Lichtman's 13 Keys to the WH

[DrDawkinstein]

The reason Magox responded the way he did is because what you stated has been debated ad nauseum for the last 3-4 months.

 

You parroted democratic talking points and most of them are uninformed. Not only that but you also used envy politics, "used daddy's money".

 

I'd show as much disdain (and so would Magox) for someone who said Obama was born in Kenya.

 

So yes, you come into the thread and spout garbage and are surprised when that's what you get in return. This isn't FOX or MSNBC, strop trying to sound like Angry Ed.

 

Not envy politics. I NEVER said he shouldnt be elected because he comes from money. What I said was:

 

Id rather take financial advice from someone who came from nothing, than someone who has never had to earn it.

 

I understand that Obama came from a middle-class family, not the homeless shelter, but my point still stands. He has come much farther than Romney, and faced many more challenges.

 

My MAIN point still stands as well. Romney's entire education and career is about stroking the system to his own end. I dont trust him with the country. I firmly believe he will sell us out just to pad his pockets. We've seen it done before with waging a war on false threats, and then granting their own companies no-contest contracts, while the country sees ZERO benefit. Fool me once...

 

Earlier in this thread it was suggested to you that you research the silver spoon accusations regarding Romney. Have you had the chance to do that?

 

I know plenty about Romeny's background and up-bringing. Why dont you just go ahead and make your point and try to tell me where I am wrong.

 

You parroted democratic talking points and most of them are uninformed.

 

How so?

[WorldTraveller]

You don't know **** about Romney's background other than what is spoon fed to you from the DNC or an Obama campaign ad. You proved it to us already, which is why you are mercilessly getting mocked, again, if you want to discuss politics on a substantive level, then try not parroting talking points, and maybe then you'll be taken a little more seriously.

[DrDawkinstein]

You don't know **** about Romney's background other than what is spoon fed to you from the DNC or an Obama campaign ad. You proved it to us already, which is why you are mercilessly getting mocked, again, if you want to discuss politics on a substantive level, then try not parroting talking points, and maybe then you'll be taken a little more seriously.

 

No contribution again. Love it. This time with an added pompous flair. Keep it up if it makes you feel better before you have to go back to your pathetic life.

 

I love how you guys label any opposition to your boy a "DNC talking point". The reason they are talking about it, is because it's a valid topic. Apparently one which you have no real repsonse to other than to keep grinding sand in your vagina.

[TakeYouToTasker]

Didn't the last silver spoon rich white boy destroy this country enough? We really need another one to come in and dig us into a deeper hole?

Well, technically we've had 43 "silver spoon rich white boys" !@#$ing things up for about 236 years, and that's if you only want to count the Chief Exectutive himself, excluding all of his staff and advisors, all of both houses of congress and their staff and advisors, and all of our SCOTUS justices and their pages; almost all of whom are "silver spoon rich white boys". Given that, I'm not sure that even the most magical Magic Negro could save us, which is one of about 40 thousand reasons I don't think adding racial overtones to anything political is a very clever thing to do.

[WorldTraveller]

Idiotic talking point # 1 "Romney has experience with money... HIS money. More accurately, his Daddy's money,"

 

Well, considering he donated all his money to the LDS, I guess that pretty much negates this one

 

Lemming talking point # 2 "Id rather take financial advice from someone who came from nothing, than someone who has never had to earn it."

 

So he never "earned" his money huh? Really? and you expect to be taken seriously?

 

Parroted talking point #3 "He also has experience sheltering his money so it does not go to helping the US."

 

It's called the US tax code doofus, if you want to blame anyone, then you blame the government for the insane tax code we have

 

Red alert! Red alert! Debbie Wasserman Schultz special! Mindless DNC talking point #4

 

"He also has experience moving jobs out of the US and into China. That was great for the economy."

