Fair warning – Don’t click through if you don’t want to read something political in nature.
I’m sensitive to those that don’t want to read that sort of thing, hence the fair warning. Nothing bad here, just a curiosity and I’m wondering if other people in the USA are doing the same thing, so testing it on WUWT’s wide readership will likely help answer it.
I have seen upside down US flags twice now in my town. The first time I just thought it was self commentary, now seeing it a second time in a different part of town, I stopped along E. 5th Avenue to get this shot. I wonder, how many people across the United States are doing the same thing after November 6th? In case you don’t know, flying the flag upside down is a sign of distress or emergency. Flying at half staff is respect for the fallen in service of our country. Combined it makes quite a commentary on the Benghazi incident, the fallen soldiers and ambassador, and the election. Checking the Internet I find there are others doing the same thing now, such as this fellow in South Bend, Indiana. Then there’s the story about an upside down half-staff flag at McDonald’s which has angered a lot of veterans even though it was claimed to be a mistake.
The U.S. Flag code says in section 8:
The flag should never be displayed with the union down, except as a signal of dire distress in instances of extreme danger to life or property.
Some people consider it flag desecration such as is on par with burning it as political commentary.
I wonder though, if this sort of visual political commentary I’ve seen in my town is being quietly repeated elsewhere since many people now see the USA as being in distress?
Thats the beauty of the British flag, turn it upside down and only about 1% would even notice!
There’s a joke around here that Americans are so eager to fly their flag because they are making a community effort to combat the poor school record on geography and prevent kids from wandering off into Mexico or Canada by accident. Not sure what flying it half-mast and upside down means in that context.
Those folks fly an American flag on a flagpole in their front yard. Only Republicans do that. They’re probably in mourning over the election catastrophe.
I haven’t seen it myself. Thanks for the photo.
I think we’ve got a lot more pedants than that!
I live in a red state. I and many people I know have been wearing black since Wednesday. Of course, I did attend an actual funeral on Wednesday, but…
Flying the flag upside down and at half-mast is a protected form of Free Speech. The Supreme Court long ago decided that even burning the flag was protected speech, because it was done as a political expression. The flag burning case was during the Vietnam war.
Re-electing Obama as the post-constitutional president gets you this.
I think there’s a strong chance that the trend is related to the re-election of Obama. I don’t see it as desecration, but a signal of troubled times ahead (and it is an expression of free speech anyway). I’m not surprised at all to see this sort of reaction, and we might expect more in the coming months.
Here’s an observation for you, if I may. Is it me or do the people who tend to be skeptical of climate change “science” the same people who are skeptical of nutrition “science” (see Gary Taubes, Dr. Michael Eades) and are the same people who are skeptical of government in general? In other words, libertarian? Thoughts?
RE:Pingo However flying the Union Flag upside down ( which is what the British flag is known as – unless attached to a ship in which case its a Union Jack ) is also a sign of distress – just one harder to notice. But then that’s why its useful …http://resources.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/geography/unionjack7.html
Pingo says: November 9, 2012 at 8:04 am
But surely our flag is symmetrical with a circle of twelve gold stars on an azure background?
(If we’re having politics from early November I may as well light the touchpaper)
Election is over. Get over it. Move on. Learn to make lemonade.
I’ve seen it, too, here and there. I suppose it’s a statement.
For Dave Burton who said, “Those folks fly an American flag on a flagpole in their front yard. Only Republicans do that.”
What irony, Dave; I infer that you are saying that those who want the most of America’s free gifts refuse to fly the flag, and those who get to pay for them fly it proudly.
http://www.pittsreport.com/2012/11/news-voter-fraud-anyone/
What luck! Obama won dozens of Cleveland districts with 100% of the vote.
http://www.redstate.com/2012/09/04/colorado-counties-have-more-voters-than-people/
Colorado Counties Have More Voters Than People
http://freebeacon.com/buying-the-election/
the man who voted TWICE AGAINST the ‘BORN ALIVE ACT’
if the danger was any greater we would suffocate.
http://apocalypseparadigm.blogspot.com/
It seems to be a protest for some at least:
http://www.whiotv.com/news/news/man-flies-flag-upside-down-to-protest-election-out/nSzyp/
http://www.fox4now.com/news/177991351.html
When I was stationed at Ft. Belvoir performing duties as Commander of the Relief (COR) my squad sometimes had to take down the flag and put up the flag. There were 3 sizes of flags (storm, post, and garrison), and thus 6 clips on the cable to attach the various size flags. It was confusing (don’t remember why), and at least one COR had accidentally put the flag up upside down. To keep from doing this, I carried two different colors of tape with me to mark the proper clips and to denote which clip the top of the flag went to. Another military faux-pas at retreat — sometimes when the MPs would fire the canon (with a blank round) at retreat, they would forget to take the rain cap off the opening, and the gases would rip a hole in the cover.
Heard caller on a radio talk show mention this couple nights ago. Mentioned a newspaper blogger suggested doing this in protest. Didn’t catch the paper/town. This was also mentioned during the call: Wichita Falls businessman Harry Patterson flew all the American flags on his properties at half-staff Wednesday, the day following a presidential election he fears may cripple America.
http://www.timesrecordnews.com/news/2012/nov/07/car-dealer-flies-flags-half-staff-after-election/
Thanks for this thoughtful, poignant post, Anthony. The upside down flags express well the sense of dire distress for our country and sadness for the loss of the honored dead at Benghazi that I feel. That our populace could have re-elected a president under whose watch our federal debt has grown by an average $1.3 trillion per year is shocking enough as a commentary on how oblivious many of us are to basic economics, let alone the less obvious but still real immorality of deficit spending, which takes from those who have not even been born and so cannot give their consent, and gives to ourselves. That we can have re-elected a president who has so deeply divided our country, showing such complete contempt for those with whom he disagrees, e.g., on the Affordable Health Care Act, particularly on its requirement that employers must provide insurance that pays for acts that they in their religious conscience consider sinful, is sobering. All this is not even to mention the rampant crony capitalism of his administration (e.g., $billions in loan guarantees by the Department of Energy to companies whose major stockholders were major donors to his election campaign), but that’s the sort of thing that’s not likely to come to the attention of the average voter, so I hardly count it. As a historian, I have less hope for our country’s recovery than ever before.
These are, of course, my own personal thoughts as an individual, not writing as representing any organization.
A M Priestas is probably right. The people who don’t take what “they” say about climate or nutrition as gospel are probably likely to be generally s[ck]eptical about everything. A healthy attitude, if not taken to extremes.
Pingo says:
November 9, 2012 at 8:04 am
Thats the beauty of the British flag, turn it upside down and only about 1% would even notice!
…………………………………………………………………………………………………
Actually no as any British boy scout, of at least my generation, would know which way up the Union Flag is to be flown. You may be right of course, just as people commonly call it the Union Jack which strictly it is not except when flown from a jackstaff.
And indeed flying it upside down is a signal of distress.
Kindest Regards
fxk says:
November 9, 2012 at 8:19 am
Election is over. Get over it. Move on. Learn to make lemonade.
===================================================
If only we could make lemonade.
But with the ingredients that we were given, all we can make is a Sh*T Sandwich.
And we all have to take a bite
A. M. Priestas – I’m not “skeptical” of those things at all. I have read enough relevant material to gather sufficient facts to convince me that the climate/earth can well take care of itself. My diet or health is simply nobody else’s business whatsoever.
And no, I’m not a “libertarian” of any sort. I’m a sovereign individual… a self owner and self governor. I am responsible for myself and my legitimate dependents, and nobody else – though I’m happy to cooperate with other self owners for mutual goals.
Here is my flag: http://www.thepriceofliberty.org/images/culpepper3.jpg
The idea of Capitalism and freedom died on the 6th of November 2012. The US Constitution and the Republic is very much in distress and is in danger of dying next.
Anthony,
Im a lifelong Democrat and appreciate and commend your efforts to keep this site apolitical during the election.
Continue to let the science speak for itself and you will broaden your audience.
Many skeptic sites alienate potential open minds.
My wife and I have been flying our flag upside down since John Roberts betrayed his oath, and thought it was his job to “fix” an egregiously written law. We had dearly hoped to be able to return our flag to its honorable orientation on Wednesday morning but, sadly, the “takers” held the day for the anointed one.
Who is John Galt?
@Dan Burton: only Republicans fly flags on flagpoles? Really? Now there’s a statement.
Flags and signal flags have been used for a good 1000+ years for information transfer. Still used today in many forms by pretty much every military in the world.
I’m not sure about the flying it as half mast AND flying it upside down is an official position for it. However doing either 1 alone is considered an official and proper display of the flag. Some may argue that the display is isn’t needed for whatever event that happened but they are both official positions/displays.
As to why… most likely in reference to obama and the death of the US Constitution. Though a lot of people are still waking up to the fact that benghazi. The media and obama have done a huge amount to cover that event up and people are still learning and morning the reality of what it means.
I’m a more practical sort. The day after the election, I divested my 401k of all American stocks. The oncoming over-regulation, tax increases, and Obamacare disaster will make the last 4 years look rosy by comparison.
I own three US flags which I’ve displayed for years and which I took down on November 7. Rather than fly the old flag upside down, I’m now looking for a new banner that expresses my patriotism for the old USA while at the same time making it clear that the government in D.C. is now openly hostile to me. The Betsy Ross flag, the 15-star Star Spangled Banner, and the 24-star US flag (24 states voted against the Marxist this time) are all possibilities.
M Courtney says: November 9, 2012 at 8:19 am
But surely our flag (the UK’s flag) is symmetrical with a circle of twelve gold stars on an azure background?
—————————————————-
Ha, ha – I get the joke.
However, the EU flag is actually comprised of five-pointed ‘Seal of Solomon’ stars, and so it is not symmetrical. You can easily spot an EU flag upside down.
And if you want to know where the EU flag came from, take a look here. Again this is a ‘political’ comment, but perhaps not in the manner you are expecting. This has nothing to do with the Catholic Church.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_t2Ry7I5DNuQ/ScCnf-7GykI/AAAAAAAADtA/OSt82BUPPRI/s200/Mary+12+stars+2.jpg
.
… rather, more importantly, a majority of voting Americans are openly hostile to me.
It is very common here among those who hate democracy, particularly when it does not give them the answer THEY wanted.
I remember the hanging of the French flag upside down while serving on a joint post. That didn’t mark distress but certainly caused some for the fellows who hoisted it that morning.
Flying the U.S. flag upside-down doesn’t seem necessary to me. Or useful.
There is no way that the National Socialist Democrat Party (NSDAP) supporters could look upon the American flag as a symbol of their loyalties or intentions. Indeed, pre-election surveys of likely voters showed that the sight of that flag was a powerful inducement to respond negatively when the subjects were asked whether they supported Michelle’s Metrosexual Marxist Meatpuppet in the contest concluded this past Tuesday.
I’d think that any “Liberal” fascist seeing the insignia of their enemies flown upside-down as an expression of distress would just gloat over it. Wouldn’t you?
There was an old Sci Fi story from the 60’s. A guy was accidentally given an anestheic and put in suspended animation for 70 years. When he woke up, society had SPLIT into 10% “Brights” and 90% Morons. The BRIGHTS were RUNNING EVERYTHING AND DOING ALL THE WORK to support the morons.
How predictive!
Max
At 8:49 AM on 9 November, Max Hugoson had written:
The story was “The Marching Morons,” written by Cyril M. Kornbluth and originally published by editor H.L. Gold in the April 1951 edition of Galaxy.
Kornbluth’s story (still under copyright at the time) was plagiarized to make the movie Idiocracy, which was briefly and narrowly released theatrically in 2006 – and never closer than a canonical hundred miles from the city of New York, where the literary agents for Kornbluth’s estate are located.
People in the US are very divided politically — now there’s an insight! But in a democracy, just accept the result. The R party has painted itself into a corner, and they will continue to lose elections until they figure out how to attract larger numbers of women and Hispanics and young voters. That is just math.
This election was for the Rs to lose, what with the economic situation. The Rs also had a huge amount of money, counting the unaffiliated superPACs. But they still lost. LIke it or not, enough of country didn’t like what they saw, despite the economic situation.
In the meantime, as a result of the elections, some things will happen in the US that probably aren’t for the long term good of the country. But if we want to get a different result, the Rs have to appeal to a broader swath of people. That is the issue. What the Rs tried didn’t work — so how do they change it?
I’ve also seen some twitterers change their photo identity to an upside down US flag.
Of course when the moonbats started flying the flag upside-down ( the only time they EVER displayed a flag!) during the Bush years, no one said a thing. I bet the “vets” who whined about McDonald (if the incident really happened, and was not just a journalist embellishment) were lefty faux vets, likely just some spokesmen for a fake “veteran” organization, made up of mostly non-vets who’s purpose is to turn American heroes into Marxists traitors.
This greatly bothers me because, yes we have a problem, but we can’t be expecting the cavalry to come rescue us, we need to be our own rescuers. Arguably we are in the situation we find ourselves in because of a long-term set-up of the mainstream media – an example of One Percenters controlling far more than they are entitled to.
To rescue ourselves, we must stop allowing the MSM to frame the narratives with premises that are false from the start – e.g. tea-party people being racists, global warming being a ‘settled science’ issue that is obstructed by corrupt skeptics, on and on. When the mainstream media is revealed to a larger portion of the disinterested public as One Percenters who leave out critical parts of stories and mislead their viewers, the MSM’s credibility goes to zero and candidates like Obama never ascend to the presidency in the first place. Confront folks with the truth and they call you names and run away – for all intents and purposes, this is no less than exactly what happens when you confront the MSM, just like what you see in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=HWlqiv-YL7c#t=59s
Max- The Marching Morons, by Cyril Kornbluth.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Marching_Morons
I’m building a spaceship as fast as I can…
http://www.xcor.com/products/vehicles/lynx_suborbital.html
John and so many other people in the USA and in the UK say that if you dont get elected then you need to try and appeal to more minorities. Dont go down that route because madness that way lies.
Romney stood on what he believed in and what he believed he could achieve and that is the only way for honest politics to survive.
People’s distress is well founded. Only hours after securing the second term, the President ordered UN staff to vote for the UN arms control treaty, which the president had backed away from pre-election. Next watch for the sharks from the EPA te begin their feeding frenzy.
http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/item/13586-hours-after-re-election-obama-green-lights-un-gun-grab
Quite an interesting thing but I’ve not seen or noticed. That might be because the small population county where I live voted 55.46% for Romney/Ryan – having no effect on the outcome in this blue state.
Still, the US is facing serious problems. For some thoughts on this topic try E.M. Smith’s blog – see right side of this page under Skeptical Views at The Chiefio, between The Air Vent and The Cosmic Tusk. Try the 14 September post — Demographic Bomb and US Debt Explosion.
fxk says: Election is over. Get over it. Move on. Learn to make lemonade.
You mean like how the left got over the presidency of George W. Bush?
John says: “But in a democracy, just accept the result”
A democracy is a greek concept whereby ordinary people run government … notice the word “ordinary” … i.e. without politicians.
You don’t often hear politicians mention that!
Here is the Canadian view from Rex Murphy
http://www.cbc.ca/thenational/indepthanalysis/rexmurphy/story/2012/11/08/thenational-rexmurphy-110812.html
“…dirty, small, gritty and harsh…rigid partisans…”
I thought the press conf this morning with the (R) Speaker of the House was downright conciliatory by comparison.
I’m a hardcore climate skeptic who visits this site daily and quotes it and links to it in my frequent arguments against the CAGW faithful. They usually respond that the skeptic view is a Fox Network addicted, GOP hardcore, backwards sort of standpoint to which I’ve always replied that I’m an Independent, socially liberal guy who hates Rush and his disciples, never ever watches Fox (in fact not even on my TVs menu- programmed out), and just happens to be a professional chemist and lifelong science buff who knows bad science when he sees it.
Reading these responses, now I’m not so sure. I’m having a hard time identifying myself as being aligned with the mindset being displayed in the comments above. I’m quite seriously having a crisis about my feelings on climate issues if I’ve been basing part of my opinion on the comments of those in the WUWT community whose ideas I had previously looked to for real scientific (i.e. unbiased and based on facts) insight.
Please tell me that the majority of you are not “THAT guy”…
REPLY: For sure I’m not THAT guy, nor is that even my house. Here is how I fly my flag. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/05/31/americans-fly-your-flag/ – Anthony
At , 9:17 AM on 9 November, ujagoff had written:
Please be advised that – with high levels of reliability – those of us who are literate in the sciences (and predicate each our “hardcore climate skeptic” status on that qualification) tend with great strength to be literate in history and in political economics.
This gives us acutely and with thoroughness to appreciate that the anthropogenic global warming (or “man-made climate change”) premise is not only without support in physical reality but that it serves the purposes of politically malfeasant enemies of constitutionally lawful civil society in these United States, chiefly as a mechanism to “keep up the skeer” and otherwise excuse government actions which are unproductive, wasteful, predatory, unnecessary, hideously corrupt, disruptive of the division-of-labor economy, and overwhelmingly destructive of the quality of life among the poorest people in our republic.
These “global climate change” alarmists bent upon the exploitation of this preposterous (and obviously deliberate) misrepresentation of how and why the global climate does, indeed, change are uniformly on the left side of the standard political spectrum, where we find the partisans and apparatchiki of the National Socialist Democrat American Party (NSDAP, which ceased to sustain the fiction of being in any way “democratic” in 2010 when they enacted Obamacare over the enraged opposition of a majority of their own core constituencies).
In the course of your personal thought on the subject of the AGW hysteria, have you given due consideration to what the screaming “climate” hysteria frothed-up by the leftie-luzers demonstrates about their positions on just about every other issue about which they howl and gibber and point guns at people?
To oppose the AGW fraud in these United States necessarily places the scientifically literate observer in political opposition to the “Liberal” fascisti of the American left. In so doing, it necessarily requires that we examine scrupulously their other positions and purposes, right?
Literacy in political economics “(i.e. unbiased and based on facts)” makes lucidly reasoning people to become advocates of the free market (and therefore skeptical in the extreme of government “regulation” of voluntary exchange, which is invariably aimed at “picking winners” among the politically well-connected). This will reliably make us opponents of fiat currency “quantitative easing” to further debauch the U.S. dollar, as well as other aggressive impositions of armed thuggery upon the peaceful lives of the private citizenry.
Now, if these qualities make “the majority of [us to be] ‘THAT guy'” and therefore odious in your eyes, then you’re not approaching other factors in your environment – emphasis on political economics – with the same proper skepticism that informs your consideration of the global climate issue.
Jody Wilson says:
November 9, 2012 at 8:42 am
Flag?
The rattlesnake symbolism of the Gadsden flag . . .
http://rlv.zcache.com/gadsden_flag_dont_tread_on_me_tshirts-re9a8e906a34149809652d7f4526658e7_f0c69_512.jpg
. . . might suit you.
I guess they’re feeling distressed.
Although I’m a little left of liberal, I feel their pain. I felt the same when Bush Jr. got re-elected. 😉 Really, the country is splitting into two halves that can’t even talk to each other. Some have even predicted that it would break up. Now that’s distressing.
I have been attaching my postal stamps (American Flag picture) to my letters upside down for the last 4 years. This has been done as a sign of distress that our cdountry is going through
Isn’t in the maritime code that any flag or flags flown upside down mean distress, not just national ones?
It’s partly that and partly hardheadedness, as expressed by this quote:
Glad I live in Canada. Speaking as an outside observer somebody down in US better come to terms with your massive debt problem sometime. Presently 40% pay no taxes what so ever, perfect Obama supporters. Plus, Obama can thank super-storm Sandy for pulling this out, and everyone here knows full well the liberals blame on climate change. Believe me that is just the beginning of more and more draconian climate laws coming down the pipe. Yeah, there is distress in the US. I don’t blame them in the slightest. And anyone here who claims elections have no consequences doesn’t have a clue. Climate change is just beginning in the US and this time around Obama doesn’t have to go back to the people.
Several districts in Phillidelphia saw 99.9% of registered voters vote. This is down from 2008 when many of those same districts saw a turn out of over 100%.
fxk says:
November 9, 2012 at 8:19 am
“Election is over. Get over it. Move on. Learn to make lemonade.”
Don’t forget to apply for the necessary permits.
I think it is an expression of mourning. I know people who think that this is the worst election outcome in American history, and who feel more sorrow or anguish than at any other election outcome in their lifetimes. I know some people in the medical profession who feel like it is a conviction for a crime and the beginning of a life sentence to hard labor, and others who are committed now to retirement as early as they can afford it.
Why they might feel this way you have all read in the arguments in favor of voting against Obama; the intensity of the feeling might be something new in my lifetime. I think that some Democrats may have felt this bad when G. W. Bush was re-elected — they were not flag-wavers, so they did not think to express themselves this way, perhaps.
I was not going to happy regardless of who won, but at least that casino mogul lost millions of dollars trying to buy the election.
I now believe in global warming— this country is going to hell!
@Kaboom 08:46
I’m a little confused as to how you could tell when the French flag was upside-down?
My neighbor, a Viet Nam Vet, has had his flag at half-mast and inverted as a sign of the demise of this country since Nov 2008. I’ll keep an eye out for more recent displays.
fxk says:
November 9, 2012 at 8:19 am
Election is over. Get over it. Move on. Learn to make lemonade.
===================================================
The election is indeed over and in many ways moving on is appropriate. But moving on must not include forgetting Ambassador Stevens and three other brave Americans who were apparently betrayed by their President and the media who were supposed to keep him honest. Any American, regardless of affiliation, who is willing to forget this for the sake of political expediency is a traitor. Let the truth come out!
It may have something to do with the story coming out of California that people have been finding it difficult to get around since the election because they are not supposed to let go of their ankles.
ujagoff bases his climate beliefs on science but might change his mind if he does not agree with the politics of fellow deniers? What planet is he on?
John says:
November 9, 2012 at 8:50 am
The way to attract more voters is well known and proven to perfection on Tuesday. The party that promises more free stuff will always win.
John F. Hultquist says:
November 9, 2012 at 9:20 am
Jody Wilson says:
November 9, 2012 at 8:42 am
Flag?
The rattlesnake symbolism of the Gadsden flag . . .
Prior to the election there were already plenty of those flying in Texas. There’s on in my front yard…right next to the Rebel one!
Mark Whitney says:
November 9, 2012 at 9:04 am
The day after the election, Obama announced a new carbon tax. Wonder why, if the plan is so wonderful, he felt the need to hide these plans until the election was over.
No doubt if he can’t find a way to get the Republicans to support this new tax, he’ll just have the EPA implement it.
Doug says:
November 9, 2012 at 8:45 am
“It is very common here among those who hate democracy, particularly when it does not give them the answer THEY wanted.”
Democracy is one of the worse and most evil forms of government known to man… people who hate it are people are have some ability to think rationally.
In my opinion, the national flag does not represent the federal government. Instead it stands for the people, our fellow citizens, especially those who rallied behind it to fight for our freedom.
The government, especially this Administration, would like to usurp the flag, and further the false notion that our rights come from government.
Do not insult your fellow citizens, especially our veterans, in an attempt to protest the regime by flying our flag upside down. Instead fly a revolutionary flag with our Stars and Stripes.
Dung says:
November 9, 2012 at 9:38 am
He did admit to being a liberal.
Some comment here in the UK Daily mail.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2230215/Death-white-America-How-US-adapt-millions-black-Hispanic-voters-Obama-power.html
It’s better than rioting in the streets which the other side was threatening if Obama lost.
Jim
I don’t know about upside-down flags, but the USA sure has its political colours the wrong way round. It’s red for leftie socialist liberal scum, and blue for right-wing balmist teabagger scum. Why do you have them the wrong way round?
As to flying the French flag upside down, which flag are we talking about – the Tricolor or the large white one they use in times of war?
John says (November 9, 2012 at 8:50 am): “In the meantime, as a result of the elections, some things will happen in the US that probably aren’t for the long term good of the country.”
You mean the future is “not optimal’?
“But if we want to get a different result, the Rs have to appeal to a broader swath of people. That is the issue. What the Rs tried didn’t work — so how do they change it?”
Well, they could try offering voters more “free” goodies than their opponents, but since the other side has more practice that probably wouldn’t work.
John says:
November 9, 2012 at 8:50 am
###
The reason the GOP has problems is because Marxist have infiltrated every single institution in the US. Our elementery schools are designed to create democrats, our high-schools, socialists and our universities, Marxists. Our News media, distorts and lies to paint the image that they want, completely embedded within the Marxist world-view. Its been this way since the 50’s.
Its so bad, that most Republicans themselves are entrapped within a Marxist world-view and don’t even know it.
@Dung – I base the scientific opinion based on examples of poorly designed studies that start with the desired endpoint and move backwards, cherry-picked data, bullying of opposing views, and grand catastrophic conclusions based on results that really say no such thing. What I am questioning is if the counterpoint here is as guilty as they are with regards to some of the same things. The vitriolic responses seem to speak more to an “ends justify the means” approach to the studies that I had previously attached solely to The Team and associates as opposed to a measured, dispassionate, unbiased scientific approach.
How can I see these words and still honestly believe the side I’ve believed is the one without predetermined bias is actually so?
That seems like a different planet to you? Well then…
Since I am British, my view of Obama is irrelevant, but like a lot of Europeans, I cheered when he made it back to the White House. I don’t agree with Obama about climate change, but the previous Bush administration was dangerous, and ended up starting two wars it couldn’t win – basically through arrogance. Romney seemed to inherit some of that same gung-ho approach, so I still feel a lot safer with Obama in control!
A McDonalds in W. Virginia made the news on Yahoo for the same thing.
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/upside-down-flag-west-virginia-mcdonald-raises-questions-154746450.html
Doug says:
It is very common here among those who hate democracy, particularly when it does not give them the answer THEY wanted.
You mean people like the founding fathers? You know, the guys who specifically did NOT implement a democracy in the United States, but rather a constitutional republic?
Please point out to me any reference to our form of government as a democracy in the founding documents. Let me save you some time: you can’t, because it’s not there, because our form of government is not a democracy…or at least it’s not supposed to be.
It has slowly crept into democracy over the years to the point now where the Constitution is only something to be used when advantageous to one’s political position and ignored when it is not. Where polling data determines outcomes more often than constitutionality. Where group identity politics takes precedence over individual rights.
Democracy is nothing more than mob rule and means that if 51 percent of the population decides that the other 49 percent should be enslaved…so be it.
Democracy is not something to be desired, emulated or held in esteem.
“Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.” –Benjamin Franklin
Flying an inverted flag has real meaning – an urgent call for help. It should not be used as a silent protest, even if most of the population doesn’t know the real meaning and some non-trivial fraction doesn’t know which way is up.
@ Mark W – On “bedroom” and reproductive issues, yeah I believe the government has no place being involved. That’s painting with a pretty broad brush if you think that alone paints me as being a capital L Liberal as Rush spits with such contempt.
Try not to exclude so much, people. You’ll win more elections that way.
Why is it OK to burn a US Flag in protest, but not fly one upside down?
In reality, the First Amendment protects both forms of protest and those who want to pick and chose how the First Amendment applies show how narrow minded they are.
John says:
November 9, 2012 at 8:50 am
People in the US are very divided politically — now there’s an insight! But in a democracy, just accept the result. The R party has painted itself into a corner, and they will continue to lose elections until they figure out how to attract larger numbers of women and Hispanics and young voters. That is just math.
This election was for the Rs to lose, what with the economic situation. The Rs also had a huge amount of money, counting the unaffiliated superPACs. But they still lost. LIke it or not, enough of country didn’t like what they saw, despite the economic situation.
In the meantime, as a result of the elections, some things will happen in the US that probably aren’t for the long term good of the country. But if we want to get a different result, the Rs have to appeal to a broader swath of people. That is the issue. What the Rs tried didn’t work — so how do they change it?
It worked very well in the House where they managed to retain their gains from 2010 by gerrymandering the districts despite losing voter share.
Personally, I feel as though the “fiscal cliff” isn’t high enough. The United States federal government has no business occupying over 20% of the nations GDP, certainly when 40% of that fraction is debt spending. We have no hope of ever getting that back and to continue on this path is insanity at best and “suicide of soveregnty” at worst.
I lay the blame at the feet of “We the people” because we are the MSM, we are the unions, we are the beauracracy, ad infinitum.
