In my opinion many of you are not seeing the wood for the trees.

Romney/Obama are identical - backed by corporations, banks and both doing a downtrou and bending over to (REDUCTED), although, to give Obama some credit he at least doesn't want to start WW part 3 until after the election. ( Oh, hurray says the rest of the world sarcasticly )

The issue for America specificly is that you are controlled by bankers who apparently can commit crimes at will and will never be investigated, much less actually charged with any crime.
This isn't specific America bashing because the problem is worldwide, only far more obvious in the US.

I'll use the Fed as my example but the same thing applies to any country that allows these leechs to control the money supply.

ALL money in the US since 1913 has been issued by the Fed, not by the American government.
If the US government requires $1 the that $1 is issued by the Fed. However this is a debt to the Fed and they require $1.10 to be repayed.
So, where does the $0.10 come from ?

The floor is open to suggestions, invading and looting other countries is one option, so is borrowing another $1 from the Fed. The key problem with this choice however is that you need to find another $0.10 to repay the interest on the second dollar.

I recommend reading the following article which clearly points out some points regarding a possible reason for the US's current desire to attack certain countries.
http://www.activistpost.com/20 ... ntral-banks-are-real.html

"However, there is one reason for military intervention that is rarely discussed, even in the alternative media, in this context – the goal of total domination by the private central banking system.

It is true that both debt and the control of currency is one of the most effective means of enslaving an entire population without their knowledge. Continually chasing financial freedom with no ability to pay off debt and save for the future ensures that a sizeable majority of the population will not have the means, time, or energy to resist the totalitarian methods imposed upon them.

Likewise, it is true that by controlling a nation’s currency, one essentially controls the nation. Governments who are beholden to third parties and private banks for their money are not governments at all – they are receiverships existing solely at the pleasure of the controlling oligarchy. As Mayer Amschel Rothschild once stated, “Give me control of a nation’s money supply and I care not who makes its laws.”"

I am duly familiar with the role and history of the federal reserve. I see a trend in conservative politics towards libertarianism, so I think it is more likely to be abolished under a republican presidency and congress than a democrat congress. Obama is all in with the federal reserve. Obviously he needs them to continue his out of control spending spree. He doesn't care about the debt or how it is going to be paid back so why would he care about where the money comes from?

While I agree on the point that the fed is corrupt and needs to be abolished, the argument that there is no upwards mobility in the US is false. Neither is economic freedom an absolute indicator of a country's potential for wealth. NZ is more free economically than the US, but doesn't even appear in the top 20 countries with the highest number of millionaires per capita. The US is at #7 and falling while some countries with more lightly regulated capitalism such as Hong Kong and Singapore have as many as 1 in 5 millionaire households. There is a lot of money to be made, especially for creative and intuitive people. We call it hustle; the drive to go out and do what it takes to be financially independent.

I'm waiting eagerly to hear why Romney wouldn't be worse than Obama.
Ever heard of Bain Capital ?
http://www.politicolnews.com/m ... -and-goldman-sachs-fraud/

"To assume all that Bain Capital has done in the past 12 years was “good for investors, good for the economy and good for job creation” you would have to assume that a bankruptcy is a method of creating jobs. Whereas if you look at the facts, the reality is screaming a circle of fraud around Bain Capital and at the top of the food chain is Mitt Romney."

You're not participating in a dialogue with me I can tell because every post of yours is a non-sequitur to the post that came before it.

Lightly regulated capitalism creates more millionaires per capita. Offensive though it may be to people who think everybody should just play nice and be equal(ly poor), it is a ruthless system where the willful and cunning thrive. Companies exist to make money. Creating jobs is a side-effect. Some companies need more employees to make more money, some companies need fewer employees to continue being profitable. They hire consultants like Bain to examine their structure and tell them what to do to make more money. A company that is losing money but not employees will fail and then everybody is out of a job, and shareholders lose their investment. While we have work to do towards better business ethics (I don't think very many people do $500,000,000 worth of work per year), we have lower unemployment than much of the socialized world.

