Re: Pepper sprayed for public safety.
 

Perhaps he can apply this ingenuity to our fiscal numbers.

Only the Dems would be clueless enough to assume tax dodging will play badly with the general public. You realize not paying taxes, whether rich or poor, is actually endearing to Joe Sixpack. What's the saying? "The enemy of my enemy is my friend"? And nobody who pays taxes has anything but contempt for them.

Re: Pepper sprayed for public safety.
 

Hang in there, boys. Yes, there's the chance that you'll get some random calls from irritated and confused people in Detroit, but OTOH over time Hank will come to appreciate the inevitable conequences of his plan, inexplicably get busier, and post less.

Re: Should 5% appear too small.
 

Not quite sure why your vote is based on how business community treats him - are these people you're sucking up to? Doesn't it make more sense to look at what he's done for business than how they view him?

Around here, of course, the business associations are generally happy with what he's done for business. This area will be a big winner in healthcare reform (yes, at the cost of the medical device tax), tech and biotech are doing well, we're finally back to seeing H-1B visa number increase, a big business priority here, and we don't get laughed at for our leadership as we do international work. And, the IPO window is open!

I know folks like the National Chamber, who advocate for businesses whose number one priority is cheap labor, don't like him, but screw them. The banks don't like him much, but that's because they needed a trip to the woodshed after '08, but the markets sure do, with S&P up 75% in his term.

Re: Pepper sprayed for public safety.
 

Good point. I'm looking forward to having Romney explain how much money Clinton's QSBS rollovers saved him when those returns come out. I don't think most Americans realize how much Clinton sucked up to venture and private equity (after all, that's a lot of money from a lot of very blue states).

Re: Should 5% appear too small.
 

Eisenhower. To quote Arthur Fonzarelli, "I like Ike. My bike likes Ike."

Of course the Manchurean President is in trouble - no president in the modern era has been re-elected with 8% unemployment since FDR, and BHO ain't no FDR. But Governor Romney hasn't seemed able to keep the narrative on the dismal numbers. If the race was today, he'd lose a squeaker in the popular vote and a bit more definitively in the Electoral College. That's why I said that if the country is still talking about anything other than 8% unemployment in mid-October, the Kenyan could install a halal deli in the Lincoln Bedroom and still win.

Re: Pepper sprayed for public safety.
 

Bitch wouldn't listen.

Re: Should 5% appear too small.
 

I love Slave like a non-crazy brother but living amongst the enemy does weird things to his head. Years ago, he passed a firestation and saw a bumper sticker that said "Clinton -- Draft Dodger" and he assumed I put it there in an act of whatever the opposite of red-baiting is.

Re: Pepper sprayed for public safety.
 

You, my friend, are so so wrong about that.

None of my blue collar cousins like Obama, but they absolutely loathe Governor Romney. They don't begrudge the rich, but don't like guys who game the system.

They won't vote for Obama, so they'll just stay home.

Re: Pepper sprayed for public safety.
 

I'll just tell em that they got laid off because we wanted to see how Romney's plan to let the automakers die would have played out.

Re: Should 5% appear too small.
 

Is it possible that the American people are un-dumb enough to realize that no President could have come into the mess that was there in January 2009, followed by the seriies of later messes that had nothing to do with US policy, and hoped to get us anywhere near a full recovery in 4 years?

Re: Pepper sprayed for public safety.
 

Actually it didn't. Too many epicycles, and all that.

Re: Pepper sprayed for public safety.
 

Damn straight. O crassa ingenia. O caecos coeli spectatores.

Re: Should 5% appear too small.
 

The National Chamber does a better job of representing the interests of CEOs then it does of representing their companies.

Re: Pepper sprayed for public safety.
 

YMMV. I hear anger about Romney. But I hear more of this: "Romney's just doing what rich guys do. And there aren't so many of them, relatively speaking. Forty percent of this country doesn't pay income tax. Where's the media on that?"

(Admittedly, PA is a huge Fox News fan base.)

Re: Should 5% appear too small.
 

The business community's investment creates jobs. I'm not sucking up to anyone. I'm hoping more capital will get brought back here.

Around here, the hospitals, insurers, and pharmaceuticals probably do like Obama. But outside those areas, and particularly among small businesses, he is strongly disliked. True or not, the perception is that with him out of office, we may see more domestic investment by businesses. Banks may be let off the regulatory hook a bit and lend more, and we might see consumption return for a time (I think we're fucked long term no matter who we elect, but that's another issue).

From my view, things can't get any more difficult for mid to small businesses (my wife and I both have small businesses, and I service many small business owners and clientele). Will Romney effectively assuage the malaise? I don't know. But he can't make things worse, Obama isn't doing much for me, and could make things worse in a second term where he doesn't have to be centrist, so why not take vote for Mitt?

Read about who's responsible for all the trading in the market these days. Read about the over hundred billion yanked from the market by investors in the just the last year. A lunatic bull run fueled exclusively by quant algorithms is nothing to crow about. And Obama isn't even really responsible for that. The volatility that keeps funds churning that market for short term gains accrues in large part from uncertainty created in significant part by the health care bill.