The cliff is too short because it does not pull from the taxpayers teat those who are educated or trained in a trade or craft, healthy, and unemployed. Demand something of the rest who are in any way capable even if it is painting grafitti and picking up cigarette butts at red lights and stop signs. Birth control?, yes – while you are receiving taxpayers dollars for the majority of your subsistence. Drug testing? yes – while you are receiving taxpayer dollars for the majority of your subsistence. Crime? thugs receiving taxpayers money go directly to an Angola Prison Farm like institute without TV, A/C, weight piles, etc. you work for your meals, and escape means you go through gator infested, mosquito and cottonmouth ridden swamps, swimming a few rivers to even get near something resembling civilisation. I’d apply these terms from 10 year olds to 100 year olds.
People hungry for food will eventually do something other than rape, steal from, and kill each other for their latest addiction.
The government teat needs a mastectomy before this nation can begin healing from its addiction.
Like a previous poster – these are my own opinions and do not represent those of any institution I am affiliated with.
The polarization I see in the U.S.A. is beginning to exhibit an extremist un-civil nature. The last time Americans got un-civil they tried to solve tier differences with a civil war. Civil wars are anything but civil, I suggest Americans drop the extremist individualism of the frontier. You now live in a crowded nation (the frontier is gone) and are going to have to work together in some sort of social tolerant manner.
It took us 13 years up here in the Frozen North to turn the ship of state, and we’re politically a 10th the size of the US. It will take us a generation (or more) to purge the system of those high on OPM*.
The one bright light in the American electoral system is that you built a kill switch into your command structure. Obama can’t come back after his term ends, unless, of course, he figures out how to make an Executive Order proclaiming otherwise stick. I understand that’s high on Eric Holder’s priority list..
* “high on OPM”. pronounced “opium” (of course) Other People’s Money. (c)2011 P.Coppin
/sarc
I don’t think there’s a necessary connection between views on science and on politics. Many great scientists were liberal-leftish (Feynman, Haldane, Medawar spring to mind immediately) while others were more conservative (Planck, for example). In Britain, I support the Labour Party, but over the last six years or so I’ve paid real attention to the science of climate and come to a highly sceptical view on CAGW. Whatever shade of politics one has, or a government has, we all need the best technical and scientific knowledge. As a friendly comment, one I’ve made to American friends, from a European perspective (or from that of the history of political thought), US Dems and Reps are just two slightly different shades of blue. The difference is important (in Britain the difference between Edward Heath and Margaret Thatcher was important), but why exaggerate it?
Wait till America sees what our greedy climate science friends/advocates/academics have in store for us. To them, there is no recession in the climate industry, where money grows on trees…
Prepare for the carbon tax folks…
“I still feel a lot safer with Obama in control!”
Yes, the world is about as safe with Obama now as Great Britain was with Neville Chamberlain in 1938.
Brian says:
November 9, 2012 at 9:32 am
“I was not going to happy regardless of who won, but at least that casino mogul lost millions of dollars trying to buy the election.”
Yes – that casino mogul was outbid by George Soros and those guys from Facebook and Google..
DesertYote says:
November 9, 2012 at 9:59 am
“Its so bad, that most Republicans themselves are entrapped within a Marxist world-view and don’t even know it.”
Very true to many people think that somehow republicans are a counter balance to democrats when in reality they are just less extreme demanding socialism. The party mottos really should be Democrats:”Socialism/Communism NOW”, Republicans: “Socialism for your grand kids”.
Sun Spot says:
November 9, 2012 at 10:34 am
“I suggest Americans drop the extremist individualism of the frontier.” Yes lets all be sheep like the euros who have to under under american’s skirt every time something happens. Who’s skirt will american hide under?
The moment that the US becomes socialist was the moment the EU and euro in general died. I hope the euros enjoy the fruits of the seeds they have sown.
The time was before November 6. Now we only have to bet on the date.
At 10:34 AM on 9 November, Sun Spot demonstrates gaudy historical illiteracy, writing:
The War of Northern Aggression (1861-65) was waged not as a civil war (the people of the southern states had no desire to take over the federal government) but unarguably as a war to impose the Morrill Tariff (see Lincoln’s first inaugural address) upon the import-dependent economies of those southern states.
As it becomes increasingly plain that our federal government is in the hands of the identified political faction bent upon the devastation of our national economy, and that their alleged “opposition” is either impotent to halt these impositions or is actually in collusion with them, the productive sector of our society might well evince its desperation in more than symbolic gestures like flying the national colors upside-down.
page488 says:
November 9, 2012 at 8:22 am
I’ve seen it, too, here and there. I suppose it’s a statement.
For Dave Burton who said, “Those folks fly an American flag on a flagpole in their front yard. Only Republicans do that.”
What irony, Dave; I infer that you are saying that those who want the most of America’s free gifts refuse to fly the flag, and those who get to pay for them fly it proudly.
You appear to have that backwards, it’s the ‘blue’ states that subsidize the ‘red’ states
http://thecentristword.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/red-state-socialism.jpg?w=640&h=470
Sailorcurt says:
November 9, 2012 at 10:05 am
“Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.” –Benjamin Franklin
===================
Thanks, never heard that one before.
The Vendee Globe starts tomorrow, eh.
@LKMiller – John Galt is one of the main characters in Ayn Rand’s book Atlas Shrugged. I’ve never read the book; you might check the Wikipedia entry for him (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Galt). The “Cultural significance” section of the entry explains the phrase “going Galt” (which I’ve been seeing pop up here and there since the election).
Also, Anthony – as a lifelong Republican, I second mojomojo’s comments above from the other side of the aisle.
I agree with the caveats about this blog post Anthony: I don’t think a lot of the more partisan responses here are going to do WUWT any favours in regards to being taken seriously by left-leaning potential sceptics.
I keep trying to persuade everyone to keep politics out of the climate debate – most of my friends are leftists. I’ve linked a load of articles from here in various places following Sandy, in an effort to persuade such people that that event has nothing to do with AGW. But if any of those people who might wish to read those pieces were to come here today and read this stuff above, they would not bother reading here any more
As for the election result: it was Obama’s to lose, but the GOP selected as their candidate a stonking hypocrite, an animal abuser, a man who spoke out of both sides of his mouth. A man with no conception of how ordinary people live, who relied on the far right and the religious right for his core support. Statements about women from his team alienated even women of their own political persuasion.
One of my more intelligent Republican friends – a woman – remarked some weeks ago that Romney was unelectable, and so it proved. The GOP has only itself to blame for missing the open goal: with a less divisive candidate they’d have walked this.
@LKMiller – John Galt is a main character in Ayn Rand’s book “Atlas Shrugged”. It’s from his actions in the book that we get the phrase “going Galt”, which I’ve been hearing a fair bit since the election. You might check out the Wikipedia entry for him, or just Google “going Galt”.
@mojomojo – as a lifelong Republican, in the spirit of bipartisanship I stand up on the other side of the aisle and heartily second your appreciation and commendation to Anthony.
(apologies, all, for the redundancy – I had a computer “burp”, didn’t see my first comment and thought it had gotten lost, only to see it pop up AFTER I had reposted)
Makes one appreciate the simplicity of design of the Japanese flag 😉
I never hear politicians that I totally agree with on a matter. But I think of it this way: Being a politician is an unthankful task. They try to achieve some goals which in their minds are good, but people will yell back at them no matter what. So, obviously, noone truly intelligent will do this. But I’m glad there are people who volunteer for the job. The implication that their ideas are less than brilliant is an acceptable price in my opinion.
Two points:
a) one of the advantages of having a Monarch is that patriotism is focussed on her, not on the Head of Government; so that I don’t need to fuss about a Flag as a non-political focus.
b) The US has a lot of really fine, generous warm-hearted and hard-working people. But the two who stood for President this time were, at best, lack-lustre candidates. It would be splendid if the political system allowed more good candidates to step forward. At the moment the qualification seems to be the ability to raise obscenely large amounts of money to spend on nasty derogatory advertisements.
c) A third point (I’ll plan ahead next time): does anyone ever sue for slander or libel as a result of the worst of those advertisements? Or are they somehow protected in law?
On a related note: I am very disappointed with many republicans. Quite a few of them get hung up on trivia and do not engage in any form of useful debate at all. Back in the late 90s I visited a guy (friend of a friend) who was hung up on Clinton. The guy basically lived back in the 50s, opposed to sex ed in the schools, very upset about what Clinton did (not only the cigar thing, but apparently Clinton sold military secrets to the Chinese…) and wanted religion (his religion of course) taught in school. Four days ago, my local newspaper ran the following story: http://www.aftenposten.no/nyheter/uriks/usavalg/Hatet-mot-Obama-7037043.html which claims that some of your fellow citizens believes Obama wears a ring that praises ‘Allah’.
I sympathise with the Republicans. I suspect I would lean heavily towards them come election time, had I been an American. But seeing first hand the kind of arguments some of their supporters bring to the table… I am not impressed. Playing the religious card all the time… Good grief. Superstition mixed with politics is never good (just look at the CAGW crowd, eh?).
It is time to jump on the pro-choice bandwagon. You cannot seriously preach the message of keeping the “guvment” out of everything while asking the government to force raped women to complete a pregnancy (especially not on the belief that “women can shut that whole thing down”). Protect women from getting molested in the first place, and then leave them alone. Most of them are quite able to make rational decisions about their own body without the government getting involved.
Same with gay marriage. It doesn’t concern others. If the gay part of the population want to live like the rest of us, why should we object? It makes absolutely no sense, unless you are gay yourself and envy others who are able to live out their life the way they like to. Besides… It is not as if the gay part of our population will be able to spread their genes dramatically. (not that such an event would pose a problem)
Republicans! You got massacred this election! And look what you were running against! Now look at your own team… Sheesh. Next time, if you give people a rational and educated choice… I am sure that more voters will feel comfortable voting for your team. Biblethumping is not getting you guys anywhere. It is certainly not taking you in the direction of a more enlightened civilization and I hope even more people will realize that come the next election.
In any case: I don’t know what happened at Benghazi. There is a facebook friend that keeps spamming my facebook feed demanding the president tell him “who gave the order to stand down”. And here is my point: I do not care. I file this under “wearing a ring praising Allah” — i.e. garbage. Maybe the Benghazi-case is real. Maybe it isn’t. I am not wasting any calories looking into it myself, because too many cooks have uttered too many insane allegations already. “Wolf”. “Wolf”. No, I won’t bother go and look for my sheep the third time.
Phil. says:
November 9, 2012 at 11:08 am
That link you post is nothing but propaganda. It has long been shown that they pick as choose the data that supports that argument. Just to name a few things they include which they shouldn’t.
Social security. Most people move to red states to retire because the taxes are lower and cost of living is much much lower.
Federal military. Most red states have huge federal military to local populations. The federal military is there to protect everyone and should not be counted as a cost(which they do).
Indian reserves. Red states have overwhelmingly more Indians and Indian population vs normal population.
The list goes on and on. When you remove a lot of the stuff that has nothing to due with the state the numbers switch hard.
You can go here for a more balanced and not completely propaganda view of welfare states.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/31910310/The_Biggest_US_Welfare_States?slide=1
I’ve long chuckled at the Chicken Littles worried that the sky is falling…. this is the end of the planet…. They have no perspective, I think… millions and billions of years of climate history…
I am fighting hard not to feel that way about this election: somehow (I don’t know how) we will survive, I tell myself. We always have, so far.
I posted a simple message on RedState stating that I believe that stirring social conservatism with fiscal conservatism is a big mistake. The hard line GOP is looking to scratch all members of Congress — regardless their commitment to the Constitution, a balanced budget, state’s rights — not committed to “pro-life,” “forced birthing” sentiments. Turning women into non-person birthing incubators will not fly, from sea to shining sea. The imposition of the religious beliefs of some on the entire population is more like an American taliban, sharia law writ small — for now.
I have been banned from Red State. So much for a bigger tent, different ideas….
I hope the gleeful headiness the Tea Party has experienced with past wins, disappears and a more reasonable tack is set for future. I do *not* believe America is/wants to be socialist.
….Lady in Red
Sam the First says:
“…the GOP selected as their candidate a stonking hypocrite, an animal abuser, a man who spoke out of both sides of his mouth.”
Some folks are completely clueless, no? And spreading lies about “animal abuse” is insanity. I have transported my dog in exactly the same way: in a locked kennel, fastened to my car roof because it would not fit inside. Get a clue. That is not abouse; I was taking him to the vet.
Romney was by far the most decent politician of this century. He inherited a lot of money, and gave it all to charity because he wanted to make it on his own. And he did. He also gave millions to charity out of his earnings, unlike Biden and Obama, who are both very stingy when it comes to charitable giving. Unlike his opponent, Romney is honest. He saved tens of thousands of jobs that would have been lost in receivership and bankruptcy. Most of those companies came to him asking for help. But some stupid folks are swayed by negative advertising, which they mindlessly buy into like idiocrats.
Romney is the Fixer. To the extent possible in a Republic, he would have largely fixed the country’s fiscal problems. He proposed that everyone must pay at least some taxes. He belonged to the only true American religion, and he is an extremely moral person. That is entirely a good thing. What we now have is a totally amoral president with no respect for the rule of law, an out of control EPA, and an Attorney General who is an accessory to murder.
Welcome to the idiocracy.
The whole “partisan” thing is ridiculous.
Sure Obama is bad, Romney would be equally bad…because the same banks, corporations, and think tanks write the checks for these guys.
We will be screwed as long as our government and economy remain in the hands of a private banking cartel, or more importantly, whoever owns said banking cartel. Yes America is being destroyed, and debt money is the prime weapon in the hands of the International.
<a target="_blank" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HP7L8bw5QF4&feature=player_embedded"
Up here in Canada, I am cheesed off with our $5 Billion deficit. We need to fix that. I hate the fact that voters are stealing from my kids and grandkids. It is imoral!
I can not even comprehend 1.5 trillion. But you know what is really crazy? Most Euopean countries are even worse off.
Well, I always buy the American Flag “forever” postage stamps, which have those meaningless words, like Freedom, Liberty, Equality, and Justice on them.
And ever since the results of the 2008 election became known, I have ALWAYS stuck those stamps upside down; and will continue to do so.
I don’t have an American flag, since I am just an American, but not a citizen. And I also don’t have a flag of the Country of my citizenship, since I consider it extremely rude, and even insulting to fly any such flag here.
I tend to get quite irate, when I see all the cars, and trucks that drive around flying Mexican flags; it is their statement, that California is part of Mexico.
If I had an American flag (I might get one now), I would never fly it both upside down, and at half staff. Those in the Military who defend our right to free speech, and freedom itself, deserve our utmost respect and thanks; and should not be dragged into the middle of political differences.
And just to be pre-emptive; don’t even think about playing any of your race cards on me. Racism, is something I heard about when I first came to the USA. For a while, I thought it might actually disappear. But now we have had two elections where racism was front and center of the platforms of the team that came in ahead of the losing party. My better half doesn’t own a Mexican flag, or a flag of the Republic of Texas, where she was born.
If the election results disturbed you; well then you can’t imagine, what the majority of the American voters just bought into, on your behalf.
Governor Romney’s “47% ” has just become “51%”, so we already went over the cliff, and it’s about a week to late to stop it.
I think this a worthy enterprise; just changed the orientation of my flag.
I’m a veteran. There is nothing wrong with flying the flag upside down, only something wrong with the reason it is being flown upside down.
“The flag should never be displayed with the union down, except as a signal of dire distress in instances of extreme danger to life or property.”
Do unconstitutional acts carried out by our government qualify, or should we wait to be drowned in debt before we send out a distress signal?
mstickles says:
November 9, 2012 at 11:11 am
“@LKMiller – John Galt is one of the main characters in Ayn Rand’s book Atlas Shrugged. I’ve never read the book; you might check the Wikipedia entry for him (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Galt). The “Cultural significance” section of the entry explains the phrase “going Galt” (which I’ve been seeing pop up here and there since the election).”
Doh!!
Sorry mstickles, but the fact that you haven’t read Atlas Shrugged is the very reason why my post went right over your head.
The producers, who have been more or less sitting on the sidelines because of the tremendous economic uncertainty imposed by the policies of President Obama and his minions, now will begin to withdraw from the economy. We are tired of producing for an ever increasing proportion of ungrateful takers.
Who is John Galt?
John says:
November 9, 2012 at 8:50 am
But in a democracy, just accept the result.,/i>
John,
The US of A is constitutionally governed as a Representative Republic, not a ‘democracy’. It’s real basic. The rest of your observations were of equal accuracy…
MtK
Going John Galt is a quaint high school level notion, embraced by disenfranchised adults.
@mstickles says:
November 9, 2012 at 11:11 am
FYI “Who is John Galt?” is not a question, it is a statment. You should read the book. Unless you are a true marxist, it will lift the fog from your eyes.
“Takers…”
Interesting that global warming receives such scrutiny and skepticism, but the notion of “takers” is embraced with little question. Where is the “audit” for the notion of “takers”?
The internet is a hothouse incubator for memes.
“Takers” is simply a dishonest replacement for the proper term: thieves.
I suspect that this gesture ties in neatly with the belief that Obama is the USA’s Gorbachev.
“””””…..David Bailey says:
November 9, 2012 at 10:01 am
Since I am British, my view of Obama is irrelevant, but like a lot of Europeans, I cheered when he made it back to the White House. I don’t agree with Obama about climate change, but the previous Bush administration was dangerous, and ended up starting two wars it couldn’t win – basically through arrogance. Romney seemed to inherit some of that same gung-ho approach, so I still feel a lot safer with Obama in control!…..”””””
Well David, you don’t seem that “British” to me.
As for “””””…..Bush administration was dangerous, and ended up starting two wars it couldn’t win – basically through arrogance……”””””
Those two wars were actually started, as is described in the Constitution; by a vote (actually three votes) in the Congress of the United States.
The first of those votes passed by 534:1 , since one member of of the house of representatives, being both a communist and also educationally challenged, didn’t seem to understand the meaning of the word “necessary”, or that voting to NOT DO, that “which is necessary, is a very good definition of insanity.
The other two votes specifically to declare each of those two wars, were less well supported, but still approved by significant majorities of the Congress; and yes Bush signed them.
But back to being proudly British; seems like you (or your ancesters) actually voted (immediately) out of office, the very leader, who brought you, and the rest of the world, through the worst calamity in history. Well surely it was the height of arrogance for that particular leader to even imagine he could win a war, that already devoured the rest of your Europe, in world record time. Yes a truly proud tradition you Europeans have.
“””….so I still feel a lot safer with Obama in control!…..”””””
Well yes, just look at his control in Benghazi, and of course there is that little episode of an Iranian attack on a US plane in international airspace, that Commander in Chief Obama, didn’t even bother to inform the American people about; let alone demonstrate he is actually in control of so much as a lemonade stand.
Now in 2008 he campaigned on a promise to end one of those wars, but after election he embraced it as his own personal enterprise; so you can’t lay that one on Bush at this point; it IS Obama’s war.
A. M. Priestas says:
Here’s an observation for you, if I may. Is it me or do the people who tend to be skeptical of climate change “science” the same people who are skeptical of nutrition “science” (see Gary Taubes, Dr. Michael Eades) and are the same people who are skeptical of government in general? In other words, libertarian? Thoughts?
Although it’s certainly not a total correlation, I have noticed a fairly strong overlap between those groups.
“””””…..Lady in Red says:
November 9, 2012 at 11:31 am
I’ve long chuckled at the Chicken Littles worried that the sky is falling…. this is the end of the planet…. They have no perspective, I think… millions and billions of years of climate history…..”””””
Are your DAR membership dues paid up ? Maybe your red Hat ladies Dues are.
Keep the faith. I’m English and learned long ago (I’m nearly 70 years old) that the key thing in all this is the need to get the opposition divided. Set warmists against skeptics; set black against white; set Christians against Muslims; set socialists against capitalists. It’s all a smoke screen to keep our minds occupied while they carry on making shed-loads of money and laughing all the way to the bank.
Over here, we don’t hold the flag in quite the same reverence as you Americans. No one sings the National Anthem at the start or end of the school day (not sure if you still do that). As another Brit mentioned, few British people would know if the Union Flag is upside down or not.
You became a ‘skeptic’ due to your knowledge as a scientist, not because you blindly followed a blog post one day. Don’t let the emotion shown by some detract you from your faith in your science. Otherwise, they (whoever they are) will win.
Yes, those of us who hate and despise socialism in its current malicious form, felt a sense of despair at Obama’s win. Not because of who he is, but because of what he represents. The AGW camp is symptomatic of his and his backers’ beliefs. Time will tell who is right in this argument and time is on the side of truth, whatever that turns out to be.
Best wishes to all Americans from your friends in the UK.
Thomas T says:
“The internet is a hothouse incubator for memes.”
That may be so, but the fact is that half the country pays no federal income taxes. Therefore, they are “takers.” QED
Nop. More like a city folk – country folk kind of divide
Hint: Look the red vs blue counties on this last election map .. more like a ‘takers vs makers’ kind of divide if anything. (I will call it “Union America” vs “Free America” given the distribution between right-to-work states vs union states.)
Map: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/2012/countymaprb1024.png
Webpage: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/2012/
.
“””””……
Sailorcurt says:
November 9, 2012 at 10:05 am
Doug says:
It is very common here among those who hate democracy, particularly when it does not give them the answer THEY wanted.
You mean people like the founding fathers? You know, the guys who specifically did NOT implement a democracy in the United States, but rather a constitutional republic?……”””””
” The United States, shall guarantee to every State in this Union, a Republican form of government; and shall protect each of them from invasion,……”
So OK President, and Commander in Chief Obama; when are you going to do your job, and defend the States from the invasion that is rapidly destroying us ?
The cognoscenti will of course recognize Article IV section 4 of the US Constitution; I assume you all learn the entire Constitution by heart before you graduate from 8th Grade.
The terms “Union Jack” and “Union Flag” are synomynous. Either is correct according to Act of Parliament. For example, see:
http://www.flaginstitute.org/index.php?location=7.2
http://www.royal.gov.uk/MonarchUK/Symbols/UnionJack.aspx
(and, yes, the latter is the official website of the British Monarchy.
Signed: The Voice of the Pedant aka Alan Bates.
(In reply to your question: Your site, your decision. But the warning is a good idea because it shows this is not an “official” part of “The world’s most viewed site on global warming and climate change.”
“””””…..ColdOldMan says:
November 9, 2012 at 12:40 pm
ujagoff says:
November 9, 2012 at 9:17 am
I’m a hardcore climate skeptic who visits this site daily and quotes it and links to it in my frequent arguments against the CAGW faithful.
…………………..
Over here, we don’t hold the flag in quite the same reverence as you Americans. No one sings the National Anthem at the start or end of the school day (not sure if you still do that). As another Brit mentioned, few British people would know if the Union Flag is upside down or not.
Well there’s more to it (the Union Jack) than simply getting it the correct side up.
You also have to get it end to end correct, just in case you have one, without attchments to tell you.
And I guess neither you or the other “British chap” bothered to mention, which way up is correct, thereby indicating by default, that you don’t know either.
It’s only a part of my colonial flag, but even I know that it is to be flown with the edge nearest the flagstaff, having the wider white cross portion upwards.
It is actually quite symmetrical up or down, so long as you attach it to the flagstaff, at the correct edge.
Well I suppose, you could check on Giggle, or Wiki-goodluck! just in case you never learnt it in school.
Has anyone bothered to check if — just maybe — the folks displaying the flag upside down might actually be in dire distress and not making a political statement?
I have not seen it in my seaside town but will be more observant as I drive around. I agree with the message it conveys.
Bill
After Clinton was elected (or maybe re-elected?) I heard of a few people flying the flag upside down but not at half-staff.
WUWT says: “I wonder though, if this sort of visual political commentary I’ve seen in my town is being quietly repeated elsewhere since many people now see the USA as being in distress?”
Yes, I saw a flag at half mast and upside down on my walk yesterday here in Washington State.
Since the election results were announced, I have been wearing black clothing. I don’t know when I might stop….
It isn’t because I want to be part of a fad. It was a spontaneous personal choice, made when I arose at 5:00am Wednesday morning Nov. 7th. It welled up out of me, from a deep sense of personal loss and mourning. You see, my country, The United States Of America, is dying. It is slowly suffocating under the relentless constrictions of a world spanning python called socialism. My country’s death is being applauded and hastened by enemies, both foreign and domestic. As such, flying the Stars and Stripes inverted as a distress signal seems entirely appropriate to me. It is precisely the correct signal.
If you feel the need to denigrate the deeply felt loss of our country by myself and the many others who loved and aided her past soaring achievements while clearly see her currently accelerating downward spiral, please feel free to express yourself in the most hate filled and insulting ways possible. I doubt you can achieve worse than what has already been excreted by ‘the winners’.
Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do…
My deepest sympathies to those who feel our mutual loss,
MtK
ujagoff says:
How can I see these words and still honestly believe the side I’ve believed is the one without predetermined bias is actually so?
Given your statements about “not watching Fox”, it seems that perhaps you have some predetermined bias of your own?
I get my news from various sources. Fox is one of them. I do this so I can get an unbiased look at things. I refuse to rule out a source just because of my biases.
Mac the Knife says:
November 9, 2012 at 1:17 pm
Although I am not wearing black I have the inner feeling you describe. Well said. The creep of socialism is slowing choking us.
Listen, you patronising …., I know full well how to hang the Union Flag. I did it often enough during my spell in the Royal Corps of Signals.
I’ll stop writing now as my hands are shaking in anger and I prefer to leave Anthony’s threads clean of insults. That’s a negative pathway, anyway.
“That may be so, but the fact is that half the country pays no federal income taxes. Therefore, they are “takers.”
Interesting notion, extending it, the bedrock GOP red states receive more federal dollars than they pay. Therefore, the red states are “takers”.
Many of your “takers” vote Republican, and so the whole notion is silly.
Yes, this is protest and protected speech.
Or it used to be. Protest and protected speech only apply when the Republican’s are in power. If the Democrats are in power, it’s hate speech that should be censored.
BTW: My homeowner’s association won’t let my fly and empty chair upside down. Will the ACLU take up my case?
“As such, flying the Stars and Stripes inverted as a distress signal seems entirely appropriate to me. It is precisely the correct signal.”
No. If Romney was elected the USA would be heading on more or less precisely the same path.
Yet there would be no upside-down flags. There were none during the Bush administration.
Hence, the flags signify that they are in distress that their guy isn’t in the White House.
BTW: Sunday is the official Veteran’s Day in the USA (Monday is the observed day). Please fly your flags on Sunday in honor of our veteran’s, especially those who lost life and limb to protecting our freedoms.
D Böehm says:
“… the fact is that half the country pays no federal income taxes. Therefore, they are “takers.” QED”
welcome to the ministry of truth. fallacy much?
those evading plunder by the state are ‘takers’?
in truth, those who pay are accomplices in the destruction of the country.
all accomplices are guilty and they wish to hide from that
how does submission absolve them responsibility for themselves?
santa claus is a kindergarten notion that is usually replaced by the high school level notion of ‘voting’. adulthood consists of shedding all forms of mysticism for responsibility.
I can safely say that no one in Newport Beach, CA is flying the flag upside down.
We all know that nothing politically has changed. Its still gridlock.
Regards,
John from CA
The USA is a republic, not a democracy. Why is it you leftists label everything that disagrees with your agenda as hate?
Mac the Knife says:
November 9, 2012 at 1:17 pm
========================
Well said.
Speaking as an Englishman, it hurts me to see the USA taking the same route to self-inflicted destruction that the UK and much of the rest of Europe have been walking down for some years. I’m 61, so brought up on the American Dream as seen from this side of the pond (Bilko, Ed the Talking Horse, Elvis, Chuck, Rocketman, Flash Gordon and co.). It seems appropriate to mourn. The flag flown thus seems an appropriate symbol.
@george e. smith says…
“Union Flag” on land
“Union Jack” at sea!
Thomas T,
When an individual takes public monies and pays no taxes, they are by definition takers. It seems you cannot understand that simple concept. Why not? That tax situation has been discussed here occasionally over the past few years, and you are the first I’ve seen dispute that basic truth.
Thomas T. says:
November 9, 2012 at 1:38 pm
“Interesting notion, extending it, the bedrock GOP red states receive more federal dollars than they pay. Therefore, the red states are “takers”. ”
This propaganda has long be dis-proven.
“Yet there would be no upside-down flags. There were none during the Bush administration.”
As was commented earlier in this thread…. democrats don’t hang US flags hehe.
With a National Debt of 16 trillion Dollars, it seems quite reasonable and sensible to fly your flag as a sign of distress. Please send money now.