The US is the 1% compared to the 99% of the rest of the world. The 99% don't have sewer systems and live in their own filth while the poor in the US have a Wii instead of an Xbox. Our president should let us be proud of that fact rather than guilty of our supposed excesses. I would love to see more millionaires in the US, but I don't think welfare will create any except for millionaire bureaucrats.

Pic related: The 99%

Quote from flymike91 :

They hire consultants like Bain to examine their structure and tell them what to do to make more money.

That's not exactly the same way Rolling Stone sees it.

Ryan: a self-righteously anal, thin-lipped, Whitest Kids U Know penny pincher who'd be honored to tell Oliver Twist there's no more soup left.

Great journalism. It comes down to this: Obama has tried his leftist policies and failed miserably. He considers 90,000 jobs mostly in the food service industry to be a sign that everything is turning around for us. I don't believe that Romney's policy will be to rack up more debt in order to spend us out of bankruptcy. I don't understand the assumption that he will run the government exactly like Bain Capitol. Then again, there are some similarities. There are thousands of bureaucrats in Washington and around the nation that need to be fired, federal and state employees whose wages are artificially inflated, assets that need to be liquidated, subsidies that are no longer required, programs that need to be erased, private contracts that are outrageously overpriced...living within your means shouldn't be so hard when the government takes in more revenue per year than any other country (almost as much as the next two richest countries, Japan and Germany, combined). We just need to be smarter about where we spend our money. We have experimented with socialist policies in the US and it wasn't good. I would like to see us now experiment with libertarian policies. I am only afraid some people in the US are so conditioned towards taking handouts from taxpayers rather than supporting themselves that they would rather riot in the streets than become functioning members of our economy. Either way, people who choose not to contribute can no longer be coddled like they are in Europe. We can see how well that has worked with entire countries functioning off welfare checks from Germany.

Quote from flymike91 :

Great journalism.

Better than the journalism which alludes to certain aspects such as birth certificates and Muslim-sounding names though, right? Wonder who's guilty of those things...

The Rolling Stone article does sound like a hatchet job, but it's so well researched that the tone of the article is much less important than its content. If you can only argue with the tone (and not with the content), I think you've already lost the battle.

Quote from flymike91 :

I don't believe that Romney's policy will be to rack up more debt in order to spend us out of bankruptcy.

The spending cuts necessary in the Ryan budget plan are ludicrous. The notion that discretionary spending can be cut by 91% on average and taxes on the rich can be decreased and you can still have a workable economy just beggar belief.

Quote from flymike91 :

I don't understand the assumption that he will run the government exactly like Bain Capitol.

I didn't suggest that (and the Rolling Stone article doesn't either). The wider point is that a large portion of Romney's suitability for the job is that he was a successful businessman. The Republicans constantly harp on this and contrast it with Obama's lack of private business management experience (see the lemonade stand quote). However, when you analyse Romney's business career (as in the Rolling Stone article), you see a pattern of reckless behaviour which made him (and his cronies) massive amounts of money whilst making thousands of people redundant in the process. This disgraceful misrepresentation of the facts (along with other massive problems with the truth, such as Ryan's convention speech (which contained so many inaccuracies and straight lies)) seems to be necessary from the Republicans to try and hide the glaring holes in their platform. Of course, I'm not for one minute suggesting that the Democrats never lie, but let's just say that the speeches of the Democrats cause less problems for fact-checkers than Republicans. Ryan might like to fix his truth-deficit before he screws up the country's economic deficit even more.

Quote from flymike91 :

Then again, there are some similarities. There are thousands of bureaucrats in Washington and around the nation that need to be fired, federal and state employees whose wages are artificially inflated

Isn't there a better solution than firing these thousands of people, though? Vast sums of money have already been spent training them. It would be a better idea to try and overhaul the services. One example would be performance related pay for public school teachers.

