StrangeSox

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 5, 2011 -> 07:34 AM) Here is the problem. Who is feeding this reporter details of a classified raid, or why is he making stuff up? With stories like this I assume a Jessica Lynch/Pat Tillman-type situation as a default.

Also Afghanistan isn't Arab, hth.

lol yes we are on a holy war, we must smash the evil nonbelievers.

QUOTE (The Sir @ Aug 4, 2011 -> 11:57 PM) I've always maintained that defense is one of the few legitimate areas of government. You're all for the part of the government cutting your check. You don't need a prescription to make a diagnosis. Additionally, you were openly cheering for jobs being outsourced if those dumb lazy Americans didn't want to work for $3/hour with no benefits in that post. You're actively calling for a race to the bottom here so that the super-wealthy can get even more super-wealthier. You haven't explained why corporations maximizing profits at the expense of the other 95% of the country is something good or desirable.

cknolls has been predicting impending doom, DOOM! since, well, forever.

QUOTE (FlySox87 @ Aug 4, 2011 -> 09:23 PM) Oh. Well, if my opinions on private corporations are invalid because I work for the government, then I guess your opinions on DADT and use of military force are invalid because you never served your country. Think that's fair? It's not that your opinions on corporations are invalid because you work for the government, I'm pointing out the irony that someone who rants about how stupid and dumb and awful the government is and how we should be rooting for companies that outsource jobs to places with terrible wages, terrible working conditions, terrible environmental standards and zero workers' rights because hey, if Americans don't want to go back to the Gilded Age, f*** 'em! is someone who works for the government. You didn't address this part: not sure what "rules" in your scenario, you're saying America should aspire to third world living standards. I don't need to have a solution to rampant outsourcing in order to criticize people cheerleading for rapidly declining standards of living so that the top 1% can get even richer. I mean, what's the positive in your scenario? Why is that a system we should strive for? What is the benefit for the average citizen for multinationals to maximize profits at their expense? Why would you encourage this sort of behavior? I mean, it's not like you have to be a socialist or a strident protectionist in order to not want to depress American wages to $3/hour so the investor class can keep a few billion more. It just seems like blind ideological cheerleading.

QUOTE (FlySox87 @ Aug 4, 2011 -> 08:35 PM) They're free to make profits in any way they please. The government has no right to infringe on that as long as they are not inflicting harm on their workers. And if a worker feels abused, or underpaid, or mistreated, he can go find employment somewhere else. If he chooses not to, then the job must not be that bad. If corporations can find cheap labor overseas, I actually encourage them to do it. Maximize profits as much as possible within the law. If American workers don't like seeing their jobs shipped abroad, they should work for less. And the government should allow them to work for less. But don't be upset when you want $75 a day and some dude in Thailand only wants $3 and thus he gets the job. That's just good business. Capitalism rules! Says the government employee. Also not sure what "rules" in your scenario, you're saying America should aspire to third world living standards.

The farmers markets in Downers Grove (sat. mornings) and in Bolingbrook at the Promenade mall (thurs. evenings) are both pretty good. We try to make it to one every few weeks. There's also a farmstand at 63rd and I think Cass that has a bunch of fruits and vegetables.

For instance, if you insist that Obama's mean words and current and potential regulations are making businesses too scared to spend, you're going to have a different solution than if you say the problem is a lack of demand cycle and you need counter-cyclical spending.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Aug 4, 2011 -> 03:58 PM) More discussions over what happened and the problems -- no solutions. We can probably stop reading about what happened, it's been written about 50,000,000,000 times now. It's time for solutions...otherwise we are just rehashing what was already said in this thread 25,000 posts ago, probably by the same people discussing it now. Some people still like to insist in an alternate reality. If you can't recognize the causes of a problem, you can't treat the symptoms.

We have 9% unemployment, not 100%. Obviously some amount of demand still exists.

There is no war but class war

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Aug 4, 2011 -> 03:08 PM) If there was no demand, they wouldn't be making any money. What you're saying and reality aren't meshing. There is obvious demand, because people are giving them money for what it is they do. There's not growth in demand. Thank you for correcting that.

Businesses are still sitting on record piles of cash. Your argument would only work if they were barely making a profit and had no room to hire additional people or invest in expansion. Instead they're making money hand-over-fist but there's still no demand out there.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 4, 2011 -> 02:49 PM) I'd contend they have not only not fixed the uncertainty, they have added to it and created more of it with their own actions and speeches. If only we elected the right people, businesses would just be so confident right now. They'd be expanding like gang-busters to meet demand that doesn't exist.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 4, 2011 -> 02:46 PM) Do you have any idea what a Wall Street firm's compliance looks like or costs? Heck forget even wall street, as a public firm, do you have any idea what compliance does to a firm? A firm I am running a compliance examination on right now told me that we were one of eighteen examinations going on for them right now. Do you understand what more rules and regulations would do to them? I know your response to uncertainty is to run out, spend your savings, and then open up a few credit cards to max out, but that isn't how it works in the real world, at all. Remember when supply-side economics worked? Me either!

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Aug 4, 2011 -> 02:42 PM) That's not why they're not investing, though. You can keep saying it, but it will never be true. QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 4, 2011 -> 01:46 PM) Another great idea is to quit threatening and villianizing job creators.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 4, 2011 -> 02:23 PM) I acknowledge that the system has become utterly dependent on the government. That is 100% obvious when you view this "recovery" along the stimulus time line. You also realize that this condemns the last 30 years of Republican economic ethos, going back to the start of Reaganomics, right?

I think saying it's become dependent on credit spending fits the same data. The economy kept growing, but most people never really saw that growth. Their spending kept increasing, though, largely in the form of housing and then using their inflated home values as an ATM since that's where almost all of the wealth for most of the country is held. Housing collapses, credit disappears, incomes disappear and demand plummets. Not sure how Obama not saying mean, nasty things (examples?) about Job Creators (Praise Be Unto Them) would suddenly restore confidence and spur demand.

Businesses Job Creators are so scared of Obama's mean words that they are refusing to spend any of the record-setting piles of cash they have, paradoxically sabotaging the very economy they rely on. An alternative view is that the Job Creators have taken such a gigantic share of the wealth gains of the past three decades that the entire economy had to be propped up on credit spending by the other 95% in order to sustain its usual exponential growth rates.

They have, big tax cuts and big spending cuts! There's a tricky political balance there, admitting that your policies were ineffective but explaining why your new proposals will work and why the other option's ideas are so disastrously wrong.

Romney signs anti-gay marriage pledge

How long does Obama & Co continue to be blue-sky optimists with respect to the economy?

The carbon cost of Germany's nuclear 'Nein danke!'

We could spend equivalent amounts of money on productive projects instead...