finknottle

Or the 1924 Paris Olympics. http://wesclark.com/rrr/1924_rugby_olympics.html

Fine. But why should it be earmark money instead of the NSF or NASA public education? Why can't we let those organizations tasked with prioritizing and overseeing initiatives do their job, instead of having them do most of it and secretly squirreling away additional funding for things based on political considerations? If funding the planetarium is worthwhile, let NASA make the case before congress in the course of normal appropriations.

One can argue about the net advantages and disadvantages, but I think McCain has failed to make a good enough case for the basic purpose: to get companies out of the business of providing health plans. Before heads explode over the issue of group coverage, remember that health insurance has another core problem that has fallen by the wayside in recent debate: portability. There are a lot of people who are forced to stay with their company - perhaps at a lower wage or in unsatisfactory work conditions - simply because they would otherwise lose health insurance. One approach (Obama) is to keep the situation the same, and hope somebody someday comes through with legislation to permit you to take your company plan with you when you leave. Another approach (McCain) is to move to a individual plan environment, and hope somebody someday comes through with legislation to require insurers to offer individuals a guaranteed-acceptance plan at an affordable rate. Neither addresses the daunting second task before them. My feeling is that McCains second challange is actually acheivable, while Obama's would make a convoluted relationship (between participant, insurer, and originating employer) even worse.

I'm pro-Science spending, but I don't want to see money tossed around as earmarks. We wind up having no idea what we are spending overall, and earmarks all too often don't have the same accountability and oversight as funding through traditional mechanisms. NASA and NSF get money for public education. You want a planaterium, let them prioritize it against other initiatives and ask for it in their budget requests.

I'm talking the politics of public policy, and you can't let go of morality. There is no debate about whether higher earners should pay more than lower earners - go find a flat-taxer if you want to battle that strawman. I am only interested in the political ramifications - how spending proposals are received by the voting public - when a critical mass of the voters are not effected by the costs of the programs proposed. If X% of the country pays no taxes after tax credits, under what circumstances would they oppose any spending program at all? They would either support it or at worst be indifferent. It's somebody elses nickel. I'll make this clearer since you seem to have comprehension issues: this is not about the 11% paying more than they take in. It is about the number 11% itself - more precisely, it is about where significant numbers should lie: the lines between no taxes and taxes, between no income tax and income tax, between being a net consumer of federal resources and net contributer, etc. It is about finding the right positions to give all americans a stake in fiscal responsibility. Those first two lines are more or less irreversible: once a segment or portion of the population pays no taxes, no politician can initiate a tax on them. The lines can only go upward, and only the rates on those already paying something can be realistically tweaked. If we continue to shift the lines upward then the majority of the country will have no stake in paying for national programs. But as long as they can vote, politicians will propose spending on them - they are in the business of getting elected, after all. The check on this, those who have to pick up a portion of the bill, are becoming a smaller and smaller piece of the electorate. If you don't believe me, institute democracy in your family and see how the kids deal with allowances, household spending and budgets (assuming you have more kids than wage-earners).

Hoover blew it, but let's not forget that the consensus of historical opinion has shifted to the view that Roosevelt's policies prolonged and deepened the Depression.

Maybe, maybe not - I personally think it does suck. But the markets may also just be taking advantage of the slide to move to what they think is more accurate long-term value, once the liquidity crisis is over. They may simply think that the equities simply are not worth - even in stable circumstances - what we thought they were. That's the view I'm inclined to: our efforts might be infleuced by the temptation to hold the market at an artificially high level. It will be interesting to see what the P/E ratios are, assuming the markets level off in the next week or so.

I don't think anyone explicitely answered your question: Yes. Most profit-sharing plans and 401k's offer a variety of funds with different philosophies and balances.

I've been ranting lately on the fact that we will soon reach the milestone of having the majority of households paying no income tax. This article distills my concerns nicely: http://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2..._vanishing.html Another way of looking at the problem (according to figures in the article): Only 11% of those households who file income tax returns at all contribute more in taxes (overall, including payroll etc) than they consume (as their share of national expenses). It is no surprise that the price of higher taxes for more spending programs at the federal level has become irrelevant to the majority of voters

In looking it up, I've found that yes, the CEO was asked to resign because of a relationship with a female executive, with the explanation that he could no longer effectively lead the company. My gut tells me that that was just a handy excuse to remove a leader made toxic by the procurement scandal.

No. I think the tip of the spear was the AF official Darleen Dryun who was found guilty of inflating the contract price to favor Boeing, who she then retired from the AF to join. She did a small amount of jail time. As things unravelled (and there may have been other misconduct as well as conflict-of-interest), Boeing was fined $615 million, the CEO resigned, and the CFO did a few months of jail time.