 

Two little problems with this argument, outsourcing is an inevitability that has to do with market pressures, business survival and cost. The cost of labor is cheaper overseas, the responsibility of a company is to the owner, CEO and stockholders, you do what it takes to survive and be more profitable. Second, he wasn't in charge when the outsourcing occured, it has already been fact checked and debunked and Obama got 4 pinnochios in WAPO

 

 

Moronic talking point #5

 

"But hey, since he's so good at screwing over the USA he'll definitely make a good president, since he knows all the tricks. "

Extreme loony talking point #6 "I firmly believe he will sell us out just to pad his pockets."So you firmly believe he is doing this to enrich his own pockets? that takes the cake. Specially considering that Romney left Bain from 1999 to 2002 to save the Winter Olympics and took a total pay of $300,000 during that tenure and didn't receive a dimes worth of pay from the OIC. Man you make this too easy

"Screwing over the USA" nice. Sounds like something a (*^*&%^$^#would say.

 

I can go on and on, pretty much every post you've made has some idiotic element to it. Again, if you want to be taken seriously, then offer substance, if not, then you'll continue to get swatted.

Edited August 7, 2012 by WorldTraveller

[TakeYouToTasker]

Id rather take financial advice from someone who came from nothing' date=' than someone who has never had to earn it.[/quote']

Well that's absurd. Do you know why wealth tends to be dynastic? Retaining wealth is an incredibly rare, and incredibly valuable skill which the wealthy teach to their children. People don't simply become rich because they have money to invest. Investing is a very risky proposition, and all investments are not created equal. Most lose money. This is the exact same reason that most huge sum lottery winners wind up broke within years of their windfall, they don't know how to be rich, and squander their fortune.

Edited August 7, 2012 by TakeYouToTasker

[3rdnlng]

Not envy politics. I NEVER said he shouldnt be elected because he comes from money. What I said was:

 

 

 

I understand that Obama came from a middle-class family, not the homeless shelter, but my point still stands. He has come much farther than Romney, and faced many more challenges.

 

My MAIN point still stands as well. Romney's entire education and career is about stroking the system to his own end. I dont trust him with the country. I firmly believe he will sell us out just to pad his pockets. We've seen it done before with waging a war on false threats, and then granting their own companies no-contest contracts, while the country sees ZERO benefit. Fool me once...

 

 

 

I know plenty about Romeny's background and up-bringing. Why dont you just go ahead and make your point and try to tell me where I am wrong.

 

 

 

How so?

 

Why are you so bitter? You have to understand that you have come to a political board and are spouting points that have been debunked here many times. It doesn't help your position that other people that tried to argue for the same points have the thinking ability of a chair leg.

[WorldTraveller]

Why are you so bitter? You have to understand that you have come to a political board and are spouting points that have been debunked here many times. It doesn't help your position that other people that tried to argue for the same points have the thinking ability of a chair leg.

 

Do you really expect to get a rational response from someone who stated as fact that Romney paid "0" in taxes? The guy makes Conner look smart

[TakeYouToTasker]

...other people that tried to argue for the same points have the thinking ability of a chair leg.

 

I disagree with this. Even if you put four of them together, you still wouldn't have anything you could stand on.

[dayman]

 

 

If you're a Clinton guy it's worth noting that regulation expanded much more slowly than under Bush & Obama.

 

 

Him and Gore made regulatory reform a major issue and i supported that and always will. Us wacky liberal folk aren't for regulation purely for regulations sake. We aren't anti-regulation either. Smart, effective regulation when necessary is an important function of government. Too much, too complicated, not needed, not effective...all bad. But regulation itself is not the devil. And in any event Clinton regrets the Glass-steagall repeal. Point being though, regulatry reform is a constant battle we should always as a country strive to balance the interests in any regulatory enviroment...but war on regulation in general is nothing more than an anti-government talking point that ignores history.

[DrDawkinstein]

Why are you so bitter? You have to understand that you have come to a political board and are spouting points that have been debunked here many times. It doesn't help your position that other people that tried to argue for the same points have the thinking ability of a chair leg.

 

Not bitter. Im the least aggresive poster on the PPP right now. You asked me something twice that was vague and had no point. Not sure what you want me to say, so I asked you to make your point instead of repeating yourself.

 

I dont really care what points or posters the little PPP gang teamed up on in the center of their cookie party. I dont see much being debunked either. Unless you call running of posters who want to have actual discussions, "debunked". Whatever makes WorldTraveller feel better about himself though.

