BIG BIG BIG by kaneman

REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

BIG BIG BIG

POSTED BY: KANEMAN
UPDATED: Saturday, January 8, 2011 10:34
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VIEWED: 1528
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Thursday, January 6, 2011 9:00 AM

Big tobacco.....Bad

Big oil.........Bad

Big Pharm.......Bad

Big Government..Good

Big debt........Good

You liberals are Big idiots.

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Thursday, January 6, 2011 9:59 AM

CANTTAKESKY

Actually, anti-big is my exact position. I should start a new party called the Small Party.

And it is not allowed to become big enough to win an election.

Can't Take (my gorram) Sky
------
Everything I say is just my opinion, not fact.

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Thursday, January 6, 2011 10:46 AM

HERO

Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:
Actually, anti-big is my exact position. I should start a new party called the Small Party.

Unfortunately I would not qualify...although you can nominate PN for President.

H

"Hero. I have come to respect you." "I am forced to agree with Hero here."- Chrisisall, 2009.
"I would rather not ignore your contributions." Niki2, 2010.

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Thursday, January 6, 2011 12:53 PM

DREAMTROVE

CTS

One of the many things that makes you a conservative.

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Thursday, January 6, 2011 3:06 PM

CANTTAKESKY

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
CTS

One of the many things that makes you a conservative.

But I'm a liberal conservative.

Can't Take (my gorram) Sky
------
Everything I say is just my opinion, not fact.

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Friday, January 7, 2011 5:00 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Originally posted by kaneman:
Big tobacco.....Bad

Big oil.........Bad

Big Pharm.......Bad

Big Government..Good

Big debt........Good

You liberals are Big idiots.

My quick answer is this:
Big business- good. Big government- bad. You RWerz are even bigger idiots because you don't understand balance of power.

Now, here's what I've REALLY been saying. Try to remember for next time:

SOME problems are so big they require massive collective effort to solve: Ocean resource management, interstate transportation and pollution, health care, currency creation, world communication, control of massive corporations etc.

But given the natural tendency of EVERYTHING to get bigger, whatever laws we create should have in them a continuing counter-push towards smallness and direct democracy in all aspects. Do away with corporate forms of business, and allow only cooperatives. Limit the size of cooperatives. Handle as much government as possible at the local level, with boards drawn from the workers and the population at large. Hold direct elections on laws.

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Friday, January 7, 2011 6:19 AM

PIRATENEWS

John Lee, conspiracy therapist at Hollywood award-winner History Channel-mocked SNL-spoofed PirateNew.org wooHOO!!!!!!

Big Gov (Dems) + Big Biz (Gops) = Big Fascism (One Big Mafiya Family)

Vote for Ron Paul 2012 if you want to live.

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Friday, January 7, 2011 6:50 AM

KPO

Sometimes you own the libs. Sometimes, the libs own you.

Quote:
Originally posted by kaneman:
Big tobacco.....Bad

Big oil.........Bad

Big Pharm.......Bad

Big Government..Good

Big debt........Good

You liberals are Big idiots.

I don't think there's a single liberal on the planet who is ideologically 'Big Government' or 'Big debt'. Don't mistake your own side's rhetoric for accurate characterisations. I'm a liberal because I'm pro-opportunity, pro-social harmony, and anti- social breakdown (I'm a strong believer in human potential and don't like to see it squandered). The clincher is probably that I'm not ideolically anti-government, so can see a role for government in protecting the health of society.

Fiscal responsibility is just that, in my mind - responsibility. It's not an ideology or core principle of either side - just common sense. That's not to say that either side has it of course...

It's not personal. It's just war.

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Friday, January 7, 2011 7:18 AM

KANEMAN

KPO.." I'm pro-opportunity, pro-social harmony, and anti- social breakdown"

We have a constitution that gives us that. Although, pro-social harmony? Sounds like some flakey hippie term....just saying. See, I'm more of a .."don't fucking tread on me in your journey for social fucking harmony" kinda guy...

Know what I'm sayin

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Friday, January 7, 2011 10:39 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

Just to throw some FACTS into the mix:

Quote:
Big tobacco.....Bad

Big oil.........Bad

Big Pharm.......Bad

Big Government..Good

Big debt........Good

You liberals are Big idiots.