He cannot, and that's what is so dangerous. It doesn't matter if Obama is a saint - the combination of adoring masses unwilling to examine his positions together with a media on a mission to elect him is a recipe for potential disaster. With no public criticism, he doesn't have to be nefarious to start wondering about extending term limits, taking back power from a corrupt congress, mandating 'fairness' in society and the press, etc... it's the road of a Chavez or a Morales, or indeed any popularist including Hitler. But it is also a road not always followed to the authoritarian end - we'll just have to see how it plays out. The common threads in all of this are popularism, easy solutions, the promise of change, and a compliant press.

As I like to tell my gold-bug friends - if the economic collapse they fear/long for ever truely comes to pass, the state will go down with it. I'm pretty sure that means I can just take those shiny gold bars at gun point.

Carefull how you answer, Obama nation - it would be racist to suggest that they are almost unanimously supporting him at a far higher rate than the country as a whole is because, say, they want to soak those making over 250k. You would be described as saying that all blacks are poor. And lazy. Shame on you. (I'm auditioning to join Obama's quick response media team.)

No, but the media sure did. I'm not expecting any comment from them on Obama's rebuttals.

To great irony, the word 'right' has been eroded by the left to meaninglessness. There is a difference between what we think we strive to accomplish and what we consider a basic right. You and the entire country will agree that everybody ought to be able to find a job if they want one. But is it a right??? Should the government go beyond the policy of encouraging a healthy employment environment and actually guarantee employment? Should that right be extended to those who can't hold a job for good reason, such as chronic alcoholism or disruptive workplace temperment? How about financial security? Surely everybody would agree that raising the income levels for all americans is an important goal for the government, and that those in poverty should be lifted into the middle class. Should a 24k income become a right? And why exactly do you say that education has now become a right? Are those who opt out of the system denying their children their rights, or merely their education? And if it is a right, wouldn't any disparity in spending between school districts be an unequal application of those rights? That sounds pretty bad...

I find it insightfull that whenever they say it is a right - as Obama did in the debate and as his surrogates say in interviews - the statement is immediately followed by the explanation that 'we live in the richest country in the world, yada-yada-yada.' To me what this reveals subconsciously is the recognition that health care is not a mystical 'right' (in philosophical fantasy sense) so much as 'taking' is: there exists is an inalienable right for society to take from those who have and give to those who need. Whether we are talking about health care, food, housing, or better schools, if an analogous crisis came up I have no difficulty seeing Obama et al saying that there is a 'right' to good education or whatever, as long as they can finger somebody to pick up the tab.

What??? I don't think we have the cap room for many more $700 billion dollar contracts. Not unless we get Schneider and Jones to buy us out.

Whether the guy is a sinner or a saint, between the devotion of the masses and the media believing it has a duty to elect him any way they can, the Obama movement is a bigger risk to democracy down the road than Cheney's pitiful but transparent power-grabbing.

Nobody suggested that they are getting rich. My problem is with the realization that (1) the program covers 10% of the country, and (2) purchasing food is probably the least of the problems facing most poor people. They need help with rent, utilities, and transportation, each of which is far more than their food bill. If you want to argue that the bottom ten percent of the country needs help, fine. But extending food stamps to one person in ten takes a very specific assistance program and turns it into a broad subsidy. It's the principal, not the amount of money that is the issue. Call it what it is, a generalized subsidy. Don't package it as food for the hungry when you are talking about 30 million people.

But Biden told us that McCain is not really a maverick.

Should everybody get their food bills picked up by the government, should it be based on being in an income percentile, or should it be an absolute income number under which a person can not afford food? And what is the rationale for limiting it to food and not undirected assistance?

Ok, we now know that 38% of househilds pay no federal income tax, or get a net payment through credits. I just learned that the number of individuals receiving foods stamps has been fairly steady at almost 10%, 28 million. That is alot higher than I thought! The reason this troubles me is that, all things considered, food is not the problem for the poor. In this country, food is amazingly cheap (as any graduate student will tell you). You can get a dozen eggs for $1.50, a loaf of bread for a buck, etc. It's not luxury, but we ae talking about poverty after all, and food is what you make of it. Housing, clothes, utilities, transportation - *those* are the real financial problems for the poor. Anybody else think a 10% rate raises alarms about the progrem being less of a focused life-saver and more of a blanket entitlement?

Why can't Republicans' use Obama's full name when Democrats seem so intent on insisting that McCain's is actually McCain-Bush?

Not sure if this has been brought up, since one glance at the last page has discouraged me from reading the previous eight, but... Am I correct in thinking based on last the Biden-Palin exchange that a McCain administration believes Climate Change is real and must be stopped now, while an Obama administration thinks it is more important to first prove whether or not it is man-made before taking action?