[Rob's House]

Good post, Rob. You definitely make a good argument against what you call the "War on Business". But I dont think it is that simple. The problem is, corporations have no morals, no ethics, no code of conduct, no empathy, and zero accountability. The only goal is to increase profits, and whatever cost (non-monetarily speaking of course). Regulations are a necessity, not a hinderance.

 

We saw what happened when Wall Street and banking were allowed to function without the proper regulations. Bankrupting their own customers in order to make the customer's money, theirs.

 

I work in a service industry. Telecom to be exact. I work with a diverse range of customers, building the systems they need in order to function, and I have seen a LOT of growth in almost every industry over the past 2 years. Jobs are their, at least the need for more employees is there, but the problem now is that companies were forced to cut down to a skeleton staff of only their top workers back in 2008-2009. These people have been extremely overworked for the last couple of years, but keep it up under the threat of "A grinding job is better than NO job, so if you want to stay, shut up and get to work". So even though more business is coming in, they do not want to hire more people. Instead, they'd rather keep squeezing blood from their rocks, and pocket those profits for their executives. Executives who have done nothing except threaten their employees with unemployment.

 

I'll try to take these one at a time.

 

First, the part about corporations being amoral is true, but shouldn't be overstated and has to be balanced against the alternative. One of the most important aspects of maintaining a free and prosperous society is preventing the concentration of power, whether it be government, corporation, or some other entity. Your only check on government is one vote to account for your stance on every single issue the government has assumed control over. You have to have a balance, and it's counterproductive to stifle the productive value of business in the name of some perceived sense of fairness. I've told some others recently, if you really want to understand the theory behind free market economics you should read Milton Friedman's "Capitalism & Freedom." It's a relatively short read and you should get a good idea of the theory within the first 30 pages. I'm not going to hash the whole thing out here.

 

Your part about regulation is a false choice. You present two options - no regulation and massive ever-expanding all-encompassing regulation. It's obvious that you want to be somewhere in between, where you have enough regulation for business to run smoothly, but not so much as to hinder production. You mention the housing crisis buts as an example to support the idea that regulation is iherently good. Don't get sucked into that. That's someone with an agenda taking you for a sucker and selling you a false bill of goods. Our housing market was not underregulated by any stretch of the imagination. The U.S. housing market is, and has been, one of the most heavily regulated in the world. It wasn't a lack of regulation, but rather, misregulation (among other things) that was the problem. It wasn't particularly capitalistic either; that whole market was marred by an incestuous relationship between the industry and government, but we'll save that for another day. I'm not trying to rehash that whole episode either. But I think all sensible people can agree that some common sense regulation can be desirable, but regulation run amock, and often created on behalf of special interests at the expense of others (usually the others are lower on the ladder), can be harmful.

 

To illustrate the regulation argument (and if you get this you'll be able to discuss these issues on another level) take the EPA as an example. Most can agree that we want clean water, and most support laws that prevent individuals or businesses from polluting the public waterways for their own gain at our expense. However, the EPA (like most agencies) are staffed largely by activists who are rarely the most objective people. Many of these people care little about a cost benefit analysis when it comes to matters of clean water and will happily impose restrictions that pose a great burden on society while providing very little benefit.

 

For the last 12 years the regulators have been cranking out regulations at a blistering rate; far more than in the 80s under Reagan or 90s under Clinton. The cost of regulatory compliance (changing processes, equipment, lawyers, etc.) is a massive drain on the economy. There is also a lot of red tape that slows the gears or make things unnecessarily difficult without providing much corresponding benefit. If we just look at it as "regulation good" we're going to ruin ourselves.

[DrDawkinstein]

I'll try to take these one at a time.

 

First, the part about corporations being amoral is true, but shouldn't be overstated and has to be balanced against the alternative. One of the most important aspects of maintaining a free and prosperous society is preventing the concentration of power, whether it be government, corporation, or some other entity. Your only check on government is one vote to account for your stance on every single issue the government has assumed control over. You have to have a balance, and it's counterproductive to stifle the productive value of business in the name of some perceived sense of fairness. I've told some others recently, if you really want to understand the theory behind free market economics you should read Milton Friedman's "Capitalism & Freedom." It's a relatively short read and you should get a good idea of the theory within the first 30 pages. I'm not going to hash the whole thing out here.

