Cynical Nation

yes, the kid can always go all out and hope for scholarships, grants and loans. But where is a high school graduate going to find a job(s) that will pay him the $30-$40k to finance the tuition rip-off, not to mention the even-bigger crime of $100 textbooks--plus normal living expenses.
Dad sounds like a douchebag, as well.

> But where is a high school graduate going to find a job(s) that will pay him the $30-$40k to finance the tuition rip-off...

Fred, something tells me that Yale is not exactly in this guy's future. I doubt he'll have to worry about $40k tuition. For that matter, how would his Dad, as a martial arts instructor, afford $40k? And yes, for the record, his Dad is being an asshole, but I do reject the notion that kids are entitled to a college education, courtesy of their parents.

Agreed. I have saved exactly 14.83 so far for my son's. At this rate, I'll be able to pay for one textbook, I think.
No one's entitled, for sure, but to make kid "turn" Republican is about as stupid as I've heard.
I threatened in 1980 not to register for the draft till Dad said he wouldn't fork over college $$.

Barry is infected with the Karl Rove disease: lying by spin.

The kid has his hand out? Looks to me like he came up with an idea, bought a web site, and followed through. Gee, that reminds me of ... well ... entrepreneurism.

Refesh my memory, Barry, when did dumb Dubya ever work hard?

"Mr. Gambordella countered that he was liberal in college. Now the martial arts instructor and author listens to Rush Limbaugh daily and backs Republicans with his pocketbook and at the ballot box."

Shocker! How could I have guessed that his brain is rotted daily by drug addict felon Rush Limbaugh! Now he chooses Bush over his children! LOL!

"Mr. Gambordella said he may not agree with his son's politics, but he's proud that Teddy is showing initiative."

Will sir, Barry does not agree. Your son is just a whiney liberal asking for handouts. Rush Limbaugh will be instructing you on how to disown and disinherit him, tithing his birthright to the needy GOP with there billions gushing in from Big Oil contributions for some odd reason.

Try to get the story right, Barry. If you could all just ease back on the Rush dope just a little ...

"The kid has his hand out? Looks to me like he came up with an idea, bought a web site, and followed through. Gee, that reminds me of ... well ... entrepreneurism." (anony-MOUSE)

Just like a typical Lib, Mouse, equating BEGGING with entreprenurialism and hard work.

There's this bok called "Economics in One Lesson" by the great Henry Hazlitt...you should read it. Might help.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0517548232/sr=1-1/qid=1146597813/ref=sr_1_1/102-1719954-5268104?%5Fencoding=UTF8&s=books

hey raising money is raising money. if it works, it works, it's not like he's defrauding anyone. They're donating money for his college.

"She says becoming a Democrat is a better way to rebel than drinking or doing drugs." quote from Mom.

Hahaha! ooh i'm a rebel, speaking truth to power.

So where is your example of all that HARD WORK Bush put in? Was it curling beers before hunting? Strongly gripping the wheel while driving drunk?

So where is your example of all that HARD WORK Bush put in? Was it curling beers before hunting? Strongly gripping the wheel while driving drunk?

You know, I may disagree with the liberal posters on this board but, in most cases, they endeavor to make valid counterpoints.

You, 'anonymous', on the other hand, contribute nothing except trite vitreol such as the above.

Why don't you change your already innocuous pen-name to 'zero' to reflect the true measure of your intellectual contributions to this site?

In other words, BUSH NEVER WORKED A DAY IN HIS LIFE, DADDY KEPT HIM OUT OF 'NAM, AND HE IS A LYING THIEVING COCKSUCKING PIECE OF SHIT JUST LIKE YOU.

........So........how 'bout them Mets?

"So where is your example of all that HARD WORK Bush put in?" (Anony-MOUSE)

What is supposed to be your point here, mouse?

G W Bsuh was born rich, so was AlGore, Ted Kennedy and Hillary Clinton among others.

None of them ever really "worked" much outside of running for Office that is.

