revenue for the government? There must be a point on a graph where we can see a peak income amount before the graph starts turning down back to 0." I consider government revenue a separate issue from government spending. I do understand some government spending can increase government revenue. But the issue of spending is generally separate from the issue of revenue. As of yet I have not discussed spending. It is true 100% taxation is a hypothetical, like 0% tax. (If there is a government) Communism considered all effort of equal value, like BT said without tax. Instead of incentive motivation, it was, cooperate or be imprisoned or executed. After killing 15 to 25% of the population, those left understand the situation and perform. So yes there was a time after being over run by Germany, and after pruning the population, one could say communism had some years of growth. However one can look at the difference of East and West Germany and see that communism which uses death and prison as motivators, did not work as well as the incentive based economies of the west. BT- "There are a number of distinctly different sources for money based on a businesses size, and stage of development which form the "Investment Market". There is “Angel” Capital from wealthy individuals, typically for small start ups. This may range from $20,000 to several million. Venture Capital....." your answer of separate markets was a dodge of the fact the economy has expanded in the last 25 years with the tax cut. You were trying to discount the stat of a market that decreased to 875 from a high of 995 1965. You could have marveled that the market from 1965 went down a 120 points from 1965 to 1981, and now 26 years later is 13xxx. But instead you treated us to this means nothing because there is also an investment market. Of course never mentioning that if one is tanked, likely the other isn't far behind. BT-"I’m in “logging”, Ken as part of my “Gentleman farmership”. Which should deflect the fact that liberals stop exploration for oil, and do what they can to stop logging, even when logging is replaced by replanting, which is the practice in the industry. BT-"The conservative position on oil is to build gas guzzlers, and continue to drill for more oil – or pay our enemies in the Middle East." The conservatives do believe we should use our resources to reduce forein dependency, and also seek for energy alternatives. Liberals do believe others should not use gas guzzlers. But also do trust themselves to use their guzzlers, mansions, boats, airplanes wisely. Meanwhile Bush will leave office and go back to his 4000 square foot earth home in Crawford and get blasted for being an energy hog. www.snopes.com/politics/bush/house.asp BT-"If it makes you feel any better Ken, I'll confess in a spate of Liberalism to hugging one of my trees... The assumption is I don't know the original meaning of a tree hugger. ok somehat funny, maybe even trying to show balance. BT- "BTW Ken - I just maxxed out on donations to Democrats supporting a bill within the first 100 days of the Democrat majority in 2009... Getting that POS Raygun's name off our National Airport." Translation-I am willing to say anything to not give him the credit of turning our country away from the negative down trodden funk this country was in when Reagan took office. Got it BT thanks for the clarification. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: bigmaconcampus EMAIL: IP: 71.247.216.148 URL: DATE: 09/29/2007 04:35:24 PM "I consider government revenue a separate issue from government spending. I do understand some government spending can increase government revenue. But the issue of spending is generally separate from the issue of revenue. As of yet I have not discussed spending." in one sense, duh. in the sense that matters, no, they're not separate issues, as a deficit can't be defined without relation to both revenue and spending. sheesh. newsflash: we can't reduce our dependence on foreign oil. it can't be done. nobody who knows anything about the energy industry thinks it can be done. alaska is nothing. here's worse news: global oil production is going to start declining in the not-too-distant future. this is not sci-fi -- the only differences of opinion on that subject is the timeline, and the most optimistic say the decline starts in 30 years. that's catastrophic. