Cynical Nation

"Er... uh... Quick! Look over there! It's Mel Gibson!" (--Typical Democrat)

Oy. That's just lovely.

The smartest move the Democrats made was not putting much, if any money behind McKinney's re-election bid.

Just as the Lieberman loss may ultimatley prove bad for the Democrats (making them look like "appeaser-Party), McKinney's loss helps them, by removing a huge embarassment.

oh no no, they aren't anti-semitic, just anti-zionist. Listen to Mike Wallace's interview w/ Ahmednijad, he lays it out great. They just think Israel should be MOVED when they say "wiped off the map"

An Uncle Tom is a black person who actually talks to Republicans.

"They just think Israel should be MOVED when they say "wiped off the map" (ortho)
(ortho)


Yes, I've heard "MOVED" a lot lately.

Like those who've offered up Madagascar as an alternative - that's one of the places the Nazis had considered....before the "Final Solution," of course.

The difference between Democrats and Republicans is that this woman and her posse LOST. Democrats voted her OUTl

Republicans worship and revere their criminals, like Bush and DeLay. If DeLay hadn't stepped down, he would have been re-elected easily by mindless dittoheads like JMK.

As Ronald Reagan would say, "There you go again"....comparing Tom Delay to Cynthia McKinney!

For one thing, neither one of them committed ANY crime.

She's a racial bigot.

It is repugnant, but it is NOT a crime!

The voters spoke and she's out.

Tom DeLay redrew some Texas districts and the SC recently upheld all but a single one!!!

This invidious comparison pretty much proves the obvious - that you're not only economically ignorant (supporting the Estate Tax and workers controlling access to their fileds = "Free Market" beliefs), but you're a political idiot as well.

A more apt comparison would've been between Cynthia McKinney and David Duke, who ran twice for Congress from Louisianna, as a Republican.

Like Mike Bloomberg, Duke had changed his Party affiliation from Democrat to Republican to be able to opportunistically run for an open seat.

Of course Duke never won an election even in that overwhelmingly Republican & Conservative district.

You really should stop PUI (Posting Under the Influence)...it always results in a train wreck for you.

JMK, stop with playing dumb, because it isn't much different than when you aren't playing dumb.

DeLay is a criminal, he has been indicted for money laundering, fraud, and more on the way with the Abramoff scandal unfolding.

Nice to see you prove my point however -- you still support and defend him, a wanton criminal.

DeLay is not a "criminal," dufus, until such time as he is convicted of a crime.

I know indiduals who've killed people and gotten off on what prosecutors called "a dubious self-defense" claim...and they're not "murderers," or "criminals," as the families of the deceased and the prosecutors claimed.

You aren't a "criminal" until you're CONVICTED of a crime.

Again, neither McKinney, nor DeLay are "criminals," depite her penchant for hanging out with viscious thugs and his current "cloud of suspicion."

Will you learn how to use words properly, please?

It's not all that hard to do and it might actually help you make a coherant argument once in awhile.

So far, I've proven you don't understand the Free Market - "Workers controlling access to their fields of employment and property reverting back to the state once the earner dies (the Estate Tax) - are not Free Market principles....I proved that you don't know what you're talking about concerning H-1B Visas ("(*) Appx 28% (17,300) of the 65,000 annual quota are set aside for workers from Australia, Chile and Singapore.

(*) There were less than 50,000 in 1992 and that ballooned up to over 900,000 by 2000.

(*) Congress set the quotas and Congress raised those quotas in 1996 (to 135,000/year) and 2000 (to 195,000/year) and a Democratic President (Bill Clinton) signed off on those increased quotas.

(*) When the quotas next came up for review in 2004, they were reduced back down to 65,000/year by the CURRENT ADMINISTRATION.

(*) The reason that during the years the quota was 195,000, it was never reached, and the availability of high-tech jobs in the USA plummeted at that time, was because of the Tech Bubble bust that began in the Spring of 2000, when the NASDAQ began to implode.")...and I proved to you that the NSA has NOT been charged with "spying on" domestic-to-domestic calls/emails without warrants.

If you're really a masochist, you should be paying me for all these spankings and if you're not a masochist, you should consider paying for the education.

Either way, I do have a PayPal account if you have a conscience in that regard.

Bill Clinton didn't raise anything the REPUBLICAN CONGRESS raised the H1B visa limit.

As a party hack, you have to take responsibility for Republican actions. Bill Clinton did not introduce or pass the legislation. He could have vetoed it, but it would have been overridden by REPUBLICANS.

I'm glad you admit that REPUBLICANS sold out our country.

The only spankings you have given are ones on my behind with your wet slippery tongue.

WoW! Is there a team of monkeys at your keyboard?

Because THAT's CORRECT...the Congress, with HUGE bi-partisan support, both created and changed the limits on the H-1B Visa program, and as I said above - "Congress set the quotas and Congress raised those quotas in 1996 (to 135,000/year) and 2000 (to 195,000/year) and a Democratic President (Bill Clinton) signed off on those increased quotas."