Quote from flymike91 :

living within your means shouldn't be so hard when the government takes in more revenue per year than any other country (almost as much as the next two richest countries, Japan and Germany, combined). We just need to be smarter about where we spend our money.

US defence spending should surely be put on the table here, considering it was approximately 20% of GDP in 2010. In 2012, the US are spending approximately double the world average of GDP on defence. (4.7% vs 2.5%). The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan undoubtedly added trillions of dollars to the national debt, too. Don't you despair at these huge problems more than a few thousand teachers and nurses whom you think are overpaid?

Quote from flymike91 :

We have experimented with socialist policies in the US and it wasn't good.

You don't think the police, fire, ambulance, coastguard, roads department etc have been good things? They are funded in a 'socialist' fashion, right? The public pays taxes into them and they're available for everyone. They're all failures? Or the fact that whilst Obama has been in office tens of millions more Americans have access to publicly-funded healthcare?

Quote from flymike91 :

I would like to see us now experiment with libertarian policies.

Yes, because de-regulating markets has been so successful in the last few years, hasn't it? The people should be protected against the greed of the financial institutions trying to exploit them and from the greed of other members of the public who over-extend themselves financially.

Quote from flymike91 :

I am only afraid some people in the US are so conditioned towards taking handouts from taxpayers...

...as Paul Ryan did...

Quote from flymike91 :

...rather than supporting themselves that they would rather riot in the streets than become functioning members of our economy.

You think people rioting in the streets who are trying to foment change (such as the Occupy movement) are actually against the interests of the public? If so, you're even more detached from the real world than the Republican leaders.

Quote from flymike91 :

Either way, people who choose not to contribute can no longer be coddled like they are in Europe.

How evil are the people who 'choose' not to contribute compared to the people who wilfully drive businesses into the ground to profit from their demise (such as Romney)?

Quote from flymike91 :

We can see how well that has worked with entire countries functioning off welfare checks from Germany.

Entire countries?

edit: There's a difference between countries staying afloat with bailout assistance and 'functioning off' bailouts. Incidentally, what is your stance on the banking and auto-industry bailouts in the US?

Quote from flymike91 :

We can't talk about his policies because the first argument out of liberals' mouths is that you're a racist if you dislike Obama and his policies. Liberals use this deflection to avoid talking about the economy so that they can change the topic to social issues instead.

Get back to me when you're not leaning on a liberal strawman.

And Obama is a moderate, you moron. Fiscally a bit right of center, socially a bit left.

Quote from CSF :

Fantastic idea. Actually all people should be allowed to eat is bread and all they can drink is water. Prohibition should return, and all 'murca's money should be spent on nuclear warheads, just incase Russia attacks. Bring back Star Wars I say!

I'm looking forward to you leaving high school and looking for employment. It will probably be the best time of your life.

All people should be able to eat and drink other than average food and liquids is what they can themselves pay for . Prohibition and nuclear warheads have nothing to do with my statements, and Star Wars (while a decent set of movies) has no relevancy. I just see no reason for people to be able to make a decent living while not working or attempting to find work (and trust me, there are plenty of those people around here).

I will be leaving High School and headed to College for at least the following 2 years and I'll likely look for work at a small store just to get some income in the mean time. I know I have a full ride scholership for at least that long to the local college (Ohio University Zanesville) due to my GPA and ACT score. It won't be until after that that I'll be looking for a job, so you'll have to wait 2.5 years for that to happen

Quote from amp88 :

Yes, because de-regulating markets has been so successful in the last few years, hasn't it? The people should be protected against the greed of the financial institutions trying to exploit them and from the greed of other members of the public who over-extend themselves financially.

ahhh amp88, why do you put in so much work in your post and then demonstrate you have a fundamental misunderstanding of what a free-market is? If you think that the banks and what they did are a product of a libertarian/free-market system then you have no idea what Libertarianism stands for.

You will find that it was in fact Libertarians who were the most strongly vocal about the dangers of the financial set up leading up to the financial crisis. Ron Paul and Peter Schiff being the most well known examples. You can find essays and essays from Libertarian writers warning about the oncoming crisis all throughout the 90s and 00s.

