Truth or Dare, Election Ramifications Options

[Genocide Junkie]

Also, industries are not coming to your state no matter what infrastructure you have.

Actually that's not true. We have several auto makers who have moved to Alabama. One of which is 15 miles from where I live. However, because it is a union town they wont even consider coming here. While other towns have benefited from suppliers, we watch as they continue to locate around us. I by no means make a lot of money. BUT I live well. Save enough that Lord willing I'll retire early. AND have zero debt other than my home. These people who just can't make it on 50k a year get the big HAHAHAHAHA from me. I have little sympathy for those who would rather more their jobs away than keep them. Don't get me wrong I have friends who work there. Their dad's work there etc. I feel bad that they are not working but talk about cutting off your arm to save a fingernail..... this is the third time I know of this has happend. Once they shut the plant down for a year or so. This time might be for good. Our steel mill left completely. The people here still have the Union mentality that they are entitled. Things change and we either change with them or we get left behind. Unfortunately the town I live in is getting left behind...... I understand what unions were intended to do and now they have gone beyond making working conditions and wages reasonable. I promise you it doesnt take 2-3 new cars, a boat, 4 wheelers, a $250,000 home (which is damn expensive here), and all the trimmings to be happy. However, our nation has come to expect this. Think I'm wrong? Look around a bit and see how many people live within their means? I'd love to drive a new car and live in a bigger home. Instead I hoard my money for retirement because there's no frickin way I'll get Social Security. I get irritated everytime I look at my check stub thinking about it..... anyway I'm through with worrying about it. I get one vote for a choice of candidates that are going to screw me coming or going my choice. If one was obviously better we'd not be having this discussion we'd be counting our money with all our overemployed friends.....

Junkie

[M@ster of Dis@ster]

Looks like we have a failure to communicate. One more time in summary form:

Kleerance showed what first appeared to be an alarming chart with US Defict as a percentage of GDP. The chart ended in 2005 with a 6% deficit.

Old Man pointed out that the chart did not have the most current data. The US Deficit as a percentage of GDP will be under 3% for 2006.

Where did you get this data? I tried to search for it, but could not find a definate projected trade deficit as percentage of GDP. But I did find this from a editiorial in NYT from yesterday.



"Just as the summer driving season was winding down, oil prices started to fall. The combination of less demand and lower prices was a potent mix, helping to narrow the United States' trade gap significantly in September, to $64.3 billion from $69 billion in August, according to the latest tally.

That's welcome news, illustrating yet another upside to curbing the nation's oil consumption. But it's also sobering. The decline in September's trade deficit was the largest in nearly two years. And yet, the United States remains squarely on track for a record trade imbalance in 2006: a projected $790 billion, compared with $717 billion last year.

(snip...)

As recently as a few years ago, economists warned that a nation was courting a financial crisis if the size of its trade deficit exceeded 3 percent of its economy. Today, the United States' deficit is approaching 7 percent. The best way to avoid the worst is to define the problem honestly, and craft the remedies accordingly."



Now, how could the US be projected for a record $790 billion trade deficit, $73 billion more than last year, yet cut the perecage as compared to GDP in half? Did the US GDP more than double in 1 year? That's one hell of a year!

The NY Times says the projected deficit as a percentage of GDP is closing on 7%. Their numbers seem to back that up. Maybe you're making a mistake on the 3% Mike. Your source wasn't a republican ad poster, was it?



Also don't know how you attribute an upper class tax cut from 4-5 years ago to a drop in the trade deficit as percentage of GDP 4-5 years later after several years of record trade deficits. The two seem completely unrelated, and, as pointed out, I don't think there's been a drop at all in the trade deficit for the year, in real dollars or percentage of GDP.

[HammaTime]

It is hard to follow some of this logic when people don't site specific statistics.

Kleerance, thanks for those charts!

Old Man, your claims of growth are undermined by reports generated by the Bush administration themselves. Can you please site your sources?

The claim that tax cuts pay for themselves had already been rejected by the Administration's own leading economists. Edward Lazear, the current chair of President's Bush's Council of Economic Advisers, recently stated, "I certainly would not claim that tax cuts pay for themselves." N. Gregory Mankiw, President's Bush's former CEA chair and a well-known Harvard economics professor, has written that there is "no credible evidence" that "tax revenues… rise in the face of lower tax rates." Mankiw compared an economist who says that tax cuts pay for themselves to a "snake oil salesman trying to sell a miracle cure." - http://www.cbpp.org/9-27-06tax.htm

A deficit of $260 billion in 2006 would represent the largest 6-year deterioration in the budget in 50 years. In 2000, there was a surplus equal to 2.4 percent of Gross Domestic Product.[4] A deficit of $260 billion this year would be equal to an estimated 2.0 percent of GDP. That 4.4 percentage point deterioration in the budget would be the worst 6-year deterioration in half a century (the next worse was from 1998 to 2004, when the deterioration was slightly less than 4.4 percentage points). This deterioration is hardly a reason for jubilation. - http://www.cbpp.org/8-17-06bud.htm

[HammaTime]

.... I understand what unions were intended to do and now they have gone beyond making working conditions and wages reasonable. I promise you it doesnt take 2-3 new cars, a boat, 4 wheelers, a $250,000 home (which is damn expensive here), and all the trimmings to be happy. However, our nation has come to expect this.