It's also true that AlGore sold federal oil fields (Elk Hills) to Occidental Petroleum, an oil company his family (he & his father) holds a large amount of stock in, on the cheap back in 1995.

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=468

Hillary Clinton turned $1,000 into $100,000 in less than a year in volatile futures market, via what appears to be insider trading that would make Martha Stewart's prosecutors blush.

"Hillary Rodham Clinton was allowed to order 10 cattle futures contracts, normally a $12,000 investment, in her first commodity trade in 1978 although she had only $1,000 in her account at the time, according to trade records the White House released yesterday.

"The computerized records of her trades, which the White House obtained from the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, show for the first time how she was able to turn her initial investment into $6,300 overnight. In about 10 months of trading, she made nearly $100,000, relying heavily on advice from her friend James B. Blair, an experienced futures trader.

"The new records also raise the possibility that some of her profits -- as much as $40,000 – came from larger trades ordered by someone else and then shifted to her account, Leo Melamed, a former chairman of the Merc who reviewed the records for the White House, said in an interview. He said the discrepancies in Clinton's records also could have been caused by human error."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/whitewater/stories/wwtr940527.htm

If you're going to bash Bush and there's lots to bash him over, try sticking to citing his actual flaws - poor on the immigration question, often too politically corrrect on the "War on Terrorism," etc.

The reality is that the current administration inherited an economy in free fall (the NASDAQ imploded in the Spring of 2000) and took the Dow with it shortly after, and that recession was deepened by the $100 billion hit that was 9/11/01.

The Bush administration's tax cuts and sound economic policies have resulted in sustained low inflation (2.8%), low interest rates (6%), a first quarter 2006 GDP hike of 4.8%, a Dow nearing record highs, unemployment under 5%, with welfare rolls across the country at close to half century lows (NYC's welfare rolls shrunk to 402,000, down from over a million the last time a Dem ran the city and the lowest since 1964...before the "Great Society" boondoggle).

That's a stellar economy by any measure, so instead of whining as predicatbly as a monkey with an overabundance of fecal matter, you should be thankful that we avoided AlGore and what almost certainly would've been a "Jimmy Carter Redux," replete with "STAGFLATION" and "Economic Malaise."

Think about it, things COULD'VE and almost certainly WOULD'VE been a LOT WORSE.

"The reality is that the current administration inherited an economy in free fall (the NASDAQ imploded in the Spring of 2000) and took the Dow with it shortly after, and that recession was deepened by the $100 billion hit that was 9/11/01."

Free fall? The Administration's figures showed, at first, that the recession last from Mar 01 to Nov 01--using the traditional definition that a recession equals 2 straight quarters of negative GDP growth. SO how could 9/11 have deepened a recession that was just about over anyway?
Plus, the Administration, I believe during the '04 campaign, rejiggered its data to show that, voila, there never was a recession to begin with!
4Q 2000 GDP was +2.1%; 1Q 2001 was -0.5%; 2Q 2001 was +2.1%; 3Q 2001 was -1.4%; and 4Q 2001 was +1.6. Hardly a downturn. And even when the Administration was terming it a recession, it was widely viewed as the mildest one in decades.

"The Bush administration's tax cuts and sound economic policies have resulted in sustained low inflation (2.8%), low interest rates (6%), a first quarter 2006 GDP hike of 4.8%, a Dow nearing record highs, unemployment under 5%, with welfare rolls across the country at close to half century lows....

"That's a stellar economy by any measure,..."

Sure is. You could substitute Clinton for Bush in your sentence opening and the same would be true--except now we have sky high deficits, debt, personal debt, long-term debt, out-of-control federal spending, expanding government and bureaucracies. Sound economic policies? I'd say it's been the consumer, in debt up to his eyeballs, that's been fueling the economy, not the Administration's "sound" policies.

And whether Gore would have been a Carter-redux (or a Clinton-redux)is pure surmising on your part...

The NASDAQ imploded in the Spring of 2000, Fred.

Dropping from over 5,000 to under 2,000 in under six months!

