Drill Now for oil

So all the problems were caused by Bill Clinton. Yeah right!

The day after the election people looked around and said "Oh crap look who we just elected" and the economy fell. No big surprise.

Fox news?

Labor is cheaper in China. They will send the jobs to the most cost effective market. We need to also drop the floor out from under the US's standard of living if we want to keep the jobs here by cutting the costs to the manufactures.

Japan has been taking advantage of the cheap american labor for years.

When the average American worker's standard of living drops below that of Mexico, the jobs will return from there too and we will all be rich :>/

If corporate taxes are replaced by sales taxes, manufacturers will have a much smaller incentive to leave, and selling Japanese cars and Chinese tools will produce tax revenue too. The public pays the same in the long run, but more of the public gets to keep jobs.

John

You flatter Bubba; he didn't do much of anything, except ending lifelong welfare (good) and signing the laws that gave us the current real-estate bust (bad.)

The downturn began in '99, when a lot of people realized that a lot of stuff was bogus.

John

g s

You're smearing neo-cons together with conservatives. I agree with Thomas Woods that neo-conservativism is merely another form of leftism:

"What is so revealing about Boot=92s critique, though, and what in fact makes his review newsworthy, is that it conclusively proves what traditional conservatives have consistently alleged: neoconservatism, at root, is merely a variety of leftism."--Thomas Woods

_We've Been Neo-Conned_, by Ron Paul "One thing is certain: conservatives who worked and voted for less government in the Reagan years and welcomed the takeover of the U.S. Congress and the presidency in the 1990s and early 2000s were deceived. Soon they will realize that the goal of limited government has been dashed and that their views no longer matter.

The so-called conservative revolution of the past two decades has given us massive growth in government size, spending and regulations. Deficits are exploding and the national debt is now rising at greater than a half-trillion dollars per year. Taxes do not go down =96 even if we vote to lower them. They can=92t, as long as spending is increased, since all spending must be paid for one way or another."

Incoherent.

You finally got a hit on the third pitch.

If you owned the only '66 VW Beetle on the planet, and a bunch of people wanted to buy it, and the average offer was $700, and the top offer was a million dollars, who would you sell it to?

So, why are '66 Beetles not worth a million dollars?

John

Right!

...Jim Thompson

--
| James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
| Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC\'s and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
| Phoenix, Arizona  85048    Skype: Contacts Only  |             |
| Voice:(480)460-2350  Fax: Available upon request |  Brass Rat  |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com |    1962     |
|                                                                |
|                        Vote Democrat...                        |
|                                                                |
|        $8.00/gallon Gasoline Doesn\'t Bother Me One Bit         |
|                                                                |
|  Due to excessive spam, googlegroups, UAR & AIOE are blocked!  |

You're preaching to the choir, John. Leftist weenies have closed minds.

...Jim Thompson

--
| James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
| Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC\'s and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
| Phoenix, Arizona  85048    Skype: Contacts Only  |             |
| Voice:(480)460-2350  Fax: Available upon request |  Brass Rat  |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com |    1962     |
|                                                                |
|                        Vote Democrat...                        |
|                                                                |
|        $8.00/gallon Gasoline Doesn\'t Bother Me One Bit         |
|                                                                |
|  Due to excessive spam, googlegroups, UAR & AIOE are blocked!  |

I win no matter what.

Elect McCain, things stay normal.

Elect Obama, we have recession, consulting business rises ;-)

...Jim Thompson

--
| James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
| Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC\'s and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
| Phoenix, Arizona  85048    Skype: Contacts Only  |             |
| Voice:(480)460-2350  Fax: Available upon request |  Brass Rat  |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com |    1962     |
             
           Liberalism is a persistent vegetative state

In , MooseFET wrote in large part:

I see too much government spending being of "productiveness" ranging from as high as "somewhat subpar" to as low as "slightly more productive than throwing taxpayer money into a bonfire".

I want a lot less "gubmint"/"gubbamint" spending. It appears to me that the private sector on average accomplishes more productiveness and wealth-building than "gubmint" does.

