I went to go vote this morning

Discussion in 'Off-Topic' started by tonyM, Nov 4, 2008.

  1. Aegis
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    Aegis TAKE IT!

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    This is why I have not closed the thread yet. I'm actually really impressed with how it's progressing. And I'm making a note of it. :cool:
     
  2. ShortytheFirefighter
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    ShortytheFirefighter Pokemans. I has none. Staff Member

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    You must have missed the last few days. Like Boomer said, if you don't like it then don't read it.
     
  3. ShortytheFirefighter
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    ShortytheFirefighter Pokemans. I has none. Staff Member

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    Nate, I got my wires crossed when I was talking about mandatory vs voluntary service. Under his plan it'll be mandatory in the schools, not to join AmeriCorps. I'm curious to know how he plans on expanding the program by that much, though.
     
  4. 6MTizzle
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    6MTizzle 2SLO

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    This type of strategy has been used before and Germany is still paying the price, it just doesn't work. The uber rich that are in control of all these companies will just lay people off to make that money back that they lose in taxes. If more Americans would read they would know this. Obama's plan looks great on paper don't get me wrong. Communism also looks great on paper.

    I also wanted to add I'm not a huge fan of McCain either. I respect him for his service to our country though.
     
  5. Ryan
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    Ryan Sled drifting master

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    Yes, and I think the fact that there is a certain member of this board who is now banned which is why this thread has been able to go on for so long. My thoughts are if this person wasn't banned, this would have been closed by page 1.
     
  6. AWDimprezaL
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    AWDimprezaL has more posts than you

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    i just stopped laughing now about this, :laugh:
     
  7. Dream
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    Dream Well-Known Member

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    I like this one...
     
  8. scoobypwnz201
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    scoobypwnz201 Well-Known Member

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    Orange Mocha Frappachinos!!!!! Like Omg
     
  9. WRXEcho
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    WRXEcho Well-Known Member

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    To think that business owners are going to lay people off because of taxes is a little off IMO. The economy is currently, well, not so good. People are losing their jobs and that's just the way it is.

    If a business owners taxes go back up 3%, it's not going to really affect the business owner, or their bottom line. There are plenty of deductions and loopholes that allow these owners to pay a minimum of around 13%. When you hear that the United States has the highest business tax next to Japan, it's wrong. Technically, it's right, but the way our tax system is setup, businesses rarely pay that high of taxes.

    Demand creates jobs. Don't be fooled by people who say small business create jobs. Small business allows for expansion of the market. If there isn't a demand for the product the small business makes, there's no business, and no new jobs.

    As long as there's demand (people who have discretionary income who want to spend it), people will hire new people. Taxes in the business sector aren't going to cause owners to lay people off. Less demand and a poor economy will.

    IMO, we've got to get revenues from somewhere in order to get us out of debt. Raising taxes right now? Maybe not the best idea, but we have to start somewhere/sometime.

    Places we could gain revenues:
    1. Get out of Iraq responsibly, and with a stable Iraq.
    2. Cut entitlement programs that enable the worthless and get rid of programs that don't work.
    3. Earmarks could be minimized, but plenty of good things come from earmarks, and currently it only amounts to .5% of our budget ($17B).

    There are plenty of other ways to do it... My $.02
     
  10. Skarecrow
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    Skarecrow Well-Known Member

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    i vote NO! for politics...

    and yes to amendment 13 of closing thread.
    (even tho the pics are just dang funny.. but thats what LOL forever is about)

    thank you... and good night.
     
  11. wall of tvs
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    wall of tvs Well-Known Member

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    Then don't read the thread. :roll:
     
  12. 6MTizzle
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    6MTizzle 2SLO

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    I agree with your points to gain revenues. I think we should bring the troops home to protect our borders instead of wasting money on things like dept of homeland security and more unnecessary wars etc becuase we simply can't afford it(I'm not even gonna get into the right vs wrong here). This DID happen in Germany. I'm not talking theoreticals. Germany is still recovering from all of this currently and their plan was pretty much identical to what Obama presented. Inflation + layoffs is the result of that plan and it damn near destroyed their economy. Maybe there is a way Obama can make it work but those who don't learn from history are bound to repeat it.
     
  13. 6MTizzle
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    6MTizzle 2SLO

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    I'm at work I don't have time to cite my sources here's just a snippet...