 

Your part about regulation is a false choice. You present two options - no regulation and massive ever-expanding all-encompassing regulation. It's obvious that you want to be somewhere in between, where you have enough regulation for business to run smoothly, but not so much as to hinder production. You mention the housing crisis buts as an example to support the idea that regulation is iherently good. Don't get sucked into that. That's someone with an agenda taking you for a sucker and selling you a false bill of goods. Our housing market was not underregulated by any stretch of the imagination. The U.S. housing market is, and has been, one of the most heavily regulated in the world. It wasn't a lack of regulation, but rather, misregulation (among other things) that was the problem. It wasn't particularly capitalistic either; that whole market was marred by an incestuous relationship between the industry and government, but we'll save that for another day. I'm not trying to rehash that whole episode either. But I think all sensible people can agree that some common sense regulation can be desirable, but regulation run amock, and often created on behalf of special interests at the expense of others (usually the others are lower on the ladder), can be harmful.

 

To illustrate the regulation argument (and if you get this you'll be able to discuss these issues on another level) take the EPA as an example. Most can agree that we want clean water, and most support laws that prevent individuals or businesses from polluting the public waterways for their own gain at our expense. However, the EPA (like most agencies) are staffed largely by activists who are rarely the most objective people. Many of these people care little about a cost benefit analysis when it comes to matters of clean water and will happily impose restrictions that pose a great burden on society while providing very little benefit.

 

For the last 12 years the regulators have been cranking out regulations at a blistering rate; far more than in the 80s under Reagan or 90s under Clinton. The cost of regulatory compliance (changing processes, equipment, lawyers, etc.) is a massive drain on the economy. There is also a lot of red tape that slows the gears or make things unnecessarily difficult without providing much corresponding benefit. If we just look at it as "regulation good" we're going to ruin ourselves.

 

I made it to the bold and had to stop and comment. NO WHERE did I state that our only options are one extreme or the other. Obviously, the goal is to strike the balance that allows companies to function, but still protects our citizens. Just becuase Im taking an opposing stance in our discussion, do not assume Im some extremist.

 

Back to reading the rest of your post....

[DC Tom]

That is fair enough. The counter argument of course is that the President isn't the manager of a hedge fund and it's a position unlike any other and with all his mistakes and successes (whatever anyone may think they are) Obama actually has more experience that directly relates to being POTUS than all but 4 people on earth. I mean I get the Romney has executive experience argument and the Obama sucks argument ... but the idea Romney has more experience at this moment to be President? It's a stretch. I get that people think Obama is terrible but he doesn't even learn from experience? This whole POTUS experience argument constantly acts like we're in 2008.

 

Oh, I know...it's impossible to honestly believe that the candidate with no presidential experience has more presidential experience than the incumbent president.

 

But you would be hard-pressed to point to any meaningful experience the president has with respect to fiscal management even in his not-quite-four years of his presidency. No budget, no ability to negotiate a budget with Congress (though I'll readily admit that the Tea Party boneheads in the House deserve a LARGE measure of **** for that), evidence of the rather shockingly naive belief that money is something granted by a higher power, and that power should be the government and not corporations, evidence of a rather fundamental misunderstanding (or ignorance - re: GM) of basic principles of and laws governing finance and the economy (he actually promoted a jobs plan based on the idea that companies would hire for tax breaks. He has a program for creating jobs by giving "green" energy companies money, thinking hiring is driven solely by "having money" and completely divorced from the economic reality of being a viable business in a viable industry.) He's trying to create jobs with no understanding of how jobs are created, trying to manage the housing market with no understanding of that market (the plan for that is basically: blame the banks for everything), trying to regulate the financial industry with no understanding of the financial industry (BIG assist there from Dodd and Frank. You asshats.) A health care act that's chock-full of feel-good ideas with an economic underpinning that's downright fantastical.

