finknottle

In serious agencies, particularly the technical ones, most SES's come up through the ranks. But your point stands.

I'm not convinced he is actually pushing Congress on specifics. He certainly is bringing people in, as is Congress, but nothing is said about the content of the talks beyond the recent press announcement about cutting 2 trillion... that blew up in their face, and I suspect it is now a lesson learned. So all we know is that there are a lot of closed door meetings on capital hill, and a few with the White House, and that the congressional rank and file feels shut out of what's going on. Maybe it's Obama making the decisions, but maybe its the Committee Chairs - primarily Rangel, Dodd, Kennedy, Waxman, and Baucus. They are the ones tasked with it. Congress has been pretty consistent in not giving a hint that there are White House marching orders other than the date it must be finished by. My guess is that there is no White House plan other than to apply pressure to get something passed, and that the chairs are on their own to come up with an actual plan.

Maybe we're splitting hairs here, but I am enraged by the approach: he commits our money, and then instructs Congress to pass a plan by a set date this summer. No details, no going out on a limb by offering up a draft plan - nice leadership. If as expected it passes, he basks in the adulation of being the President that brought universal health care. If it fails, you can be sure he will act the aggrieved party and blame Congress. Writing something that will be passed is therefore the responsibility of Congress.. And they are doing it the only way they think they can succeed: in secret, more or less. Release it right before the deadline, no time for anyone to read it or for opposition to develop, and let the Presidents deadline pressure the back benchers into signing on. What's really going to be in this bill? Good luck finding out, until it is released for a vote.

Another sticky situation is his campaign position against mandating that everybody obtain some coverage - he blasted Clinton on the issue and used it to differentiate their plans, saying she would criminalize people without insurance... Congress seems intent on including it. (About the only good thing I see coming out of their deliberations - the requirement for hospitals to pay for the uninsured forces them to recoup their losses by artificially raising the rates on those who do pay. And the spiraling rates cause yet more people to go uninsured...)

Is it your view that if these people didn't go to New York, they would be spending those days in their cubicles staring at the ceiling? I didn't think they were UAW... By your logic, it would have cost no more to have an armored division escorting him - they are on the clock anyway, and they have their own tanks. It is mind boggling that you don't think of this as a cost. Modern business practice - even salaried employees, even in government - has people charging their time to various activities. It is the only way to get a grip on your allocation of resources.

I repeat the description of the video given in the article: Whatever was going on in the shotkeepers mind, it doesn't appear to be concern that the robber was plotting an ambush and reloading his gun. Would you turn your back on a downed adversary if you had any inkling that he was still a threat?

What does 'financial backing' mean? My undertstanding is that there is no financial obligation on the part of Fiat, and no plan to invest capital.

If we are pulling out, then it only means that Obama was wrong about the Great Depression II (I guess that makes him a liar according to some posters here) and those who were ridiculed for saying the fundimentals were strong were correct. *Nothing* turns around an economy that quickly. Almost none of the stimulus money, his chief remedy, has been spent yet. None of the housing fixes are enacted. And nobody even knows what the health care plan that will emerge looks like

Ok, people don't seem to like the idea of placating union members with a $500k payoff as a way of buying their support, without leaving us on the hook for future. So how about this instead: we fork over the money, making the unions happy. To ensure the continued viability of the companies once they burn through that, and to keep from having to subsidize them again, we simply ban the import of foreign cars. Everybody wins!

Help me with my math here... We are sinking $60 billion into GM. It it survives and is wildly successfull, we can expect to get the money paid back (with no interest) after about 60 years. That assumes no further investment, that GM can actually compete with the companies who know a thing or two about making good small cars, that it duplicates it's most successfull year from the past decade every year for 60 years, and that it can pay back a quarter of the profit with no ill effects. It ain't gonnna happen. We will be back throwing yet more good money after bad within a few years. I think there are at most 120,000 union employees. Why don't we just divide that $60 billion among them and be done with it? We cut them each a check for $500,000, tell them to vote democratic, and move on.

