Jenksismyhero

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Aug 26, 2010 -> 02:19 PM) I don't know that anyone is really "in" the tea party - as stated earlier, its more a loose affiliation of people around a set of general ideas surrounding principles like smaller government, term limits, personal freedoms, etc. Of course, its also been partially co-opted by the general anti-Obama crowd, as well as the hate-filled, intrusive government neo-con crowd, led by the likes of Palin and Limbaugh, but that was not (IMO) how it was originally intended to be. And its not been taken over by them either, as much as they'd like to have done so. And as much as the people in this thread seem to think. Actually attend a rally and report back what you hear. When you do that, I'll respect your opinions more. Until then, you're relying on outliers supplied by the media, which of course just gravitates towards the most headline grabbing piece of news they can find.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Aug 26, 2010 -> 02:23 PM) Not sure if its still the case, but very recently, kids in parts of the South were still taught that it was the War of Northern Aggression. You even see it called that in museums down there. Their perspective, right or wrong, colors the history taught about that conflict very differently than the rest of the country sees it. Which is no different than "northern" history books that basically paint all confederates as slave owning plantation racists, or that say the entire war was about slavery and Lincolns goal from the beginning was to end it. It goes both ways. History is absolutely subjective, unless you're dealing with just basic facts. I'm all for some sort of standard in teaching. There are basics that every child should learn. But at some point you gotta allow the kid to pick and choose what he/she is most interested in learning about. That's the worst part of the system right now. We mandate that kids learn the same things from age 5-18. In reality, probably at about 15-16 we all get interested in different things. Instead of forcing kids along a strict line, we should jump on that and allow kids to explore those areas (as much as can be done given the schools' resources)

QUOTE (Rex Kicka** @ Aug 26, 2010 -> 01:45 PM) Not all of them, just the ones you nominate for office. And the ones who run the "tea party" organizations. Yep. So true. Absolutely true. All of them that are nominated and that organize. All racists haters. Yep. 100% accurate. No need to verify. You've spoken the truth on this one. GMAFB. Take the blinders off and open your eyes.

QUOTE (mr_genius @ Aug 26, 2010 -> 12:16 PM) See I don't hear that type of stuff from the 'tea party' enthusiasts. 1) usually they support the second amendment, but I don't hear anything about an armed mutiny. i see more 'vote everyone out of office' type of things. 2) i don't see any support for BP, and most 'tea party' people believe that the government is corrupt and bought off by corporate interests. they hate corporate bailouts as well. Just stop with reality. It's so much easier to discount a "movement" by creating stereotypes and running with it. Who cares about facts? They have wackos in the group, so therefore they're all wackos! God save us all from their crazy ideas!

http://www.nationalreview.com/battle10/244...ichael-sandoval

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Aug 25, 2010 -> 01:17 PM) That's a great example of what I was saying - when you are talking about the last few % points of value around the bottom of a market, trying to play those last few out gives you a lot less gain and more risk than if you get in now while rates are low. And as you also pointed out, and as everyone I talk to in the sector agrees, inflation and interest rates have to rise pretty soon. No one knows exactly when pretty soon is, but it is basically inevitable in the relatively near term. Balta, if you want to try to find that perfect bottom, I'd suggest going to a night club instead of playing the market timing game. ba-doom-ching!

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 25, 2010 -> 12:20 PM) It's not...but it's worth noting...the large majority of the job loss were public sector jobs. The private sector still added jobs...the losses were a combination of public sector job losses and the census job losses. That certainly ought to complicate your picture...government is actually shrinking, but that's not leading to economic growth. And anyway...a 0.5% increase in employment is not small...and that's also an underestimate of where most people's numbers put it. link? And to me even 1% is small in relation to the amount of "spending" we've done, and the additional amount you want. We were supposed to be no worse than 8%. Oops, we're at 9.5%.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 25, 2010 -> 12:06 PM) The question then is...why did job loss turn around basically in March 2009? "Turn around" is incredibly misleading. It's basically the same. For 750 billion, tax cuts or no tax cuts, for a .5% change in unemployment, was it worth it? Did it really do much of anything? I don't buy that it "saved" jobs since those "saved" jobs are just slowly being lost over time. If anything it might have delayed some firings, but it didn't just stop them. Again, all the billions spent, and last month 130k jobs were lost. How is that progress?