    In many ways, such half-hearted reforms have proven the worst of all worlds. The effort has not sufficed to jolt the German economy to life, yet has sufficed to trigger near-revolts in the Schroeder's own Social Democratic Party and broad disaffection throughout the broader population. Unemployment, which Schroeder vowed to reduce, has risen by 1 million to 5 million since he took office in 1998, gross domestic product growth has exceeded 1 percent just once in the last four years, and Germany's wealth distribution has become less -- not more -- equitable under Schroeder's leadership
     
  14. WRXEcho
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    WRXEcho Well-Known Member

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    I don't disagree that it happened in Germany, or here for that matter during the Great Depression of the 1930s. I also don't think that Obama is the baby Jesus and he can turn water into wine. But, with the Bush administration, we just went through the biggest transfer of wealth in history. Although wealth didn't trickle down. Debt and risk did. Wealth trickled up. I didn't support the bailout, for I saw a repeat of the 30s. I still feel like it was a bad idea.

    Inflation is caused by the influx of money into the system. The less money there is out there, the more it's worth. But, the more we keep borrowing from the federal reserve, the higher inflation will rise. We can't just continue to borrow and dole out money to people. We have to work with what we have (which is negative 10 trillion) and increase wealth with what is available in order to push the economy forward.

    If we don't start making things in this country, we're not gonna' last much longer. We obviously need to responsibly pull back from our foreign interventions as soon as we can. But we also need to start investing in our own country. New energies, infrastructure, etc. Things that can't be outsourced so that we can actually build wealth and maintain.

    Think of the economy this way:
    An extremely rich man buys an expensive house. He hires some people to cook, clean, etc. He's also hired contractors to build the house and maintain the grounds. There... He's created a bunch of jobs... Yay!

    But if you put that into a wider spectrum, and say the middle class start building homes, you have millions of people, hiring millions of people, creating millions of jobs. Even more Yay!!!

    Obviously it's highly complex and us mere mortals cannot and will not understand the enormity of the situation. These next couple of years won't be easy, but we just have to get behind our president and give him a chance. We can always use our voice in 4 years if we feel he's failed. Hell, I was even behind Bush for a while...
     
  15. Scooby
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    Scooby Member

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    Demand does create jobs. Big corporations like Wal-Mart give low level jobs to lots of people in our society that need them. They include greeters, cashiers, and sales people. What about all the employees it takes to manufacture all the plastic junk that consumers don't need?

    Wal-Mart outsources. Simply put, cheep labor=more money for Wal-Mart CEOs. What happens when a Wal-Mart comes to town? People get all their plastic junk from them because they lower the prices to the point of ridiculousness. No one shops at the smaller businesses and they go bankpurt. After the locally owned stores go out of business, Wal-Mart hikes it's prices back up.

    Where do the smaller businesses purchace their wholesale goods? From American factories (with some exceptions, like name brand Nike products etc.).

    The problem with this is not Demacratic or Republican. Both parties agree that the United States needs to create more jobs. It is a flawed world economy that makes outsourcing work. Fair trade is necessary to protect our small businesses and other nations' workers. This means that workers (including small children) in sweat shops in Malaysia, China, and South America will be fairly compensated for their labor.

    You see, it's a global issue-
     
  16. 6MTizzle
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    6MTizzle 2SLO

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    I'm not arguing what you are saying. I'm arguing the solution. Yes I know how that all works and I think companies should be punished for outsourcing as its bad for our country. What I'm thinking is more radical than anything Obama or McCain have endorsed because they are part of the system(see my list posted earlier of campaign contributors). Obama and McCain are both bought and paid for.

    What I think is more important than worrying about income distribution is getting all these a-holes out of the treasury and fed that are getting rich off of the american people. All of these people...Paulson Bernanke etc act in the interest of their buddies at JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs and the corporations, NOT the American People. There is an elaborate network of backscratching from the major corporations and the gov. Case and point Paulson - goldman sachs(former ceo), Ed Liddy - goldman sachs(former board member of goldman appointed as new ceo of aig after bailout). Mr. Bernanke on the other hand helped out JPMorgan in the whole fishy acquisition of Bear Stearns. All the while the Bush family has elaborate ties to the Carlyle Group and Cheney of course with Haliburton who not surprisingly are getting rich off all the wars we're engaging in. These guys get money, we as taxpayers are handed the bill. This and ending the wars should be step one in getting our economy back on track.
     