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: ken EMAIL: IP: 70.13.237.193 URL: DATE: 09/29/2007 05:14:02 PM "no, they're not separate issues, as a deficit can't be defined without relation to both revenue and spending. sheesh." If you remember, this all started cause illogic talked about "reckless taxcuts". My challenge to him was why do you think they were reckless, and asked him about the 100 0 question. In this sense we were discussing revenue. Because he was considering tax cuts a reckless reduction in revenue. Now had he discussed reckless spending, the conversation would have been different. So if you are talking about cutting a revenue stream (in this case individual taxes) as reckless, it is appropiate to divide the two issues. "here's worse news: global oil production is going to start declining in the not-too-distant future. this is not sci-fi -- the only differences of opinion on that subject is the timeline, and the most optimistic say the decline starts in 30 years. that's catastrophic" Biggie- Where does oil come from? ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: bigmaconcampus EMAIL: IP: 71.247.216.148 URL: DATE: 09/29/2007 05:23:09 PM "So if you are talking about cutting a revenue stream (in this case individual taxes) as reckless, it is appropiate to divide the two issues." that makes no sense to me. anyway, dividing the issues won't make you any happier if spendy bush is your president. beyond that simple observation, i don't want to debate the merits of tax policy because nobody here, including me, is qualified to do it. "Biggie- Where does oil come from?" various places. mainly oil fields under the ground. where would you like it to come from? ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: bigmaconcampus EMAIL: IP: 71.247.216.148 URL: DATE: 09/29/2007 05:29:33 PM 100 years ago you and i would have been working in some industrial hellhole with a grammar school education. discussions of tax and economic policy would have been left to the truly educated. it would have been a rougher life for us, but the conversation would have been better all around. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: bigmaconcampus EMAIL: IP: 71.247.216.148 URL: DATE: 09/29/2007 05:31:29 PM i wonder if you would have been wheezing the praises of private industry through your black lungs as we both keeled over. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: bigmaconcampus EMAIL: IP: 71.247.216.148 URL: DATE: 09/29/2007 05:41:20 PM there was no income tax back then. think about it. it would have been pretty sweet. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Dragon Horse EMAIL: IP: 68.106.98.16 URL: http://pmsol3.wordpress.com/ DATE: 09/29/2007 06:08:42 PM Bigman: "6. there is a level of taxation that is too high and a level of taxation that is too low. see point #1. 7. nobody knows how low is too low or how high is too high. if they say they do, they're full of shit." Duh...I mean this is true because the economy is not one organism, it is dynamic with a lot of variables and even tax effects it and revenues...so it must constantly change after the entire organism is evaluated and reevaluated. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: bigmaconcampus EMAIL: IP: 71.247.216.148 URL: DATE: 09/29/2007 06:51:50 PM i don't know if it follows that because something is complex it's not "one organism," but yes, it's complicated, and nobody understands it, especially none of the people commenting here. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: ken EMAIL: IP: 70.13.237.193 URL: DATE: 09/29/2007 07:06:07 PM "there was no income tax back then. think about it. it would have been pretty sweet." Now you are just trying to bring back Jim Crow. And BT wants communism. Looks like I won this debate. Kidding of course. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Mwafrika EMAIL: IP: 62.24.98.74 URL: DATE: 09/30/2007 04:41:26 AM Dragon, I find you argument fallacious – since others (read Asians) were unscathed by imposed dictatorial leaders, then the rest should not complain. American interference in the internal affairs of 3rd world countries was wrong – Period! That others came out relatively unscathed (Asians) does not justify America’s actions. Did I hear you mention Surhato (as a ‘guru’ in Asian affairs, you should know better). Back to president Reagan. I understand he’s considered to be one of the great American presidents and also greatly revered among the nations of European stock. He’s also a veritable role model for Republicans and many Americans. Let me reiterate that Reagan was responsible for; Creating Saddam. I know Saddam was president way before Reagan came to power, but it's during his presidency that Saddam was assisted with 'WMD'in the proxy war against Iran. Creating the Mujaheedin – gave rise to the Taliban, Al Qaeda and America’s most wanted Osama bin Laden Supporting insurgencies and formenting civil wars in Central America subsequently resulting in mass sufferings. ( Dragon, I know you’ve never lived under a brutal dictatorship nor experienced a civil war, that why you normally treat the issue casually – trust me, you don’t want to go through such an exper