That was what caused the recession - the end of the "Tech Bubble" mirage that was created by some slick SEC legerdemain that included loosened IPO regs and more lax margin rules.

The NASDAQ crash and dragged the Dow down with it several months later.

It was only the current administration's relatively deep tax cuts that averted a far worse fiscal calamity.

Personal debt has REMAINED high, the bulk of hat in mortgage debt, due to the largest home-ownership rate ever.

The bulk of the mounting national debt is due to legitimate wartime expenditures both foreign and domestic...we are only engaged and now paying for a war that had been relentlessly waged against this country for some ten years previous to 9/11.

Aside from the horrific Prescription Drug boondoggle (a terrible bit of legislation) the current administration has been tepid at worst on discretionary spending.

In fact, they tried to get some of the non-discretionary spending under control via their attempt at Social Security Reform last year, but that attempt was stymied by partisan interests.

Actually, the current administration has reduced many prospective discretionary expenditures;

CONCENTRATING ON THE WRONG TARGET

(Bush Cuts Would Reduce Domestic Discretionary Spending, as A Share of GDP, To Its Lowest Level in 46 Years)

By Isaac Shapiro and David Kamin
http://www.cbpp.org/2-27-04bud.htm

The Administration’s new budget has one main focus when it comes to reducing the deficit: domestic discretionary spending. This focus is disproportionate; the rise in domestic discretionary spending plays a bit part when it comes to telling the story of why the nation’s fiscal situation has worsened. Further, because such spending constitutes a minor part of the budget, even though the proposed cuts in this area will hit a range of programs sharply, the cuts will not dramatically improve the fiscal picture.

As a share of the economy, domestic discretionary spending — which includes programs such as education, child care, environmental protection, veterans’ health, housing, and many other areas — has risen since 2001, but only to a moderate degree. (As defined here, domestic discretionary spending excludes spending on homeland security programs.) The modest rise, in turn, has had only a modest effect on the deficit. The increase in domestic discretionary spending accounts for one-twentieth of the deterioration in the fiscal situation over the past three years.

Even with the recent increases, domestic discretionary spending in 2004, measured as a share of the economy (i.e., of the Gross Domestic Product), is expected to be slightly below its average level since 1970.

With Congress unwilling to address the issue of reducing our non-discretionary spending burden (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Medicare, SSI, etc) and our wartime expenditures unavoidable given that we now face an intractable, global enemy, reducing the discretionary spending side of the equation is the only thing ANY administration can do to attempt to reduce spending.

If you're arguing that the reduction in "domestic discretionary spending in 2004, measured as a share of the economy (i.e., of the Gross Domestic Product), to below its average level since 1970," is NOT ENOUGH, I probably agree with you.

I mean if we CAN'T cut non-discretionary spending and our legitimate wartime expenditures have to be budgeted in, then where else can we cut?

As for Gore, that speculation was based on the fact that Gore was no Clinton, no "DLC Center-Right Democrat," but rather a Carter, Mondale, Dukakis clone, from the extreme Left-wing of that Party.

might want to do a teeny bit of EZ research before spewing fiction as fact.
Nasdaq peaked on 3/10/2000 at 5,048. Six months later, it hasn't fallen under 2,000 as you yelled, but was around 3,800. It fell below 2,000 in March 2001.
The Fed started hiking rates in June 1999; all but one Fed rate-hike campaigns in the postwar period have led to recessions. So it wasn't just the market decline. It was the Fed, rising energy prices at the time, excess inventories, etc.
Then in Jan 2001, the Fed began frantically cutting rates in an attempt to stave off economic weakness.
True, much consumer debt is tied up in mortgages, but its interesting to see that the percentage of home EQUITY loans as a % of mortgage loans has more than doubled since 2001--people aren't just buying, they're refinancing and refianncing--and what's gonna happen when house prices inevitably decline?
Check the data on credit card debt, too. It's sky high.
As for Gore being a Carter/Dukakisite, well, thats just something we'll have to disagree on.