Around here it shows up on homes in foreclosure.
Thomas T. says:
November 9, 2012 at 1:42 pm
Now you declare yourself to be prescient and all seeing, including of future potentials that can not occur? That is the height of arrogance and ignorance. Shameful…….
Father, forgive Thomas T., even though he knows what wrong he is doing…
MtK
Thomas T. says:
November 9, 2012 at 1:42 pm
“As such, flying the Stars and Stripes inverted as a distress signal seems entirely appropriate to me. It is precisely the correct signal.”
“No. If Romney was elected the USA would be heading on more or less precisely the same path.
Yet there would be no upside-down flags. There were none during the Bush administration.
Hence, the flags signify that they are in distress that their guy isn’t in the White House.”
If you believe this, you haven’t been paying attention the past 4 years. President Obama is peerless in his systematic shredding of the Constitution. There are plenty of examples, but let’s start with legislating from the Executive Branch by the abuse of Executive Orders – Obama didn’t like that Congress rejected the Dream Act, so poof, by Executive Order, we now have a de facto Dream Act.
The Constitution clearly lays out limited and divided powers, and legislating ain’t one of the powers of the Executive Branch.
The Romney administration, from day one, would have put an end to such abuse of our founding document. Now that Obama is a lame duck and unencumbered by another election, there are no restraints remaining to keep him from tossing the Constitution onto the bonfire.
If that is the country you want, God help us all.
mr boehm- you are now making a completely different logical proposition wherein the evasion of tax (you know- that war-time meashire that was only temporary?) is irrelevant.
alas, you seem to be intent on ignoring who did the taking in the first place.
that may be a defensive mechanism to ignore who produced what was taken in the first place.
is the motive a guilty conscience?
“When an individual takes public monies and pays no taxes, they are by definition takers. It seems you cannot understand that simple concept. Why not?”
D Böehm, you drive on public roads, yet your own dollars have paid for, say, 10 feet or 100 feet of pavement. You are a taker. A moocher, every time that you get behind the wheel.
People who pay no federal income taxes still pay taxes. They pay a lot of taxes, which are a burden given their limited income.
The focus on “takers” is driven by right wing entertainment, talk radio, Fox News, conservative blogs; it is a meme that derives its nourishment from the conservative disenfranchised. The great lie is that the GOP relies on “takers” for votes…do the math.
gnomish:
Apparently you don’t understand simple logic. I was not referring to tax evasion.
.
Thomas T says:
“D Böehm, you drive on public roads, yet your own dollars have paid for, say, 10 feet or 100 feet of pavement.”
Econ was my minor [Dean’s List], and I can say with complete confidence that you are an economic illiterate.
“As was commented earlier in this thread…. democrats don’t hang US flags hehe.”
I do. Despite the conservative belief that the flag is theirs.
Conservatives also believe that God belongs to them…yet God apparently smiles on Obama. Maybe Conservatives should ask themselves why God wants Obama to lead the country (hint: liberals do not believe that Obama is the Messiah, that is a right wing construct.)
Thomas T,
So, what branch of the military did you serve in?
my logic is impeccable.
yours is seriously flawed.
plz review why Adam Smith wrote On the Wealth of Nations and when.
“Econ was my minor [Dean’s List]”
Then why are you being disingenuous with your income tax argument? All working Americans pay taxes. And ALL Americans are takers, since the benefits they receive far, far outweigh the taxes that they pay.
The hilarious part of the “takers” argument is that many of those “takers” voted for Romney.
Tucci78 says:
November 9, 2012 at 11:06 am
“At 10:34 AM on 9 November, Sun Spot demonstrates gaudy historical illiteracy, . . . ”
And further, “The last time Americans got un-civil” is better described by the Vietnam War protests. Do an image-search and thousands of photos can be found – many showing uncivil behavior. Some of us do not need to look at the photos.
At 2:43 PM on 9 November, John F. Hultquist responds to 10:34 AM post by Sun Spot with:
I was myself watching those protests from the sidelines at the time, unconvinced thereby. Either way. I had come to the conclusion that the U.S. Constitution makes it impossible in law for our republic to play “Cops of the World!” or run an empire, but the thieving, murdering official and deliberate bastardliness of the socialists was plain upon their conquistador efforts in Southeast Asia as they’d been everywhere else earlier in the 20th Century. Resisting them – with deadly force, as necessary – seemed a very good idea.
Still does.
I also knew enough even then to understand that rancorous protests in the street do not rise to the level of a civil war, “un-civil” though they may be considered.
That armed conflict might well manifest in our republic as our present efflorescence of socialist bastardliness seeks incrementally to impose itself in violation of the lives, the liberties, and the property rights of our citizenry…. Well, this is nothing I’d seek.
In the words of Churchill (whom our “anticolonialist” Mombasa Messiah so despises that he replaced the bust thereof specifically with a bust of Jimmy “the Malaise” Carter): “To jaw-jaw is always better than to war-war.”
But when peaceful means of remediation prove so consistently bootless, when even the hope of political derailment of this “long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object [which] evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”
Let us bear in mind that our republic got its start when citizens took up arms with which to kill the officers of the crown ordained by God to rule over them.
At 3:36 PM on 9 November, D Böehm pulls up the perennial Mencken quote observing that “…every election is sort of an advance auction sale of stolen goods.”
Fond as I am the Sage (and rich as is my library in Menckeniana; hell, I was literally born within sight of 1524 Hollins Street while the man was living and working there), I think when we consider the “takers” and their impact on this most recent “advance auction sale,” we have to go with Frédéric Bastiat (1848):
gnomish,
Your comment is so vague it is meaningless. If you have something you want to say, try to be clear about it.
.
Thomas T,
Read my comments again, then you won’t be so inclined to make your strawman arguments. And if you’re going to address something I wrote, cut and paste it. That will keep you focused.
My point was simple: half of Americans pay zero in federal taxes. Every one of those non-taxpayers receives financial benefits from those the money is taken from. Thus, non-taxpayers are takers by definition. Even you should be able to understand that simple fact.
BTW, you didn’t answer about your military service.
“So, what branch of the military did you serve in?”
Do you mean, I am a “taker”, if I did not serve? That would be an odd question with regard the Presidential election, since neither Romney or Obama served.
As an outside observer I would agree that the USA is in great distress and danger. Do not trust your Government, it is corrupt to the core.
“Do not blame Caesar, blame the people of Rome who have so enthusiastically acclaimed and adored him and rejoiced in their loss of freedom and danced in his path and gave him triumphal processions. Blame the people who hail him when he speaks in the Forum of the ‘new, wonderful, good society’ which shall now be Rome’s, interpreted to mean: more money, more ease, more security, more living fatly at the expense of the industrious.” — Marcus Tullius Cicero
I found the above on Small Dead Animals to be appropriate at this time.
It was written, I believe shortly before the fall of the Roman Republic
.http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.–George Santayana
Thomas T. says:
November 9, 2012 at 2:23 pm
“As was commented earlier in this thread…. democrats don’t hang US flags hehe.”
I do. Despite the conservative belief that the flag is theirs.
Conservatives also believe that God belongs to them…yet God apparently smiles on Obama. Maybe Conservatives should ask themselves why God wants Obama to lead the country (hint: liberals do not believe that Obama is the Messiah, that is a right wing construct.)
======================================================================
Amplified Bible 2 Corinthians 4:4 For the god of this world has blinded the unbelievers’ minds [that they should not discern the truth], preventing them from seeing the illuminating light of the Gospel of the glory of Christ (the Messiah), Who is the Image and Likeness of God.
There is a “god of this world”, as the KJV puts it, who still has some authority in this world but his lease is running out. If you want to bring “God” into this, you should have used a small “g”.
(I’d say more but I think we’ve both ventured far into “snip” territory.)
Thomas T,
You would have been a better man if you had stepped up to the plate and served your country.
Democracy needs a population of people who are willing to accept the result of a majority vote. In a country where that ceases to be true then democracy has a hard time working.
In the end more than they wanted freedom, they wanted security. When the Athenians finally wanted not to give to society but for society to give to them, when the freedom they wished for was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free.
~ Edward Gibbon (“Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”)
“The flag should never be displayed with the union down, except as a signal of dire distress in instances of extreme danger to life or property.”
Guys, I don’t know how you feel about it (because I am most definitely not American), but your public debt is increasing at a most alarming rate indeed. In 2008 it used to be $19,945.36 per capita (42.1% of GDP), while it is $37,952.73 per capita (76.3% of GDP) right now. In Hungary we are in a pretty dire economic condition with a public debt at 70.3% of annual GDP, with all kinds of restrictive policies in effect for some time now, so I suppose it can’t go on like this for much longer in the U.S. of A. either, otherwise the union gets down for sure.
As soon as it happens, dire distress is inevitable. It can even pose extreme danger to life or property of some. VAT is 27% in Hungary right now. Just saying.
I’ll probably ruffle feathers saying this. Flying the flag upside down, at full mast, or at half mast, really confines all three acts to the sphere of nationalism. If the flag is symbolic to you in some way other than state propaganda, then I don’t have a problem with it. But in most cases, this is another example of people’s hopeless deference to the state, even in times of crisis. I wonder how many owners of these flags voted for a sociopath this week? I ponder about remembering soldiers who died for their ‘country’, -a single word which transforms state murder into pride. I believe this is all a ruse to extinguish people’s suspicion of government. Communism, Terrorism, capitalism, lack of aggregate demand, whatever.
I remember thinking the same thing about occupy. Here were a bunch of disenfranchised, willing to empower regulators who were complicit in engineering the housing bubble.
The state has all angles covered.
Ian H
What you need is Demarchy, not Democracy.
“But great as our tax burden is, it has not kept pace with public spending. For decades we have piled deficit upon deficit, mortgaging our future and our children’s future for the temporary convenience of the present. To continue this long trend is to guarantee tremendous social, cultural, political, and economic upheavals.
“You and I, as individuals, can, by borrowing, live beyond our means, but for only a limited period of time. Why, then, should we think that collectively, as a nation, we’re not bound by that same limitation?
“The economic ills we suffer have come upon us over several decades. They will not go away in days, weeks, or months, but they will go away.
“It is no coincidence that our present troubles parallel and are proportionate to the intervention and intrusion in our lives that result from unnecessary and excessive growth of government.recedes
“All of us need to be reminded that the federal government did not create the states; the states created the federal government.
“In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”
~ Ronald Reagan, Inaugural Address, January 20, 1981
After Reagan was elected the country enjoyed twenty five years of prosperity. He slashed income taxes, which in turn generated much more government income, not less. He cut corporate tax rates, too.
If the same thing were done today, the result would be the same.
“You would have been a better man if you had stepped up to the plate and served your country.”
Step away from the internet, D Böehm, your strange questions and comments show that you would be a better man if you did.
I suggest – be American, manufacture two bumper stickers – “I voted for Obama” and “I didn’t vote for Obama” wait 12 months and see which one sells best, thirdly perhaps “I didn’t vote for THIS” which might suit both sides and make you some money.
I hate to disappoint Thomas T, but he is impotent. How could the puppy get me to ‘step away’? Only a fool writes things they cannot enforce.
I notice that TT likes to categorize everyone else in a derogatory manner. But he is quick to try and head off what he apparently fears: “liberals do not believe that Obama is the Messiah”
Actually, liberals do not believe in much of anything, except maybe taxing success.
Anthony, Interesting observation. My first guess is that inverting the USA flag is what a few of us do when they don’t get their way. That is, a practice carried out by our “sunshine patriots”. Not everyone thinks it is fair that the one who got the most vote wins. I also knew of some folks who thought it was unfair when the candidate who got fewer votes won in 2000 – but I don’t recall seeing inverted flags then. This must be quite a different group of patriots.
I was looking for a particular quote by Jefferson and found out he didn’t say it. Here’s the quote I was looking for plus few others.
From Alexander Tyler. No, he wasn’t writing about the United States. This quote is well over one hundred years old. Tyler was writing about the fall of the Athenian Republic.
“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasure. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s great civilizations has been two hundred years. These nations have progressed through the following sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith, from spiritual faith to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependency, from dependency back to bondage.”
“In general the art of government consists in taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to the other.” –Voltaire
“Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.” –William Pitt the Younger, British Prime Minister 1783-1801 and 1804-1806
“For in a Republic, who is “the country?” Is it the Government which is for the moment in the saddle? Why, the Government is merely a servant–merely a temporary servant; it cannot be its prerogative to determine what is right and what is wrong, and decide who is a patriot and who isn’t. Its function is to obey orders, not originate them.” –Mark Twain
“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” –10th Amendment to the United States Constitution
“We, the people, are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts; not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow men who pervert the Constitution.” –Abraham Lincoln
“The American people will never knowingly adopt Socialism. But, under the name of ‘liberalism’, they will adopt every fragment of the Socialist program, until one day America will be a socialist nation, without knowing how it happened.” –Norman Thomas, former U.S. Socialist Party Presidential Candidate
“The point to remember is that what the government gives, it must first take away.” –John S. Coleman
The inherent vice of capitalism is the uneven division of blessings, while the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal division of misery. –Winston Churchill
SamG says:
November 9, 2012 at 3:05 pm
“Flying the flag upside down, at full mast, or at half mast, really confines all three acts to the sphere of nationalism. If the flag is symbolic to you in some way other than state propaganda,”
Generally speaking you would be correct. However in the US the flag is not really the government/state. It is supposed to be of the sovereign citizen. Its one of the reasons democrats don’t normally fly US flags because they don’t represent “the state”. Socialists want things that represent “the state” not the people, most of all not a sovereign people since since sovereign citizens are above the state in power.
Gunga Din,
I have lots of quotes saved, but this one is a real favorite:
“””””…..jeremyp99 says:
November 9, 2012 at 1:51 pm
@george e. smith says…
“Union Flag” on land
“Union Jack” at sea!…..”””””
Sorry jeremyp99. I said no such thing.
Please don’t cite things I never said, in quotes as if you were quoting me.
Never heard of ‘Union Flag’; must be some new civics lesson stuff.
I grew up with a real ‘Union Jack’; No not just ANY Union Jack; but that very special Union Jack, that was Colonel Robert Baden Powell’s battle flag flown over the town on week days during the Siege of Mafeking in the Boer War.
On Sundays, the Boers put down their guns, so Baden Powell put up a really big Union Jack on Sundays, knowing the Boers would not shoot at it. And on Monday, the regular size battle flag went back up, and got a few bullet holes in it, with powder burns around the edges.
The Sunday Flag, went back to Britain and became a ‘Boy Scout’ flag, being flown over Jamborees, and the like; but the battle flag ‘disappeared’.
It was actually ‘disappeared’ by a New Zealander, who was among the volunteer New Zealand Army contingent, who were in Mafeking during the siege; and who no doubt ‘came upon’ the flag, in the manner soldiers often do.
So the flag is somewhere in New Zealand, and I lived with it from 1941 to 1950, and I know for sure it was still there in 1976, and very likely till 1989. I’ve looked for it; but so far no luck; despite some great effort, by a now retired University of Auckland Business Finance Professor. 2006/7 was the last time I visited the place where it was hanging over a doorway, but that is now the wall of somebody’s apartment.
If found, it would be THE real Boy Scout flag, and belongs in the Imperial War Museum .
In one of those ironic twist of logic Tom thumb is unintentionally correct (law of unintended consequences):
“Then why are you being disingenuous with your income tax argument? All working Americans pay taxes. And ALL Americans are takers, since the benefits they receive far, far outweigh the taxes that they pay.”
You have a 1.3trillion dollar deficit. Benefits rec’d far outweigh the taxes collected….
temp
I think that definition became antiquated long ago. The U.S. clearly does not honour individual sovereignty. Perhaps flag flyers have this intention but I’m speculating that they too appeal to the welfare state, the welfare state of credit, the welfare state abroad and the warfare state.
Someone commented earlier that these are probably Republicans having a cry. I’m probably looking into it too much.
“””””…..ColdOldMan says:
November 9, 2012 at 1:33 pm
george e. smith says:
November 9, 2012 at 1:01 pm
And I guess neither you or the other “British chap” bothered to mention, which way up is correct, thereby indicating by default, that you don’t know either.
Listen, you patronising …., I know full well how to hang the Union Flag. I did it often enough during my spell in the Royal Corps of Signals……”””””
Well Cold OldMan, you could have saved us all some grief, and made it a teaching moment yourself; and then I wouldn’t have had to take time out from work to comment.
You after all, were the one that said it isn’t that important to you.
But in any case; you do have MY apology; for jumping to conclusions; when YOU get to be as old as I am; hopefully there will still be a Britain to even call Great.
D Böehm says:November 9, 2012 at 3:19 pm
[…]
Actually, liberals do not believe in much of anything, except maybe taxing success.
Perhaps for liberals success is taxing. 🙂
‘ell I’ve been flying my flag upside down since I long ago talked politics with Sam Walton and figured out he was a commie… the quail huntin buddy of Nixon & Reagan (alpha kappa psi) Bush 1&2 and Cheney… etc…
I’m going to borrow a little something from Pat Buchanan to save a little typing here…
In ascertaining the cause of the GOP’s critical condition, let us use Occam’s razor — the principle that the simplest explanation is often the right one.
Would the GOP wipeout in those heavily Catholic, ethnic, socially conservative, blue-collar bastions of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio and Illinois, which Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan swept, have anything to do with the fact that the United States since 2000 has lost 6 million manufacturing jobs and 55,000 factories?
Where did all those jobs and factories go? We know where.
They were outsourced. And in the deindustrialization of America, the Republican Party has been a culpable co-conspirator.
Unlike family patriarch Sen. Prescott Bush, who voted with Barry Goldwater and Strom Thurmond against JFK’s free-trade deal, Bush I and II pumped for NAFTA, GATT, the WTO and opening America’s borders to all goods made by our new friends in the People’s Republic of China.
Swiftly, U.S. multinationals shut factories here, laid off workers, outsourced production to Asia and China, and brought their finished goods back, tax-free, to sell in the U.S.A.
Profits soared, as did the salaries of the outsourcing executives.
And their former workers? They headed for the service sector, along with their wives, to keep up on the mortgage payment, keep the kids in Catholic school and pay for the health insurance the family had lost.
Tuesday, these ex-Reagan Democrats came out to vote against some guy from Bain Capital they had been told in ads all summer was a big-time outsourcer who wrote in 2008, “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt!”
Yes, the simplest explanation is often the right one.
It may be all over for elephants… people have figured a lot out
Brings to mind the movie “In the Valley of Elah” in which the movie ends with Tommy Lee Jones putting the American flag upside down.
You are missing the point. We all pay sales tax and from that accrue certain government services, yes that is correct. Property owners pay property taxes from which certain government services are paid for.
The point of the comment about paying no federal income tax, is not that they pay “no taxes” it is that they “pay no Federal income taxes”.
Those who have no skin in the game have absolutely no reason not to vote for every single possible benefit that might be funded by the Federal Income tax. In fact they have a very good reason to vote for extravagant benefits since they do not contribute in any way to their funding.
In that case you create a “tragedy of the commons” with regard to Federal taxation. They are getting benefits which are completely unconnected from their taxation — hence they are stealing from those who are paying for those benefits.
We who believe in small government and reasonable taxation have considerable empathy with the person on a fixed income or operating near poverty. We understand and agree that the person living at the poverty line has less means to pay taxes and should pay at a lower rate than someone who has more disposable income — but they “should” pay something even if it is a levy of only $10.00 per year. That way if they vote for some new benefit funded by Federal Income taxes they must consider the cost benefit of their tax levy going up as a consequence of their vote. Is the new benefit worth the increase in their Federal taxes?
Without some skin in the game they have no reason to limit their “please gimme” requests from the government. They (human nature being what it is) will gradually inevitably increase their benefits because they have no cost to them. Few of them will be economically literate enough to realize that that cost does not come from trees but is being pulled out of some one else’s pocket and that pocket is not bottomless.
This scenario is being played out as we speak in Greece, as the public is clamoring for benefits that are simply beyond the means of the government to provide, but they have become so accustomed and habituated to those benefits that in spite of the fact that without the austerity measures their government will surely collapse, they are insisting that the government stop the only rational action which will stave off the collapse. They are like drug addicts who want their fix regardless of the cost.
Even if the Federal government took 100% of the income of the wealthy in this country in taxes it would hardly make a dent in the current debt. The only way to pay the bills and reduce the debt is to broaden the base of the tax. Even nominal taxation of a very large tax base will raise lots of money, and it will cause the users of the Federal Government services to consider the true value received because “ALL” of them will have a vested interest in the tax bill.
More importantly is most do not realize the interest rate time bomb that is ticking out there right now. At the moment the only reason we can afford to cover the cost of financing our current debt is due to artificially low interest rates. If the debt remains as it currently is or worse yet increases, some day in the not so distant future when interest rates return to more typical rates (the Fed cannot hold them down for ever), the cost of debt service will balloon like a loan from an inner city loan shark. Geometric growth due to compounding interest is a relentless and unforgiving foe if you are on the wrong end of the deal. I remember when in the late 1970’s early 1980’s typical home loan interest rates were over 15% and some conventional collateralize loans went above 20% interest.
For the Federal Government, if the interest on the national debt climbs to something like 4% -5% interest rate instead of the current low rates, the debt becomes unserviceable at any tax rate.
The only option then is to either default on the debt or inflate the currency enough to make it manageable (which will in turn drive up interest rates). At that point it becomes a race between interest rates and inflation to see which part of the system collapses first, the economy due to inflation or the service on the debt due to interest rates. One or the other will be the logistic limit and put a hard stop on the countries economy and a severe crash will follow.
Larry
Here in Australia to show patriotism by flying the flag is taken as a sign of “racism”
The liberal narrative is that only white supremacists would fly the flag in their yard.
“Somehow, the progressive wisdom has decided that those who fly Australian flags are “racists” rather than “nationalists”. So the word nationalism is now, in informed circles, code for the word racism. To add insult to injury, it seems those who fly Australian flags are less intelligent than those who don’t. Intelligent people are “global citizens” who do not fly flags or admit to being Australian when travelling overseas in case they should be accused of being “racist”. If caught out in a social situation in Europe or the United Kingdom, with regard to our treatment of refugees or Aborigines the progressives can claim to be “ashamed to be Australian” and thus maintain their global integrity.”
http://www.quadrant.org.au/magazine/issue/2012/3/beware-the-global-citizen
Patrick McCauley
“Meanwhile, Republicans retained their grip on the House, which has voted more than 30 times to repeal the ACA, Obama’s signature legislation.”
ericgrimsrud writes of “sunshine patriots”. I suspect that is projection. What branch of the military did you serve in, G?
Ah lemonade, which children are no longer free to make and to sell.
But as John Perna says “The battle for freedom is never won–and never lost.”
Even after we won the American Revolution, we had to cope with the Alien and Sedition Act.
And even after this electoral disaster, TSA fondling children, and so many other losses of freedom, and threat to life via Obamacare–the battle for freedom continues.
Go to http://www.constitution.org/col/one_room_schoolhouse.htm and print it out. There you will see that loss of freedom and an infantile electorate were predicted decades ago as a result of a change to USA’s educational system. The last one-room schoolhouse was in Tennessee in 1962. A PUBLIC school produced 80% National Merit Scholars. Beginning with private schools, we can put that system back. And our freedoms will return along with it–because we will be worthy of them.
Jeff in Calgary says:
November 9, 2012 at 11:55 am
Up here in Canada, I am cheesed off with our $5 Billion deficit. We need to fix that. I hate the fact that voters are stealing from my kids and grandkids. It is imoral!
I can not even comprehend 1.5 trillion. But you know what is really crazy? Most Euopean countries are even worse off.
It’s 16 trillion and counting
Meistersinger says:
November 9, 2012 at 8:30 am
A M Priestas is probably right. The people who don’t take what “they” say about climate or nutrition as gospel are probably likely to be generally s[ck]eptical about everything. A healthy attitude, if not taken to extremes.
_________________________________
Agreed.
The beauty of the internet is you can check out what someone has told you and read all sides of the issue. IMHO anyone who takes what is said on radio, TV or in a newspaper as gospel is an idiot. Now thanks to the internet we actually have a chance of getting closer to the truth.
“Election is over. Get over it. Move on. Learn to make lemonade.”
………….
That remark comes across as akin to, “Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.”
My reply is, Think so? You have much to learn.
D Böehm says:
November 9, 2012 at 3:09 pm
After Reagan was elected the country enjoyed twenty five years of prosperity. He slashed income taxes, which in turn generated much more government income, not less. He cut corporate tax rates, too.
If the same thing were done today, the result would be the same.
You’re a believer in the Laffer curve I see.
Reagan inherited a budget deficit of 2.7% of GDP, during his administration the deficit averaged 4.2% of GDP. While he reduced the top rates of income tax he increased taxes at the lower end, he also greatly increased public spending with the result that the National debt increased from $997 billion to $2.85 trillion. Thus the Us went from being the world’s largest creditor to the world’s largest debtor! Reagan actually raised taxes more times than he cut them.
Perhaps we’d do better to follow Clinton’s policies which reduced the deficit so much it became a surplus and he reduced federal spending?
Phil. says:
November 9, 2012 at 5:23 pm
###
Maybe you [ought] to not get your facts to Rachel madcow and learn some real history.
[“from” Maddow? Mod]
Someone called ugagoff up above said he’s reconsidering his position on climate issues because of the political opinions held by some WUWTers!!!
Now as they say ‘there’s’ your problem.
One’s opinion on the Global Warming issue should be based entirely on careful consideration of the mountains of reliable scientific and historical evidence demonstrating its speciousness…not on any commonly shared or communal beliefs.
Makes me think that maybe ugagoff is actually a Warmist here pretending to be ‘disappointed’ at WUWTers who, in my experience, seem quite capable of thinking for themselves!
“except as a signal of dire distress in instances of extreme danger to life or property”
That sounds like the situation we are in now here in the USA – in the next 4 years and much longer as you won;t be able to git rid of these progressive laws, regulations, directives & court orders, etc.
A fine strawman there, Phil. Let me explain:
When income tax rates decline, federal revenue increases, and vice-versa. Laffer was proven to be right, because that is exactly what happened then, and what is happening now.
If you believe the economy didn’t prosper for a couple of decades following 1980, then I can’t help you.
Looking at the bigger picture, the Depression of 1919 started out every bit as severe as the Great Depression of the 1930’s. But President Harding took the right measures [as Volcker did under Reagan]. Unemployment was over 12% going into 1920. Harding promptly laid off 60% of the federal work force and slashed federal spending by 60%. Within 18 months unemployment was under 3%, and the country headed into its most prosperous decade ever: the Roaring Twenties.
Those lessons were forgotten under Hoover and FDR, who both handled it badly — just like the Administration is handling this economy badly. Japan has been making the same blunders, and has remained in painful deflation since 1989.
The current U.S. Great Recession has already lasted far longer than any other postwar recession. QE-1, QE-2 and QE-3 have all been miserable failures. What have we got to show for many more $Trillions in debt? Actual [U-6] unemployment is close to 25%, going by the way unemployment used to be figured before the BLS “adjusted” it’s methodology.
The correct fixes are available. But the country has taken the wrong direction, and as a direct result we will have a sick economy for a long time.
Thomas T wrote;
“Going John Galt is a quaint high school level notion, embraced by disenfranchised adults.”
No, not at all. I was planning on working for many more years, I love my craft (designing satellites that keep an eye on our enemies, YES we have enemies, no matter how many times you apologize to them some people will always hate the USA), it’s important and contributes to the safety of this nation and our allies. I don’t have to work, I’m one of those that made good choices and could end a many decade career tomorrow. I’ll be going John Galt soon, I refuse to work hard and give the proceeds to those that will not. Early Retirement Here I Come………….
That’s the fatal flaw in the Marxist theory, they assume that we will all just keep working and handing over the money. It’s not going to work out that way. We will see continued shrinkage of the “maker” class, and the “takers” will wonder what happened to all the “free” stuff they were promised.
“from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs”…………… My abilities can go to zero faster than anybody else’s needs can grow.
Cheers, Kevin
Apologies to Anthony, but you did open this barn door at your otherwise fine website.
I may not agree with what some do in this country, but I am happy to have the freedom to agree or disagree with the effort they put forth as long as they don’t break the law.
Just sayin, those who don’t have that privilege truly understand what the word freedom means.