Okay, from the other side:

Big tobacco.....Good
Big oil.........Good
Big Pharm.......Good

Big Government..Bad Yet

Quote:
In the three years since Bush took office, discretionary spending — money that is not tied to long-term entitlements, including defense, domestic security, education and transportation — has grown by 31.5 percent. Non-discretionary spending — mandatory programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid — has reached record highs.

Overall, federal spending grew on average by 7.6 percent in each of the last two years, more than double the 3.4 percent average annual growth under the Clinton administration.

Total federal spending in 2003 topped $20,000 per household for the first time since World War II, Riedl said, and is set to grow another $1,000 per household in 2004.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,108066,00.html --note FOX NEWS

Quote:
Which presidents in the 20th century were the biggest domestic spenders? Contrary to expectation, domestic spending growth occurred under the watch of Republican rather than Democratic presidents

http://www.urban.org/publications/307052.html#tab1 Bush and a Republican Congress we had an explosion of growth on all fronts: spending that put Lyndon Johnson to shame, huge deficits and a doubling of the national debt, corporate bailouts, further centralization of education, protectionism, expansion of Medicare, increased regulation, undeclared wars, civil-liberties violations and other unchecked executive power, and more. Bush did not veto a single spending bill in eight years.

Big debt........Bad That one's easy. Under which Presidents did the national debt increase? Republicans, invariably Republicans, not Democrats. Here's a chart, for your edification, from Wikipedia, showing how much the national debt was increased/decreased under Presidents ever since Nixon/Ford. Note it went UP under Republicans.

Note: From Truman to Nixon, it went down with both, tho' much more under Democrats.

Who exactly are the Big idiots?

Try facts sometime.

Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off

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Friday, January 7, 2011 10:59 AM

JONGSSTRAW

Obama and Pelosi TRIPLED the annual budget deficit :

Pelosi, as Speaker, added $ 5.2 Trillion dollars of national debt....$2 Trillion under Bush, and $3.2 Trillion under Obama :

And then goes out with a speech that claims she was fiscally responsible and used pay-go! What a delusional lady...so, so sad.

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Friday, January 7, 2011 11:17 AM

DREAMTROVE

Jong

Your first pic illustrates the situation well, but omits the extra implied liability of debts that are off budget which Obama has set the govt. as responsible for, including the mtg. debt and the tarp et al additional bailout liabilities. According to Obama's own govt. these can add up to 9 trillion and 24 trillion respectively to the 14 trillion currently owing.

People quibble about how much Bush and Obama inherited, but no one inherited a "surplus." Bush, who is an abomination, as even Jong's chart shows, inherited a "projected" "budget" surplus over the next ten years, if he had not done either the tax cuts or the war, or homeland security.

But numberwise, Bush inherited $3-$4 trillion in debt, and Obama inherited $8-$10 trillion in debt. The reason for the discrepancy is that it depends on who is doing the figures, democrats or republicans, but I think all agree on three things:

1. All figures are in the red.
2. Bush left a bigger debt than Clinton
3. Obama has increased the debt more rapidly than Bush.

Any way you look at it, we're fucked.

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Friday, January 7, 2011 11:29 AM

JONGSSTRAW

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
Jong

Your first pic illustrates the situation well, but omits the extra implied liability of debts that are off budget which Obama has set the govt. as responsible for, including the mtg. debt and the tarp et al additional bailout liabilities. According to Obama's own govt. these can add up to 9 trillion and 24 trillion respectively to the 14 trillion currently owing.

People quibble about how much Bush and Obama inherited, but no one inherited a "surplus." Bush, who is an abomination, as even Jong's chart shows, inherited a "projected" "budget" surplus over the next ten years, if he had not done either the tax cuts or the war, or homeland security.

But numberwise, Bush inherited $3-$4 trillion in debt, and Obama inherited $8-$10 trillion in debt. The reason for the discrepancy is that it depends on who is doing the figures, democrats or republicans, but I think all agree on three things:

1. All figures are in the red.
2. Bush left a bigger debt than Clinton
3. Obama has increased the debt more rapidly than Bush.

Any way you look at it, we're fucked.

Yes we are fuc**d, and that's why Americans voted for change in November. The Democrats are still in denial and spinning everything about their out-of-control and wasteful spending, and the Republicans have me just not convinced that they can really do anything, or are even sincere beyond lip-service to do anything. We'll see.