 

And none of that includes presiding over a credit downgrade...entirely because that's not his fault (that's ALL on the Tea Party !@#$s that know less about finance than Obama does and idiotically and unnecessarily equated off-season budget negotiations with raising the debt ceiling). I mention that now because I guarantee you, someone Republican's going to point that out during the campaign, and I want to preemptively call it "bull ****".

 

And - worst of all - no ability to self-check. He believes his biggest problem is an unclear message. Uh, no...your biggest problem is that you treat money as an unlimited commodity that you can always get more of later from somebody or other, but doing good NOW is more important than fiscal responsibility. Obama's fiscally on par with my wife trying to manage her charitable donations - for all the good you may want to do, money is still a resource governed by scarcity, so you can't do something without limiting your options somewhere else. The big difference is that when my wife goes nuts with the checkbook, I'm there to tell her to stop. Obama's surrounded by people who are either telling him "Yeah, great, it's 'historic', so damn the cost and do it!" or by people who would rein him in if they weren't marginalized as nut cases (which, again, is in no small part their own doing, given that the Tea Partiers in Congress pretty much are nut cases.) Obama's four years count for very little in my book...they're basically four years of doing the wrong thing.

[3rdnlng]

Not bitter. Im the least aggresive poster on the PPP right now. You asked me something twice that was vague and had no point. Not sure what you want me to say, so I asked you to make your point instead of repeating yourself.

 

I dont really care what points or posters the little PPP gang teamed up on in the center of their cookie party. I dont see much being debunked either. Unless you call running of posters who want to have actual discussions, "debunked". Whatever makes WorldTraveller feel better about himself though.

 

 

I think Magox pretty much had some meat for you to chew on in Post #65 of this thread.

[/dev/null]

So Romney is the greatest Presidential prospect since Peyton Manning?

No but Obama is the JP Losman of Presidents

 

He just needs more time!

He came into a bad situation!

It's the OLine!

It's the Receivers!

It's the Coaching!

That Trent Edwards guy sucks (well okay yeah, but he was still better than JP)

[IDBillzFan]

I can go on and on, pretty much every post you've made has some idiotic element to it. Again, if you want to be taken seriously, then offer substance, if not, then you'll continue to get swatted.

 

In a nutshell. It always cracks me up when the first thing out of a liberal's mouth is how Romney was only successful because of his Dad's money. Beyond the fact that I'm sure these same dolts had no problem with John Kerry MARRYING for his money, they know nothing of what Romney did do with his Dad's cash. By the time they get into the whole "outsource jobs" routine, I have to give you credit for spending the time to respond. His knowledge of Romney was spoon-fed to him and he proudly is making the typical liberal mistake of believing everything his party tells him.

[dayman]

No but Obama is the JP Losman of Presidents

 

He just needs more time!

He came into a bad situation!

It's the OLine!

It's the Receivers!

It's the Coaching!

That Trent Edwards guy sucks (well okay yeah, but he was still better than JP)

 

haha this is actually kind of good...except for the part about Trent being better

[3rdnlng]

In a nutshell. It always cracks me up when the first thing out of a liberal's mouth is how Romney was only successful because of his Dad's money. Beyond the fact that I'm sure these same dolts had no problem with John Kerry MARRYING for his money, they know nothing of what Romney did do with his Dad's cash. By the time they get into the whole "outsource jobs" routine, I have to give you credit for spending the time to respond. His knowledge of Romney was spoon-fed to him and he proudly is making the typical liberal mistake of believing everything his party tells him.

 

LA, my understanding is that Mitt didn't do anything with dad's cash. Obviously, he had a little bump from his dad's wealth and status (education wise and so forth) but Mitt's wealth was earned---by him. George Romney and his wife left their fortune to his church.

[dayman]

LA, my understanding is that Mitt didn't do anything with dad's cash. Obviously, he had a little bump from his dad's wealth and status (education wise and so forth) but Mitt's wealth was earned---by him. George Romney and his wife left their fortune to his church.

 

Pretty sure the guy who is arguing against this idea would take issue with the "little bump" he got from who his Dad was.