Perhaps it would be useful to look at the real numbers, the budget surplus that Clinton alledgedly left Bush is an accounting trick the national debt never went to zero during his term, it only changed from money borrowed from public debt instruments to money borrowed from social security fund.
http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/craigsteiner/2011/08/22/the_clinton_surplus_myth/page/full/
Larry
Couple of relevant things to point out here.
Reagan DID cut tax rates, which DID directly and immediately lead greatly increased federal revenue and a tremendous growth in the economy, BUT the democrats who held both House and Senate lied to him, broke their promise to reduce spending increases, even to the point of increasing the rate that they were increasing spending! THAT latter point is why the deficit increased under democratic Congresses. As usual.
“Clinton” did NOTHING to improve the economy, which continued with low growth and anemic performance from 1992 (before his election under a three-way split vote with Ross Perot) through 1994.
ONLY after Newt Gingrich won the House and REDUCED spending in 1994 did the economy grow – spurred also by the increased “bubble” from the newly arriving digital media and potential. “Clinton’s” economic growth slowed, then stopped completely and began to recede in late 2000 —- BUT, the federal spending steadily rose as the democrats threw Gingrich out of power on trumped up political pressure.
Bush’s errors were NOT fighting the rise in spending domestically, NOT fighting the corruption and prejudices within the departments of the Interior, HHS, and EPA/NOAA/NASA/etc that both prompted and promoted their CAGW theories. As soon as Pelosi – through the media’s sexual obsessions and exaggerations in mid-2006 of alleged republican spending and scandals – took over the House and taxes and spending in 2007-2008, the economic collapse of summer 2008 became a certainty. A requirement actually, since the economic collapse of 2008 was needed to elect Obama socialists.
But their socialist beginnings were laid back in 1932 with Roosevelt, increased under Johnson in his Great SOciety, and re-inforced under Pelosi (and an gullible Bush!) in 2007-2008.
—
Enron’s collapse in early 2000’s came about BECAUSE Bush did NOT continue to prop up the illegal finances that Clinton’s department ignored.
—-
Perversely, the simple “hope” and optimism that Romney’s gains in September and October of 2012 led to his defeat (along with voter fraud – a separate story): As national “hope” for a republican president rose when the polls and early debates turned favorable, “hope” and expectations for a better economy rose, and the stock market and early unemployment numbers began to lower and businesses began PLANNING for new growth.
The first three days after this election? Already hundreds of different businesses have announced layoffs.
Roosevelt didn’t “cause” the great depression. But it lasted as long as it did ONLY BECAUSE of his near-socialist policies and the high taxes he demanded as he bought votes in contested states, ignored and reduced funding in opposition states, and ignored strongly democratic states.
We face four more years of stagnation and collapse.
Tucci78 says: @ November 9, 2012 at 10:40 am
Very well put. Thank you
There are those of us who can not stand either the Democrats OR the Republicans. From my point of view it is alway a choice of the lesser of two evils. If there is no other overriding concern I generally want to vote the incumbent out and put in a new little pigglet instead of the well entrenched hog.
It never ceases to amaze me that those completely behind one party or the other can not see neither party represent the man in the street.
ujagoff ( November 9, 2012 at 9:17 am) may I suggest you read Dr David M.W. Evans Guest post over at Jo Nova’s site on the regulating class. Dr Evans does a much better job of explaining the illusion created by the politicians and MSM. There is no real “left” vs “right” there is only the regulating class sucking at the government teat and the rest of us chumps who pay for what ever they want.
Consider this, Just how much money has traveled from the government coffers into the coffers of large Corporations?
This interview of the top political contributer to BOTH political parties by Mother Jones nailed it.
That is just ONE corporate giant. This type of story is repeated throughout the USA. Laws are not passed for the benefit of the environment or the people, they are passed to protect the corporate giants from competition and keep consumer prices high. ADM profits soar 550 percent as ethanol margins improve THAT is the real reason for the biofuel laws.
Want another one? Here is one that will turn your stomach SHIELDING THE GIANT: USDA’s “Don’t Look, Don’t Know” Policy It explains the manipulation behind the food contamination scare that was used to get the Food Safety Modernization Act passed.
This was covered up not only by the government but by the MSM. John Munsell told me his story was ready to print in a big New York mag, when the owner yanked the story.
This mess was ALLOWED to go on from 1996 until a Food Safety bill was passed. The US politicians, the people in the USDA, the mass media, the US corporations did not give a flip about the poor kids dieing in agony.
So yes I can understand why some might want to bring attention to the fact our country is in bad shape and it is only getting worse.
Larry Ledwick (hotrod) says:
November 9, 2012 at 6:17 pm
Perhaps it would be useful to look at the real numbers, the budget surplus that Clinton alledgedly left Bush is an accounting trick the national debt never went to zero during his term, it only changed from money borrowed from public debt instruments to money borrowed from social security fund.
http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/craigsteiner/2011/08/22/the_clinton_surplus_myth/page/full/
___________________________________________________________________________
I would offer the root/seed that produced the end result in the housing market that formed the economic climate we experience today as born from the Clinton years.
Do homework on the CRA.” Community Reinvestment Act”.
boehm quotes mencken:
“In other words, government is a broker in pillage, and every election is sort of an advance auction sale of stolen goods.”
so, mr boehm, who are the takers after all?
are those who were not plundered the villains?
my reasoning says the takers are the ones who plunder.
my reasoning says that those who support the pillagers are accomplices.
are those who submit the ones worthy of admiration?
my reasoning says that those who refuse to be complicit are the heroes.
it still amazes me that a person can unhinge his mind to swallow a contradiction bigger than his head.
refusal to surrender is not taking, mr boehm. it’s courage.
obedience is not reasoning but a default – a choice not to think.
neither a dean’s list nor a nobel prize constitute logical argument, mr boehm.
.
Flying the flag upside down was a fairly common protest gesture during the Vietnam War.
– MJM
The Liberal Democrat Progressers are a bit slow and mathematically challenged. They are in need of a free mathematics lesson to re-learn what they failed to grasp in high school math classes. The complete and total economic collapse of the USA will teach them a lesson they will never forget. Have a heart.
more soylent green! says:
November 9, 2012 at 1:43 pm
BTW: Sunday is the official Veteran’s Day in the USA (Monday is the observed day). Please fly your flags on Sunday in honor of our veteran’s, especially those who lost life and limb to protecting our freedoms.
_________________________________
THAT is the best comment yet!
gnomish,
You are off on wild tangents. I only pointed out the fact that half the country pays no federal income tax. That is a true statement.
Then I pointed out that every last one of those non-taxpayers takes federal handouts. Every one of them.
That makes them takers, and you are going of on your wild tangents because you simply cannot refute the factual statements I made. Next time you want to argue, cut and past my statement that you want to argue with. The rest are strawman fallacies because I never mentioned them. I made very simple to understand statements, and I stand by them.
Finally, if you feel the need to argue with H.L. Mencken, all I can say is good luck with that.
The Republic is in severe danger. Many may not believe this, but, those who do must be allowed their free speech. Those who don’t are also free to give their opinion of this practice that is spreading. Or is Barry’s work on denying our commentary on Islam already running over into other areas??
Thomas T. says:
November 9, 2012 at 2:18 pm
….People who pay no federal income taxes still pay taxes. They pay a lot of taxes, which are a burden given their limited income….
_______________________
You definitely have a point.
President Ronald Reagan 1975:
It’s really funny to see comments about gay marriage,pro-choice,saving the planet and religion.when the USA is 16 trillion in debt(soon to be nearly 18).This is what most countries have come to.
This is Nero fiddling while Rome burns.
Republicans need to stop trying to do the right thing.Let Obama have his higher taxes on the wealthy .It will eventually lead to 75 percent tax on the wealthy(France anybody).The day has to come when people realise the wealthy cannot fund millions of people from other countries that come for welfare or criminal activities(not saying they all do)as well as the percentage of their own citizens who are on welfare or into crime.Why draw it out?Let the chips fall for the next four years.
Let him have all he wants before millions more flood your country.It will take years of borrowing before it all implodes,but it will implode.It will be worse than Greece,because no country will have money for bail-outs.
Anyway here’s to me being wrong.I would gladly proclaim stupid thinking on my part if the Democrats have it right.
1) Wish I’d thought of that with the Aussie flag in 2010.
2) It would seem there are more than 47%
D Böehm says:
November 9, 2012 at 3:36 pm
Gunga Din,
I have lots of quotes saved, but this one is a real favorite:….
_______________________________
I love this H. L. Mencken quote, It seems so appropriate these days
The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.”
Speaking of appropriate quotes this one fits this week to a tee:
Would that we had journalists of his wit still writing.
ok, mr. boehm, please substantiate this statement you made:
” every last one of those non-taxpayers takes federal handouts. Every one of them.”
i’m prepared for you to now get very semantically clintonesque with your definition of ‘hand-out’
Why is everyone so angry about anything. Someone is not malicious or even evil because they do not believe in the same things you do. It did not used to be this way. Why is politics now an expression of anger?
One must look at the current state of elections as Sales 101. Logic is never a good road to take in sales. People do not buy on logic, they buy on emotion and the most prominent emotion is “what’s in it for me”. All successful salesmen know when you successfully present the answer to that question, the buyer takes action and makes the purchase. The Democrats successfully presented the American public with an answer they wanted to hear: they promised them everything, promised that it will come from “the rich” and sadly the majority cheered and swallowed it hook, line and sinker. So now elections must become a sales contest based on emotion rather than logic and intelligent thinking. That means the Democrats will always win.
Thomas T. says:
November 9, 2012 at 12:25 pm
Going John Galt is a quaint high school level notion, embraced by disenfranchised adults.
Call it whatever you like. Once it starts, it will only end in disaster for the moochers and the looters.
CG Nelson sez: “Makes me think that maybe ugagoff is actually a Warmist here pretending to be ‘disappointed’ at WUWTers who, in my experience, seem quite capable of thinking for themselves!”
Nope. Nice try though.
My point is that science, as it was taught to me, requires an absolute lack of bias in analysis of data, in the goals of the studies themselves, and in the way the results are communicated to the public. I’d believed that discussions here focussed on the science, and didn’t require rhetoric. And the comments here do not speak to unbiased analysis.
And now, in response to me daring to mention my dismay about the, to me, extreme responses to the election result, I’m getting attacked here. Geez, people! I’ve been arguing this cause along with you for years! I’m also concerned about the next four years. But I’m allowed to question things! Whether it’s Dems, GOP, or WUWT! To squash that reeks of Mann.
Incidentally, I didn’t vote for Obama. Or Romney. Wrote in Thomas Jefferson. Seriously. Couldn’t bring myself to vote for either candidate.
[Reply: No one is ‘squashing’ you. You are free to comment. But others are also free to express their opinions. In this way WUWT is different from alarmist blogs, most of which heavily censor comments that stray from their narrative. — mod.]
A weekly newsmagazine used those colors in its pre-election electoral vote projections and it caught on on the weekend talk shows and spread from there. I agree it’s absurd–but it would be inflammatory to associate “red” with liberal,” so it’s worked out for the best.
OK, gnomish, name one non-taxpayer who doesn’t take some form of taxpayer loot. Name just one. You can falsify my statement with one concrete, verifiable example.
See, that’s not even the issue. The issue is the fact that about one-half of the population pays zero federal income taxes, even though they have an income. They are the “takers” because they pay nothing in. They only take money from others.
OssQss says: @ November 9, 2012 at 6:49 pm
…I would offer the root/seed that produced the end result in the housing market that formed the economic climate we experience today as born from the Clinton years.
Do homework on the CRA.” Community Reinvestment Act”.
________________________________
Actually there were five new banking laws signed by Clinton that caused the present collapse.
He signed the law that repealed the McFadden Act of 1927, the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 and the Bank Holding Company Act of 1956 this lead to the Formation of the “Too-Big-to-fail” Mega Banks. As well as the Housing and Community Development Act of 1992, he is also responsible for the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000. These two laws are responsible for marginal mortgage loans doomed to fail and the unregulated CDSs used to insure the banks against foreclosure. see the list at Important Banking Legislation
NAFTA and WTO as well as actively working to get China into the WTO was the other half. See the US trade deficit graph It represents the billions of dollars of lost US wages. The Growing U.S. trade deficit with China cost more than 2.7 million jobs between 2001 and 2011
The biggest problem is the moves made a decade or more ago do not impact the country until today and the wrong bunch gets the blame because the media spouts propaganda and very few bother to dig out the truth.
On another note, this is a rather interesting essay from a government employee in 2010: I work for the government and I am NOT the enemy and goes with this article Plot to Overthrow U.S. Government Part of Rising Domestic Extremism
As the Chinese curse goes “May you live in interesting times”
D Boehm says:
Another myth. Here is the truth about the effect of the Reagan tax cuts (and the GW Bush tax cuts): http://www.frontiernet.net/~jshore/Federal%20Revenues%20in%20Constant%20Dollars.pdf It is a graph that I made a few years ago using the U.S. Federal Budget tables. The myth is based on 3 misunderstandings:
(1) You can’t get an accurate picture if you do not correct for inflation. People think inflation went down under Reagan, which is true, but even 7% inflation will double prices in 10 years. Hence, you need to look at revenues in constant dollars.
(2) Reagan did not only cut income taxes…He also raised social security taxes. So, social security revenues increased a lot, offsetting some of the more anemic behavior of the personal income tax revenues. Hence, looking at all revenues rather than just personal income tax revenues is deceiving if you want to illustrate that cutting taxes increases revenues.
(3) Yes, real revenues from personal income taxes did eventually recover to 1981 levels several years after Reagan’s tax cuts (in 1987 to be exact). However, taking credit for the fact that eventually revenues exceeded pre-tax-cut levels is like the rooster taking credit for the sunrise. Revenues always will eventually grow over time since the economy grows over time, if for no other reason than population growth (although it also tends to grow over time in per capita terms too).
And, as my graph showed, when we repeated the same experiment with the G.W. Bush tax cuts just because some people with weak math skills hadn’t absorbed the lesson we learned the first time, we got the same result, as my graph shows. In fact, personal income tax revenues in real terms have to this day not surpassed what they were in either 2000 or 2001.
The problem with the ideologues on your side of the political spectrum is that you have abandoned all connection with reality, facts, and science. If the poll numbers don’t tell you what you want to hear, you find pollsters who do or you “unskew” the polls to correct them so that they tell you what you want to hear. If the scientists don’t tell you what you want to hear, you find a few who will or you invent your own “science” to tell you what you want to hear. If the weapons inspectors don’t tell you what you want to hear, you ignore them and invade Iraq anyway and get your nation into a quagmire costing thousands of American lives.
How’s this all working out for you?
D Boehm says:
(1) Many of those people pay federal payroll taxes because they actually work for a living rather than getting most of their money from unearned income (taxed at lower rates than most of us in the middle class pay on our incomes).
(2) Most of those people pay state taxes, be they sales taxes or property taxes (paying the latter indirectly if they rent), and these taxes are actually regressive, hitting the poor with a higher percentage of their income than the wealthy.
(3) Some of those people are retirees who worked hard and paid taxes for many years. Others of them are military veterans who are now disabled after having made the ultimate sacrifices to protect the freedoms we all now enjoy (even if some were put in harms way by dubious choices by our national leaders).
But, hey, if you want to continue to promulgate Romney’s 47% sort of nonsense, then be my guest. I am sure it will do a whole heck of a lot to insure that you remain in a political party that is in the minority at the national level (and who probably would have lost Congress too if not for gerrymandered districts).
ujagoff says:
November 9, 2012 at 7:59 pm
=================
Your attempts to stir the pot, have gone for not.
Tom Gray says:
November 9, 2012 at 7:50 pm
Why is everyone so angry about anything. Someone is not malicious or even evil because they do not believe in the same things you do. It did not used to be this way. Why is politics now an expression of anger?
___________________________
Because we are frightened.
Whether you are a Democrat, Republican or an Independent the hemorrhaging of jobs, the housing crash, the 23% unemployment rate, 16 Trillion dollar federal debt, climate change, and unsafe food have shaken people out of their apathy. Even my perpetually happy husband is worried. Life is no longer the nice safe cocoon it was and the political parties who lead us down the garden path are now the target of the collective anger. Since we can not go up to the US president or even our reps in Congress and call them stupid idiotic Horses rears without having the FBI knocking on the door the next day we are taking our rage out on each other.
It is the well planned “Lets you and he fight, while I grab the cash and run” with the MSM fanning the flames as always. Think about it. Before 2008 when was the last time you heard or read anything about racism? Now it is back in the news all the time.
mr boehm, what document contains this statement:
“He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.”?
(hint- it was not the Declaration of Submission)
mr boehm – if you count yourself a happy taxpayer, you are among those to blame for this because you finance the harassers, plunderers and devourers of human life.
without the contributions of the faithful and cowardly submissive, this massive plundering would be impossible – it wouldn’t pay. it would be unsustainable ™
when you and the rest stop paying for it, then and only then will it stop.
who hires the hit man is an accomplice. it is just that simple.
your taxes are your contribution, your vote, your assent.
alan greenspan estimated that citizens see a return of about a nickel in value on every dollar paid in taxes.
to imagine that nickel is a gift is outrageous mischaracterization.
or will you be praising john wayne gacey’s clown costume and jeffrey dahmer’s appetite?
tom:
i can only speak for myself, but perhaps we are angry because politics is deadly and we love life?
mr boehm.
i have not filed since 1976 after i read Atlas Shrugged.
i don’t take stolen goods.
i falsify your premise.
there are others like me.
and more to come.
ujagoff says:
November 9, 2012 at 7:59 pm
….My point is that science, as it was taught to me, requires an absolute lack of bias in analysis of data, in the goals of the studies themselves, and in the way the results are communicated to the public. I’d believed that discussions here focussed on the science, and didn’t require rhetoric. And the comments here do not speak to unbiased analysis….
__________________________
There are people on this site who I disagree with on politics but who I respect greatly when it comes to science. Unfortunately Climate Science has gotten badly tangled up with politics and the corporations who want to make a buck by ripping off the tax payer. That has nothing to do with right/left politics it just is. WUWT did not do it so if you want to complain send a complaint to you reps in Congress and to the UN.
I am convinced that if the Democrats had not supported CAGW then the Republicans would. Heck it was Bush II that got Maurice Strong into Kyoto as chairman!
At 9:00 PM on 9 November, Gail Combs had written:
I beg strenuously to differ. It has absolutely everything “to do with right/left politics,” and there is no way to argue otherwise unless one confuses the Republican Party with the “right” in American politics.
This the Republican Party has never been.
Categorizing the “right/left” split in American politics as a contest between the Red Faction and the Blue Faction is a false dichotomy, presented as a way to foreclose consideration and action on the basis of substantive differences in the role government – the police power, the agency responsible for “breaking things and killing people” – properly and viably function in the civil society of our republic.
This is so fundamental a consideration that it should seem obvious to anyone reading here, whether drawn to WUWT for the “science” of the AGW fraud or because of the AGW fraud’s role in political “legal plunder.” (see Bastiat, The Law, 1850).
Unfortunately, most people reading here are either ill-educated (actually maleducated, deliberately taught falsehoods) or bloody idiots, providing demonstration of the fact that a Stanford-Binet IQ score of 100 – i.e., pretty goddam stupid – is the statistical average, meaning that at least half of our countrymen in the republic are dumber than that.
Makes participatory democracy something of a farce from the git-go, doesn’t it?
The “marching morons” effect aside for the moment, the real difference between the “left” and the “right” in American politics is that real American conservatism defines the legitimate role of government (again, keep focus upon the police power) so narrowly as to make its potential for adverse impact very low.
That attitude is expressed in an observation traditionally attributed to George Washington, that “Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force,” and force, like fire, is a deadly servant and a terrible master.”
The American “left” hold that government is a wonderful means to do “good” in American society, chiefly by holding Americans at gunpoint and forcing them to behave as the politicians of the American “left” have determined they should.
This says nothing, of course, about the ability of those leftie politicians to figure out what’s “good” for the people they’re holding at gunpoint.
Under the ministrations of the American “left” we get Vox populi, vox dei (or, as Mencken once put it: “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard”).
Ms. Combs had gone on to write:
Because the Republican Party is in no genuine sense – at all – a genuine political expression of the American “right” (i.e., those of us who see the benefit of federal governance limited by rule of law as strictly defined in the U.S. Constitution), this is absolutely and incontrovertably correct. As I’d said, the Republican Party has never supported the rule of law, and has been since its inception the “court party” in American politics.
To the extent that the “man-made climate change” hysteria can be made to benefit the interests served by the Republican Party – the false front employed today to obliterate the political presence of the genuine American “right” in government at all levels – the poo-bahs of the Red Faction would embrace this preposterous bilge with all the enthusiasm of any other species of snake-oil salesman intent upon gulling the marks out of the pelf in their pockets.
Back to Mencken again for the close? Why not?
gnomish:
Continue to rant about things I never wrote about. You can’t help yourself. I understand.
.
joelshore, my favorite strawman assembler! Point out where I ever mentioned anything except federal income taxes. Otherwise, as usual you lose the argument with your strawman fallacy.
If you would stick to the points I made, you would be in way over your head. So you changed the subject. No wonder you have no credibility.
I think they’re just saying that, with the reelection of Obama, America is we knew it is all over. It’s going to be just another socialist state whose people have no conception of the principles of limited government on which America was founded. Anyone want to buy some carbon credits?
gnomish says:
“i falsify your premise.”
Not really.
You know, I might even agree with your point of view, if I understood it.
To falsify my premise, you only need to provide one verifiable identity of someone who pays no federal income taxes, but who also takes no taxpayer-provided loot. Name just one.
All the rest of the comments, both yours and joelshore’s, are an army of strawman comments, arguing with something I never said. [Not that I’m comparing you with joelshore. I’m not trying to be derogatory.]
A book that can be of help understanding the new reality is Dinesh D’Souza’s “The Roots of Obama’s Rage”, or start with the movie “2016: Obama’s America”.
Who is John Galt?
I am a liberal and was very pleased with the election results on Tuesday. I am also a skeptic when it comes to climate change. I come to WUWT for updates on new scientific research as well as the immeasurably convenient data pages that Anthony has put together. It distresses me to see this place become overtly political. I understand that climate change has been hopelessly politicized and avoiding politics is impossible… but what the heck does people desecrating the American flag in a fit of post election woe-is-me boo-hooery have to do with climate science?
I think a better strategy is to try and appeal to liberals who believe the CAGW hype. I think you can make a compelling argument using data and scientific research to convince people without having to demand conservative purity as part of the bargain. I like Barack Obama and I like science that is unfettered by ideology.
@John
Unlike some of the other country’s represented here, the D’s haven’t taken the R’s guns away, yet. The supreme leader of the D’s is trying to collapse the country to bring about his socialist utopia. Things won’t end well for the D’s.
The GOP lost because their message (at least the part the MSM allowed) sounded just like the Democrat message. The only difference was Obama played Santa Claus (thanks Rush) to his selected diversities. What Mitt ignored was that he had a much better “message” to promote: the GOP platform. Instead of running on that platform, however, he ran FROM IT every time he was challenged about a Conservative principle!
Any GOP “geniuses” reading here: next time actually have your candidate run on the platform and forget trying to entice the Latino vote, or the woman vote, or whatever. Also, make it a MAJOR part of your ads to explain your opponent’s DISMAL FAILED RECORD! Those of us of a more libertarian bent, and likely many independents, would have gladly voted for a true Conservative. Instead we got John McCain warmed over with an energy drink in his hand! Sheesh!!! I had to bite my lip almost as hard as I did for McCain to cast my vote for Romney.
Now we are in a true Constitutional crisis and flying the American flag inverted is desperately appropriate! Next to it in my yard is the (right side up) flag of the Republic of Texas! (and the aforementioned Gadsden flag) Send assistance quickly!
Another note to the GOP geniuses: the GOP boat sank already! You can stop shooting holes below the waterline!
The problem with the ideologues on your side of the political spectrum is that you have abandoned all connection with reality, facts, and science. If the poll numbers don’t tell you what you want to hear, you find pollsters who do or you “unskew” the polls to correct them so that they tell you what you want to hear. If the scientists don’t tell you what you want to hear, you find a few who will or you invent your own “science” to tell you what you want to hear. If the weapons inspectors don’t tell you what you want to hear, you ignore them and invade Iraq anyway and get your nation into a quagmire costing thousands of American lives.
How’s this all working out for you?
———————————————————————————————————————-
I heard a segment today on how the Republicans and Fox were really convinced the math and science of the polls were biased, and they expected that Romney would win by five points.
Meanwhile Jon Stuart had a statistician on who got it right.
I know enough about science, math and stats to know this is not the case on CAGW. Got to admit though, it does not help our arguement.
u.k. (us) sez:
“Your attempts to stir the pot, have gone for not.”
…………………….
Guess I’ve gone against The Consensus.
Look. I’m not trying to “stir” anything. I guess I’m just disappointed. I thought I knew who to trust. Now I’m questioning everyone. As I guess I should.
DesertYote says:
November 9, 2012 at 5:41 pm
[“from” Maddow? Mod]
###
Yes.
ah, mr boehm…
one doesn’t give out personal info on the internet.
loot is a good choice of words, though.
is it that you really don’t know anybody who is not a looter like your verifiable self?
While many may interpret the election as a cause for the Nation to be in distress, this Nation has been in distress since at least 9/11/2001, and probably a decade or two before that.
Simply considering the national debt, unfunded liabilities, and energy problems are just the start of the interpretation the distress.
IMHO, WUWT is not doing itself any favours by associating itself with political extremism as exhibited in various posts above. Anyway, in for a penny, in for a pound:
As someone who followed the US election with a great deal of interest from Australia several things struck me as being, well, different from we would expect as normal or reasonable here:
(1) The Republican candidate nominee process dragged the GOP way off-centre. From over here some of the candidates who got a trot looked plain bizarre. From a party point of view, extreme social conservatism means you get the extreme social conservative vote. The rest gets turned off.
(2) The successful nominee then, inevitably, had to drag himself back to the centre to some extent. This inevitably meant that the successful nominee had to have had at least two positions on everything. Lots of voters noticed that despite 6 years of Romney presence, they still didn’t really know what his policies were or which of his policies on an issue was the real policy. Deadly stuff for a candidate, IMHO.
(3) Mr Romney talking about the Mount of Olives being split in two come the judgement day just would not cut it Down Under. Lots of sensible folk here would have been thinking, ‘Is this guy for real?’ They certainly wouldn’t be giving him the trigger to enough nukes to destroy earth.
(4) It is little wonder that Mr Romney frightened off a lot of the women’s vote. That had nothing to do with ‘marxism’ (really? have you read Marx?), debt, taxes or war. It had everything to do with women not wanting a bunch of old guys regaining control over women’s bodies. I notice that every candidate who made some sort of weirdo-type rape statement lost… I wonder how many votes they dragged from Romney?
(5) Post election the Republicans are talking about star hispanic candidates. I’ll give them the real clue: they are going to have to stop hassling hispanics and latinos as if they are not welcome in the US. And if, to the Republicans, latinos and hispanics are not welcome, well then, they are not going to vote for the Republicans, are they?
(6) You have an economy that is staggering under the weight of huge debt with a very, very fragile recovery. What does Mr Romney do? Promise a trade war with China. Right. Good idea.
There is a generally accepted truism in politics here that oppositions don’t win elections, governments lose them.
IMHO, Mr Romney turned that back-to-front. This election was for the Republicans to win. They lost it by seriously putting the frighteners into afro americans, latinos, hispanics and women. If the Republicans don’t want to learn that lesson this time, fine. The statistics are brutally honest on this. If the GOP ignores the stats, they will get the same lesson again in 2016.
Banging on about flags, Sandy, the MSM, marxism or any of that sort of rubbish won’t change any of that at all because it is irrelevant.
As for upside down, half mast American flags: I don’t care. Not my flag. We have our own flag and I have never seen one upside down. If you hung your flag upside down here people would think you have a funny sense of humour and probably that you are not treating it properly.
OTOH, half mast is usually only for when very important people pass away and it is a national, not a personal signal. It is sometimes used to signal to other nations that we are in national mourning and, if I recall correctly, Australian flags flew at half-mast as a mark of respect to the US following September 11. I prefer this approach to the upside-down half mast stuff that you have discussed above.
These are my thoughts: Citizens must communicate – no.1, whether by flag or somehow else (non-violent, please). My flag was out everyday – until 9/11-2012, whereupon I retired it for a better time. After such an event as our own Administration encouraging the development of a situation leading to the violent killing of our own Ambassador and citizens on our own official foreign soil, then not sending any effective support for them as they were attacked and/or for the immediate reclaiming our soil (therefor leaving the scene to be irreversibly disturbed and desecrated), I could no longer display any support for such an Administration but work for it’s replacement. My flag will be at the ready to be flown when justice is finally done.