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Friday, January 7, 2011 1:24 PM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

DT, I'll buy your argument. What gets me is that Obama is blamed for taking on a country in crisiss, with its economy in the toilet, high unemployment and a financial crisis, and treated as if he walked into Paradise and started spending money like a drunken sailor.

AND I'm sick of this "Republicans like smaller government" when it's been each of the Republican Presidents who left the next Pres the biggest deficit, and when they've grown the government every bit as much, if not more, than Democratic Presidents.

BOTH grow government; BOTH up the deficit (whether by just a bit or a lot), and the fact is that Bush left us in the bigget hole since the Depression, and Republicans think cutting taxes and doing away with safety nets (not to mention infrastructure and the health of our states) would be the niftiest way to get out of it. I disagree.

Obama has had to spend to keep things from getting even WORSE...but one can never prove a negative, so the screaming of "overspending!" will go on ad infinitum ad nauseum.

And again...sigh...Americans didn't vote for change in November. They voted because they were scared and angry that Obama didn't turn everything around in two years which took Bush to destroy in eight, so they foolishly voted against their own best interests and tried to put the Republicans back in charge. That truth will become evident in time.

Yeah, it's lip service by the Repubs; every candidate in history has sworn he'll bring "change". Few do, and given the track record of the Republicans for the last eight years, why ANYONE would trust them is beyond me. "Trust us, we'll be good THIS time"? You gotta be kidding.

I got no love for Pelosi; but I'd like a cite for those charts. They're probably accurate, but I'd love to have my hands on an "alternate realtiy" which shows what the situation would be if McCAIN had been elected, if you think it would be better!

Bear in mind, also, that TARP wasn't started under Obama's watch, any more than a number of the other "spending" things were.

Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off

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Friday, January 7, 2011 2:22 PM

CANTTAKESKY

Quote:
Originally posted by Niki2:
BOTH grow government; BOTH up the deficit ...

Yep. That is why I don't vote for either party, or find any meaningfulness bashing one side over the other.

Can't Take (my gorram) Sky
------
Everything I say is just my opinion, not fact.

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Friday, January 7, 2011 2:25 PM

KANEMAN

Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:
Quote:
Originally posted by Niki2:
BOTH grow government; BOTH up the deficit ...
Yep. That is why I don't vote for either party, or find any meaningfulness bashing one side over the other.

Can't Take (my gorram) Sky
------
Everything I say is just my opinion, not fact.

Bash em all.....I'm in.

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Friday, January 7, 2011 4:25 PM

DREAMTROVE

Niki

Who *did* walk into paradise?

Think about it.

Herbert Hoover was the last person to walk into a relatively untroubled govt.

He left FDR the great depression.

FDR left Truman WWII and a debt larger (as % of GDP) than Bush left Obama

Truman left Ike the Korean war, a debt still larger than the one Clinton left Bush, and a cold war with the USSR in a world with Nuclear War.

Ike did a decent job as president, and ended the Korean war, but he still left Kennedy two trillion (in todays dollars) in debt and a cold war with the USSR.

In a few short years, Kennedy managed to get to the brink of nuclear war, and get us involved in Vietnam, to leave Johnson

Johnson left Nixon a full scale war with China in Vietnam, still 2 trillion in debt, and a failing economy.

Nixon finally got out of the war, but left Ford the largest recession since the great depression a market down over 60% and still the debt, no smaller than before.

Ford, Carter and Regan left their successors the debt, adding foreign entanglements in wars in the third world with each pass, and except for Reagan, the Cold War.

Bush 41 inherited only debt, recession and foreign entanglements, and only added a military involvement in the middle east.

Clinton left Bush a larger debt, wars with US direct involvement in the middle east and around the world, and a govt. which had been sold off and contracted out to corporations like Halliburton.

Bush left Obama more of the same, a larger debt, the Patriot Act, Homeland Security, and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Obama isn't blameless either, and he is part of the agenda crew that made up this stuff, he was a big proponent of TARP, he has massively expanded our war in central Asia, with over a million soliders (all nationalities included) fighting on our side, just as many on the other or more, over a million oppressing us here at home under an expanded Homeland Security, a debt between 14 and 46 trillion, either way just far larger than can ever be paid off... and if you track back to who he was politically, and has been, he's not "tackling the problem" he's been part of the agenda all along. Do you *really* think they would have let anyone into their power arena who *wasn't*?