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Aug 25, 2010 -> 10:51 AM) How do you not see that those two things can both be true? Yes, the Stim bill added jobs and GDP. Yes, UE claims keep rising. They are not mutually exclusive. The point being made is that jobs are still being lost, but at a lesser rate than they otherwise would be. it may have added jobs, but more or less the same number of people are unemployed from the time the stimulus bill was signed. I dunno how you can say the stimulus alone slowed the rate of job loss. Either way, the real discussion is that even if you agree with the bolded above, the question becomes if the cost was worth it. Especially since people want even more stimulus.

Finally got around to watching The Hurt Locker last night. Gotta say, not seeing what the buzz was about. The production and acting were top notch. I even liked some of the shooting they did (slow mo action cams with the blasts). But the story didn't really go anywhere. It was basically just 2 hours of tension and kind of a meh ending. B- in my book.

QUOTE (jasonxctf @ Aug 25, 2010 -> 10:20 AM) and that's my exact point. The unemployment level has dropped by 0.6% in the past 9 months. It's not a ton, but it's nothing to disregard either. I'm interested to see what happens between now and Dec. You've got students (Hs and college) who were working hours this summer as cheap labor at some businesses. (either full time or part time) If those positions are truly necessary, they will now need to be filled again. You don't think the X millions hired for the census messed up those numbers?

QUOTE (jasonxctf @ Aug 25, 2010 -> 10:11 AM) those numbers are misleading and at the end of the day, not that important. it doesn't tell you how many people were hired during those months. So while initial unemployment claims may go up, so might hiring. Ok fine, here's the unemployment numbers: http://www.tradingeconomics.com/Economics/...aspx?Symbol=USD

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Aug 25, 2010 -> 09:39 AM) I don't see how anyone can doubt that the Stim bill did indeed have a positive impact on overall employment. That, to me, isn't even the discussion to have. The things worth discussing are how effectively that money was used, what types of stimulus work and don't, whether or not to do another round, and if so, what that round would entail. Really? Is that why unemployment claims keep rising? http://www.cnbc.com/id/38768328/Weekly_Job...ump_Hit_500_000

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 25, 2010 -> 09:12 AM) A lot of the seafood tests have been of the olfactory variety...which I have zero confidence in. That tests for classic oil on the surface, not for degraded oil byproducts in the digestive system of these things. It's entirely possible that the oil will take some time to move up the food chain or to build up in significant amounts in larger animals...or that they're not even looking for the right chemicals. I really have zero urge to eat anything out of the Gulf right now. Which is a reasonable opinion. I dunno, I feel like until I hear of someone getting sick I'd be fine with it. There's already a ton of crap in the food we eat, what's a little oil byproduct going to do?

