Teh Ricer Civic!

I got an old Red Ryder that i have never actually oiled or taken care of and it still works like a charm... except that it shoots a little to the left and mine has fixed sights. and HOLY CRAP only $2.95?? mine cost like $25 bucks!

She's a rifle

Unfortunately policies carried on through several administrations have lead to the housing bubble, it just happened to blow up in Bush's face. The economy will rebound with or without government intervention. It will likely rebound stronger and more stable without government intervention, but there will be some hard years to come. Bush has never done a good job about not sending people into a panic. However, it must be noted that consumer confidence has risen as of late (product wise, not financial wise), even with the stock markets on their see saw. The DOW is up today. Several banks have failed due to "runs on banks" which is tied directly to people panicking about their savings. Bush's administration has made several grave errors of sending people into near panic or outright panic (as of this financial crisis). If Ron Paul is to be believed (and really i see no reason why he shouldn't) the victim of this crisis will be the US dollar with or without government intervention. The Fed has already extend several hundred billion dollars of credit into the economy and as you can see it has not really done a whole lot.

http://www.newsnet5.com/news/17589918/detail.html

Eh the point is not to spare the Republicans from blame, but to show that the Democrats and Obama are no better. On a positive note, with the Bailout bill defeated, we may actually get a decent bill through.

http://governor.mo.gov/cgi-bin/coranto/vie...p;tmpl=newsitem a video composing a lot of news stations http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQ2DXN3aOSo

Lies! Luxembourg is #1, but they are so small its not really a comparison. We are #2 followed closely by Ireland. Germany, Switzerland, and Sweden are significantly less productive than us Americans. http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/eco_ove_...roductivity-ppp

Having a history of poor international relations decisions doesn't really help his qualifications, it just makes him a senior international relations guy.

Well if gas prices continue to stay high, you will probably see growth in the middle class as manufacturing starts to trickle back into the States... high transportation costs kinda negates savings from using 3rd world labor. One of America's great strengths is our productivity. Socialism tends to have negative effects on productivity.

rain

varminter

This is true, however from a cost benefit point of view, it may not be after all the taxes are said and done. But i agree that CEO compensation is rather crazy.

Unfortunately your argument falls apart when it is the government who forces them to make these risky decisions... All in the name of promoting overall societal health, regardless of the [current] consequences of it.

No, because the idea is that those people got rich by going through legitimate channels of the market. You invent something people like (like say a television) and you build and sell them for a profit. People see these TVs and feel it is worth their whatever $$$s and will voluntarily exchange their money for said television. Since these are all voluntary transactions this is capitalist policies. The poor are not being taxed and having their money go straight to the rich, the rich have to "earn" their money (of course varying levels of corruption, unfair practices etc etc can compound this). Socialism, Obama's policies, tax the rich, who got rich (generally) by earning their wealth and giving that money to the poor who did nothing other than being poor to earn that money. That is income redistribution. There is no double standard here. The government have some policies in place that actually encourage this through "regulation" (why do you think some businesses actually ENCOURAGE government regulations in some cases?). Of course the government also has policies that discourage this as well. One could argue that our current financial crisis has its roots in socialist policies (and a myriad of other causes).

The one and only way i can see us not being the worlds babysitter is to give some teeth to the UN resolutions. The UN has no real military power (aside from what countries will provide it) as such there isnt much in the way of "do this or else" statements. And as a side effect, when the UN makes a poor decision, the blame lies on everyone instead of just US And the EU have the 2nd largest military expenditure in the world behind the US.

It's a shame that through the "me me me" mentality, logic and common sense cannot prevail. Of course, socialism always looks good on paper.

pie

Whats up with all the 98 bashing? 98SE was the best OS around until windows XP came out. And by that time Apple had gotten its act together with OS X. You have to remember that the older mac systems were FAR less stable than Windows. However, they were easier to reformat (which was a common occurrence).

Unfortunately, without the USSR and NATO keeping everyone in check, we essentially need to be the worlds babysitter.

Cut

<mr mackey voice>Caffeine is bad mmmkkaayy.</mr mackey voice>

San Marino? And how could they be? those bastard Spaniards people annexed Portugal at one point when it was the Iberian Union.

Because offering refundable tax credits to the lowest 33% of the nation who doesn't pay federal taxes anyways is income redistribution which is a key tenant of socialism. Essentially Obama's tax plan is just a new welfare plan, although for some reason McCain was hesitant to label it as such (which i think would have perhaps would have given him a stronger base in the debate). And satty, our entire military strength comes from having bases all over the world. if we close down our bases we will no longer be a military superpower, we won't have the ability to rapidly deploy anywhere in the world. And aside from military problems, this will stifle our aid efforts to nations when they are struck with a natural disaster.

I'm going to assume you didn't watch the debate because before he said the spending freeze he mentioned how defense spending needed to be reigned in. The spending freeze exempted defense spending because in the case of a dramatic event, there may be a need to increase it (even if its nominally being decreased)

Yes but when McCain asked him a program to cut spending on, Obama offered nothing, and McCain said if it is needed we can have a spending freeze, and then he said that part about shifting spending around after Obama said what he said about the hatchet. But to increase funding on education seems silly, because under bush education spending has DRASTICALLY increased (or decreased if your school sucks... which of course makes no sense), and what good has that brought? I haven't seen any improvement in our graduates (even among the ones with increased spending). It's another case of throwing cash at a fire to keep it going rather than getting a log which can do the same job but better and cheaper. And when we get to that debate, i think McCains position on education will shine. As to alternative energy, i honestly dont see much of a difference in their policies other than McCain is a stronger proponent of nuclear power.