  17. Scooby
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    Scooby Member

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    You know what makes me mad? The fact that the Bush administration hastily went forward with the $700 billion bailout. Each family in America will end up paying $15,000 in taxes to get out of this debt. It's our country's leaders and CEOs that we are all paying to help out here. If the worst were to happen, the people that got us into this mess would be out of luck, not the middle and lower class. Why didn't we get to vote? Republicans are all for privatizing health care and social security because they don't want to be responsible for anyone else. Interesting that we are bailing them out now....
     
  18. 6MTizzle
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    6MTizzle 2SLO

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    I think the response to the bailout was awesome whether or not you supported it. People don't hold their elected officials responsible any longer so its good to see that everyone out there isn't just dead to all this. The people in office might act more responsibly if they knew they were going to start facing that wave of phone calls and e-mails from their voters every time they screwed up.
     
  19. Bullwinkle
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    Bullwinkle Well-Known Member

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    Well, we can debate the bailout (in fact, I believe we already did once on this forum, although the discussion may go better with Taras gone..:biggrin:), but I'd like to clarify one thing you said.

    The US taxpayers will not have to pay an extra $15k/family to fund the bailout. The money was provided by the Fed, so it's not really taxed money, it's just money they "made." This is worse then taxing us for the bailout, as the massive influx of money will almost certainly lead to inflation. In fact, I'm sure the Fed is well aware of this, which is why the prime interest rate was recently cut again.
     
  20. piddster
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    piddster Lone Wolf

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    From what I read, if everything goes to plan (crosses fingers) that money will come back and the taxpayers could potentially profit from the deal. That of course, is if everything goes to plan.
     
  21. 6MTizzle
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    6MTizzle 2SLO

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    Even if it goes as planned they still have to print the money which is the b*tch of it.
     
  22. WRXEcho
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    WRXEcho Well-Known Member

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    Speaking of Alaska... :hsugh:

    How about "Uncle Teddy" up there in the senate? Convicted on 7 felony counts and still allowed to campaign. How's that for loopholes? Apparently as a felon, you can't vote until you're cleared, but you can run for state senator...

    Then the guy denies he was convicted of anything (basically because he hasn't been sentenced). But he was still convicted. That makes me sick.

    That's like Bachmann denying she said what she said about Pro-America and Anti-America inquiries. Talk about a dim light bulb in that one... And not a fluorescent one at that.
     
  23. 6MTizzle
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    6MTizzle 2SLO

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    I for one can't wait to see the list of people that Bush is officially pardoning right now. I'm sure its a long list being we haven't heard much out of him lately.
     
  24. Bullwinkle
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    Bullwinkle Well-Known Member

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    Yeah, that is a freaking crock of ****. He's a convicted felon, so can't vote, but will probably win that election in Alaska. Cool.
     
  25. Scooby
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    Scooby Member

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    We just have to hope that Alaskans(?) are smart enough not to vote for someone that has such a sticky past.
     
  26. WRXEcho
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    WRXEcho Well-Known Member

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    One word: Palin.

    There are still 50k absentee votes to be counted, and he's only up by a couple thousand. But based on their choice for governor, I think Uncle Ted will win.

    Alaskans will claim that he has done a lot for their state (which he has), and that everyone deserves a second chance... IMO, he lost his second chance after the second felony charge... the extra 5 just add insult to injury.

    Hopefully he can be censured or something. But then, Palin could appoint herself as senator. Would that be any better?
     
  27. Treylizardo
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    Treylizardo Active Member

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    http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/11/what-in-hell-happened-in-alaska.html
     
  28. TSTRBOY2004
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    TSTRBOY2004 Well-Known Member

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    I dont know a lot of political stuff but DIDNT technically you all vote those people into congress etc.. you know the ones that made the decisions for it??
     
  29. pksublime
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    pksublime Well-Known Member

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    If we lived in a Democracy we would have gotten to vote on that issue, but we live in a Republic and that means we elect individuals to represent our opinion in a central forum.
     
  30. Bullwinkle
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    Bullwinkle Well-Known Member

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    Here's a pretty detailed description of his plan. He would not make any service mandatory at any age, but would expand funding for middle and high schools that promote service. I particularly like his focus on technology, senior citizens, and a college credit for volunteer service. I also like his "green vet" initiative.

    Here's a little snipit of other volunteer initiatives from previous Republican Presidents. Obama's plan is just to expand on some programs and initiatives that are already in place. I'm actually not really sure why people are getting so up in arms about it.