I will fly the flag on days specific, of course, such as on Sunday – Veteran’s Day, just not daily. The lawmakers and Administrators must once again earn enough of the people’s respect before my flag flys.
Yes, the economy must recover, however, many of us see severe difficulties for some time while the Left agenda continues to be achieved. Economic recovery will happen when responsibility and accountability returns to U.S. society at recognizable levels. Unfortunately, I believe this may be difficult to achieve.
Responsibility and accountability is much more difficult to elicit in a society where “free stuff” has become the “new normal”. This has nothing to do with race, gender, age, religion – it has been, and is, universally applicable generally to nearly all humans in various degree.
The U.S. Constitution has been abused (the “commerce clause”, etc.) and our laws irresponsibly micromanaging.
Without borders we have no country. Border defense must be another primary achievement. It can be a reality. Eisenhower made it happen, it can be achieved again – maybe a little differently, but as effectively.
Much must be recovered, even though the distractions (like AGW) abound to divert attention from the real challenges.
The U.S., as an ongoing experiment, must remain cognizant of our history and our hisorical struggles in order to grow – within the guidance of our carefully constructed Constitution.
Our Will will continue to be be severely tested for at least another couple of years, but Congress and the People must demand principled limitations to further “Totalitarian” overreaches around the Constitution and our Laws.
As struggle usually must precede success our reward may be truly great, perhaps as great as GW’s (George Washington’s) at Trenton allowing the rallying of troops leading to a decisive, successful promotion of reward through sufficient effort, responsibility and accountability.
Thank you, Anthony, for this opportunity
ujagoff…one of the amazing things about the era we live in is that the information you require to make your own mind up is freely available.
For example, when Warmists start squealing about Arctic Sea Ice, anyone can check the latest satellite data from Universities and Government organisations and even the US Navy!
When Bill Mc Kibben or Al Gore rant about extreme weather – simply refer to the US Bureau of Meteorology statistics which clearly show they’re lying.
Better still, if you’re really worried about who to trust, do a word search for the term ‘fudge’ on Climategate2 emails!
I may well hold views on certain issues that you find utterly repellant and vice versa but I don’t read WUWT to have my bias confirmed, I don’t belong to or wish to belong to any issue tribe.
Maybe you should ignore the comments section from now on and simply study the excellent scientific information in the side panels. Quiet sun, Arctic ice rebounding, Antarctic ice at record highs, Global temp anomaly at 0.3 C, El Nino/La Nina neutral etc etc.
It doesn’t matter what your political views are on other subjects. We don’t care here. They’re your business.
Trust yourself and be thankful that WUWT gives you the tools you need to make your own mind.
We are in a state of distress. A real state of emergency. The flags may fly upside down for the next four years, for all I care. My countrymen have betrayed the best interests of this country by re-electing the fool Barack the Usurper.
Gail Combs says:
November 9, 2012 at 8:46 pm
Tad says:
November 9, 2012 at 9:14 pm
I knew if I read far enough down this unusual (for this site) thread, I’d find that somebody was saying what I was thinking.
Gail Combs says: November 9, 2012 at 5:16 pm
Gail, I respectfully disagree. My experience is that such people tend to fall into one of two categories: Those whose experience of the media is rooted in the era during which one could actually trust such media and have failed (for various and sundry reasons) to recognize that the media paradigm has changed dramatically (if not significantly!) Others do so because they have grown up in an era during which the development of critical thinking skills has been conspicuous by its absence.
But, apart from the fact that I find labels unhelpful (although I confess to having used them myself on occasion), I wouldn’t call one who falls into either category “an idiot”. Gail, there are lots of intelligent people out there (including some of my best friends!) who are not connected to the Internet or who lack the skills to take advantage of what it offers.
As for the topic of this thread … As a Canadian, I had no vote; that being said, I do have an interest in how my neighbours vote, and I must say that I was very disappointed in the outcome.
IMHO, any country’s flag is a symbol in which its citizens can take pride (viz Olympic medal ceremonies, for example). So the view from here (so to speak!) is that those who have chosen to invert the flag at half-mast might well represent a flicker of the views of – permit me to invoke a phrase from the distant past – “the silent majority”.
Even though I doubt that I would ever have rooted for the one who – or whose speech-writer- popularized it, I never trusted tricky Dicky any more than I would trust the word of anyone who for twenty years sat silently and admiringly in the church of Rev. Jeremiah Wright..
But I digress …
Anthony’s observation of this symbolic gesture is one that I can appreciate and understand far more than whatever the over-hyped (in no small measure, thanks to the MSM’s unwarranted attention) “Occupy …” antics might have been intended to convey.
WUWT is the internet’s crown jewel prototype for passive (and sometimes active) citizen participation in good science. Ordinary people learn by watching you guys do what you do. The mix of politics and science seems about right.
That said, I’ll take this rare opening Anthony provided to agree with Peter Hodges and the 14 minute video he recommended. For those who missed it:
I was always told to fly a flag at half mast you raised it to the top and then down one third not have it halfway up the mast. This was the mistake many in the UK made after Diana died.
As M Courtney says:
November 9, 2012 at 8:19 am about “our flag” I thought that it was the blue touch paper for Europe.
James Bull
.
One of the great problems of the modern age, is that is such scrutiny of politicians and they are so poorly rewarded, that only a fool would strive to go into politics. Why face all that press intrusion and scrutiny, when you can become a CEO of a company or a banker, and earn ten times as much?
Thus the quality of politicians on both sides of the Atlantic has diminished with each passing generation.
.
hro001 says:
November 9, 2012 at 11:51 pm
….Gail, I respectfully disagree. My experience is that such people tend to fall into one of two categories: Those whose experience of the media is rooted in the era during which one could actually trust such media and have failed (for various and sundry reasons) to recognize that the media paradigm has changed dramatically (if not significantly!) Others do so because they have grown up in an era during which the development of critical thinking skills has been conspicuous by its absence…..
_______________________________
I figured out the Media was deliberately lying to the public before I was twenty and that was back in the 1960’s. In the USA we have not been able to trust the media for about 100 years. This was made very clear in the U.S. Congressional Record February 9, 1917, page 2947 by Congressman Calloway, a member of the [defense appropriations] committee.
Perhaps it is the US teachers of American history I should be annoyed with because here in our U.S. Congressional Record is information about important events leading up to the US involvement in WWI that is never ever taught in school.
Here is a more recent comment by historians Steve Fraser & Gary Gerstel, in the Chronicle of Higher Education (4-1-05):
The destruction of the US has been long term and deliberate. The news media and education were primary targets in this process.
However as WUWT shows, the strategy has only worked to some extent so the transformation process has been taken a step further by pronouncing our gifted students as having ADHD ( Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) otherwise known as being bored silly in state schools.
From The Scientific Review of Mental Health Practice
Also see http://www.ritalindeath.com/ and http://www.cchrint.org/2010/11/15/adhd-ritalin-–-brain-damage-heart-attacks-hallucinations-liver-damage/
So you are correct they are not idiots they have been deliberately brainwashed. Brainwashed not by ‘socialists’ but by the moneyed elite hiding behind the mask of socialism as a means of transferring wealth from the pockets of the man on the street into the pockets of the wealthy. The fact that some is allowed to dribble into the hands of the poor as a hook is only incidental to the real purpose.
See Archer Daniels Midland Co. for an example of what I mean.
The act of flying the flag upside down as a sign of as a signal of dire distress in instances of extreme danger to life or property could not be more appropriate today as the country faces continued trillion dollar deficits, a president that is conducting a war on domestic energy and intends to increase its ferocity in his second term. We have an educational system that is run by teachers’ unions and is failing our children, we have an undeniable socialist president who is intent on continuing his policies of wealth redistribution, open borders, massive regulation and taxing of business and industry and he was just re-elected by what must be the most ill-informed electorate in history.
Flying the flag upsided down is an understatement of the peril we face.
In politics, the economy, foreign policy, and lately science, everything boils down to oil & gas. It matters who has it, controls it and will fight & win wars to get it. The climate change game is an attempt to slow consumer use and get ready for future market control when there is less of it. The really big players in both sides of the climate argument are one and the same.
Didn’t finish my point: Those flying the distress signal probably don’t understand the purpose of the wars being fought. It isn’t socialism, patriotism, or morality. It is trying to avoid a return to the 19th century.
At 9:24 PM on 9 November, self-confessed “liberal” (and therefore enemy of human rights) Bryan S. closes with:
…thus demonstrating in yet another specimen that to be a “Liberal” (in the modern American political sense) one must obliterate the reasoned examination of ideas.
Those very few American “Liberals” who claim to oppose the AGW fraud on the basis of what they claim to understand of “scientific research” and their appreciation “that climate change has been hopelessly politicized” fail abysmally to apply any similar skepticism to their consideration the role of government in civil society.
Those who dismiss “ideology” prove reliably to be neurotically fixated on avoiding the consideration of the ideas they unreasoningly – indeed, perniciously – espouse, and that’s quite obviously because they know that those beloved ideas are vicious in their purpose to violate the individual human rights of their neighbors.
You Americans attribute far too much importance to the flag. It’s a piece of cloth. Patriotism very easily becomes xenophobia and fundamentalist zealotry.
Placing the flag upside down disrespects a banner known in every corner of this globe; a banner under which the blood of patriots was shed not for conquest but for the ideals of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. On this weekend especially, Veterans Day in the USA and Remembrance Day in Canada get that flag back the right way. Say a prayer for those who gave their lives for their country and save the politics for some other time.
@ JudyW
pffft. It’s classic conquest.
Leave the spin to schools.
Anyone wanna bet Obama will start a war in Iran or Syria by the end of his second term?
DesertYote says:
November 9, 2012 at 9:59 am
****
John says:
November 9, 2012 at 8:50 am
###
The reason the GOP has problems is because Marxist have infiltrated every single institution in the US. Our elementery schools are designed to create democrats, our high-schools, socialists and our universities, Marxists. Our News media, distorts and lies to paint the image that they want, completely embedded within the Marxist world-view. Its been this way since the 50′s.
Its so bad, that most Republicans themselves are entrapped within a Marxist world-view and don’t even know it.
****
Exactly. Even at my age I have to re-examine/correct ideas that were instilled by the neo-marxist education system, and that was the 60s-70s when it wasn’t nearly as suffocating.
http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/craigsteiner/2011/08/22/the_clinton_surplus_myth/page/full/
Incidentally this information is incomplete. I have newspaper clippings from 2000 and Clinton with Congress holding his feet to the fire did pay down debt for the first time in 70 years It was big news in the financial papers; it hadn’t been done since Hoover had done it in 1930. Clinton boasted that the debt would be paid off by 2013. The debt in 2000 was 5.7 trillion, oil was trading at a 9 year high of 34.37, and the Canadian dollar was worth 68.63 cents to the US dollar. Lately the 2 currencies have been close to par.
for 10 bonus points, who was it said:
‘we will barry you’
****
joeldshore says:
November 9, 2012 at 8:30 pm
The problem with the ideologues on your side of the political spectrum is that you have abandoned all connection with reality, facts, and science.
****
Hilarious. Project much?
John Says:
“But if we want to get a different result, the Rs have to appeal to a broader swath of people. That is the issue. What the Rs tried didn’t work — so how do they change it?”
Alex de Tocqueville (1835):
“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.”
In order to appeal to a larger swath of people, Republicans will have to promise more benefits from the public treasury, which they have done at times, making them virtually indistinguishable from Democrats. Those that might actually save the Republic, like Ron Paul, are easily marginalized in the reality of Tocqueville’s insight.
The reality is that the American people have been increasingly voting themselves the public treasury since FDR. Not only their treasury, but the treasury of their children and grand children, in a gross display of selfishness and stupidity.
The fate of this country has always been in the hands of the people, and the people are driving it rapidly to its doom. As soon as our lenders realize what is happening, they will brace themselves for the collapse and refuse to cover any more of our debt. The US will be bankrupt. There will be now way to pay for social security, medicaid, food stamps or any other welfare program. Civil unrest will explode. Martial law will be enacted, the Constitution will be suspended (even more than it already is) and we will transition to a dictatorship. The dictator will demonize those who refuse to cover our debt as the reason for the collapse and we will likely go to war; because military might is the only thing the US will have left.
It will not be the end of the world, just the world as we know it.
If there is a John Galt out there, he better move quickly. This could happen at any time. 2015 is my best guess, but no later than 2022.
Oh…and this is not a prophecy, it is simply pattern recognition; the lost art of the atmospheric sciences.
“Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759
Bryan S. says:
November 9, 2012 at 9:24 pm
… but what the heck does people desecrating the American flag in a fit of post election woe-is-me boo-hooery have to do with climate science?
============================================================
Those flying the flag upside down and at half staff are not desecrating the flag but expressing their disgust at what has happened to the principles of the nation that flag stands for.
This is desecrating the flag. This was done at a Florida county’s Democrat HQ.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/03/14/us-flag-depicting-president-obama-removed-from-floridas-lake-county-democratic/
Very interesting discussion. Good points from pretty much everyone.
To simplify the discussion, it seems that “takers” refers to people who want to be housed and fed by the state, while producing nothing.
There are those who work hard and earn what they have, which is gratifying and fulfilling despite being very difficult at times.
I could never sit on my duff and wait for my government check to arrive. I was not raised this way. It does not fulfill me. I enjoy earning my money and “producing” something. In Canada, I have the opportunity to not get up in the morning and get after it.
America, correction, all the world has get up in the morning and get after it, ESPECIALLY if they don’t have to.
And I thought my wife started all of this. Our flag is upside down and half mast here in San Clemente, CA. I am surrounded by an endless sea of blue here in Southern California but even my Democratic neighbors thought flying my flag upside down was quite humorous.
gnomish says:November 10, 2012 at 6:43 am
for 10 bonus points, who was it said:‘we will barry you’
That was ole Nikki K. on a UN podium…
If the main stream media suddenly starts focusing on the Benghazi consulate attack, now that the David Petraeus affair is out, it might be wise to watch what the “other hand” is doing while the misdirection diversion is in full play.
The timing is just a bit too perfect for this story to break just now, right after the election to push coverage of Sandy recovery chaos off the front page, and to also occur just prior to the CIA director appearing before Congress. This administration has repeatedly put up smoke screens by throwing a sop to the media while they are scurrying around in the shadows doing something they don’t want the general public to notice.
Larry
Those who think Obama’s re-election represents a dark day in U.S. history aren’t seeing the big picture. Our once great nation has long passed the tipping point and has been in a death spiral since long before Obama’s election.
Doug says:
November 9, 2012 at 8:45 am
“It is very common here among those who hate democracy, particularly when it does not give them the answer THEY wanted.”
Don’t know where you are but the USA is not a democracy, or was at least not intended to be one. It is a constitutional republic which has, unfortunately, over the years learned to ignore its constitution to a great extent. Democracies are basically mob rule and do not last very long before the mob, seeking free stuff, destroys the economy. See History for the proof of this fact.
Unfortunately, george.e.smith’s intemperate response to my comment, illustrates a lot about what is wrong with modern Republicanism. I didn’t say I was “proud to be British”, though I might if Britain had stayed out of the war in Iraq, which was quite unnecessary and destabilising.
Moreover, the war in Iraq (which is certainly not ‘won’ by any reasonable definition) effectively meant that the war in Afghanistan became un-winnable, except by the hideous Taleban!
Sadly, so many of the Middle Eastern problems have been created by previous US meddling. For example, the Shah of Iran was backed by the US (as, of course was Saddam Hussein for many years!), and effectively created the hatred of the West that we now see in that country. Romney would probably support an attack on Iran to get rid of its nuclear potential, but again that would create even more visceral hatred of the West – possibly ending up in still worse terrorism.
Fighting ‘climate change’ is an absurdity, and if the GOP had spent more time demolishing that myth, it might have been in power now
Mr gnomish, is English your first language? I can’t make head nor tails of what you are saying.
Dave says: “Election is over. Get over it. Move on. Learn to make lemonade.”
………….
That remark comes across as akin to, “Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.”
My reply is, Think so? You have much to learn.
thanks Dave for saying what I thought.!!!!!
@Bryan S. who says: It distresses me to see this place become overtly political This is one blog/obervation from Anthony whereby he warned those not to come here if they didn’t want to talk politics. Why are you here?
I was going to expound on the comments on democracy–but then Sailorcurt spoke for me. Thank you for the great insigts put so succiently, “Democracy is nothing more than mob rule and means that if 51 percent of the population decides that the other 49 percent should be enslaved…so be it.
Democracy is not something to be desired, emulated or held in esteem.”
“Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.” –Benjamin Franklin
***********************************
Sun Spot says: “You…are going to have to work together in some sort of social tolerant manner.” You mean “Producers….are going to have to work for recipients in some sort of social tolerant manner.”
There, fixed.
Don’t forget the European meddling in the Middle East that set up the current situation.
The Germans encouraged revival of radical Islam (1898 German Kaiser declared he was the protector of the worlds Muslims and endorsed Pan-Islamism in the hope it would encourage revolts against the British by the Islamic populations of the Middle East, during the period leading up to WWI)
The British and French colonization of the region and the subsequent arbitrary country boundaries that did not reflect natural historical divides, creating Countries that were per-destined to be at each others throats for a hundred plus years. The European Crusades laid the ground work for the 1000+ year war between the Muslims and non-Muslim world.
It is a bit hypocritical for Europe to conveniently ignore the blood on their own hands in the middle east while pointing at the U.S. and claiming it is our fault and of recent origin.
Larry
Not really. Here’s a good example of people who divorced themselves from the facts: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahsiPdvpEJM&feature=share
Only one side denied the reality of polls showing their candidate not doing so well. Only side has denied the conclusions of just about every major scientific body on the planet in favor of “science” supported by the Heartland Institute. I can go on and on.
But, hey, if you want to continue living in your own epistomological bubble, by all means don’t let me stop you!
Dave Dodd says:
Nonsense. The only time that Romney looked like he might be able to win was after the second debate when he tacked sharply to the center, claiming that he certainly did not want to lower the amount that the rich pay in taxes. Judging from the exit polling, that was the correct side of the issue for him to be on from the point of view of the electorate: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1112/83429.html
The ironic thing here is that all the cerebral stuff, the arguments, messages, intensive coaching for the debates and endless dissection of arguments and positions, counted for nothing.
This was a census, not an election.
Obama won because the number of afrocarribeans + hispanics + unemployed + low-wage + other immigrants was more than the rest.
joelshore says:
“The only time that Romney looked like he might be able to win was after the second debate…”
Wrong as usual. Romney was ahead by 1 – 2 points and widening the gap, until Obama was saved by Sandy. I saw the Gallup poll chart that clearly showed R ahead and rising, and Obama behind and falling. The positions switched when Sandy hit. I was running on the stairmaster at my club, watching a bank of six TV’s all on different channels. Obama was on every channel. He had preempted the programs, and he was constantly on TV doing what he does well: following a script and reading from his teleprompter. His fake leadership when the storm hit made the difference. He got 24 hour sound bites out of it, and Romney was shut out. Exit polling showed that a large plurality of voters made up their minds on the day of the election. Even Chrissy Mathews admitted that Sandy made the difference.
joelshore also says:
“…military veterans who are now disabled after having made the ultimate sacrifices to protect the freedoms we all now enjoy…” Somehow I very much doubt that the anti-American joelshore would ever step up to the plate and join the military, so his example is disgusting to veterans.
joelshore says:
Hilarious. Project much?
“Not really.”
Really. As I’ve often mentioned, if it were not for his psychological projection, joelshore wouldn’t have much to say. “Ideologues”, for example. There is no more partisan ideologue here than joelshore. Word up.
Dear DayByDay,
Indeed, English was my first language. I read the dictionary for fun, too.
My English vocabulary is several hundred thousand words which I can correctly spell and define. In many cases, I can also explain the etymology of the word.
I can’t be sure what may cause your lack of comprehension without additional information of a more specific nature.
If it’s important to you, please elucidate.
If it isn’t, then ima revert to internet creole cuz i get off on dialects, too…lol
D Boehm says:
Maybe in Fantasyland, that is what was happening. However, in RealityLand ( http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/ ), Obama had been widening the gap ever since reversing the slide he did have after the first debate
Gallup had a significant Republican lean this whole election cycle, a lean that has now been shown to be incorrect. Rasmussen was the only major one with a more severe lean in that direction, which is why those two pollsters were the Gods for Fantasyland.
You keep telling yourself that story. Keep telling yourself that it was only by the magic of a last minute event (and the evil media) that the election turned out exactly the way the reality-based community called it and not the way that the fantasy-based community saw it coming out! You’ve got the perfect impenetrable fortress that facts, mathematics, and science cannot enter.
phlogiston says:
Yeah…I guess life is a real b*tch for you guys when rich white males don’t get to decide the election (even though they do still provide much of the cash to campaign, especially on the Republican side)!
And, by the way, if you check out the exit polling ( http://www.foxnews.com/politics/elections/2012-exit-poll ), you’ll find that, while there is certainly some significant voting differences by race, income, etc., it is by no means as monolithic as you might imagine. Even amongst those making more than $250,000 a year (who know that a Romney administration is going to give them lower taxes than under Obama), Romney only won 55%-42%.
Day by Day,
I’m not at all surprised that I am not the only one unable to follow gnomish’s train of thought. He may be able to spell, but his punctuation isn’t so hot:
ah, mr boehm…
one doesn’t give out personal info on the internet.
loot is a good choice of words, though.
is it that you really don’t know anybody who is not a looter like your verifiable self?
He might have won me over, but being called a “looter” is not only factually incorrect, it is plainly derogatory. The vast majority of Americans are not looters, either. We follow the rules, and looting is against the law. As is not filing returns. I think we’re dealing with an iconoclast.
Nothing I wrote in the post that joelshore responded to is incorrect. Citing a far-Left blog like 538 has no credibility at all. The leader positions switched when Sandy hit. Anyone who doubts that the hurricane was influential in the outcome is a blinkered fool.
And I assume joelshore is himself a whiteboy, which makes his racial comment sound deluded. Which of course it is. Consider the source.
joeldshore says:
November 10, 2012 at 1:04 pm
Yeah…I guess life is a real b*tch for you guys when rich white males don’t get to decide the election (even though they do still provide much of the cash to campaign, especially on the Republican side)!
====================================================
Soros is a Republican? I didn’t know that.
D Boehm: I’ve changed my mind because of your cogent arguments: You are absolutely correct; if not for the conspiracy of very improbable natural events, you guys would have won. So, your strategy has been vindicated and you shouldn’t change a thing. In fact, I insist on it: Don’t do any soul-searching or modifications of strategy…just adopt the same approach and next time you’ll win. I’ll guarantee it!
Wow, joelshore didn’t use “ideologue” in a post! Will wonders never cease.
You can either have the box fit you, or you may force yourself to fit the box.
Truth can withstand all assaults; it does not depend on whether one believes in it or not. Logical fallacies and emotional misdirection are the tactics of choice specifically because it ignores the obvious, truth, which it cannot defeat. We are humans; fallible and whose actions have consequences. Those whom would be Kings or Gods, have been able to create an aura of infallibility via Administration. Be wary of those who seek power.
Labels are simply labels. One is free to change associations at any time, and for any reason. One may also retain those, while differing in opinions and beliefs.
Here is another election oddity …NOT!
Elections have consequences: the unemployment rate is beginning to rise already.
On May Day after obama’s first win I flew the flag of the USSR upside down on my flag pole. People asked me why. I said because we are now a communist country and we are in distress. Unlike Time magazine I went straight for the ugly truth instead of soft peddling it and calling it socialism.
D Boehm: Just when I think you can’t possibly get less scientific than you already all, you lower the bar! An anecdote that, say, the Kmart in Homer Glen announced layoffs doesn’t tell us a damn thing about the economy. Even in good times, new unemployment claims average about 300,000 per week http://ycharts.com/indicators/initial_claims_for_unemployment_insurance
Are you really that unable to distinguish ideological garbage from actual hard scientific or economic data?
[snip. Insulting everyone “on this website” is unacceptable. — mod.]
Just when I start to think that joelshore can’t be more mistaken, he proves that he is wrong once again. Counting only those who are collecting their temporary unemployment checks prior to the election is typical cherry-picking that alarmist clowns do all the time. The link I provided made clear that the layoffs began after the election. That same news is being widely reported elsewhere.
And I see that the most extreme ideological commenter on this site is projecting again, calling normal people ideologues. I guess there arte no mirrors in joelshores house.
we crossed the tipping point of takers vs makers and will never come back.
some realize that. this is their way of showing it.
others bury their heads in the sand.
dmacleo,
Exactly right. See here.
the real pain of it is that its less to do with who was elected but what platform was elected.
both candidates were bad, but one may have slowed the cancer growth for a bit giving us time to formulate a prosperous plan.
nope.
class warfare and jealousy won.
proved to this disabled vet what the mindset of the populace is now.
sad.
dmacleo says:
You do realize, don’t you, that if your disability prevents you from working enough to pay federal income tax then you count as one of the 47% who are “takers” in the statistic quoted by Romney and nearly everyone else who uses that term?
joelshore,
You do realize, don’t you, that you are being disgustingly presumptuous opining about a U.S. military veteran?
It is really none of your business.
“””””…..
David Bailey says:
November 10, 2012 at 10:43 am
Unfortunately, george.e.smith’s intemperate response to my comment, illustrates a lot about what is wrong with modern Republicanism. I didn’t say I was “proud to be British”, though I might if Britain had stayed out of the war in Iraq, which was quite unnecessary and destabilising…..”””””
You are quite correct David; you didn’t say you were… “proud to be British”.
And for completeness, neither did I say that you said that. So just what was “intemperate” about my response, escapes me.
I simply pointed out the error in your statement; to the effect that President Bush started two wars.
The US Constitution provides that only the Congress can declare war; not the administration; and in fact the US Congress Did vote by majority votes for both the Iraq,and the Afghanistan wars.
Not sure what you mean by “modern Republicanism”, which obviously would be foreign to the British; since they have a Monarchy; which seems to work well for them.
Although the USA is a Republic, and its Constitution guarantees every State, a “Republican” form of government; that of course is quite separate from the Republican political party.
While I’m supportive of their Republican form of Government; in no way do I align myself with the Republican Party, or the Democratic Party, which is no more democratic, than the Republican party is republican.
i’m a permanent resident alien, so I don’t intrude myself into the US political process; but I would be happy if they simply had a Government, which followed their Constitution, which was such a recipe for success.
And I believe that Anthony gave adequate warning to everybody, about launching into this particular thread; which is quite apart from its usual science based commentary. Free speech has a habit of not always pleasing everybody. But it is worth preserving.
And there is quite a sizeable fraction of the USA citizenry, who would be quite happy to keep the USA out of other people’s squabbles. They thought the same about getting involved in both of Europe’s disastrous dustups.
My father fought in the Hungarian Revolution of 1956…on the losing side. Through much difficulty and hardship he eventually became an American citizen. Through the years, to his horror, America has become more like what he left behind, to the point he wonders if he will live long enough to see the same tradgedy unfold twice. He once told me “When Capitalism goes broke, it becomes Socialism. When Socialism goes broke it becomes Communism. When Communism goes broke, you are living in the Gulag with the dogs trying to eat you.”
How is it that America wants to become the very thing we fought against so hard for so long?
Growing up I read Ayn Rand. I thought her Atlas Shrugged was an extremely polemic reaction to the nightmare of Communism she had escaped, much like my father. At the time I thought she was exaggerating the clumsy fashion in which the state plays silly word games with the law to whittle away at a country’s freedom bit by bit, demonizing success, wealth, and accomplishment. Rand kept warning about the selfless incompetent who means well, is swept to power by good intentions and promises of ‘fairness’, but ruins all they touch . I realize now, to my own horror, she wasn’t exaggerating. She wasn’t paranoid. She was remembering. She was writing from personal experience.
So now I watch the engine of the world slowing. I fear it will stop very soon.
Who is John Galt?
I did that to the flag on my desk at work the day the Roberts decision came out on Obamacare!
I was going to do it at my house after the election, but my flagpole is busted…and I dont think I’d have an appropriately sized flag anyway. But the thought was there!! The building closed where I was working, otherwise my flag would have been upside down there again.
joeldshore says:
November 10, 2012 at 7:59 pm
You do realize, don’t you, that if your disability prevents you from working enough to pay federal income tax then you count as one of the 47% who are “takers” in the statistic quoted by Romney and nearly everyone else who uses that term?
