Re: Pepper sprayed for public safety.
 

I think Romney being a tremendous asshole may have had something to do with it.

TM

Re: Pepper sprayed for public safety.
 

Bingo.

Ryan didn't help either.

Re: Pepper sprayed because they friggin' deserved it.
 

You are assuming that all people who receive government assistance are non-taxpayers. I am a recipient of SSDI payments and my effective tax rate last year was 16%; that's a higher rate than Mitt Romney.

As to your broader point, my answer is simple. If 46 million Americans cannot survive without some orm of government assistance, then for the most part either prices are too high or wages are too low. The market, in which you place such faith, is out of balance. It has had decades to correct itself, and yet it grows further out of balance every year.

It really is a question of feed them or fight them. I don't advocate a system where the government takes money from you and gives it directly to four people who have no income. So, we have a quandary. How do you get the money from one sector to another? I don't see a lot of people in the top quintile stepping up and volunteering for pay cuts.

Re: Newsflash: Repubs are suddenly in love with hispanics
 

Please. The range of views on this board -- from GGG/Ty to Hank to you/Slave -- is broad, and a hell of a lot broader than what you find on Fox or LFG or whatever else the right wing is listening to.

Re: Pepper sprayed for public safety.
 

Yeah, but I think the lack of traction for the Rs is universal outside of white rural voters.

Even Politico, the most moderate major Republican outlet, ran a lead the week before the election focusing on white voters as the salvation of the Republican party. And they were all proud of that messaging! But that sends the same message to Filipinos, Indians, Japanese, Brazilians, Puerto Ricans, etc.

There is a wildly different wealth profile for several of the Asian groups, but a lot of that is based on high education levels, and, remember, Santorum made clear that the smart would never be with them.

Re: Newsflash: Slave returns
 

In Slave's defense, in small part, because we all know that Slave and I find little common ground when it comes to politics, it does bother me waking up every morning knowing that the man in the White House has taken upon himself, on questionable legal grounds at best, the right to kill anyone, anywhere, on his say-so. It really doesn't help his case to say he doesn't claim that authority within the US's borders. He hasn't ever denied that he has that authority; in fact, his apologists have refused to answer the question. It's a moot point, anyway, when under the PATRIOT Act and assorted Executive Orders he has the authority to grab anybody suspected of being a terrorist, throwing a black bag over their head, and ship them off to someplace where they can be killed.

It might have changed my vote if I believed for a fraction of a second that Romney would abolish the kill list, the drone program, and make sure that Congress permanently and unequivocally barred the process. But we all know that wouldn't have happened. The sad truth is, the terrorists have already won. We have become a people willing to collectively overlook the denial of due process, international law, and basic norms of a civilized people, in the name of protecting ourselves from the sort of pople who are willing to collectively overlook the denial of due process, international law, and basic norms of a civilized people.

Re: Newsflash: Repubs are suddenly in love with hispanics
 

Ty has very fucked up views on zoning, so please don't lump me together with him.

Re: Pepper sprayed for public safety.
 

I don't know. What's the title of his biography?

Re: Newsflash: Repubs are suddenly in love with hispanics
 

Did you see the Jezebel post showing all the tweets calling Obama a nigger and a monkey?

Re: Pepper sprayed because they friggin' deserved it.
 

No I'm not. You chose to make that a focus. I'm aware recipients pay taxes. I'm also aware a ton of recipients don't deserve benefits (I am responsible for several people with claims of questionable merit receiving them from private plans, all of which require recipients to make SSDI claims). I'm also aware, as that study notes, that a majority of recipients are not people who contributed substantially to SS during their careers. The SSDI I see operating in my state looks like a secondary form of long term unemployment. People go into the system young, become unemployable even if their condition improves, and then never come out, taxing the program's capacity over decades. It's sad, and pernicious.

I agree. The fix would be to find a way to give those on benefits who can work jobs instead of transfer payments. But how?

This is where I say, "Therein lies the rub?" ~ Cue tumbleweeds here, too? ~ ETA: But the answer certainly isn't, "Force that quintile to give money to the govt to give to the people who need jobs." That only makes things worse.

Re: Pepper sprayed for public safety.
 

Thurgreed, you are conflating the assets and liabilities of the bank with the corporate entity. It is possible, hell, it happens all the time, to move assets and healthy liabilities to a healthier entity and let the toxic liabilities fail. That's an awful lot of what I did for 20+ years.

I do understand how interconnected things are. That's why I am so furious about what happened. The multiplier effect is supposed to be taking one person's deposits and lending that deposit to an unrelated party. When the banks start dealing to their own trading subsidiaries, and eerrybody gets all incestuous with offsetting swaps based on pure air, the train is off the rails.

Re: Pepper sprayed for public safety.
 

Yes, I know. The other part of the fiscal cliff is cuts in defense spending and other federal programs that are not involved with transfer payments to individuals based on need. In short, the spending cuts are more likely to bring the Rs to the table than the expiration of some tax cuts.

Re: Pepper sprayed for public safety.
 

Yes, I would have. Because I believed George Bailey when he assured the folks in Bedford Falls that their money was there, and I believe in the FDIC.

Re: Pepper sprayed for public safety.
 

http://www.writerswrite.com/pics/pau...ell_all_in.jpg

I'm enjoying the headline battle between the NY Post and Daily News: "Cloak and Shag Her" versus "War and Piece". Who says NY journalism is dead?

And will any of us be able to hear that a reported is "embedded" again without laughing?

Re: Pepper sprayed for public safety.
 

I put it down to the fact that most immigrants come here with very little money, and Romney made one thing very, very clear. He don't fucking care about people with very little money.