Your timeline doesn't refute that the NASDAQ's implosion starting in the Spring of 2000.

So it took a year, rather than six months for the NASDAQ to lose more than half the value off its highs. That implosion was due to the collapse of the so-called "internet economy," that "new economy" that was supposed to "Not be based on profit."

Rules changes at the SEC that loosened IPO rules and changed margin rates fueled most of the speculation that drove the NASDAQ up to unprecendted, unwarranted and unsustainable levels.

Since Greenspan's tenure began at the Federal Reserve, interest rates were dropped when inflation was low and raised whenever inflation began to creep upward.

The $150 Billion/year spent on home improvements, from roofing to remodeling, would appear to indicate that the vast majority of homeowners use those home equity loans to improve and increase the value of their homes rather than spend that money on routine consumerables.

Go back to 1950 and house values have gone steadily upward, with only a few, usually short-lived, downturns or reversals along the way.

One of the longest lasting real estate downturns was the housing crash of 1993, but even then housing prices began to move upwards by 1995 and continued to rise, albeit slowly until around 2003.

The view that the housing market since 2003 has been driven by housing speculation is itself, mere speculation.

The housing spike has been strongest in high demand regions, like NY, Boston, and parts of CA, some house prices have surged over 30% in a single year in such areas, while they've increased far less, 10% to 12% in regions in the South and Mid-West.

As interest rates inevitably rise, with the natural ebb and flow of interest rates, there may well be some correction (10% to 20% in regions like Boston, NY and other high priced real estate markets). Considering that housing prices were still largely considered under-valued pre-2003, the coming correction will probably be a lot less severe than the gloom & doomers have been predicting the last year and a half.

Again, there is, at this point no consensus on curbing non-discretionary spending. There's also no way, short of capitulation, of avoiding the huge outlays security/defense outlays made necessary post-9/11.

The current administration has been lax on illegal immigration (so has every administration over the last four decades), made a terrible mistake in passing the prescription drug boondoggle which had wide bipartisan support, but has STILL cut domestic non-discretionary spoending to the lowest percentage of GDP since 1970.

Where would you seek to make additional cuts?

Non-discretionary spending is, well, non-discretionary, and our current Military and domestic security spending is almost untouchable as "wartime" expenditures.

Do the tens and tens of billions of dollars in all the earmarks the Repubs have become so expert at fall under the category of discretionary or non-discretionary spending? Remember eliminating the Depts of Energy and Education?

Wouldn't pay for college unless he bacame a Republican?

He would have been better off if he wouldn't pay for a degree that wasn't in math, science or engineering.

It's not begging; he's selling something. You might not value what he is selling, but it is pure capitalism, pure quid pro quo. If someone wants to pay for what he sells, and receives what he or she believes is value for the money, what is it to you? Frankly, I have no idea why this silly story is worth anyone's attention; I think it's beneath you, Barry, to be critical of something like this, and so extremely critical at that. You can't really take that story seriously, can you? It's just the papers looking for some silly-ass angle that feeds division and invokes exactly your reaction. "Oh, look at that liberal kid with his hand out." "Oh, look at that conservative dad who won't even put his own son through school."

By the way, what do you mean by "How novel"? Is that meant to imply that liberals are beggars? That's not only not nice, but not even remotely accurate, unless, of course, you can support it with facts instead of that trademark bitterness that is so common to conservatives (okay, I just said that last one to tweak your nose a little...I don't actually mean that...it's my answer to the "liberals are always angry" stereotype).

By the way, I worked my way through college and paid off my college loans ahead of time. I was the third son to go to college and my older brother was in law school at the time, so money was tight around my house. I worked year round, at school and during breaks between semesters, had academic scholarships, and had student loans. I washed dishes, fixed bridges, loaded trucks, and did whatever it took. Went to school full-time, too, and earned my degree in four years. I was liberal then and I am liberal now. I never expected a handout and I always appreciated it when anyone gave me a hand up. I work white collar but I'm pure working class, through and through.