I don’t think you’re nearly as familiar with that quote as you think you are. Google is your friend.
Additionally, I’m fairly certain that a disabled veteran would not be among those that people who use the term would consider a taker. Assistance to him/her is an effort to repay a debt owed, and is accompanied by humble gratitude.
D Boehm: I am just connecting the dots. You have said:
C. Takacs says:
November 10, 2012 at 10:03 pm
Excellent post. Says it all.
joeldshore says:
November 10, 2012 at 7:59 pm
dmacleo says:
we crossed the tipping point of takers vs makers and will never come back.
…
proved to this disabled vet what the mindset of the populace is now sad.
You do realize, don’t you, that if your disability prevents you from working enough to pay federal income tax then you count as one of the 47% who are “takers” in the statistic quoted by Romney and nearly everyone else who uses that term?
=================================================================
Our vets already “gave at the office”. Our disabled vets already have given more than their “fair share”. They are not “taking”. They are being repaid. (And it will never be enough.)
george e. smith says:
November 10, 2012 at 9:56 pm
While I’m supportive of their Republican form of Government; in no way do I align myself with the Republican Party, or the Democratic Party, which is no more democratic, than the Republican party is republican.
i’m a permanent resident alien, so I don’t intrude myself into the US political process; but I would be happy if they simply had a Government, which followed their Constitution, which was such a recipe for success.
=====================================
The problem with any man-made system is that there are people in it.
Character does matter in our elected officials. Not that they have to be perfect but they need to at least be honest and honerable, no matter what party, for the system itself not be infected by the vices we all carry to one degree or another.
Gunga Din says:
Well, I am glad that you feel that way but that is not compatible with the very unambiguous definition that D Boehm gave above of what constitutes a “taker”, nor particularly well with what Romney said in that fundraiser. Personally, I think the whole notion of defining a class of people called “takers”, especially on the basis of who pays federal income tax is misguided.
Code monkey wrench says:
Indeed it is. Mitt Romney said ( http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/09/full-transcript-mitt-romney-secret-video ):
(bolding added)
george.e.smith,
Technically Congress voted for war, but that really is a technicality. Everyone knows that Bush and Cheney rooted for that war, and to some extent biassed the information about weapons of mass destruction. What you fail to realise, is that by meddling in the Middle East in the ways I mentioned, and others, and then attacking a country because it was run by the guy the US had kept in office for so many years, you have made a lot of unnecessary enemies – people who would blow themselves up to get back at the US. Perhaps if several members of your family had dies at the hands of a foreign power, you might feel the same way. Aggression leads to more aggression.
You seem to imply that non-US citizens, should stay out of your affairs, but a lot of things are international nowadays. The UK ended up sending troops to Iraq, and that surely gives me the right to comment – just as I would not object in the slightest to any criticism you might have of the European climate policies. Those policies probably affect the US, just as the corrupt scientific practices at the UAE have contributed to the fiction that we need to ‘fix’ the climate. We live in a very interconnected world!
D Boehm says:
I think this comment perhaps best encapsulates the mindset of you and many fellow conservatives. For the sake of argument, let’s grant you the dubious claim that Nate Silver’s 538 blog is “far-Left”. The fact is that he correctly predicted the Presidential election outcome in all 50 states (including that Florida was basically a toss-up but with a very slight edge for Obama). He also correctly predicted all the Senate races with the exception of North Dakota (where he incorrectly predicted that the Republican would win when in fact the Democrat won by a bit less than 1%).
So, clearly, those people whom you consider to be “far-Left” (and I would call part of the reality-based community) have a much better grasp on reality than those on your side of the political spectrum. I guess reality just has a “far-Left” bias?
Agree w/Gunga Din, C. Takacs and David Ball:
C. Takacs says:
“Excellent post. Says it all.”
Self-serving scumbags presume to lecture veterans, when said scumkbags tucked tail and ran instead of serving. Typical of the Left.
joeldshore says:
November 11, 2012 at 11:01 am
“There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what.”
How one can read that and not see that Romney was talking about people who actively vote D because it gets them free stuff and because they don’t want to see their effective income tax rate go above 0% is a total mystery.
The President has been criticized on the left for not forcefully implementing the green agenda. Let’s hope in the wake of Climategate and the failure of cosmetic government green energy projects, he has come to realize that the science was not as settled as he had earlier believed.
Reliance on natural green energy will, I believe, eventually force a return to pre-industrial population levels, once easy to obtain, essential resources required for high-tech green energy (like copper) are exhausted to the point that they become too expensive to use for that purpose.
(The only way to avoid that fate that I see would be the development of a safe, much more efficient, nuclear reactor technology, which would be capable of supplying the power required to recover depleted resources at reasonable cost.)
Code monkey wrench,
Some folks live in their own blinkered world, and only see what they want to see.
Now the layoffs begin, even as the number on food stamps skyrockets…
And yes, it is entirely the Obama Administration’s fault. Four years of blaming Bush, who had below a 5% unemployment rate for 8 years, is old and busted partisan nonsense. Obama’s policies are the reason for our current malaise. Blaming anyone else is a coward’s excuse.
Code monkey wrench: As Romney correctly notes, 47% is in fact precisely the percentage of people who don’t pay federal income tax (although they pay plenty of other taxes). Romney was claiming that all of these people are in the bag for the Democrats using the basic argument that you mentioned.
Of course, the actual facts are much different from Romney’s imaginings: That 47% includes lots of people who don’t pay income tax because they are retired, disabled veterans, or what have you. (And, furthermore, most of those who don’t pay federal income tax tend to pay other taxes, such as payroll taxes and state and local sales taxes, at higher percentages of their income than wealthier people do.) And, the Democrats get plenty of support from the 53% who do pay federal income tax.
Basically, nothing that Romney says is anything more than a nice fantasy that rich folks with a sense of entitlement like himself (who think the are entitled to pay taxes at the lower rate they do than working folks like you and me pay if we have a decent middle-to-upper-middle-class income) in order to make themselves feel all self-important and superior.
However, that doesn’t stop the Romney apologists like D Boehm from running with his argument and separating the populous into two groups: the “takers” and the “makers” with the first group being, by D Boehm’s own definition (which he repeated for emphasis), exactly and precisely those who do not pay federal income tax. As I pointed out to him, said group certainly includes, among others, a number of disabled veterans.
Your point about retired, service people and others that are part of the 47% that pay no federal taxes. You are also correct that the 47% pay many other taxes. The largest tax they pay (if employed) is FICA taxes which are contributions to Social Security and Medicare. Obama has cut contributions to SS and Medicare in half. These actions have dramatically shortened the life of Medicare and Social Security trust funds and brought bankruptcy far closer. Obama is destroying both. By cutting FICA payments into SS and Medicare Obama has given tax cuts to those who pay no federal taxes and forces those who pay federal taxes to repay the money or worse sees these programs disappear.
He has also taken 4&16 billion out of Medicare trust funds and put it into Obamacare. He says the eldery will get more in serfvices; this is a lie as the CBO says only 10% of the $716 billion will be returned in services to the elderly.
Obama also keeps stating that Ryan’s plan made the ‘same’ cuts. Ryan’s plan (not Romney’s) did have cuts, but every penny went back into Medicare; not one cent was diverted to any other plan.
He also says that the $716 billion was ‘saved’. In actuality it was done by cutting doctor’s pay for services and this will keep a large number of doctors and hospitals from taking Medicare patients. Once again the CBO estimates this wwill shut down 15% of current hospitals.
I’m sure that there are many people who are glad that Obama has guaranteed free birth control pills and taxpayer financed abortions, however he has done nothing about the fiscal disasters, chaos in the Mideast, the nuclear armed terrorist staes we face and he has no plans to address them either. He will also continue his war on fossil fuels which has double gasoline costs and he will obvilously continue his mad ideology into his second term.
….and $6 trillion in new debt with another $4 trillion facing the country for the next four years. …and adding huge taxes which have already caused the stock market to drop precipitously.
We are plunging headlong into another deep recession.
D Boehm says:
You can say that again.
And, just in case it wasn’t obvious to everyone, you then go and prove it! Let me help you out with a little bit of recent economic history:
http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000
http://www.blogforarizona.com/.a/6a00d8341bf80c53ef0168eb201fe4970c-500wi
I note that joelshore confirms exactly what I wrote. Unemployment was extremely low prior to Obama’s election. Then it skyrocketed, specifically due to Obama’s failed policies.
If joelshore lived in the real world instead of coasting on tenure, he would see things very differently.He would be forced to acknowledge reality.
joeldshore says:
November 11, 2012 at 11:01 am
Gunga Din says:
“Our vets already “gave at the office”. Our disabled vets already have given more than their “fair share”. They are not “taking”. They are being repaid. (And it will never be enough.)”
Well, I am glad that you feel that way but that is not compatible with the very unambiguous definition that D Boehm gave above of what constitutes a “taker”, nor particularly well with what Romney said in that fundraiser. Personally, I think the whole notion of defining a class of people called “takers”, especially on the basis of who pays federal income tax is misguided.
======================================================================
Sure it’s compatible. They paid with more than any tax. I doubt if D Boehm would disagree.
There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe that government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it. That that’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what.
Back in the ’80s I was a bagger at a grocery store. A lady paid for about $100 dollars worth of groceries with food stamps. I put those groceries in the trunk of a brand new cadilac. She didn’t leave a tip. Who do you think she voted for?
I worked with a guy who started part way through the year. Good job. Lots of overtime available. He’d take it all. But the last few months he’d take it as comp time. (He’d get time off instead of money.) Why? He told one of my coworkers that if he took money, he’d make to much to quallify for government handouts. The following years he’d be off under FMLA (Family Medical Leave Act) every year. He always qualified for the handouts. He told me once that he chose what church he went to based which one would give his family stuff. Who do you think he voted for?
A few quotes:
“One of the consequences of such notions as ‘entitlements’ is that people who have contributed nothing to society feel that society owes them something, apparently just for being nice enough to grace us with their presence.”
“Since this is an era when many people are concerned about ‘fairness’ and ‘social justice,’ what is your ‘fair share’ of what someone else has worked for?”
“The problem isn’t that Johnny can’t read. The problem isn’t even that Johnny can’t think. The problem is that Johnny doesn’t know what thinking is; he confuses it with feeling.”
“People who identify themselves as conservatives donate money to charity more often than people who identify themselves as liberals. They donate more money and a higher percentage of their incomes.”
Thomas Sowell
D Boehm says:
Wow…I really have to spell everything out for you, don’t I? When Obama took office, the unemployment was shooting through 8% on the steepest part of the curve that I showed, with the economy in a complete free-fall, shedding 800,000 jobs per month. Do you really think you can rewrite history that is only 4 years old? People around here are not that naive.
Gunga Din,
I see that joelshore has tucked tail and run from the ‘takers’ argument, which he decisively lost. Now he cherry-picks a couple months out of 8 years of extremely low unemployment. The cherry-picking conniver just lost another argument. ☺
D Boehm says:
You realize that if you took any of this nonsense outside of the epistomological bubble of this website dominated by your ideological breathren, everybody would be laughing their butts off at you at this moment. I will save this thread to link to when I have to convince people in the reality-based world that people like you really exist!
I can just imagine D Boehm as a teenager after he totaled his parents car (and was then angry when his parents didn’t have the car in good condition for him to drive it to school the next day). “You’re just cherrypicking yesterday to look at the condition of the car. It has been in extremely good shape for most of the last two years that I was driving it.”
dahun says:
There is really no reason to fact-check the rest of your post after this nonsense! Do you really have no clue why gas prices were so low when Obama took office? They were low because they had dropped from record highs earlier in 2008 that have still not been surpassed to this day…And that drop occurred coincident with the bottom falling out of the U.S. (and, with it, much of the world) economy and causing a precipitous drop in demand and they have recovered as the economy has recovered: http://backseat.blogs.starnewsonline.com/files/2012/02/gas-prices.gif (See http://zfacts.com/sites/all/files/image/energy/Gas-Price-History.png for a longer view.)
joeldshore says:
“There is really no reason to fact-check the rest of your post after this nonsense! Do you really have no clue why gas prices were so low when Obama took office? They were low because they had dropped from record highs earlier in 2008 that have still not been surpassed to this day…And that drop occurred coincident with the bottom falling out of the U.S. (and, with it, much of the world) economy and causing a precipitous drop in demand and they have recovered as the economy has recovered:”
The facts are that the speculative and temporary hike in oil prices were very quickly ended when Bush lifted the executive order which prevented drilling in the Eastern Gulf. This was before the recession hit. Your excuse of Obama’s war on energy neglects the fact that while private oil and natural gas have increased energy development, this was in spite of Obama’s decision to cut oil permits on government land in half and decrease production by 40% on these same government lands.
The Green River Formation in Wyoming alone has a proven reserve of over a trillion barrels of oil and Obama’s response to this resource which is almost four times that of Saudi Arabia was to place this one trillion barrles off limits.
Today we await Lisa Jackson’s new EPA regulations which promise to curtail natural gas development by as much as one half. This will force the US to import natural gas as opposed to exporting as it does today. The United States could be well on the way to energy independence. Along with other countries we could make the Middle East oil irellevant. We could break Russia’s energy grip on Europe by developing shale gas in European countries.
Obama’s active attempt to shut down coal which provides 40% of our power should be obvious even to the most uninformed ideolog.
Obama is causing the loss of millions of jobs and placing the cruelest tax of all on the least fortunate and the middle class of this country because of his radical anti-fossil fuel policies.
joeldshore, you hold a remarkably ill-informed fantasy of this president’s energy policies and history.
Gasoline prices under President Bush averaged $2.14 a gallon over 8 years. joelshore is cherry-picking a very short time frame to support his falsified argument, as usual.
Yes, speculators drove the price up, temporarily. But there is no comparison between gas prices under President Bush vs 0bama — who specifically promised that energy prices will “skyrocket”. And that is exactly what is happening.
The defining traits shared by those on the Left are their serial lying and their psychological projection.
“””””……David Bailey says:
November 11, 2012 at 11:08 am
george.e.smith,
>>>Technically Congress voted for war, but that really is a technicality.<<< Do you have a problem with a simple statement of fact being "technically" correct. Facts are either correct or not; particularly when it comes to legalities… And I would like a dollar for every person who has described "Bush's wars" as those illegal wars. In this case, all that matters is whether it was legal under US laws; which it was. And no I don't mind others outside the US voicing their opinion, as to the advisability of those actions, as they see it; but don'tinsult Americans by asserting that THEIR laws are only of "technical interest"
And as everyone knows, Saddam Hussein, did in fact have weapons of mass destruction illegal under Geneva conventions; he even used them on his own people. So which of the World's major intelligence organisations have asserted prior to the Iraq war, that he had no such weapons; he said he did. The report of the commission on the 9/11/2001 attack on the United States, gives explicit details of early al Qaeda organisationsstarted in Iraq under Saddam Hussein's protection.
Criticism of the conduct of US and allied operations in that war are certainly of interest to many.
Well historians still debate the appropriateness of actions in earlier wars. NZers and our Aussie cousins, are still a bit ticked at the British conduct of the Galipoli campaign in Turkey on WW-i.
But stuff happens, and as they say military planning works well, up until the time you first make contact with the enemy……
Everyone knows that Bush and Cheney rooted for that war, and to some extent biassed the information about weapons of mass destruction. What you fail to realise, is that by meddling in the Middle East in the ways I mentioned, and others, and then attacking a country because it was run by the guy the US had kept in office for so many years, you have made a lot of unnecessary enemies – people who would blow themselves up to get back at the US. Perhaps if several members of your family had dies at the hands of a foreign power, you might feel the same way. Aggression leads to more aggression.
You seem to imply that non-US citizens, should stay out of your affairs, but a lot of things are international nowadays. …..
No David; I implied no such thing; YOU inferred that.
I did say that """….I…."""" prefer to not meddle in such affairs which are the domain of US citizens; that is simply a quirk of mine. I am concerned about such things, since all of my children are native born US citizens, and I worry about the future they will inherit; but it is simply my choice during election seasons, to bite my tongue. I did once many elections ago, donate few dollars to the campaign of one candidate (who didn't need it) but that was before I learned that that was not appropriate, or legal. The amount was a trifle, but would at least buy a first class Starbucks beverage. Well probably not after the next four years.
As to another matter that got a lot of attention here; the question of Gov. Romney's 47%; well now 51%
Would somebody who knows, please post a list of the known REPUBLICAN political candidates, or prominant spokespersons who have made public statements asserting that Military persons whether currently serving or not, whether disabled or not, are included in the category which some have described as "takers".
Military persons are the very first persons for which the US Constitution provides for the explicit laying of taxes to fund. Yes they are US Government employees. And citizens have always chosen to fund and support those people, who defend our right to enjoy the privileges of living in America, and it is scurrilous to even imply that they are in any way takers. We can never repay them for their sacrifices on our behalf.
But it is quite clear that the salaries and wages of every single Federal Government employee, come from the Federal Treasury; which is exactly the same place that all Federal taxes are deposited, from whatever taxation law enables that.
So If I pick up three apples in a store, and put them in a bag, and then put one back before going to the cash register, did I get two apples or three.
Clearly, it would be more efficient, to make ALL Federal employees exempt from Federal income taxes. Just put two apples in the bag, instead of three, so they don't have to go through the charade, of imagining that they are taxpayers (of Federal income taxes).
I don't know very many taxpayers, who begrudge paying taxes to provide for the Federal Government managede services, that we all need, such as a working road system, and of course a well trained and armed military. None of that can be considered "takers".
And at the State level their are other services that States manage, such as Schools, Police, and fire protection. The States are not allowed a military, so State taxpayers contibute to the US military.
The US people have always had safety nets to provide for those who for no fault of their own are unable to provide for all their own needs. Charity has always been a part of US culture.
Nobody considers Social Security recipients to be "takers". The mostly were forced to contribute to the system, which has been fiscally mismanaged since its inception, and when they come to receive what they were promised from that program, they have a right to expect it to be forthcoming. Some will get out much more than they put in, some will get less; that is the nature of shared risk programs, just like insurance.
The difference is that insurance companies, invest their intake funds, so that they grow, and they base their system on sound statistics. The SS administration on the other hand, has been run like a classic Ponzi scheme, with the funds invested in NOTHING. Well the Government stole all the funds, and substituted worthless IOUs in their place. Well they call them "treasuries", or bonds, which are backed by "the full faith and credit of the United States.
What they really mean is they are backed by the confiscation powers of the IRS. Do you think that US taxpayers care one iota, whether the money removed from their pay check comes from a line calles Social Security tax or FICA; or whether it is on a line called Federal Income tax, to pay back the worthless IOUs.
uinny thing is that everybody's insurance programs, and much of the wealth of the one percenters, and the retirement funds of Trade Unions or Public Employee Unions, all depend to a large extent, on the Stock and bond markest, which politicians, have always described as a crap shoot, and too risky for the Social Security non -existent "Trust Fund".
Something does not compute in that picture.
But the real takers are those who could work, but would rather not; so long as their vote can be bought by politicians, who will offer to give them free stuff.
That’s not what I said, jill colby, and my name’s not Dan.
D Böehm wrote, “Unemployment was extremely low prior to Obama’s election. Then it skyrocketed, specifically due to Obama’s failed policies.”
It wasn’t low when Obama took office. It was almost as high as it is now. (It was low, however, two years earlier, when the Democrats took over Congress.)
However, the current 7.9% unemployment rate would be about 10.8% if the Labor Participation Rate hadn’t dropped. The number of Americans age 16+ is up by 9 million since 1/2008, but the number employed is up less than 1 million (and might actually be down, when the final figures come in).
So why isn’t thee unemployment rate much higher now than it was when Obama took office? Because “discouraged workers,” who have given up looking for work, aren’t counted.
Yet Obama brags of his record of job creation. That’s just plain dishonest..
Thanks to Reagan’s supply-side reforms, America saw 20 million new jobs. Thanks to Obama’s neo-Keynesian spending binge, America has approximately zero new jobs. After that, it boggles the mind that, on Nov. 6, Americans renewed Obama’s lease on the White House.
I would like to ask those who claim that the begining of the recession caused the drop in drop in oil prices; Why have oil prices gone up during Obama’s administration when unemployment is higher now than when he took office?
One take-away I’m getting from this entire thread is: ideology trumps reason. Doesn’t matter whether it’s politics or climate change, or much of anything else, really.
TonyG; there are some undeniable facts:
-The natural gas usage increase over the last ten years has cleaned the air more effectively than the trillions wasted on wind solar and ethanol and reduced carbon dioxide emissions by far more than is even possible with these archaic and failed green technologies..
-The 6 million green jobs promised by Obama have not materaialized and the $90 billion in Stimulus for green jobs was spent mostly on failed projects that made tens of millions for Obama supporters and left the American taxpayer with teh debt.
-Obama has cut oil and natural gas development on government land by 40% and if not for this we would have been well on our way to energy independence and eliminating the $400 billion in trade deficit that oil imports create each year.
-Obama’s radical ideology has even prevented the oil pipeline from Canada
-Obama inexplicably supports offshore drilling off Brazil and states he is anxious to be their customer for this oil and he continues a moratorium on offshore drilling in the Gulf, in the Pacigic, inthe Atlantic and in onshore and offshore Alaskan energy fields.
-Re-electing Obama was truly disasterous.
Funny, I don’t remember calling out anyone in particular.
another take-away is that there are innumerable petty demagogues striving for semiotic supremacy.
the rise of mental mystics might be labelled ‘pathological pundit syndrome’
dahun says:
Neither Bush nor Obama nor any U.S. President controls world oil prices. At best, they have a minor effect on these prices. And U.S. gas prices correlate essentially perfectly with world oil prices.
Because jobs are a lagging indicator in recessions. The U.S. economy has been growing since something like the middle of 2009…And, in fact, there has also been growth in the private sector job market since around the beginning of 2010. The stock market has recovered to near its pre-recession levels ( https://www.google.com/finance?client=ob&q=INDEXDJX:DJI ).
Unemployment, which is now about the same as when Obama took office, represents a huge hole that was rapidly being dug when Obama took office. Unfortunately, Obama did not have a magic wand that allowed him to instantly reverse an economy in free-fall and go from losing 800,000 private sector jobs per month to gaining jobs instantly. Rather, it took a few months to reduce those job losses to less extreme levels and about a year total until we were actually creating jobs again. ( http://www.blogforarizona.com/.a/6a00d8341bf80c53ef0168eb201fe4970c-500wi )
Some people apparently do not understand the concept of a derivative. If you want to specify the initial conditions at the beginning of Obama’s term, it is not enough to simply note what the “position” (unemployment) was. You also have to consider the “velocity”, i.e., the fact that the economy was shedding 800,000 private sector jobs per month and that the economy was rapidly contracting ( http://www.hks.harvard.edu/fs/jfrankel/blog/images/quarterly%20growth%20in%20GDP.jpg )
“Neither Bush nor Obama nor any U.S. President controls world oil prices.”
I would suggest that cutting leases in half, cutting production 40% would affect oil prices. I would also suggest that if an area with one trillion barrels of oil reserves were opened oil rices world wide would drop…especially within 4 yeras. I would also say that continuing the shale oil pipeline would drop oil prices. Presidents may have had little influence on oil prices. No one ever imagined a president that would conduct all out war on fossil fuels before as Obama is.
“…jobs are a lagging indicator in recessions.”
This is the longest recovery from a recession in history. Trying to defend Obama’s record is foolish.
“Unemployment, which is now about the same as when Obama took office, represents a huge hole that was rapidly being dug when Obama took office.”
…and unemployment will rise significantly shortly as Obama’s second term begins and he raises taxes, continues to print money as he puts the country one trillion dollars a year further into debt each year, continues his war on domestic energy and offers nothing but his same failed policies.
“Some people apparently do not understand the concept of a derivative.”
Some people don’t understand supply and demand. Obama’s policies have doubled energy prices. His policies help support dictators, despots and terrorists. His policies are a cruel tax which hits those who cannot afford it the most. His policies are putting the world in danger of war when the countries in the Middle East and Russia could be easily made irrelevant if the US became energy independent as it could easily be.
daveburton says:
Here are the job creation numbers for various Presidents: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Which_president_of_the_us_created_the_most_jobs Clinton created the most, more than Reagan did.
And, the job creation numbers for the entire G.W. Bush administration are less than 2 million jobs…and it is even worse if you look just at private sector jobs. By contrast, the Obama Administration has created 5 million private sector jobs in the last 3 years. Yes, the numbers for his whole term are not so great yet because of the fact that he entered office with an economy shedding 800,000 jobs per month. However, most Americans are intelligent enough to understand that a President can’t wave a magic wand and instantly stop the economic freefall we were in when Obama took office.
joelshore is as usual being an apologist for the despicable Barry Obama. And as usual joelshore is wrong — not the numerous other commentators here who dipute him. Note what happened starting with 0bama’s election. And it’s getting worse, not better. shore says: “Neither Bush nor Obama nor any U.S. President controls world oil prices” Wrong. When Clinton opened the strategic petroleum reserve in response to rising oil prices, oil prices plunged. The deluded joelshore is an economic illiterate who actually believes that Presidents do not affect oil prices. shore doesn’t even understand supply and demand curves.
0bama’s policies are the direct cause of the economy’s malaise. Those misguided policies wil only get worse.
obama’s policies have been a total failure. Only blinkered fools fail to see that.
daveburton,
Correct, and as usual joelshore is mendaciously misrepresenting the facts, by using the unreliable blog Wikipedia as an incredible source. shore says: “And, the job creation numbers for the entire G.W. Bush administration are less than 2 million jobs…and it is even worse if you look just at private sector jobs.”
Wrong as usual. I showed that job creation has fallen off a cliff starting when 0bama was first elected. 0bama’s policies are the central cause of the terrible employment situation. With the right policies unemployment would be far lower. 0bama’s policies are clearly at fault, and only blinkered economic illiterates fail to see that obvious fact.
joeldshore, those numbers are wrong. They count the Carter recession job losses against Reagan’s reforms, which is nonsense, since it predated them.
Note that Clinton inherited a healthy economy, and Reagan inherited a train wreck.
Moreover, Clinton had the huge advantage of a Republican Congress for 6 of his 8 years. Usually, the Party that dominates economic policy is the Party that controls 2 of 3 out of:
The U.S. House,
The U.S. Senate,
The U.S. Presidency
When the same Party controls all three, they dominate even more completely; and when the same Party controls all three and has a veto-proof Senate majority, as was true when Obama took office in 2009, the dominance is total. However, the details of the dynamics vary, of course; e.g., Reagan managed to forge a coalition with some conservative Democrats to get his three-phase tax cut program enacted, despite nominal Democrat control of Congress.
Look at the job and deficit numbers for Republican vs. Democrat dominance, and you’ll see that over the last 40 years Democrats have fared poorly, and Republicans much better.
dahun, exactly right. The sad thing is that joelshore knows that, but he doesn’t care about all the people being hurt. He’s got his tenure, so they can eat cake.
.
daveburton says:
“joeldshore, those numbers are wrong.”
Most everything joelshore posts is misinformation.
dahun says:
Actually, I understand supply and demand a lot better than you do. I understand that the worldwide recession in 2008 caused a much larger contraction in world demand for oil than any supposed decrease in world oil supplies due to Obama’s energy policies.
I also understand that oil is a fungible quantity and hence even the supposed Holy Grail of energy independence would not stop the price for gasoline from being determined by the world oil market. You might want to ponder the fact that Canada is a net exporter of oil and yet its gasoline prices are not lower than ours.
[Oh, and I also am not one of those people who feel that I am entitled to having low gasoline prices. I actually feel that I should be paying the full costs of the price of oil, including all of the hidden environmental costs, rather than having the price subsidized. This might be a very difficult concept for people like you, with your sense of entitlement, to understand.]
D Boehm says:
Wow…You not only make up facts about the economy and the climate…Now you even make up facts about me. Being a “lecturer” at a university is generally not a tenured position (and specifically is not at mine). And, in fact, my salary is less than half of what i was making when I was working in industry (until I was laid off during the Bush Great Recession and made the switch to academia). And, if I was voting strictly my own pocketbook, it would actually be arguable who I should vote for, since the large drop in salary (and the fact that I saved quite a bit when my salary was higher) means that my future financial situation may be determined largely by taxation policies on my income from dividends, capital gains, and interest (which I believe Romney’s tax plan called to group with dividends and capital gains for a lower tax rate). In that regard, I ought to favor policies of further reducing taxation on unearned income. I don’t because I don’t think that is fair, even though it may well benefit me.
joelshore says:
“…I was working in industry (until I was laid off …”
So joelshore couldn’t make it in the private sector, and had to take a job at half pay. And like 0bama, he blames Bush. What a dweeb.