The dangers of a fiat currency being exploited by governments as well as banks is something that isn't of a 'free-market' and nor is it of a socialist/left system either. What they did was an exploitation of both socialism AND capitalism & a fiat currency system. If anything the crisis was a problem which is rooted in centrist politics i.e Governments wanting to continue spending shitloads while still being business friendly.

And BTW big corporations LOVE more regulation because they can afford it. if makes it harder for any competitors to grow and compete with them. And btw again, during the 00s quite a few corporations had to hire more and more compliance officers.

Quote from Intrepid :

If you think that the banks and what they did are a product of a libertarian/free-market system then you have no idea what Libertarianism stands for.

Can you link to some articles to re-educate me?

If government regulation isn't a major aspect of helping to prevent a future financial crisis, why would the Chairman of the US Federal Reserve say so?

History provides so many examples of situations where people are willing to effectively destroy the lives of millions of people in order to make vast sums of money. Just look at how many people either entirely lost their pension or lost significant portions. Do you think it's right for a financial institution to be able to gamble on the market with the pension fund of hundreds of thousands of people and suffer very little to no penalties if they lose everything?

Who ever claimed that the Fed has anything to do with the US government ?

It is a private company that has the US by the short and curlies. Apart from the report below, since 1913 they have NEVER been audited by the US government.

"In July 2011, due to a provision under the misguided Dodd-Frank financial overhaul law, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) conducted a one-time, watered-down audit of the Federal Reserve. The GAO investigators were not allowed to view most of the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy decisions including discount window lending, open-market operations and details on its transactions with foreign governments and banks. This first ever audit of the Federal Reserve revealed $16 trillion in secret bailouts to corporations and banks around the world in less than three years. These bailouts happened without a single vote taking place in any chamber of Congress."
http://www.freedomworks.org/bl ... o-end-the-federal-reserve

The entire article is worth a read if you want an understanding of the Federal Reserve.
FYI - the same applies to all Central Banks that have no government oversight.

And in response to the above post, because the chairman of the Fed is a lying piece of $#!% !

Quote from flymike91 :

The US is at #7 and falling while some countries with more lightly regulated capitalism such as Hong Kong and Singapore have as many as 1 in 5 millionaire households.

so basically what youre saying is youre slightly less of a sucker than people who play the lottery if you think this has any bit of relevance
also i hate to break it to you... actually that a lie i dont... through every single post of yours on this forum and especially in this thread youve shown a truely astounding lack of intelligence and good judgment which im afraid firmly puts you into the not a snowballs chance in hell of ever becomming a millionaire category

Quote from DeadWolfBones :

And Obama is a moderate, you moron. Fiscally a bit right of center, socially a bit left.

actually hes firmly on the right on pretty much everything

Romney and Obama are practically the same. Both are moderately to the right with slight issues and view points separating them. However extremists who are left/right elitists immediately jump to the polar ends of the earth to prove their point.

@Racer X NZ - your conspiracies are really lame.

I think the percentage of millionaires in a country is pretty relevant to their economic success, as well as the policies that make that kind of wealth concentration possible. Business in Singapore is less regulated than the US and Europe and the result shows in its international rankings. The results of our debilitating regulations on medium to small businesses, which are not just financial but also attempt to control almost every aspect of its function, show in our rapidly falling international rankings. Here, small businesses spend so much time and money conforming to government regulations, yet even so someone could come in and sue them for a handicapped bathroom stall that is an inch too narrow. Leftists love regulations like these and make them all the time. California is a prime example of a state legislature that churns out hundreds of new laws every session. They can barely function anymore due to the sheer weight of the bureaucrats on their shoulders.

You're just going to ignore my post above then, Mike?

Quote from flymike91 :

I think the percentage of millionaires in a country is pretty relevant to their economic success, as well as the policies that make that kind of wealth concentration possible.