QUOTE (FlaSoxxJim @ Aug 25, 2010 -> 06:49 AM) Lack of evidence of lethal toxicity in this case does not rule out BP oil as a direct cause of these large-scale sealife kills. Summer hypoxic kills do occur when dissolved oxygen availability is too low to meet the needs of aerobic organisms. Hundreds of millions of gallons of oil remaining in the environment is expected to exacerbate the situation because the oxygen demands of the microbial community chewing down all of that oil are huge. More oxygen uptake by microbial communities (remember, it's already a potential limiting parameter in the heat of the summer) translates to less oxygen available to meet the metabolic needs of the rest of the system. May be true, I dunno, I'm just saying there are multiple reports out there that have come back with an extremely low (i.e., nearly non-existent) threat for toxic seafood, which is what Balta was concerned with.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 25, 2010 -> 08:31 AM) Yay, a point that can be discussed and debated with actual data. There are surveys out there measuring the reasons why businesses aren't hiring...and it turns out, political uncertainty is not a strong one. According to the latest National Federation of Independent Business small business survey, 64% of small businesses cite economic conditions and lack of sales prospects as their reasons for not hiring: just 15% percent cite “political conditions.” One other point I wanted to make re: Jenks that I forgot yesterday...there is a bill right now sitting in Congress that would do basically exactly what Jenks was advocating yesterday...$12 billion in tax breaks for small businesses that expand, $30 billion in federal loan dollars to fill the gap where private banks are still unwilling to lend to small businesses since they don't need to take on risk in a deflationary environment. I'm sure you can guess which house of Congress has it stalled. Yeah, i'm so tired of our government right now. Republican, Democrat. It doesn't matter, they all suck, none of them work for the country or for their constituents. They follow the money trail, period. And in this case it's even worse, because frankly all the Repubs want to do is block the bill now so that in the spring they can get the credit for it. It's too bad we can't hold a vote to replace all of them in one election year. Wipe the slate clean and start again. This is one of the main reasons why i'm fine with groups like the Tea Party. If you actually listen to their message, it's not strictly anti-liberals. It's anti-the current Washington establishment. Despite my disagreement with Obama, I was hoping he'd bring in a new attitude and a new way of doing business (same with Bush). But at this point I should be old enough to realize that it's all a pipe dream. No one will go to Washington and fix it, not matter what they say (or even believe). Sigh.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 24, 2010 -> 03:12 PM) First of all, unemployment benefits are limited and ending, so you can't count that very much. Secondly...an actual paying job does a heck of a lot more in terms of earning power than unemployment benefits. Third...whaddya mean the New Deal infrastructure programs did little to decrease unemployment? It dropped from 25% to 15% in the 4 years between when it was implemented and the 1937 budget-balancing cutbacks. It dropped massively again when the federal government began a much larger jobs program in 1940. Of course it declined since he paid for millions to work, but it actually rose again a few years after it was implemented. Without the war, who knows where it would have ended up.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 24, 2010 -> 01:58 PM) First of all, the first stimulus wasn't big enough. Second of all, the first stimulus was too loaded with tax cuts, which exacerbates the problem of people not spending. The people who got the tax cuts spent some of it, but also saved a ton of it. Third...there's a ton of legitimate stuff out there that hasn't had the kind of investment on it that should be there, either short term construction or long-term building-a-sound-future stuff (Smart grid, Supertrains). Great example...the Obama admin set a goal of renovating 1000 schools a year when they took office...a goal that they're missing. Fourth...the 2 big issues right now preventing investment are, as I said; the near-deflationary environment where holding cash is a very wise investment, and lack of customers. The reason businesses have no customers right now is...we're nearly at 10% unemployment, and the ones who are employed have still lost $10 trillion or so in housing wealth (the well-established economic effect where people spend more when their assets are worth more regardless of whether they're just worth more on paper now). That jobs program you and I talked about a few pages ago does both items here, and it's a shame there aren't people sitting around working up lists of construction jobs that could be done. This nation still needs a couple trillion in legitimate renovation and infrastructure investment to cover the hole that's appeared in the last 20 years (a personal example; my building right now at a state school is probably 25 years overdue for renovation, but there's no money in the pipe for this building). You hire a ton of people and you do several things; you push the unemployment rate in the right direction, you give more people money to spend since they're actually earning it, you keep people out of work from becoming trapped as long-term unemployed, and you push the inflation pressure in the way we need it to go, such that businesses that hold cash will be in a losing-position rather than a winning position. One part of the beauty of hiring people who are unemployed to do things (hell, you can put them at the border for all I care) is that they're almost guaranteed to spend that money since it's a question of some income versus zero income (you give me a tax cut, for example, and it just goes in the bank right now since there's no risk and my assets are appreciating relative to the value of the dollar). (1) I thought only like 25% of the stimulus has been used thus far. (2) Yes, businesses right now prefer to hold onto their cash because they'll make more money that way. But its like getting people to buy houses - you lower the rates far enough and give people an incentive to buy and they will. I did, and as we've seen today with a 27% drop in housing sales, so did a lot of other people. If you do that with a business you'll not only hopefully start/revitilize new industries, you get people hired, and you also invest ifor the future. I think we're in agreement that jumpstarting things like a smart grid and supertrains is a good idea. I just don't see the negativies with doing it through tax cuts/credits. (3) the jobs program we talked does nothing for long term investment. You put a small fraction of the population to work at minimum wage type jobs, and that's putting a bandaid on a torn off leg. The New Deal and its infrastructure jobs did little to decrease unemployment. Hiring tons of people is just a form of paying for unemployment benefits. I liked the idea of requiring them to work because at least that way the country gets something out of it. But you're not involving enough of the economy in that scenario to make it grow into something. And where do you get the guarantee that they'll spend the money? If you're unemployed now you're probably recieving unemployment already. You're struggling to make the bills. You're not going to go out and buy meaningful (to the economy) goods like appliances or cars or the like. You're going to pay off bills and save it up.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 24, 2010 -> 12:41 PM) The problem with pretending that tax credits aren't spending is that it allows for huge market distortions that otherwise would get much more attention. I can give a stellar example...the mortgage interest tax credit. It's a subsidy on the scale of $100 billion per year...that's on the scale of the first Bush Tax cut or the Iraq war. It is a subsidy that isn't indexed to cost or anything like that. It literally means that up to a certain level, the federal government pays a slightly larger share of your mortgage as you buy a bigger house. It hurts renters and anyone who doesn't purchase a $700k house, while it rewards people who go deeper in to debt to buy a larger house. It's a massive market distortion that doesn't get any attention because it's a credit and that doesn't count as actual spending. If you, right now, proposed a policy that would take $100 billion a year in taxpayer money and use it to finance the mortgages of people who have bought houses, and then made it so that the bigger your house was, the more you got...I think a lot more anger at paying one's neighbors' mortgage would be inspired, but no one cares because it's a credit. Who cares what the distortion is? Starting today, if the government gives up some tax revenue to assist businesses grow (thereby decreasing the governments costs for unemployment benefits, among other things, and also potentially adding tax revenue through income taxes), then it's not "spending" in the sense that the government has to come up with the cash to pay for it. And I think it's a bit disengenious to say that you get some kind of benefit for buying a larger house. Yeah, the interest paid on a million dollar loan is certainly more than the interest of a 250k loan. But on a year to year basis, it's not THAT much difference. It's not like the rich guy is getting 250k while the lowly guy is getting 500 bucks. Plus, chances are that rich person is spending more money in the economy for his house - more goods are bought, more services are used, etc. That's why I said meaningful benefits to do so. We've got to figure out a way to get businesses to move money again. I just don't see how having the government continue to fund unemployment, or build a bridge or whatever, is going to do that. It's just the government propping up people in the short term, but it's not changing anything else. It's not creating an environment for business to grow so that once the short term project is over, there are some other jobs waiting. What stimulus are you suggesting that would do this? What can the government spend money on? And why do we need MORE stimulus, when the first stimulus bill hasn't run out yet?