I have no problem with him shooting him initially. I wouldn't even have a problem with him continuing to unload the magazine into the fallen body on the floor. It is an extension of the same action. This is the passage that I have a problem with:

I was sympathetic to the guy initially, but after finishing it I agree: coming back and unloading on the robber with a fresh gun is too much. He should be charged with at least manslaughter. (Not opinion if racism played a role, it could just as well have been simply rage/fear/adrenaline.)

Poor prospects for work would diminish the influx, but it is unclear how much - that factor is offset by the availability of free social services. That's why New York and California are considered 'Welfare Magnets.' They offer more than other states, and there are no residency requirements (neither time nor citizenship). So if you are an illegal immigrant who makes it that far, you can immediately cash in if you have friends to help you navigate the system. For many of the immigrants, living on welfare in NYC is a better lifestyle than what what their home villages offer - chances are there is no work there either. http://www.boogieonline.com/revolution/com...e/new_york.html Here's an old piece on the NY benefits. It's from a questionable source, but I remember the figures being generally accepted back in the 90's. At the time the outrage is what spawned the movement towards residency requirements (you had to be a resident for a year; blocked by the Supreme Court) and then Clinton's welfare reform (which required that you get a job after a few years; it was just repealed by the current congress).

As long as they get the assets too - Gitmo, and the fancy new 200 acre Embassy complex in Baghdad.

http://ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=328317766151198 Nice editorial, with a smidgen of historical perspective.

Historically speaking, yes. That's one of the things that gets negotiated. In recent decades, the most notable case was the situation of the former Soviet Union, which dissolved into several countries. They had to settle who held the foreign assets as well as the debt - Russia took them all on.

I like this one better:

And how would stronger unions prevent this? Assuming you are not suggesting that unions will prevent the illegal immigrants from entering this country, you still have the same problem: an influx of additional poor. An expansion of social services. A net loss of tax dollars. All increased unionization would do is make it harder for illegal immigrants to find work, making the net loss that much greater.

You miss the point: *the west* would never go to war with that calculation. Ergo, a limited deterence (a handfull of nukes) is an effective deterence against it. That is the logic I am suggesting NK and Iran are using. That was also the logic Saddam Hussein used - he thought that if he could trick us into believing that he had some measure of a biological WMD capability and the means to deliver it, we would back down from a military confrontation. His bluff didn't fail - rather, the possibility of a biological attack launched by SCUDs didn't sufficiently unnerve us based on our calculations of the likely impact. A Nuke on a modern missile is a different story.

It is not so simple in a union shop or an agency shop. Try withholding your dues some time. Or forming a competing union within a workplace.

Are you nuts??? You would go to war thinking "I'll lose millions overnight, but it will be ok because I'll wipe them out"? Complete destruction is a requirement unique to the Cold War. In today's world, the west considers the loss of a single city as totally unacceptable. That's why the military option was taken off the table by the Clinton administration - NK already had enough conventional artillary (and, it was calculated, the will) to level Seoul in the event of a US strike. And I can pretty much guarantee that in the first Gulf War, Saudi Arabia would never have staged the coalition on their soil had Saddam had even one bomb. None of the neighbors would have.

That is illegal. Tell me this - what (other than the law) is to prevent unions from bullying their members? If employees want out of the union, should we put in place a system where somebody turning in a signature list to the NLB automatically decertifies it, with no vote?

The third reason for building a bomb: To dissuade an opponent from using military force against you. If Iran had had the bomb in 1980, would Iraq have attacked? If Iraq had had it in 1990, would the international coalition led by the US have driven them out of Kuwait?

I think this is a dangerous misunderstanding of their intentions. They do not want to start a war. They want to be free to - extort money, sell missile technology, and engage in counterfeiting (NK), and - gain political hegemony by destabilizing their neighbors (Iran) without fear of military retribution. That is the objective, not attacking their neighbors.

Who do you mean by 'they' in the first sentence? Why would Iran start a war?? I guess I am rejecting the assertion that they are being built to be used as a chip in negotiation. What is there to negotiate? Nukes keep them safe and allow them to conduct their affairs as they see fit without fear of military retribution, and that is seen as more important than the lifting sanctions of dubious impact and staying power. If Iran and North Korea felt anything not related to their nuclear programs were worth negotiating, wouldn't they be proactive in bringing it up?