Anyway, that's the mess that Obama now could leave to Sarah Palin. Do you really think that if that happens, and suddenly Palin is president that democrats are not going to start in blaming these problems on her?

But if you start pushing the blame back, where do you stop?

Stepping back for a second, Hoover walked into a working country and made or tried to make radical changes which were later packaged together by FDR as the New Deal, but did Hoover really walk into paradise?

He walked into Coolidge's easy money loose credit economy where 90% of the cash in circulation didn't exist, it was all borrowed. That economy was guaranteed to tank. Sure, what Hoover did didn't help, but the economy was going to crash a in a few months no matter what he did.

Coolidge inherited a country whose biggest problem was financial manipulation, but he didn't solve it, and couldn't because he also inherited a country that didn't own its own currency. Sure, I'll give him credit for getting us out of the Russian Civil War and ending the War Debt with Germany (Which a moronic Hoover reinstated) but look what he left Hoover.

Harding left Coolidge a war with Russia, and a disaster in Germany, which had been left to him by Wilson.

Now Woodrow Wilson inherited a good running country, and promptly sold off its financial system to a group of crooks, and promptly launched us into WWI, and before he had left, he'd sewed the makings of WWII.

Sure, the FED had been brewing for some time, all through Taft's presidency, and he had to his credit not pushed it through whether he wanted to or not, but at any rate, it's creation was the reason Wilson was elected. But he was hardly its enemy, as Obama is hardly its enemy now. He has handed more power to Bernanke the Federal Reserve than anyone since Wilson. But where's the distance between them? I mean Tim Geitner is his Sec. of the Treasury. When Obama came in, he appointed all three of the major oligarchs of the FED into positions of high power. (Okay, he got rid of Summers, I'll give him that.)

It's a mess. It's been a mess, and almost no one who has gotten the job has inherited a perfect situation, or even a good one, but they *pursued* that job *themselves* and did so with everything they had, *knowing* it was as big a mess as it was. And virtually all of them, once in, have proceeded to make the mess bigger which is exactly what they intended to do when they got in which is, IMHO, why they wanted the job.

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Friday, January 7, 2011 4:25 PM

KWICKO

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)

Quote:
Originally posted by Jongsstraw:
Obama and Pelosi TRIPLED the annual budget deficit :

See that first big red line, that you claim as Obama's? See the little note where it says the fiscal year ends in September? Yeah, that 2009 budget is Bush's final one. Common mistake the righties can't seem to stop making, putting Bush's $1.3 trillion deficit into Obama's column. They also tend to take credit for Clinton's 4% unemployment, too.

This Space For Rent!

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Friday, January 7, 2011 4:27 PM

MAGONSDAUGHTER

Quote:
Originally posted by kaneman:
Big tobacco.....Bad

Big oil.........Bad

Big Pharm.......Bad

Big Government..Good

Big debt........Good

You liberals are Big idiots.

Big cars....Bad

Big hair....Bad

Big bottoms....Good

Big icecreams....Good

is this how you play?

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Saturday, January 8, 2011 9:28 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

DT: Very valid point. Each Presidency carries over what it gets from the previous one. But then you have to take into account that, given each one carried over the previous, it still equals out to the degree that Republican Presidents (except for Nixon) ADDED to the debt compared to what they came into, while Democrat Presidents DECREASED the debt.

Of course there are more things to do with it than just the figures; also needing to be taken into account is what Congress did under which party...actually more what the Senate did, because as the old saying goes "the Senate is where bills go to die". All the things you mentioned are valid, but do they change the basic equation?

Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off

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Saturday, January 8, 2011 9:43 AM

DREAMTROVE

Quote:
Originally posted by Niki2:
DT: Very valid point. Each Presidency carries over what it gets from the previous one. But then you have to take into account that, given each one carried over the previous, it still equals out to the degree that Republican Presidents (except for Nixon) ADDED to the debt compared to what they came into, while Democrat Presidents DECREASED the debt.