An indicator that's much more significant is median income. Taking both the median income and the percentage of millionaires in conjunction is even better. When you look at these in tandem it's particularly easy to analyse the massive disparity in pay between the top few percent and everyone else. Have a read up on income inequality in the US. Cherry picking a single statistic which includes a very small percentage of the population (i.e. % of millionaires) and attempting to use it as widely representative is misleading, intentionally or otherwise. The American Dream might be becoming a millionaire, but the American reality is that the vast majority of the population know they'll never become millionaires. They just want to know they can get through life without worrying how to pay for necessities like food, housing and medical care.

Quote from flymike91 :

Business in Singapore is less regulated than the US and Europe and the result shows in its international rankings. The results of our debilitating regulations on medium to small businesses, which are not just financial but also attempt to control almost every aspect of its function, show in our rapidly falling international rankings. Here, small businesses spend so much time and money conforming to government regulations, yet even so someone could come in and sue them for a handicapped bathroom stall that is an inch too narrow.

Can you demonstrate a direct causal relationship between regulatory compliance costs and significant drop in the survival rates or profitability of medium and small businesses, which takes into account other factors such as the global financial crisis and recession?

Quote from flymike91 :

Leftists love regulations like these and make them all the time. California is a prime example of a state legislature that churns out hundreds of new laws every session. They can barely function anymore due to the sheer weight of the bureaucrats on their shoulders.

Let's not forget George Bush senior signed the ADA into law. What percentage of the resources of the Californian state legislature are devoted to ADA compliance regulations? It would be interesting to compare that figure with other issues such as the percentage of resources of law enforcement and the prison system that go into policing and housing 'offenders' involved with recreational drug use. With 57% of federal prisoners sentenced for drug offences and the the highest documented incarce ... per 100,000 (as of 2009) there are more significant problems in the system than disability compliance costs.

Are you saying there should be income equality around the world? I've already agreed that some top salaries are overblown and would be better spent on rewarding diligent employees rather than one executive. Income equality is something that should never exist unless you want your hard work to earn the wages of the average person in the world which is $7,000 annually. Punishing the rich by taking even more of their money to give to social services that are failing to meaningfully help the poor is a weird, vindictive policy.

The California state legislature probably spends a small amount of time specifically on ADA laws as a percentage of the 725 laws they passed in the 2011 session. One of the laws helps with the issue of people jailed for marijuana by reducing the punishment to a citation and a $100 fine. Other laws force businesses to spent money on energy efficient appliances and light bulbs or bans adults from buying foods with trans-fats. Even if some laws are helpful, others are made just because they have nothing else to do to justify being paid year-round to make laws. Its not like they could just say, "Well we made enough laws last year let's see how they do in 2012 before we make any more." I don't expect a state legislature to solve the global recession, I expect them to solve this problem

Texas has a legislature that meets every two years for less than 6 months. All of the members are forced to have real jobs outside of the state house because they are only paid about $35,000 every two year session. They can't pass nearly as many laws in one session as California does and the people here are thankful for it, especially the 400,000+ Californians like me who have moved to Texas in the last 5 years. What do you suppose we are trying to escape in CA? I didn't come here just so I can eat fattier foods. I came here so that I can keep up to 20% more of my paycheck and put that money into a growing economy rather than a failing one.

Quote from amp88 :

Can you link to some articles to re-educate me?

If government regulation isn't a major aspect of helping to prevent a future financial crisis, why would the Chairman of the US Federal Reserve say so?

History provides so many examples of situations where people are willing to effectively destroy the lives of millions of people in order to make vast sums of money. Just look at how many people either entirely lost their pension or lost significant portions. Do you think it's right for a financial institution to be able to gamble on the market with the pension fund of hundreds of thousands of people and suffer very little to no penalties if they lose everything?

http://mises.org - tons of free literature, essays, lectures etc...

What media outlets like the partial BBC do is falsely try to pretend that free market types = republican nutty far-right types who created this mess... when it was infact institutes like the above linked that were shouting loudest about the impending collapse.