I grew up outside Boston. In the 50's and 60's a Boston Police officer could afford his own home in a decent section of the city. He was the lone wage earner as his wife typically was a stay-at-home mom. In addition to his first home, he could afford a second lakeside home in Maine or New Hampshire. Not far from where I live here in Maine we have a tight-knit community of cottages that were all built and occupied by Boston police and firemen. Today, those same cops and firemen can't even afford a single home in Boston and that is with their spouse working one or two additional jobs. In fact, if a Boston cop came here looking to buy a second home, everyone would assume he was on the take.

Our economic situation here in the U.S. has changed dramatically and yet, so much of it is hidden by a mountain of personal debt (how else do you think most of those people can afford those 2-3 cars, the boats and 4-wheelers!) and an astronomically high national debt.

Sure, there may be individual success stories and many of us feel that we are doing quite well, but the big picture here is not nearly as rosy as it should be.

It seems as if both our economic policy and our political policies have been turned on their heads. It used to be that a conservative meant someone who didn't want to be involved in "nation building," who believed in lowering the nation's debt and was someone who certainly didn't want to bow down before China and Japan. There is no better example of this than Paul Craig Roberts. He was the brains behind Jack Kemp's Supply-side economic movement, he worked for Ronald Reagan as his Assistant Secretary of the Treasury. He was a conservative's conservative. Find anything that he has written in the last six years and you'll be amazed. Recently he has been warning that the U.S. will soon become a third world country.

Take a look at this column which ran in the conservative Washington Times. It is enough to make your head spin: http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/proberts.htm

A column of his that ran in the American Conservative speaks directly to our discussion of trade imbalance and the loss of jobs to China. http://www.amconmag.com/2005_07_04/article1.html Roberts notes that the jobs we are losing are not all blue collar jobs as most would have us believe. Go get a CAT scan and you'll most likely find that the radiologist who reads the scan is based in either China or India.

Today, many of Roberts columns are carried on liberal websites as he speaks truth to power. He makes an interesting case study in just how odd politics in America has become. Here is a collection of his columns if anyone is interested: http://www.lewrockwell.com/roberts/roberts-arch.html

[T/A6Pak]

As far as the war on terror, I feel the focus has changed from such to attempting to resolve a religious war. I think it's time for all to realize that there will always continue to be terrorist threats and terroist infiltrating our countries.

Personally, I think that money could be better spent on keeping them out, instead of continually sending our brothers and sisters to their death beds.

I don't know if any of you have checked out the site for the United Nations, but they are offering people over $100,000.00 for a 6 month job in some foreign countries....where there is a slim chance you will ever return. I know all over Canada they are promoting this.... shame shame. Oh yea, looks nice reading it, can probably feel the money in your hands...don't hold to tight. After paying for a funeral and taking care of a spouse and child for one year, what do you have left.

I think it's time that our Governments step back and re-evaluate the situation and decide what is going to better our Countries!

There will be Wars with no winners only losers and if our government continues to try and solve the worlds problems..we just might end up the big losers!

[Hellfighter]

..... finally a post attempts to swing back the thread on topic LOL, thanks 6pak. OK, chums- My secondary question from post one- if I remember correctly;

What are your solutions for Iraq? No parroting what the Repubs harp or the dems ponder either; be bold and give specifics, assessments, and/or what you realistically envision transpiring in that country/surrounding area.
Oddly enough I started a thread several days ago regarding this question and it got zippo interest- I think perhaps that's saying something that reflects how decision makers of the crisis seem at a loss to put forth a solution- in the meantime civilians, soldiers, security forces are getting mowed down while the terrorists freely play around in this void of indecision. Speak-up folks> last call!!!

[Stickman]

..... finally a post attempts to swing back the thread on topic LOL, thanks 6pak. OK, chums- My secondary question from post one- if I remember correctly;

What are your solutions for Iraq? No parroting what the Repubs harp or the dems ponder either; be bold and give specifics, assessments, and/or what you realistically envision transpiring in that country/surrounding area.
Oddly enough I started a thread several days ago regarding this question and it got zippo interest- I think perhaps that's saying something that reflects how decision makers of the crisis seem at a loss to put forth a solution- in the meantime civilians, soldiers, security forces are getting mowed down while the terrorists freely play around in this void of indecision. Speak-up folks> last call!!!

I think that in Iraq, what has been done cannot be undone. Bush and company had no plan for the post-invasion period, and totally blew whatever chance there was for a smooth transition to a democratic and secular government. I don't think the US has the ability, at this point, to "solve" the Iraqi problem, no matter who is in power.
I think the current chaos and bloodshed will continue as long as US troops are in the country. After they (eventually) leave, there will be more chaos, bloodshed, and possible civil war. I wouldn't trust anyone who claimed to know how long the instability will last, and who will be in charge once the dust finally settles. But I'll bet you a dollar Iraq won't end up as a secular democracy.