Of course there are more things to do with it than just the figures; also needing to be taken into account is what Congress did under which party...actually more what the Senate did, because as the old saying goes "the Senate is where bills go to die". All the things you mentioned are valid, but do they change the basic equation?

Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off

If I cared which bastards were democrats vs. Which were republicans, which i don't, as you notice my failure to differentiate above, I would make the very obvious point that the national debt as it stands was the creation of FDR at just over two trillion in today's dollars, and the only time the debt has ever been larger than the GDP, except that in 2011 we are expected to hit that level again.

All three of the last presidents of the 20th c. Added about the same percent to the debt in what they left for the next guy, but these are nominal in comparison. The debt overwhelmingly, numerically, comes from three presidents: FDR, Bush 43, and Obama. If you could remove these three, the resulting debt would be less than a trillion. We could then trim our defense spending and be out of debt in less than four years.

Also, the fact that Woodrow Wilson, who is overwhelmingly responsible for the entire mess, was a democrat, is incidental. If the democrats hadn't won the 1910 congressional elections, the federal reserve would have been a republican bill, and Taft probably would have signed it.

Oh, and people DID vote for change in 2010, just like they voted for change in 2008, and in 2006. I won't be too surprised if the people continue to vote for change ever two years from now on. The Internet has done a great deal to awaken the political consciousness of America, it's just that given the closed system we have, when people vote for change, they don't really get it. At some point, something will have to give.

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Saturday, January 8, 2011 10:34 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

Yup, right on in almost every point, DT. But I think the "promise" of change goes back a lot further than you note. It's a pretty predictable cry for every politician, because of course they want us to vote for them to make whatever we don't like "better".

Roosevelt, Kennedy were the only two I can think of who brought about some "real" change for the better, but they all promise it.

Your point was made by Larry Sabato, a political scientist at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville:

Quote:
There are reasons why Washington works the way it does; there are reasons the institutions of government have become entrenched the way they have. It's just not possible to move in and change human nature or reality the way presidents think they can.

http://www.findingdulcinea.com/news/politics/March-April-08/Change-Eas
y-to-Promise-Hard-to-Deliver.html

and it's a very valid point.

Definitely people voted for change in recent elections. But underneath, it’s my belief, they wanted change to mean a more stable economy and jobs because the current conditions scared them. Obama didn't fix things fast enough from the debacles of Bush, so "change" translates to "THEY'LL fix it" because Obama didn't.

They voted for change from Bush, too, at the time. I think they’re kidding themselves to believe that putting the Republicans BACK in power will bring about any serious change for the better. Didn’t people vote for “change” EVERY time they voted against the party in power? How much thought do you think they gave to exactly what changes the other party would represent? It's just a reflction of "I don't like how it's going", not a specific ideology, as I see it.

Republicans in power want to bring about better conditions for Wall Street, tax cuts for the rich, deregulation...do you really think the MAJORITY of voters considered all that, and want all that, or might they just have seen how the country has been going (since Bush), be afraid Obama's not fixing it, and want someone else to try?

The term may have been different in the past, but the idea’s the same.

Quote:
It's hard to think of a more meaningless political watchword than "change," but "change" is what candidates promise.

The general idea is as old as democracy -- think of the venerable exhortation to "throw the rascals out" -- but the obsessive repetition of the word itself is a relatively new phenomenon. Granted, in 1944, the Republican governor of New York, Thomas E. Dewey, ran for president on the slogan "It's time for a change" -- but that was after his opponent, Franklin D. Roosevelt, had served three terms. After Dewey lost handily, the word went out of fashion for a while.

In 1960, John F. Kennedy promised change from the Eisenhower years with the slogan "Let's get America moving again," but he didn't use the word itself. In 1976, Jimmy Carter offered the slogan "A leader, for a change." Bland as these slogans were, by today's standards they would be too substantive. In the current environment, a candidate who promised to get the country "moving again" might invite attacks that he favored big government, while a candidate who promised leadership "for a change"( i.e., as opposed to the incumbent) might get tut-tutted by the media for stooping to negative campaigning. Even "Let's make America great again," Ronald Reagan's slogan in 1980, would likely prove insufficiently anodyne today because of its militaristic overtones.

http://articles.latimes.com/2008/jan/13/opinion/op-noah13

So “change” is now the generic way of indicating “I’ll make it better than the last guy”; it’s just a different word.

Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off

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