Essentially the argument isn't about regulation as such, but about the structures of currency and debt. This isn't a crisis of markets/regulation it's a crisis of fiat currency. And there are both arguements from the left and right that support that.

Even the Simpsons can see what the rest of us see about the US elections,
Homer's 2012 vote.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArC7XarwnWI

edit

I really struggle to understand Romney, I'm fairly sure he can't be as stupid as he tries to be, after all, lots of wealthy people from various countries are putting millions into his campaign but......
Here's his latest, according to Mittens 2011 tax return the US of A is a foreign country. Mind you, as he seems more enthusiastic about supporting "REDUCTED" than he is about the US it may well be true.

" Maybe Mitt Romney thinks he lives in Switzerland?
When the former Massachusetts governor released his official 2011 tax return Friday, he (or whoever actually filled out the form) appeared to have mistakenly referred to the United States as a foreign country.If you have a foreign address," the tax return instruction reads, "also complete spaces below." In the space below, under "foreign country name," Romney's form reads "USA."
http://www.usnews.com/news/blo ... ountry-in-his-tax-returns



Then again, he does fly the Caymans flag on his boat.

omg his boat is a FOREIGNER

so... basically democracy is a 3 horse race.


Vote zoidberg !

I think you mean ass.......

Potential next Pres. ****.


Washington, September 26 (ANI): Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney lamented the fact that airplane windows don't roll down after wife Ann's plane had to make an emergency landing Friday because of an electrical malfunction.

Discussing the incident at a fundraiser the next day, he said: "When you have a fire in an aircraft, there's no place to go, exactly, there's no-and you can't find any oxygen from outside the aircraft to get in the aircraft, because the windows don't open. I don't know why they don't do that. It's a real problem. So it's very dangerous."

Vote ZOIDBURG 2012
The only sensible choice.



It is a well-known fact that those people who most want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it... anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.
Douglas Adams

“It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see..."
"You mean, it comes from a world of lizards?"
"No," said Ford, who by this time was a little more rational and coherent than he had been, having finally had the coffee forced down him, "nothing so simple. Nothing anything like so straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people."
"Odd," said Arthur, "I thought you said it was a democracy."
"I did," said Ford. "It is."
"So," said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why don't people get rid of the lizards?"
"It honestly doesn't occur to them," said Ford. "They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they've voted in more or less approximates to the government they want."
"You mean they actually vote for the lizards?"
"Oh yes," said Ford with a shrug, "of course."
"But," said Arthur, going for the big one again, "why?"
"Because if they didn't vote for a lizard," said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in. Got any gin?"
"What?"
"I said," said Ford, with an increasing air of urgency creeping into his voice, "have you got any gin?"
"I'll look. Tell me about the lizards."
Ford shrugged again.
"Some people say that the lizards are the best thing that ever happenned to them," he said. "They're completely wrong of course, completely and utterly wrong, but someone's got to say it."
"But that's terrible," said Arthur.
"Listen, bud," said Ford, "if I had one Altairian dollar for every time I heard one bit of the Universe look at another bit of the Universe and say 'That's terrible' I wouldn't be sitting here like a lemon looking for a gin.”
― Douglas Adams, So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

Quote from DeKo :

Potential next Pres. ****.


Washington, September 26 (ANI): Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney lamented the fact that airplane windows don't roll down after wife Ann's plane had to make an emergency landing Friday because of an electrical malfunction.

Discussing the incident at a fundraiser the next day, he said: "When you have a fire in an aircraft, there's no place to go, exactly, there's no-and you can't find any oxygen from outside the aircraft to get in the aircraft, because the windows don't open. I don't know why they don't do that. It's a real problem. So it's very dangerous."

Although I find it reprehensible to defend Romney, the above was clearly a (poorly timed and delivered) joke. If you see the footage of it you'd see that. There are numerous genuine reasons to have a high degree of contempt and distaste for Romney; there's no need to go about trying to take jokes seriously to make a point.