it was abundantly clear to me that doll was kidding. i think we really need to be able to do that in here, thread gets pretty heated at times. i enjoy making fun of jh and werthless sometimes no matter how much they add to this thread.

(this post in memory of LeThal, 2007-2012)

jerz have you ever voted for a dem on any level?

Not for partisan office when a Republican was running

jerseyhoya wrote:

pacino wrote:The two presidents with the largest decreases in the deficit were Obama and Clinton.

The fact that you presumably wrote this with a straight face brings me endless amusement and joy.

The fact that over our lifetimes and the past 40 years that I'm completely right brings me more joy

pacino wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:

pacino wrote:The two presidents with the largest decreases in the deficit were Obama and Clinton.

The fact that you presumably wrote this with a straight face brings me endless amusement and joy.

The fact that over our lifetimes and the past 40 years that I'm completely right brings me more joy

Obama's record on the deficit is great. He's lived up to all of his pledges about it. I hope he talks about it a lot tonight because it's a true point of pride for him. Magnificent success of his administration. At least the second best president of the past 40 years on it.

Would love for a random Hofstran to ask Romney tonight something like "Mr. Romney, are you happy the Supreme Court decided today that more people will be able to vote for President in Ohio than the state's officials had planned to allow?"

Kind of a "have you stopped beating your wife?"-type question

Prediction: Obama will take responsibility for Libya tonight, saying that ultimately the buck stops with him. Clinton's statement earlier was to give cover for Obama, diffusing responsibility and dampening the foreign policy body blow. Politics. Obama can then demand that Mitt answers the question, "How big of an etch-o-sketch did it take to erase the last 18 months of campaign position statements?"

pacino wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:

pacino wrote:The two presidents with the largest decreases in the deficit were Obama and Clinton.

The fact that you presumably wrote this with a straight face brings me endless amusement and joy.

The fact that over our lifetimes and the past 40 years that I'm completely right brings me more joy

If you're interested in reading rebuttals to Obama's claims that this is 90% Bush's fault, and that spending growth was at the lowest level in 40 years, then perhaps you should read this article. In particular, you might want to read some of the links in the "Finally, Obama claims..." paragraph.

So the Post references this Treasury Department chart



which attributes 88% of the deficit to Bush (even more if you go back to 2010 and 2009). They then expend quite a bit of verbiage to try to say it ain't so, before finally coming to the conclusion that the actual percentages were more like:

2009: 73%
2010: 65%
2011: 56%

Even if Obama has been exaggerating (and relying on the Treasury Department's numbers is not like cherry-picking from obscure studies), those numbers still seem to me to be pretty supportive of the point Obama was making, especially considering the Post's own caveat that their analysis is "not intended to be exact, but illustrative."

JFLNYC wrote:

drsmooth wrote:

JFLNYC wrote:
To follow on to this thought, there are two very recent Times articles which capture my fear of the direction our country has been heading for the last thirty years, when wealth really started being extracted from the middle class to further enrich the top earners. Both are very interesting articles and I recommend them.

The Self-Destruction of the 1 Percent

No More Industrial Revolutions?

I've read both JFL, have thoughts on both - particularly the latter - but too little time at the moment. Please let's try to revisit tonight/tomorrow

Definitely.

Would love to hear your thoughts.

Mine turn out to be quite random. Surprise!

- I'm not as neo-Malthusian as the authors of these two articles. I feel an expanding pie model is still defensible - but it may take some redefinition of what constitutes "pie".

- you don't have to be an economist to find & plot US or worldwide per capita GDP data that describes a decelerating rate of change since 1900 for practically any rolling average time interval. The authors are right about that. I'm not sure their inferences are either complete or inevitable.

- redistribution is the inevitable sticky spot. Imagining that no new means of allocating the increasingly static conventional spoils will emerge is - problematic.

- the 'movement', if it can be labeled that, back toward 'political economics' approaches (Saez, Zingales et al) to comprehending these developments is welcome & long overdue.

- for me the stories bring Shelley's Frankenstein more readily to mind than Das Kapital

Romney trying to get extra time doesn't have good "optics," IMHO.

He was mad. This is what I mean when I say he can get rattled.

Could they have found people with worse New York accents for the rest of the country to have to listen to?

Obama very solid so far.

Romney hating on birds again.

CalvinBall wrote:Obama very solid so far.

It would have been mind-blowing if he'd been as bad as last week. Question now is not how bad Obama is, but how good Romney is. So far, I'd say pretty good, though he did show that one momentary sign of his worst tendency (to get flustered and argumentative and aggressive in a slightly petulant way when mad).

Romney just said jobs are already coming back. He's not the president. Lol

Format is bad for both "debaters"

for example, Romney making no sense talking about energy. Clearest point: he hates birds, whether big or not.

Oooooh, Obama just smoked Romney on coal.

think there's gonna be fists soon