Sadly, the last truly fiscally conservative USA President as of late June 2008 appears to me to be Eisenhower. I also find that one to be the only true fiscal conservative since at least 1932 and at least through

2007. A distant second I find to be Clinton, and I say a "much less distant second" (though still short of "fiscally conservative") is Clinton's second term, with gridlock against spending bills and tax cut legislation resulting in large part from both houses of Congress having majority of the party other than the one in the White House.

As for taxation policy - I say that a greater priority is to spend less. Borrow-and-spend-as-much-as-Democrats has been MO of "neocons". A few of them argue how USA is good in this area compared to what I would call "worse welfare states".

A few fiscal years ago, USA's current President (as of June 2008) requested an $8 billion "energy bill" and allowed past his desk the $14 billion one that came from Congress in response to his $8-billion request. He had yet to veto anything as of then when he let that nearly-doubled-porked-up thing go through!

--
 - Don Klipstein (don@misty.com)

Republicans argued against the Kennedy tax cuts - I think rightfully.

Kennedy claimed to have a tax cut be good while increasing spending. I fault Kennedy for this as I fault Reagan and Bush II for doing additional along those lines!

- Don Klipstein ( snipped-for-privacy@misty.com)

Well, in the first place, by way of your premise, there would only be a single Beetle. Therefore, what more than one Beetle would be worth is an irrelevant exercise.

Also by definition, in order to reach an "average offer" of $700, assuming a simple arithmetic mean, the "bunch" of people would likely number in the thousands, even if they were bidding ridiculously small amounts.

But it's not like I don't see your point.....

My point is: The "greed" in this case would be the desire to own the car. Actually, it's not even a good analogy, since in any case is does not properly model the whole "moderation" statement. Your analogy does expose an unlevel playing field, however - the fact that someone is willing to part with a $1M, at such huge variance to the rest of the populations' respective offers. -mpm

Actually, in the days after the election, we were all glued to our TV sets to see if the Supreme Court would actually give the election to Dub-ya.

I blame the neocons for proposing borrow-and-spend as any improvement over tax-and-spend. The taxpayers have to pay the interest!

There have been times in recent decades when "The Right" held power, and failed/refused to fix what "The Left" broke.

One example is Bush in one of his earlier fiscal years requesting from Congress an $8 billion "Energy Bill", and signing the $14 billion that he got from Congress for that same fiscal year with Republicans having a majority of both houses of Congress.

- Don Klipstein ( snipped-for-privacy@misty.com)

It would be better if government did throw tax money into a bonfire, as opposed to spending it. The bonfire thing is deflationary, so for every dollar they take from us, we get it back in reduced cost of goods; it's net neutral... it just revalues the currency. But when government takes our money and spends it, we have less to spend, *and* we are competing against the government (and its employees/agents/dependents) for goods and services, which makes things more expensive. The math on this is nonlinear in the bad direction.

John

I said there was only one. You own it, you put it on ebay, and you get multiple offers. The top offer is a million dollars.

So who would you sell it to?

John

No, you asked "So, why are '66 Beetles not worth a million dollars?"

--implying an inventory or more than one Beetle. But let's ignore that error for now.

I would sell it to the person offering the Million dollars. But I fail to see how A) That is competition, and B) how that "moderates" greed or profits. Separately, I would make the counter argument that the Million dollars would be justified (in this ridiculous example you keep pushing) because the '66 Beetle in question is, by definition, literally one of a kind..., and thus arguably "priceless". (i.e., if I were truly greedy I would accept no offers less than say, $10M!)

But to continue your line of reasoning, here is the definition of "greed" from Dictionary.com. You will see it more appropriately applies to the individual seeking the car, than to any windfall arising out of the fictional sale of the '66 Beetle.

=97Synonyms avarice, avidity, cupidity, covetousness; voracity, ravenousness, rapacity. Greed, greediness denote an excessive, extreme desire for something, often more than one's proper share. Greed means avid desire for gain or wealth (unless some other application is indicated) and is definitely uncomplimentary in implication: His greed drove him to exploit his workers. Greediness, when unqualified, suggests a craving for food; it may, however, be applied to all avid desires, and need not be always uncomplimentary: greediness for knowledge, fame, praise.

Now, what exactly was your point? Please explain how the acceptance of the $1M offer ameliorates your prior statement in any way.. I repeat that I don't think the analogy applies to the notion that greed and profit are somehow moderated by competition. -mpm