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 24, 2010 -> 12:19 PM) Somehow, I'm still less than confident at our ability to say that Gulf seafood is safe. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/greenspace...till-there.html

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 24, 2010 -> 12:09 PM) So, basically your opinion is that the recession was not deep enough and more people need to lose their jobs. I think you're wrong, and I think your path is at best a Japan style lost decade path. There's nothing right now that can push any sort of job creation. Companies aren't going to hire for tax credits right now; they're sitting on enormous piles of cash already. They're only going to hire when they have customers to buy their products, and right now there is no customer base left capable of expansion. Oh, and I vehemently, 100% disagree with the concept that tax cuts and tax credits aren't spending. Thank you for giving an opinion though. It's something we can legitimately discuss. So, nothing can create jobs, but we should spend, spend, spend our limitless cash tree? At the end of the day businesses are going to bring the economy back, not the government paying people to be unemployed or paying people to do odd jobs. That's not long term sustainable growth. The government needs to create meaningful incentives so that businesses get back to risking a little bit of money (investing) into growth, either of existing businesses or new businesses. Edit: as to the tax cut as spending, I agree it technically is, but I view it as the reduction in tax revenue is less than the unemployment the government would be spending on that otherwise unemployed worker.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 24, 2010 -> 09:20 AM) So...a serious question...although I think it's fair to blame this number in part on the stimulus (this is the hangover from the housing tax credit which I never really liked)...you appear to be ridiculing the idea that more stimulus is necessary. Fine. What do you think can be done to pull the economy out of its doldrums? If the answer is nothing, that's fine, but I want to hear you say it. What can be done by anyone to generate economic growth? I'd be fine with SPENDING nothing. Give out some tax breaks/credits/incentives to companies that hire workers, to companies in emerging industries ("green" energy, for example), etc. Let the market adjust to itself. The country needs to go through a cleansing process, just like the housing market needs to go through one. Clear out the bad, allow it to recover, and in the long run we'll all be better off. The way Obama wants to fix things is to continue to artificially prop everything up , which isn't working in the short term, and definitely isn't helping in the long term.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Aug 23, 2010 -> 02:17 PM) What school? http://www.iwu.edu/edstudies/courses/teach...ion/index.shtml

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Aug 23, 2010 -> 01:57 PM) You have to fulfill all the requirements for a regular BS/BA. It's not some shortcut degree. You'll have the same BS in Biology or Math as someone who wants to go into postdoc studies. Maybe you're thinking of primary education which is a different animal than secondary. Eh, I don't think so. I think they have the same BS requirements but not as many hours as a normal major because the student teaching is a part of it (or another way to put it, they have the same number of hours, its just not in a typical classrom, it's in the field). That's how it was set up at my university.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Aug 23, 2010 -> 01:49 PM) How is BS/BA + additional coursework and cert's and testing not more work than BS/BA? At U of I, you'd take your major and you'd have to minor in Teacher Education. A major + minor is more work than just a minor. I had 2 majors in college and took the same amount of classes as someone with one. It's not anymore hours, it's just more specific courses. Educational programs have less class hours than typical majors because the student teaching aspects are written into the program. It's not like they go to school for 4 years, spend a year student teaching and then graduate. It's all done in 4 years, just like a typical degree.