The dweeb says: “Actually, I understand supply and demand a lot better than you do.”
Not hardly. joelshore does not understand that taking a trillion barels of oil out of the country’s future has an impact on prices. 0bama took away the right of Americans to get the benefit of all the oil in the red zone, and that is only offshore oil. It doesn’t count the underground takeaways. When there is less of something, prices rise. joelshore doesn’t believe that. No wonder he couldn’t make it in the private sector.
D Boehm says:
You may be aware that Kodak has not done very well over the past several years and is now in bankruptcy. In particular, they sold the intellectual property and laid off the workers for the entire area that I was working in. While you might generously imagine that I alone was the determinant of Kodak’s fate, I have no illusions about my small contributions to the overall financial status of Kodak in either direction.
[And, by the way, I don’t blame Bush for the fate of Kodak, but the fact is that the bottom dropped out of the economy at the time it did turns out not to have helped a company that was already in trouble due to highly disruptive technological changes in the imaging industry.]
I should also add that taking a job at half the pay rather than doing a more intensive search for another industry job (e.g., being more open to the possibility of relocation) is in part a conscious choice on my part.
What I believe is that oil is a fungible quantity and small changes in U.S. oil production are not the major determinant of the price of oil. That’s even leaving aside the issues of whether you are accurately reporting the Obama policies on oil (which I am quite sure you are not…but frankly there are only so many falsehoods I have the time and energy to correct).
Tucci78 says:
November 10, 2012 at 5:21 am
At 9:00 PM on 9 November, Gail Combs had written:
“There are people on this site who I disagree with on politics but who I respect greatly when it comes to science. Unfortunately Climate Science has gotten badly tangled up with politics and the corporations who want to make a buck by ripping off the tax payer. That has nothing to do with right/left politics….
I beg strenuously to differ. It has absolutely everything “to do with right/left politics,” and there is no way to argue otherwise unless one confuses the Republican Party with the “right” in American politics….
_______________________________________________
“Left”/”Right” politics has always been nothing more than a a dog & pony show for the masses. My point is there IS NO “Left”/”Right” There is only the Regulating Class otherwise known as the ruling elite and their suck-ups vs us their serfs. Capitalism, even in the USA, has been dead for a hundred years.
We out number them and as was painfully pointed out in the French Revolution, get the masses angry enough and you will lose your head. The elite took careful note of this and have been trying to devise a system that extracts the maximum amount of wealth and labor out of the serfs with the minimum amount of danger to themselves. By and large they are very successful. Mention them and you are a ‘Conspiracy Nut’, heck we do not even know WHO they are much less what they are up to.
The fact that Karl Marx was the darling of the Wall Street set is telling, as thecartoon by Robert Minor in St. Louis Post-Dispatch (1911) shows.
Experiments with ‘socialism’, a new mechanism to control the masses as religion’s hold diminished, were tried in various forms.
Communism fell flat on it’s face in the USSR but ‘socialism’ in the EU seemed to work so now they are trying something new called the The Third Way Bill Clinton and Tony Blair are adherents adherents of the “Third Way”.
http://www.europeanvoice.com/article/imported/centre-left-s-young-turks-seek-neo-conservative-inspiration/51890.aspx The politicians who led the brainstorming session in London hope that a cocktail of New Labour Third Way ideas that break some traditional taboos of the left, elements of the Nordic social democratic model and some continental experience will revive a centre-left vision.
Pascal Lamy is the director-general of the World Trade Organization. Global security and global social democracy: Internationalism once lay at the heart of the progressive movement, yet in recent years the idea appears to have lost its appeal for many social democrats. Responding to this trend Pascal Lamy argued to Policy Network that the globalisation of capitalism requires a response of equivalent ambition and boldness from social democrats. In this essay series key thinkers debate the challenge laid down by Lamy.
Capitalism? What Capitalism. As I said it is DEAD strangled to death by years of red tape and public education brainwashing, starved by Fractional Reserve Banking, but I will certainly grant you that the USA has been a terrific experiment. A “Camelot” for “one brief shining moment”
A question was posed about public figures suing for libel or slander. Basically the SCOTUS has said that the more public a figure you are, the more people can lie about you and not be sued for it. (that is the short version). So where a slander or libel law might protect me if the national enquirer or Billy Bob accuse me of being a known homosapien who’s sister is a thesbian, and I could sue for damages, Mitt and Barack (and Dr. J etc ) are all out of luck.
Larry Ledwick (hotrod) says:
November 10, 2012 at 11:25 am
Don’t forget the European meddling in the Middle East that set up the current situation….
________________________________
Thank you you beat me to it.
Same with Vietnam
For the benefit of people who may be reading this who actually let facts influence their ideology rather than people like D Boehm whose facts are slave to his ideology, here is the opinion of an oil market analyst ( http://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/statements/2012/aug/24/billboard/billboard-blames-obama-high-gas-prices/ ):
Hmmm…Apparently, I am in good company with oil market analysts in understanding the oil market, just like I am in good company with the climate scientists in understanding climate change. D Boehm, on the other hand, is alway in excellent company with his ideological breathren and in very poor company with fact, science, or reality.
D Böehm says:
November 10, 2012 at 3:42 pm
Here is another election oddity …NOT!
Elections have consequences: the unemployment rate is beginning to rise already.
___________________________________
I am not surprised. Small business accounts for about 50% of the jobs in the USA and Small firms accounted for 65 percent (or 9.8 million) of the 15 million net new jobs created between 1993 and 2009.
As the commenters put it “…There was such shock in our community the day after election, our TOTAL daily sales fell to the lowest in 15 years and they are not bouncing back this week. If you cannot run a business for profit why bother??”
And “…My wife’s employer has already announced they will drop helath insurance for all employees. It is cheaper for them to do that and pay the fine…”
And “..As a business owner I am building up my cash balances, holding off new equipment purchases, and I have shifted my work force to independent contractors where possible.
I have one final comment on the subject that came up here about the “47 %” who pay no Federal Income Taxes, as Hotrod points out, that is Federal Income Taxes. Let’s leave out those handful of usually rich people, who arrange their affairs (legally) to not OWE any FETs sometimes as a result of charitable deductions, but not always.
So the group I am talking about are low or no income persons, about whom, I make no judgement whatsoever. The argument is they are too poor to pay, as they need every penny they have.
So why is it that they need to keep every penny which they spend on “stuff”? Not my place to judge whether they need the stuff. If it is food clothing and shelter, well of course they do.
And stuff is expensive and getting moreso. Why is stuff so expensive ?
Well the guy(al) making the stuff, IS paying more than his(er) share of the taxes; well not really; nothing in the articles of incorporation of any company or business provides for paying ANY taxes to ANYBODY. So corporations don’t pay taxes. They COLLECT taxes for federal, state, and local governments who present them with the bill.
So they cut up the bill into little pieces, and they hand a piece to EVERY customer, in the form of a HIGHER PRICE for the item.
They also hand a piece of the bill to EVERY employee, in the form of lower salary or wages.
Then they give the remaining pieces to EVERY share or bond holder; the owners of the business, in the form of lower profits and dividends on their investment.
Well you get the picture. Businesses that provide all the stuff pay the taxes that aren’t paid by the buyers of the stuff. That is why the “poor” can’t afford to pay taxes. Everything they buy is inflated in price by the taxes the business collects for governments, and their take home pay is diminished by what their employer collects for the government as corporate taxes.
If taxes on business were eliminated, wages could rise, and prices would go down, and everybody could afford to pay Federal taxes.
Actually, I don’t think ANYBODY should pay Federal taxes; The Federal tax bill should be one sheet of paper (two sides), with a list of the 57 States, and the annual amount each State will pay.
I’ll let the Federal accountants and tax lawyers argue with the State accountants and tax lawyers about what each State should pay. Leave me out of it.
Well the Federal tax bill would need to be revised every ten years, after the decadal census, to readjust the proportions.
Well I don’t want to pay State taxes either; leave me out of that too. The State can sit down with the accountants and tax lawyers of the Counties, to decide what each County should pay in State taxes.
No need for any Goverment entity smaller than a County; they simply aren’t viable in modern complex times.
So the County needs a board of supervisors, or whatever they want to call them. I think 13 people is plenty; a jury plus one, so no ties (or abstensions).
So those 13 people are the only folks in the entire known universe, who I would allow to send me a tax bill. And not surprisingly, on election day, I want to be able to vote for MY slate of 13 supervisors; and of course every other voter would too. So all 13 would represent the county; not any enclave or local social club, or clique.
Ain’t going to happen of course. Perish the thought that tax payers should be allowed to vote for or against ANY individual, who has the power to tax them.
Taxes should be collected locally for local needs, and some passed up for regional needs, and then a little sent to the feds to pay for National defence. It makes no sense for the feds to be collecting taxes in the States to give money to the States.
It’s just like putting ten apples in a bag, and then removing one before you pay for the remaining nine.
But as they say, common sense, is not that common.
In June of 2010 the economy started to recover from the subprime mortagge crisis originating with Democrat ideology that demands everyone should be able to buy a home even if they cannot afford it. This recovery was derailed by Obama’s Stimulus spending, his war on coal and all domestic energy. The normal return from a recession was stopped dead in its tracks.
The Stimulus which promised a return to the employment numbers of the Bush presidency lost jobs overall while ballooning government jobs temporarily.
Obama claims this is the worst recession since the Great Depression. Carter handed Reagan double digit unemp[loyment and double digit inflation. Home mortgage rates were at a staggering 20% annual percentage rate. The Carter recession was the worst recession since the Depression. Reagan turned it around and created the longest peacetime boom in American history. Obama is bringing back Carter’s incompetence. Reagan never blamed Carter. He ignored Carter and went about the business of rebuilding the country and its respect around the world.
Never in history has a governemnt spent so much and had so little to show for it. Obama has spent on the levels of the WPA during Roosevelt’s time. Roosevelt had the Hoover Dam, the Golden Gate bridge and thousands of other bridges, roads, buildings and national parks to show for the money he spent…Obama has rich friends and little else to show for an additional $6 trillion in debt he has handed the American people.
There is nothing Obama has done to help recovery. All we get for a $16 trillion debt is ecuses and whinig about how he didn’t know how bad it was. We are headed over a fiscal cliff and Obama has his foot clamped down on the accelerator.
Abuse of the flag in contradiction to federal lawn as well as tradition is quite common. For example, it is illegal to fly the flag at night unless it is illuminated. It is also illegal to fly it in the rain or snow. An individual in my neighborhood flies a flag in his front yard at all times, night or day, rain or shine. So does the memorial to veterans in a local park. So does the local hospital. And the City Hall. And the police station.
Are people ignorant of the law, or are they just too lazy to put the flag up and take it down at sunrise and sunset? Perhaps they’ve never been a 1950s school custodian.
Putting a flag decal on your car is illegal, unless you remove it at sunset or when it starts raining. According to law, a flag may be placed on a car only under the following circusmstances: on a staff on the right-front fender during a parade or funeral. Note the many faded and peeling flag decals on vehicles in your town.
In a nearby city, after 9/11 local firemen demanded to fly the flag at the rear of their fire trucks on fire calls, so it could be seen waving in the wind as they sped to their duties. Those flags are now horribly blackened and tattered, yet they still fly (sort of). Is this disrespect or just self-reference?
Only the president can proclaim that the flag must fly at half-mast to honor the dead or for some other reason, and that only for a week at a time. At all other times, the flag must fly full-staff and above any other flag nearby. The local fire house flew their flag half-mast for a month after the death of Ronald Reagan. Nobody complained.
It is clear that most people who fly flags do so to exalt their own psychological definition. After all, they bought the flag, it’s theirs. Even if it is made, as are most, in Red China.
So much for the flag as a national symbol. Flying the flag is supposed to honor one’s relationship to the nation and one’s subservience to it. Nowadays it signifies self-indulgence, like everything else. The flag laws were written to discourage people from neglecting the flag, to always encourage mindful awareness of it. This element has surely been lost.
Steve Tabor,
Did you post under the wrong article? Your comment seems to fit the “Fly your Flag” article better. This is the comment section where everyone else disagrees with joelshore. That’s the overwhelming consensus, anyway. ☺
Steve, I was a flagboy in grammar school which meant my friend and I would show up 10 minutes early to go down to the custodian, get the flag and put it up. In return we get out ten minutes early to take it down, fold it properly and return it to the custodian. We could take it down, fold it and return it in record time.
We were told if we let the flag touch the ground, it would have to be burned. Once the flag was repalced due to wear and tear which led to a ceremony were the custodian, my friend and I stood with our hands over our hearts as the old flag was burned in the coal boiler. Times have changed. I am sure there are not many showing the flag the same respect.
An interesting article on the takers.
dahun: You show at least a little bit of promise compared to D. Boehm in that you at least acknowledge that there was this thing called the mortgage crisis which happened before Obama became President and led to a severe recession…although you have pretty crazy ideas about what caused it. Still I applaud you for at least trying to make your posts have at least a tenuous relationship with reality.
dahun says:
Do you even make an attempt to check your facts before you post such things? No, Carter did not hand Reagan double digit unemployment…Not even close. The unemployment rate averaged 7.1% in 1980 and 7.6% in 1981 (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/business/us-unemployment-rate-history/ for the average yearly values for several years around that time and http://thedauntlessconservative.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/fredgraph-unrate-rr.png for the month-to-month variations). It wasn’t even rising when Reagan took over. It started rising in the latter part of 1981 and shot up above 10% in 1982, well after Reagan assumed the Presidency. And, when the economy was handed over from Carter to Reagan, we were not even in recession. There had been a short sharp economic downturn in early 1980 but then a sharp recovery in the next two quarters ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_1980s_recession ). Yes, there was high inflation and interest rates under Carter, but the recession was not one that Reagan inherited but rather one that some combination of his policies and Federal Reserve policies caused.
Oh…and here from Bloomberg ( http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aNivTjr852TI ) is data on the 2008 recession, under the title “U.S. Recession Worst Since Great Depression, Revised Data Show”, including these relevant facts:
* It started in December 2007. (This is for D Boehm: Obama was sworn into office in January 2209.)
* Unemployment shot up 2.3% in 2008, the highest one-year jump since 1982 when Reagan was President. (Of course, it continued to rise significantly in 2009, not surprising since the economy was hemorrhaging 800,000 jobs per month at the end of 2008 / beginning of 2009.)
In 1980, Jimmy Carter’s last year in office, and when Reagan arrived, the vital economic statistics were: Interest Rate of 21%; Inflation, 13.5%; Unemployment 7% so his “Misery Index” stood at 20.5%.. http://jamesfconroy.com/?p=113
Unemployment was not in double digits, I stand corrected. I would, however, point out that the basic point that I made that Reagan inherited a far worse economy than Obama is 100% correct. It is also undeniable that at the end of his first term Reagan had rturned the economy around from a situation far worse than Obama inherited.
Obama has added $6 trillion to te debt and the country is in worse shape with higher unemployment, $716 billion stolen from Medicare, inflation at very high levels, more homes than ever facing foreclosure, etc., etc., etc..
As usual, I was right and joelshore was wrong: Hurricane Sandy made the crucial difference in the election:
15% of voters said Obama’s response to Sandy was the most important factor in their vote (and 73% of those went for Obama).
64% of all voters said Obama’s response to Sandy played a factor in their vote (and 62% of those went for Obama)*
That is more than enough votes to tilt this past election. Many more than enough. I still recall 0bama on every TV channel 24/7, from just before Sandy hit, until the election. Prior to Sandy Romney was 1 – 2 points ahead, and gradually increasing his lead. Sandy changed all that decisively. When 15% of all voters make their decision on election day, and state that 0bama’s scripted, 24/7 response was decisive, it provided more than enough votes to change the election.
0bama is nothing if not lucky. As they say, better to have good luck than good skill. Now 0bama can continue on his mission to wreck the U.S. economy — as he fully intends to do. We are on course to be the same as the hopeless EU serfs: ruled by an unaccountable bureaucracy and a scofflaw president, with an out of control EPA and an Attorney General who is an accessory to murder. Fun times ahead.
[*source for the figures above]
D Boehm: Far be it for me to try to convince you not the believe the fairy tales that help you sleep better at night and that will help to make sure you Republican apologists don’t deal with the real problems in your electoral appeal and have ever increasing trouble winning national elections.
But, there are a number of things that don’t add up with your version of events:
(1) What you want us to believe is that the FiveThirtyEight blog (and similarly for other respected poll aggregators) was magically able to get the right answer for the Presidential vote in all 50 states AND the Senate vote in all but one close election but that they were actually far off the mark most of the way and only got coinicidently close to the correct result because Sandy changed everything. Yeah…That sounds real plausible.
(2) The whole poll-denial movement arguing for only believing certain polls that leaned Romney’s way and “unskewing” the ones that didn’t relied on the proposition that the polls were oversampling people who self-identified as Democrats over those who self-identified as Republicans. However, the actual fact is that the exit polls showed that the polls showing this self-identification gap in those polls were in fact correctly reading the voting electorate.
(3) People saying that Sandy was important in their vote doesn’t mean that they changed their vote because of Sandy. What Sandy probably provided was a sort of confirmation to people who were already going to vote for Obama but who could now point to this as an example of his good leadership. And, sure, the fact that you had a Romney cheerleader like Governor Christie so happy with Obama’s leadership that he had to make a lukewarm statement about still supporting Romney for President probably didn’t hurt Obama…but if you think it made a difference of several points in the popular vote and/or would have flipped states in the electoral college enough to give Romney a win (which means Florida, Virginia, Ohio, plus another like Colorado), you are dreaming. [Oh, and by the way, Sandy apparently did depress turnout in the areas affected, meaning that it probably suppressed Obama’s national popular vote total a bit in that regard.]
(4) The stuff you read is always good for a laugh. That American Thinker piece certainly told you what you wanted to hear…e.g., they emphasize that Obama got only 50.4% of the vote rather than that he got 2.8% more than Romney. I’m sure…oh yeah… that they would be quick to point out that this is only a tiny bit less than the 50.7% share that Reagan got in 1980 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1980 ) What…They’re more interested instead in the 9.7% margin he had over Carter? Well…That’s strange! And, they emphasize the fact that Republicans kept most of their majority in the House but don’t note that this was not due to any dramatic win over the Dems in the popular vote for the House seats but rather due in large part to gerrymandered districts. (The best estimates that I have seen is that it was a virtual tie…if not a small Democratic edge…if you add up all the votes.)
But, hey, if the lesson that you want to take from this election is not to change a thing, then I won’t try to stop you.
Note that I am not trying to convince the incurably cognitive dissonance-afflicted joelshore of anything. His mind is made up, closed tight, and filled with nonsense. He couldn’t keep a job in the private sector, he couldn’t get re-hired in the private sector, and took a 50% pay cut as a last resort. That says it all.
But for other readers, I note that joelshore says: “Republican apologists don’t deal with the real problems in your electoral appeal and have ever increasing trouble winning national elections.”
Oh, really? joelshore forgets the 8 George Bush years so soon? heh The Bush economy averaged extremely low inflation, national prosperity, and extremely low unemployment. But even in that great economy joelshore couldn’t find a private sector job. Very telling, no?
Regarding the pre-election polls, most of what I read on the Drudge Report were accounts of numerous different polls, and polls of polls. And speaking of self-identifying, American conservatives self identify at double the rate of U.S. libs, who are only about 20% of the population; the screwed up 20%. They constitute a big part of our current problems.
joelshore says: “People saying that Sandy was important in their vote doesn’t mean that they changed their vote because of Sandy.” That daydream is clearly refuted by my post and link above. Even Chrissy “Tingles” Mathews agrees. And no one is more Left than Mathews.
Finally, joelshore’s ridiculous “authority” is the lib blog Wikipedia, an unreliable source if there ever was one. People such as the thoroughly despicable William Connolley have completely destroyed Wikipedia’s credibility. No wonder the blinkered joelshore relies on it. And the Devil quotes Scripture.
@ Joel Shore says: November 12, 2012 at 7:32 am
Figures do not lie, Liars do. here are the numbers straight from the primary source: Bush +7.5m. (135.8m to 143.3m) Source: bls.gov. Not Wiki which we all know how corrupt that place is. So much so that even teachers do not allow students to use it as a source.
@ joeldshore says: November 12, 2012 at 11:42 am
Logic 101. Opinions are not facts. You start out saying you want to educate us, then give us an opinion piece. Logic Fail.
dahun says:
That “misery index” is a made-up thing. I don’t think that the inflation was generally eroding worker’s incomes since wages were inflating at a rate fairly similar to prices. And, again, the interest rates just reflected the decreasing value of the currency.
I am not saying that having such inflation is a good idea…but naive pictures of how inflation affects things are just that: naive. You have to look and see what was actually going on with both wages and prices.
No…It wasn’t far worse. The economy was not in recession and there had not been a major financial crisis, nor a major loss of wealth due to the bursting of a housing bubble.
Inflation at very high levels? Are you serious ( ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/special.request/cpi/cpiai.txt )?
As for the debt, Obama inherited a huge deficit plus a huge hole in the economy. If he had tried to shrink the deficit, we wouldn’t be talking about the Great Recession…We would be talking about the Second Great Depression. The only entity who could inject money into the economy that was in freefall was the federal government, through a combination of stimulus spending and tax cuts, which is exactly what was done. Economists like Paul Krugman warned at the time that the stimulus was smaller than the hole in the economy due to the crash. But, Republicans wanted less, not more…which would have meant an even worse economic slump.
What was really amazing is how G.W. Bush inherited an economy where there were surpluses projected as far as the eye could see and he managed to turn these into huge deficits. Admittedly, circumstances are partly to blame: Those projections were probably a bit optimistic and 9/11 did result in some necessary increases in spending. However, a huge component of the problem (probably the majority) was his ill-advised adventure in Iraq and his tax cuts.
Obama is cleaning up the economy after 8 years of irresponsibility. The American people understood that which is why, to the surprise of people who are not reality-based, they supported his re-election even though the economy is admittedly still not in great shape.
philjourdan says:
The opinion is that of an oil analyst and one who clearly does not have a strong partisan axe to grind, since he notes that neither the people attacking Obama for causing the rise in oil prices nor those who are crediting Obama for the large increase in domestic oil and gas production that actually has occurred have a strong case.
I know it is difficult for conservatives to listen to opinions other than those by conservative ideologues, but I might recommend trying it sometime. You can learn something. Do you have any evidence that his claims are incorrect?
D Boehm says:
You have invented a complete fantasy world. In the real world, GW Bush left us with the largest financial crash and economic downturn since the Great Depression, a huge increase in debt when he inherited a budget in surplus, and net private-sector job creation over his tenure that was slightly negative. I believe that Obama has already surpassed Bush in net private-sector job creation and this is despite the fact that he inherited an economy in which we were losing 800,000 private-sector jobs per month and thus dug him into a huge hole before his policies could even start to take effect!
Unemployment averaged 5.3% throughout George W. Bush’s 8 years in office. Obama’s lowest unemployment rate is 7.9%. Cherry-picking the last few months of GWB’s term, at the start of a business recession, is typical mendacity from those on the left.
The current extremely weak recovery has lasted far longer than any other postwar recession. Far longer. Normally within about 18 months the economy is recovering smartly. Not this time, and it is 100% the fault of the Obama Administration’s anti-growth, anti-U.S. policies. The number of jobs being created are not sufficient to keep up with population growth. We are in an extremely weak, long drawn out recovery. A double-dip recession is not out of the question.
Obama lies like a child, and he blames others like a child, while taking every bit of the credit for any positive news. He has zero character, and lies spray out of his mouth like water from a high pressure fire hose. He is the poster boy for psychological projection, imputing his own faults onto others. His apologists and lickspittles are no better.
joelshore, who could not hold or find a private sector job, presumes to opine on ‘Republican’ economic policies. He conveniently forgets that the recession began after the Democrats took over control of the House in 2008. But of course, they get a free pass from economic illiterate cherry-pickers.
I am not a Republican; never have been. But anyone today with any common sense would gladly trade the economy of Barack 0bama over the entire 4 years of his incompetent mismanagement, with the eight years of the GWB economy. Like any good lickspittle, joelshore blames everything on Republicans and Bush. Shows you how completely out of touch with reality joelshore is.
@ joeldshore says: November 13, 2012 at 11:40 am
Opinion = Opinion. Opinion =/= Fact. It matters not WHOSE opinion it is. If you want to present facts (so far you have none), present them. Do not claim a fact and then offer an opinion.
Logic fail again.
Try education before you start teaching.
philjourdan says:
The numbers that I find at bls.gov for total non-farm employment seasonally-adjusted are ( http://www.bls.gov/webapps/legacy/cesbtab1.htm ):
January 2001: 132.5 million
December 2008: 134.4 million
Net gain: 1.9 million jobs, which is just what the Wiki source that I used said. Go figure!
(If you want to use January 2009 as the end of Bush’s term, its 133.6 million and the net gain is only 1.1 million jobs..)
[I have no idea what data you used…but I will note that if you don’t use the seasonally-adjusted data and you insist on going from Jan 2001 to Dec 2008, then you get a gain of 6.4 million jobs, which is at least getting close to what you had. The problem is that if you go one more month to Jan 2009, that gain drops to just 1.1 million jobs: You are just seeing the artificial effects of Christmas, which is why they seasonally-adjust, or why if they don’t, you should choose the same month for the comparisons.]
Oh…and thanks for motivating me to go to the source. This also allows me to actually put numbers on my point that things are worse for G.W. Bush if you look at private sector jobs only. In that case, the seasonally-adjusted numbers for Jan 2001 to Dec 2008 show a net gain of only 0.2 million jobs! (If you go until Jan 2009, that becomes a LOSS of 0.6 million jobs.)
So, yes, I apologize. The numbers that I gave made the Bush job creation record look better than it actually was because essentially all the net jobs created by Bush were government jobs! Boy, I bet that one is going to stick in your craw!
D Boehm says:
It was not a “business recession”…It was a complete financial meltdown, unlike anything since the Great Depression. It would have in fact been the Great Depression all over again if a combination of measures were not taken, some by the Bush Administration, which thankfully abandoned ideological purity to actually step in and take some actions and some by Obama who set about cleaning up the complete mess that he inherited.
It is not “cherry-picking” to note the condition that Bush left the economy in for the succeeding Administration. He gets no major credit for unemployment having averaged what it did during his term…That is because he inherited a sound economy and a strong fiscal position from Clinton
This is not a normal recession. It was a major financial meltdown and housing crash that left families with mountains of debt. It wasn’t just a cyclical contraction in spending…People weren’t spending because all of a sudden, they had much less money and many had mortgages with higher principle than the worth of their houses.
If the Tea Party ideologues had been in charge, we would have matched the Great Recession or worst.
How can you expect anyone to take what you say seriously anyway? In this thread, you haven’t even acknowledged basic facts that are in no serious dispute. You have claimed fantasmagorical nonsense like that Obama inherited a perfectly fine economy. It may play well in your little corner of the world, but anybody in the reality-based community who I show this thread to will be amazed that such nonsense was promulgated here and that I was the only one who actually challenged it.
philjourdan says:
Actually, I am essentially the only one here presenting facts. You presented “facts” that turn out to have been incorrect, as a post I have in the queue shows. If you actually go the BLS and look at the numbers, one can see that my number for the number of jobs Bush created is correct and yours is not. Worse yet, if we take out government jobs, Bush actually created no private sector jobs at all over his 8 years in office. There was a slight loss.
Since D Boehm likes graphs, here is one for him: http://www.frontiernet.net/~jshore/PrivateSectorJobs1989to2012.pdf
I used the BLS graphing option to generate a graph of private-sector jobs data from 1989 to the present and then I copied it into MS Word and annotated it with the historical events of Clinton, Bush, and Obama taking office.
Enjoy!
joelshore is arguing with everyone. But the consensus here is correct. And regarding that last joelshore chart, what it doesn’t say is that hiring is too anemic to keep up with the growing population.
