Magox

This post reminds me of this Bob and Danny, guess which one is you

Obama's shame strategy: Demagoguery at it's finest. Sorry, but when it comes down to this, you aren't left with too many options, as I said, you either take it up the ass or fight back.

Unfortunately, when you don't have a dance partner, the options are limited, and he's decided to not take that approach. So you can either take it up the ass or you hammer him back. That's what it has come down to.

The president is applying the strategy of attempting to press the R's through the public court of opinion by doing these campaign style events. If I were him, that would be the strategy I would implement as well, considering he has no ability to negotiate with the opposing party. So if the R's were smart, or for that matter the conservative Super Pacs and groups, they should do tv and radio ad's hammering the president for the sequester. As Bob Woodward states, it was Obama's idea, and the fact that he is trying to lay blame for the sequester on the R's is incredibly hypocritical. This should be easy to pin the president on. The president doesn't have that much leverage on this issue, never mind the fact that it indeed was HIS idea, but the economy is certain to dip and he is the president which means he will shoulder most of the blame.

You can't even do a parody right.

That's pretty much it. The concepts of "fairness" and "morality" should not play any role in economic policy. What it does is take away all logic and substitutes it with one entities perception of fairness. That's simply illogical. That's why I say if there are extensive studies done from honest brokers, and the conclusion is that all in all there are more economic benefits for the economy, then I could be all in for that. Probably the best solution is to have one set of rules for certain types of corporations and another set of rules for small business. Of course I realize that people will circumvent the system, but I would say this general concept should be considered.

Seems pretty cut and dry to me. He infringed on the patent, so therefore he will lose. Having said that, Monsanto is a punching bag that liberals love to pound on, so the fact that the good doctor is a super duper lefty who happened to bring this up to our attention, doesn't surprise me one iota.

Yes, it's a false argument to make as one particular poster suggested that the hourly wage should be raised to support working families.

Yeah I think it's gonna go through as well, I mean I hope it doesn't but it appears that there is no real core of support for this to happen. Sure you have the Neo cons that support anything that has to do with the military and there are some reasonable Democrats that realize that this isn't the best way to approach the cuts. But on the flip side, you will always have those Libs that are eager to cut anything related to the military and now you have a new breed of Conservatives that want to cut anything, even spending that R's typically support. So what will happen? Well, if it goes through, the economy will slow down, how much? We'll see. But also it will make us more vulnerable on the foreign front. That is something that isn't being discussed all that much.

What makes this even more sad is that if he were to run for re election, his constituents would still vote him in.

Yep, mismanagement of funds happen all the time, sometimes they bet the wrong way for too long, double down on bets when they shouldn't and then get caught with a liquidity shortage and as a result, positions get closed creating added volatility for a very short time period. When you get the time, look into SEMGROUP I referenced this occurrence the other day.

I remember when Munson said it was a good idea to short gold five years ago and then repeated it again 3 years ago. He knows what he's talking about.

Yes, really. There is a huge disconnect with the larger American corporations and small businesses. Corporations are doing great, they've been able to benefit off of globalization from cutting costs to enjoying the benefits of more global customers, whereas small businesses are hurt more from added regulations to a weak domestic economy. So yes, it is something that there needs to be more analysis to see if it would have adverse impacts. The question of "morality" should never be used in creating economic policy. It's not a variable that can be used to help determine effective policy. It discounts economic logic and in many cases what is done with good intention in the name of "fairness" or "morality" has the opposite intended outcome. Look at the health insurance law from the president, that is a perfect test case. It is going to be an unmitigated disaster. You know how many people are being dropped by their employers health insurance group plan because of it? A LOT Many businesses would rather pay the fine and add extra compensation to their employers to replace their health insurance because they know that the added compensation won't increase at the rate of the premiums. So if there are going to be less people in employer group risk pools, what do you think that will do to premiums? What I'm saying is that I'm not opposed to raising the minimum wage, what I'm saying is that there needs to be honest studies on small business and see what impacts t could have. If it shutters or causes less employment in these small businesses then obviously that's not the route to go.

Maybe. Certainly there are a number of corporations that can afford a $2 increase in minimum wages. On the flip side, I'm sure there are a number of small mom and pop businesses that are barely getting by with where wages are today. There would need to be extensive analysis from a truly non partisan study group on this issue. Not so much on the Fortune 500 companies but on small business

Let me begin by saying that your usage of "facetious" was not the best characterization that you could of made. There was nothing flippant or humorous that I said or suggested. Secondly, I'm not a guns rights advocates, in all honesty, I don't relate or even "get" the fascination that people have with guns. Having said that, I understand that it is their right to own a gun, and I will respect that. Thirdly, when you say Chicago lacks the ability to enforce their laws, well no ****. That's not the argument, the argument is that if you restrict law abiding peoples rights to bear arms, that somehow this will reduce gun violence. That simply doesn't make sense to me. When you say So tell me how the NRA has "gutted the ability to properly administer the laws and regulations" in a city like Chicago where it would make a difference? I'm curious. (Now that could be characterized as facetious or flippant) I agree, perfect example is the NRA quote from you up above. We are having a discussion, and there is plenty of data to support the argument that added regulations in many instances don't produce desired results. Just because you don't agree with the data or have an excuse to why these gun laws haven't worked doesn't mean that people are being "intellectually lazy". It just means that it doesn't fit your views so you reject them. That's all. The fact that you gloss over the points that LA brought up just shows that you are equally as partisan as the people you like to mock for being partisan. You are no different, just that you are on the other team.

You don't understand? I think it's fairly obvious, at least to me it is. Chicago has one of the strictest and restrictive gun laws in the U.S, yet the murder rate is one of the highest. In other words, restricting people's rights to bear arms don't usually produce the intended results. What is difficult to understand about that?

After all these years, people still getting schooled by Crayonz

What a disaster.

David Frum is a Colin Powell sort of Conservative

Apparently, it was the logical decision to make at the time.

You do realize that oil prices aren't determined by the oil companies don't you? So basically that nullifies your entire post.

These "bubbles" that occur are very transitory. They always get corrected, and they don't remain up or down there for long. The $147 Oil bubble was a headline. No one paid that price at the pump. The only reason why it got up there (which it was there for less than 3 minutes) was because one of the large investors got rolled shorting the markets and placed a huge bet against it. They went down, had to close out their positions, and there was a ton of short covering that went on and it snowballed to other short positions following suit. It would be one thing if the prices remained up there, but they didn't. Market sold off rapidly, and anyone buying oil north of $135 a barrel that didn't close out their positions rapidly got crushed. That's the nature of the markets.

Or it could be because of this: http://articles.marketwatch.com/2013-02-13/economy/37068497_1_retail-sales-retail-report-tax-hike I would expect consumers to adjust to the tax hikes, but without a doubt, there now is less disposable income for these consumers to spend. It will be interesting to see what sort of impact these tax increases, coupled with higher gas prices and the sequester will have on the economy. What's great about our economy is that we are extremely resilient.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2013/02/15/the-unsung-but-massive-obamacare-sales-tax-increase-that-is-on-the-way/

I'd be happy with either Nassib or Manuel with our second pick. Seems like they both have had success with their intermediate to long range passes.