0bama’s economic policies are a disaster, as everyone but our blinkered idiot knows.
adults arguing over the great santa’s gift distribution?
http://rapidshare.com/files/923615579/2016.obamas.america-primor.digitalevolution.tv.rar
Böehm says:
November 13, 2012 at 12:19 pm
“joelshore, who could not hold or find a private sector job, presumes to opine on ‘Republican’ economic policies. He conveniently forgets that the recession began after the Democrats took over control of the House in 2008. But of course, they get a free pass from economic illiterate cherry-pickers.”
The Democrats took over the House in 2006 ! The Republicans regained control in 2010. Simply look at what happened to the economy during the years from 2006 to 2010. My biggest complaint about GWB was his willingness to go along with Nancy Pelosi while she and her party drove us into the famous ditch, all in the name of cooperation. Do not forget that the deficit laden budget for FY 2009 was held up by the Democratic controlled Congress because GWB would have vetoed it if it passed. It was finally signed into law in calendar year 2009 by the new President Barack Obama. As a Senator Obama voted to hold it up knowing he would most likely beat McCain (which he did) and then he would, as President, be able to sign that pork barrel travesty into law. That was the last budget passed during his term, continuing resolutions containing the same trillion dollar deficits have been the order of the day since.
Check out dailyjobcuts.com It lists companies that have made cut backs in the number of people they employ, cut back on hours or have closed up shop completely. The numbers took quite a jump after Nov. 6, 2012.
Many companies are cutting employees to 28 or 29 hours a week since the “Obamacare” law has redefined “full time” as only 30 hours.
@ joeldshore says: November 13, 2012 at 2:30 pm
Sorry Joel, you are projecting again. You are incorrect. The BLS shows that employment at the end of the Clinton term was 135.8m. At the end of the Bush terms it was 143.3m. Those are facts. You have not presented any. I can even give you the direct link if you are google impaired. Here is a link to the end of the CLinton term: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/history/empsit_01052001.txt
Here is a link to the end of the Bush term: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/empsit_01092009.htm
NOTE: See the dubya, dubya, dubua and the the dot and the the BEE EL ESS and then the next dot and the GOV? That means it is a GOVERNMENT web site, not a fluff site. The PRIMARY source. not an opinion piece.
Check out table A, the “Employment” line. You will see that at the end of December 2000, employment stood at 135,836 and at the end of December 2008, employment stood at 143,338 (the numbers are in thousands for the math challenged). The difference: 143338-135836 = 7,502. Or for the math challenged, Jobs rose 7 million, 502 thousand. So you are just plain wrong. You sourced none of your opinions, except to other opinions.
Now I have given you the EXACT links, and the EXACT numbers. I cannot make you comprehend them. That requires education on your part.
Remember. Opinions are not facts. by definition.
philjourdan said:
Look, here is the relevant difference: You gave links to two different press releases from BLS at two very different times. By contrast, I gave you a link to BLS where you can download all of the numbers you want: http://www.bls.gov/webapps/legacy/cesbtab1.htm See the http://www.bls.gov … that means it is a GOVERNMENT web site, not a fluff site. The PRIMARY source. not an opinion piece. (Unfortunately, I don’t seem to be able to link to a page where I got the data after making the particular choices of dates and numbers to download, but I have explained which data I used very clearly in the above posts, so you ought to be able to do it yourself. Hint: You have to let it just give you ten years of data by default and then when you get to the final page with the data, you can change the “From:” date in the drop-down menu.)
Why do your two press releases show something different than my link to one consistent source of BLS data? The reason, I presume, is that BLS is always revising things…including how they do seasonal adjustments and so forth. (They even have warnings about that in the very press releases that you link to.) Hence, you can’t just put together data from their data set as of 2001 and the data from their data set as of 2009. You have to look at numbers from one consistent data set where the numbers have been treated consistently.
You’d see the same thing if you looked at Spencer and Christy’s UAH data over time…They have made various revisions to the analysis and to their baseline, so comparing a number that they reported in 2001 for 2001 to a number that they reported in 2009 for 2009 would be meaningless. You have to look at the latest revision of their data and compare numbers for 2001 and 2009 within that.
Get it?
joelshore actually believes the rejiggered government numbers. It is preposterous to believe that in only a couple of months, and right before the election, unemployment suddenly fell from 8.6% to 7.9%. For the truth about government statistics, see here:
http://www.shadowstats.com
Get it?
philjourdan: Another part of the difference between our numbers may be due to the fact that I am using the “establishment survey” and you are using the “household survey”. (See discussion here: http://www.bls.gov/lau/lauhvse.htm#hvse ) I haven’t been able to determine what part of the difference between our numbers might be due to that because I can’t find where the BLS has a consistent monthly source of household data. I can only find yearly averages, which are not that useful for times like 2008/2009 when employment was changing rapidly.
Also note that the information dividing out the jobs according to private vs public sector is only available with the establishment survey.
philjourdan: Here is a recent paper by BLS discussing recent differences in trends between the 2 surveys: http://www.bls.gov/web/empsit/ces_cps_trends.pdf As an appendix, they also have the latest household survey numbers by month.
Using these household survey numbers, we find: Change in employment from Jan 2001 to Jan 2009 is +4.6 million jobs. By comparison, the establishment survey over the same time period shows a change of +1.1 million jobs. (You can get another million or so in each survey by going from Dec 2000 to Dec 2008 but I don’t see how that can be justified unless you think that the President’s policies can change the January numbers by virtue of his taking office 11 days before the end of the month!)
So, part of the difference between your numbers and mine are due to using different surveys and part is due to you using Dec. to Dec. instead of Jan. to Jan. and using numbers that are not from the same consistent revision of the data set.
So, realistically, the jobs record for Bush is somewhere between about +1 million and +5 million, depending on which survey you rely on.
And, then if you want private sector instead of public sector jobs, you need to subtract about 2 million (1.75 million is the exact number) assuming that the ***difference*** in trends between total and private sector employment in the establishment survey are accurate. So, the Bush record over 8 years is -1 million to +3 million private sector jobs, depending on which survey you believe.
D Boehm says:
Actually, as I have now explained, part of the discrepancy in Bush’s job numbers is between the household and establishment surveys…and conservatives haven’t liked the household survey for the last few months since it is the one that gives unemployment numbers. However, the household survey is what philjourdan used; I used the establishment survey.
Of course, we know what D Boehm’s solution to the problem is: Use whichever survey gives you the results that you want. Don’t even worry if you have numbers using different baselines so they are not consistent at all…What matters is that the data agree with his ideology. If there is disagreement, the ideology isn’t wrong; the data is!
Here is a blog piece by Greg Mankiw discussing the difference between the establishment and household survey, and how that difference was particularly pronounced in the first couple years of the Bush administration: http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-two-labor-market-surveys.html (Note: Mankiw was Chair of the Council on Economic Advisors under Bush from 2003 to 2005, so he should represent a respectable opinion in the minds of those who will only listen to opinions of people who share their ideology.)
philjourdan wrote, “[between 12/2000 to 12/2008] Jobs rose 7 million, 502 thousand.”
You are correct, Phil, but the only reason job growth was that low is that you’re counting Bush’s last two years, when Democrats were in charge of both the House and Senate, meaning that Bush had very little say in the nation’s economic affairs:
BLS household data:
Dec. 2000 employment: 135,836
http://bls.gov/news.release/history/empsit_01052001.txt
Dec. 2006 employment: 145,926
http://bls.gov/news.release/history/empsit_01052007.txt
[Democrats took control of Congress January 3, 2007, and Barney Frank took over as chairman of the House Banking Committee]
Dec. 2008 employment: 143,338
http://bls.gov/news.release/archives/empsit_01092009.pdf
For Bush’s first six years (i.e., the six years before Democrats took over control of Congress), job creation averaged (145,926,000 – 135,836,000) / 6 = 1,682,000 per year — not Reaganesque, but still a reasonably healthy rate.
However, even before Democrats won control of Congress, Democrats in Congress, with the unfortunate help of some Republicans, had stymied the Bush administration’s repeated efforts to put safeguards in place that would have reined in Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac, and prevented, or at least greatly reduced the severity of the 2007-2008 banking crisis, which was the trigger for the recession. Google can find you the details, but here’s a brief summary:
http://www.thepilot.com/news/2012/sep/28/when-dems-took-over/
P.S. — regarding the difference between the establishment survey and the household survey, the establishment survey is considered more reliable for short-term (month-to-month) trend detection, but the gradual shift of workers into self-employment (where they’re not “seen” by the establishment survey) means that he household survey is better for long-term trend analysis.
daveburton says:
That’s with some serious cherrypicking…both by not counting the last two years and by choosing which survey to believe! And, even so, the numbers are about in line with those that Obama has had for job growth after the first year or so. (And, considering that when Obama came in, the economy was losing 800,000 jobs / month, there is much more reasonable argument to exclude those numbers than for you to exclude the entire economic meltdown from Bush’s numbers!)
Your cherrypick is also giving Bush credit for growth due to the housing bubble but then writing off the entire bursting of the bubble, so his numbers don’t get harmed by it.
This is a re-writing of economic history. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were not primarily responsible for the crisis…They were along for the ride. They actually got into the game of riskier mortgages later than the private firms did and because of the “need” to compete with them.
And, while there is enough blame to go around for who was responsible for the crisis, what can be said definitively is this: The crisis showed that a philosophy embraced by Republicans, and unfortunately some Democrats, that the market was infallible and financial markets didn’t need regulation was sheer stupidity.
Might be true…but I would like to see some citation for the latter part of your claim.
@ joeldshore says: November 14, 2012 at 8:05 am
I could have linked to the PDFs. I just thought it would be easier at the time for a google impaired person to actually read it. And yes, they were from 2 different times. Guess what? December 2000, and December 2008 ARE different times. Indeed, they have not been adjusted in 4-12 years! (check out the Obama adjustment last summer – It is now IN THERE). So my numbers are the most accurate. Not yours. These are the actual figures. Not yours. Yours are not even real. They are imaginary – as is everything else you claim (like Obama creating any jobs – his total is zero, and only then after he fudged the summer numbers by 1/2 million – watch for a big adjustment soon).
So perhaps you need to take up your case with the BLS. After all, you are calling them a liar. I am merely pointing out that opinion is not fact, and so far, you have shown NO FACTS.
If you think about it, you would know that your statement is a lie because the figures are not going to be off that much,. Nor was the 00s a terrible time. Economic growth over the 8 years of Bush (counting 2 years of recession thanks to the democrats) AVERAGED 25% more than Obama’s last 2 years (after the recession was over). Thems the facts jack. You bought the lemon, now you get to eat it.
@ joeldshore says: November 14, 2012 at 8:51 am
No, the difference is you have no numbers. You linked to a page with no data, just put in your own values. I linked to the hard numbers. You claimed no Jobs under Bush and 5.5m under Obama. The truth is just the opposite as any thinking person can see. More people have left the labor force in the last 4 years than in the previous 8. No one disputes that, not even Obama. And there has been no job growth under obama by any objective measure. To have growth, you have to grow the economy, which has not happened. You are trying to buttress a talking point with imaginary numbers. It matters not if you use Jan or Dec, that would make only a minor difference as millions were not added or subtracted from month to month. Not even Obama is claiming that.
Go argue with the BLS. They have real numbers, you have talking points.
@Joeldshore:
I see you are well schooled in the Democratic Talking Points as to who / what caused the housing bubble. Sadly, it is woefully deficient. I don’t really have the space to go into it here (having done it too many times already, it’s several pages) but there is plenty of ‘blame’ for both Democrats and Republicans.
The problem, in a nutshell, was that while the Republicans were demanding that the firewalls and fire extinguishers be removed, the Democrats were busy breaking up the furniture and pouring gasoline on it. The “match” was an invention of the Finance Industry. ALL are to blame.
First, the CRA, and it’s modification signed by Pres. Clinton Mandated bad loans. (“anti-redlining” and other terms). In exchange for that corrupt idea (homes for everyone, no credit, no job no problem! demanded by the Democrats) the Republicans demanded the removal of Glass-Steagall that had kept a nice firebreak between insurance, regular banks, and investment banks ever since the Great Depression (and worked well). This was a marriage made in hell…
Now the banks, not being suckers, figured out that making bad loans to folks who could not pay was a bad idea, but The Law demanded it. So they made them. But created the SIV (and several other ‘creative’ packages) to move those mortgages off their books. These flowed world wide as “AAA Products” since the rating agencies bought into the idea that a little rotten meat in the sausage was just fine.
We then had a great time for all (and Clinton had his bubble economy). Until it reach the end game and imploded. THEN the Democrats realized that they had failed to ‘stick the banks’ with the crap loans and got pissed… So have been on a warpath against banks ever since.
Oh, and honorable mention goes to the SEC for removing the “uptick rule” and letting ‘fattest wallet wins” and classical bear raids return to the stock markets. Oh, and you could take out ‘life insurance’ of a sort (Credit Default Swaps) on a bank just before the bear raid to ‘lever up’ the gain.
Now “the game” is you start a rumor about a ‘bad bank’, like, say, Lehman. And short the hell out of their capital. That drives the price down. (In another bout of incredible stupid, the “regulatory agencies” had demanded ‘mark to market’ accounting, so the bank MUST immediately recognize this “loss of reserves” and “need for more capital”. Prior to that regulatory change it was ‘mark to model’ and they could just laugh at the guy shorting their capital holdings).
At this point the spiral decent into hell begins. The bank is now “short of capital” making a self fulfilling prophecy. You buy more CDSs so their “life insurance rate” is seen to be spiking (at the same time your profits soar) and short more of their capital holdings AND their stock. (No uptick rule to stop you – fattest wallet wins that game). You’ve started a nice run on the bank and as deposits flee, and their capital plunges, wash and repeat. Eventually they go bankrupt and you collect big time on the CDS and shorts.
That is NOT a hypothetical. That is how the game played out.
Root Causes:
CRA (democrats)
Removal of Glass-Steagall (republicans)
CDSs and SIVS ( finance ‘wizards’)
Removal of ‘uptick rule’ and forced “mark to market” (Federal Regulator Agencies)
BTW, you conveniently ignore that there are often multi-year lags in economic cycles. What is happening at any one time often depends on what was done anywhere from one to 5 years before. But I’m not going to tease out all of that one.
Basically, the net of it, is that Bush did pretty darned good given that he was handed the collapse phase of the processes started (and enjoyed) by the Democrats and Bill Clinton.
A necessary corollary to this is that the present Democrat Talking Point of how much we added in jobs and how good things were under Clinton, so just go ahead and raise tax rates is, well, incredibly dumb. ONLY if we have a new “bubble” to exploit can you even hope to get close to those numbers again. As we’re in the collapse phase, and The Fed is blowing into the bubble as hard as they can already ( “stimulus” going full bore and interest rates 0% to 0.25% ) you are just NOT going to get another bubble (nor even prevent the further collapse of this one).
Sidebar: Clinton also benefited from the ROTH IRA conversion tax flood. That’s not going to happen again. You’ve already collected and spent that money. Gave a great lift to his budget numbers at the expense of future revenues and wealth. I.e. “now”… Time to pay the piper…
I could go on ( I am an Economist, after all, and this is my specialty. International Finance was one of my favorite subjects along with international money flows and such. Oh, and I grew up in a real estate family. I knew how to fill out a ‘quit claim deed’ and property listing at 7 years old..) but I won’t. It’s not appropriate to this thread.
As I’m sure you are impervious to actual information that is in conflict with your talking point library, I’m also not going to ‘engage’ on this topic with you here. If anyone wants more on this, hit my blog and I’ll open a topic.
Bottom Line:
We’re in a bubble collapse. It is NOT proceeding to resolution. We have too much debt, and too much ‘pent up inflation pressure’ (and a Fed leveraged to the teeth too much) to start another bubble now, so those Obama Tax Hike fantasies are just that. More taxes (rates OR revenues) will just drive us into worse condition, not a return to the Clinton Years.
The “Housing Bubble” grew from the CRA, and was allowed to become massive via the repeal of Glass-Steagall (and the regulatory agency changes including the TIGHTENING of rules in Mark To Market – just incredibly stupid. Why has to do with ‘borrowing short to lend long’).
All the financial industry did that was “bad” was to lobby for the repeal of Glass-Steagall and then to find a way to ‘third party’ the crap loans off their books. Crap loans REQUIRED by law in the CRA. Under penalty of loss of licenses if you didn’t do it…)
So ALL are responsible. But the financial industry response was just that, a RESPONSE to the Democrat demand for the CRA, so the initial and fundamental broken idea was the Democrat championed “Homes for everyone don’t care if they can’t pay” legal mandate.
We can NOT return to the Clinton Years as the bubble is broken and the ROTH conversions are a done deal. Tax more now, it’s a depression.
As per Bush vs Obama and job creation: Bush did a better job until hobbled by Democrats. Obama’s record is dismal and going to get much worse. Adding a lot more government workers and crushing small business is ‘exactly wrong’ for real economic growth and real wealth creation. It is just wealth consumption. That ends in more poverty, and fewer working doing valuable things.
No, I don’t LIKE any of that. It’s my job to get the RIGHT answer, not the one I LIKE. I’d LIKE to think we could have home ownership for everyone and that government jobs were as good as any other at net wealth creation for the nation. They just aren’t. So if you want to argue about it, argue with reality, not me.
E.M. Smith,
Excellent analysis. I agree. Raising taxes now would be like throwing a drowning man an anchor. But based on his astonishingly destructive actions, 0bama is intent on hobbling the economy even further. Engaging in pure class warfare, he is intent on punishing the most productive members of society — those who create the jobs. In fact, 0bama does not want job creation. That fact is clearly evident in his policies. He wants a society on the dole, as a means of controlling them. And it appears to be working. The number of food stamp recipients has skyrocketed.
When he campaigned in 2007, 0bama repeatedly promised to end divisiveness and class warfare. As usual, he was lying through his teeth. He has been by far the most divisive president in the past century; probably ever. No one else comes close. The rest of his campaign promises were just more lies, which spew out of his mouth like water from a high pressure fire hose.
joelshore is simply 0bama’s lickspittle apologist on this site, and the rest of us know it. joelshore constantly engages in projection, labeling everyone he disagrees as an “ideologue”. But the fact is that joelshore is a complete and total leftist ideologue; no one else even comes close.
Obama, Bernanke and their ilk Know how to solve this economic downturn because they studied the Roosevelt success of the 1930s as described in the college texts they studied. You know the books written by their Progressive professors that wished to credit the 1950s up turn on FDR progressive ideals. The real cause was the lifting of the economic strait jacket that had been created in the great progressive experiment of the FDR years. Actual contemporary writings of the late 1930s stated that nothing that the progressives did worked but in fact made things worse. Even members of FDRs administration stated that their progressive ideas did not work in the real world. Time is up, the fiscal cliff is not in front of us, IT is behind us. The GREAT DEPRESSION is in front of us.If you have a nice, safe, government job or pension guess what! You are next in the barrel. Read up on the collapse of the Soviet Union and its’ effect on pensioners and government employes. pg
philjourdan says:
No…I am not calling them a liar. In fact, I used their numbers and I linked to the sources. Here is the source for the establishment survey http://www.bls.gov/webapps/legacy/cesbtab1.htm and here is the link for the household survey http://www.bls.gov/web/empsit/ces_cps_trends.pdf (see table in appendix). Everyone here can go to those links and see that you are the one telling falsehoods here about what I have done.
You have used inconsistent numbers. I have used consistent ones from single unified BLS data sets, which is the only consistent way to do things.
That’s a ridiculous statement. I linked to a page that allows you to pull up all of the BLS numbers from the establishment survey. And, I clearly explained which numbers I looked at. Is that so difficult to understand?
I’m not the one arguing with them. You are. I am the one doing a careful analysis and discussion of the BLS data…in fact, linking to their own discussions of the different surveys and methodologies. You are the one who is cherry-picking the numbers that you like best, ignoring the fact that they are from two different revisions of the data and hence are not directly comparable (and only using the household survey because, again, it gives you the answer that you like best).
You are just demonstrating that many conservatives seem incapable of honest analysis and discussions of data. They prefer to dredge up any data that agrees with their ideology and ignore any problems with it or any other sets of data, even ones that have the advantage of actually being consistent (because they are from the same revision of the data).
Sorry Joel, you played with the numbers. I linked to the numbers themselves. So you are just flat out wrong. You want to create a history that does not exist. And now you are equivocating and trying to weasel out of saying you are wrong.
You should try it. It matters not in the long run, but it will allow you to gain some measure of self esteem by demonstrating you can admit when you are wrong.
D Boehm says:
Oh…The irony! It burns! The most vicious and vile attacks on the poor are not considered class warfare but the polite suggestion that perhaps the very rich, who have seen their after-tax incomes skyrocket over the past 30 years (while the middle class has seen anemic rises) could contribute a little more is seen as being divisive class warfare!
That is ridiculous. In this very thread, you have (mis)labeled 47% of the population as “takers”. Your candidate for President has expounded on the notion that these are people who just want the government to give them things and who will never take personal responsibility for themselves.
On the other hand, Obama has always been extremely polite in talking about how well-off folks like himself should perhaps be asked to give a little bit more and THAT’s class warfare?!?!
Are you really that out of touch with reality?
philjourdan: Show me specifically one thing that I am wrong about in my analysis of those numbers.
And, you didn’t link to the numbers themselves. You linked to the equivalent of the UAH temperature anomaly from 2001 as stated in 2001 and the UAH temperature anomaly from 2009 as stated in 2009 without bothering to notice that the 2001 number is from a different revision of the data than the 2009 number and hence they are not directly comparable.
Joel – do your own editing. I proved you wrong from post 1. I sourced it. you merely alleged facts not in evidence. You have never produced a single source for your hysteria. For a very good reason. You cannot.
get a life.
Establishment survey numbers from BLS.gov: http://www.bls.gov/webapps/legacy/cesbtab1.htm
Household survey numbers from BLS.gov (see appendix) + discussion of recent differences between the two surveys: http://www.bls.gov/web/empsit/ces_cps_trends.pdf
Discussion by Greg Mankiw, former head of G.W. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisors discussing establishment vs household survey numbers: http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-two-labor-market-surveys.html
Post where I discuss the numbers: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/11/09/a-post-election-oddity-im-noticing/#comment-1147269
Now, anyone can see who is telling the truth about what I have done and who isn’t.
E.M. Smith says:
Thanks for your contribution. You clearly know a lot about the topic, probably more than anyone else of us here. However, that doesn’t mean that we have to automatically conclude that your interpretation of things is the correct interpretation…and I find myself rather skeptical on this point. As near as I can tell (and maybe you can present evidence to the contrary), the notion that CRA was at the center of the crisis seems to have little support outside of certain ideological circles. For example, here is a discussion of this issue in Wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_Reinvestment_Act ):
It also discusses the fact that a number of people have said “that the CRA did not contribute to the financial crisis, notably, FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair,[112] Comptroller of the Currency John C. Dugan,[113] Tim Westrich of the Center for American Progress,[114] Robert Gordon of the American Prospect,[115] Ellen Seidman of the New America Foundation,[116] Daniel Gross of Slate,[117] and Aaron Pressman from BusinessWeek.[118]” Now, admittedly a few of these sources like the American Prospect and Center for American Progress have a left-of-center ideological point-of-view, but Sheila Bair it seems was appointed by Bush…and BusinessWeek is not generally a publication I think of as left-of-center (although I really don’t know its ideological leanings).
So, do you have empirical evidence to counter these arguments and explain why you think CRA played such a pivotal role in the crisis?
@JoeldShore:
Didn’t notice the “it is off topic so not going to engage here” eh?
If you can’t figure out that asking the folks who ADVOCATED for the CRA mandated loans to unqualified borrowers might have a bias, or that the gang that wants to ‘blame the banks’ might want to blame the banks, there’s not much I can do to help you.
Oh, and if it isn’t a bit obvious that the “legal mandate to make loans to unqualified borrowers” is the root cause (not ‘pivotal’ but an essential root cause) and an essential step to HAVING bad loans made, again, I doubt I can help you.
Just remember that who can make loans to whom, and who MUST make loans to whom, was under direct command of the Federal Government. That prior to the CRA lending standards tended toward the 20% and lots of income (with some movement to 10% and even 5% with spectacular credit rating and location / property). That after the CRA was when BY LAW banks had to lend into bad areas and to folks with poor credit and poor collateral AND the regulatory bodies allowed / required it (not enough ‘liar loans’ and 0 money down loans, then you lose your license). IMHO, that’s a ‘root cause’.
But no, I’m not going to debate it here. It serves no purpose and is off topic to the thread. I would suggest, though, that actually READING the CRA and looking at the legal mandates it put on banks, finding old newspaper copies of them balking at making bad loans, finding the pronouncements of Barney Frank, The Clintons, and The Federal Government under Clinton about what bad things would happen to the banks if they didn’t make enough loans into ‘disadvantaged areas’ and to ‘disadvantaged borrowers’ would be a good place to start.
So do your homework (NOT reading other folks opinions, but the law itself and the historical record) and then on an appropriate thread I’d be willing to discuss it more.
One sidebar: The Democrat POV is that if it were not for those nasty banks, the Ponzi would have kept on going with ever more folks ‘owning their home’ and ever rising home prices. The reality was that as soon as the bubble slowed, it was guaranteed to collapse (as ALL bubbles do) and then the weak borrowers would be cleaned out. That by then the banks had sold those loans (in many cases) to others is what causes the moral outrage, but doesn’t change the problem. The world would not have been better if J.P. Morgan and Wells Fargo were both bankrupted too. (Some banks didn’t, so Bank Of America is still suffering from their Shotgun Marriage to Countrywide – under Federal ‘encouragement’ / blackmail… who had not sold their portfolio) It’s not who owns the bad loans that makes a difference, only that they were made. The bankers didn’t want to make them. See the history. (As I lived through the history and was watching it in real time and aware of the ‘problems’, I have a vivid memory of the events. Remarkably similar to the S&L Crisis in many ways too. Lived through that one ‘eyes wide open’ at the time.)
So like I said, you want to discuss it in depth, hit my blog with a comment and I’ll open a thread.
Not coming back to this one.
@ joeldshore says: November 15, 2012 at 4:39 pm
LOL! Apparently Joel has never heard of WIlliam Connelly, or he would NEVER have used Wiki as a source. Especially since even dogmatic leftist teachers tell their students it is not a valid source!
EM gave you a chance to learn. But like always, you are merely doubling down on stupid. I would suggest you go back to school. EM gave a very non-biased account of what happened. The dogma belongs to those who seek to discredit his analysis. And his is not unique. Most economists (that excludes Krugman and his ilk) acknowledge what EM says as being the truth. For the dogmatic, the same mistake will be repeated because they are too stupid to learn from past mistakes.
Courtesy of 0bama and the Party of ‘Rats.
philjourdan says:
Perhaps you might then tell us what you think a better source on this subject is? Or, you could provide evidence that specific claims that Wikipedia made are incorrect. No source is perfect but Wikipedia is better than many.
Really? Would you care to provide evidence that most economists believe that CRA played a dominant role in the financial meltdown?
Do you notice the lack of any empirical evidence that has been presented (e.g., to rebut the claims in the Wikipedia article such as “subprime excesses came mainly from institutions not regulated by the CRA”?)
Re: Sandy.
Many more examples of the continuing incompetence of 0bama and his ‘I couldn’t care less’ administration.
@ joeldshore says: November 16, 2012 at 11:39 am
Yes the lack of empirical evidence is yours. I do not have to prove to you that the moon is NOT made of green cheese. You can believe that as long as you want. But I also cannot force education on you. If you cannot read and then take the initiative to learn, then there is no hope for you.
Try doing your own leg work. You have been spoon fed a smorgasbord of facts. But no one can make you learn.
Did 0bama cheat to win? Of course. Anything else would be contrary to his nature.
D Boehm: As usual, you are projecting your own morality onto others. That article that you link to contains the long-debunked claim about the turnout in a county in Florida that was based on the fact that they counted not the number of ballots but the number of PAGES when the ballots were two pages: http://hotair.com/greenroom/archives/2012/11/13/the-myth-of-141-turnout-in-st-lucie-county-florida/ It also makes some claim based on the notion that correlation is causation, i.e., that Obama didn’t win any of the states that require voter photo id…but the question is whether he was expected to. The answer is no because those were all conservative states. He won exactly those he was expected to (by the reality-based community) and lost exactly those that he expected to (by the reality-based community) and by approximately the margins that he was expected to (by the reality-based community).
Other than that, there is nothing of substance in the article. It is the perfect sort of article to fool fake skeptics.