Clinton signed off on those two INCREASES on the limits, just as G W Bush signed off on the DECREASE of the limit back in 2004, PROVING that Bush didn't have anything to do with any perceived glut of H-1B Visas.

The Republicans DIDN'T Have a veto-proof majority in either 1996 nor 2000, so Clinton could've vetoed those INCREASES.

Of course with something like 80+% of the Democrats supporting the H-1B Visas (hell they expanded GATT in '91 and passed NAFTA in 1/94), his veto might not have stood up to his own Party's stance.

But why would Clinton (a "Free Trader") even seek to veto such "Free Trade" legislation. He supported the expansion of GATT and the passage of NAFTA, so why not H-1B Visas?

Indeed the reason for the great loss in tech jobs didn't come from any glut of foreigners in that field, but due to the collapse of the Tech Bubble (a tech bubble built on the false premise of the "internet economy").

In fact, that's the reason that during the years the quota was 195,000, it was never reached, and the availability of high-tech jobs in the USA plummeted at that time - because of the Tech Bubble bust that began in the Spring of 2000, when the NASDAQ began to implode.

Look, I understand your objecting to my characterization of this education process as "spanking," though I only made that reference in observation to your insistence upon continuing to spew some egregious falsehoods, only to have them proven wrong time and again.

Still, I'm glad you've seen the light on Free Markets (property reverting back to the state and workers controllig access to their fields are NOT Free Market principles) and on H-1B Visas (G W Bush had NOTHING to do with the raising the number of H-1B Visas)...and more and more on the NSA surveillance programs (international calls DO fall under the purview of "collecting foreign intelligence).

There you go again. I'm not a Democrat, I'm a registered Republican.

The idea was for Republicans and Conservatives to be BETTER THAN DEMOCRATS, not just like them.

You constantly fall into the "frothing party defender" mindset and think I am on the side of the Democrats.

I voted for Bush in 2000, but he lied and sold out the country 100 times worse than even the Democrats. He expanded government, government powers, spent recklessly ... does this sound familiar? Bush is WORSE than the Democrats you villify, yet you defend him because he's YOUR BOY.

See how retarded you are? Bush lied about being a Conservative, and everything else. He is a big spending, big government wanna-be dictator.

How can you support him?

Things like Free Trade provisions (GATT, NAFTA, CAFTA, etc) have wide bi-Partisan support.

Libertarians have always supported Free Trade and that's one of the things the GOP took from Libertarians.

Democrats also support Free Trade but for very different reasons.

Actually Bush 43 CUT non-discretionary spending, IF you except military and domestic security spending.

Of course all that military and domestic security spending HAD to be increased, as this administration had a war foisted upon it that had been ignored for over ten years.

That's right, the other side had ten years of "free shots" and were taking them - from the first WTC bombing, to the USS Cole attack to the two African Embassy bombings and many other smaller attacks.

Guiliani was/IS a "Big Government Conservative."

I initially opposed that, but I had to admit that he sure got a handle on crime in NYC (OK Bill Bratton DID), sure Guiliani DIDN'T lower taxes, in fact, he raised them, and he didn't increase the pay of Municipal workers, in fact, he zeroed them out twice in consecutive contracts, BUT he spent all that money on things like security and crime prevention, etc.

I got HIT with those two consecutive contracts front-loaded with zero pervents (every cop and firefighter did)...I was none to happy about it at the time, but the city itself changed for the better.

Ideally I'd prefer a Libertarian (hands off) model, but you can't have that when you're at war, or when you're battling a big-city crime-wave - the murder rate in NYC was over 2000/year when Guiliani took office, and dropped to under 500/year by the end of his second term.

You can't judge everything through a selfish prism - I support what's financially best for me.

It's a dumb and short-sighted way to judge things.

I voted for Guiliani AFTER he'd just zeroed out Municipal workers in a contract (bad for me, and he increased the salaries of Deputy Mayors and Commisoners while doing that)...and when he was re-elected, he promptly acknowledged that Municipal Union support...by ZEROING US OUT again!

You gotta love that kind of moral consistency.

The guy had a vision.

Now he has a vision for the entire country.

There is no war. Bush inherited nothing but peace and a great economy. His negligence and sloth (the Vacation President has worked less than any President in history BY FAR), along with his Open Borders are Good! Policy, and his ignoring clearly state security concerns time and again led to 9-11. It was entirely Bush's fault. Stupid and stubborn, he didn't listen.

After 9-11, he and his cronies cooked up their Get Rich Quick scheme of getting into Iraq ASAP. Everyone Bush crony, from Halliburton to Big Oil, has made BILLIONS.

Bush did not break the bank on necessary wars, he lied, Cheney lied, and they all lied to get into Iraq, where they have handed out ungodly amounts of tax money to Halliburton, one of the most corrupt companies in the world.

Iraqi oil was supposed to pay for that war. Remember that lie?

No, the middle class taxpayers paid for the war, and about 3,000 middle and lower class men and women have died to enrich Bush and his cronies. The Iraqi oil is being kept off the market to inflate gas prices, and all Americans are getting gouged at the pump.

Bush is simply a traitor.

OK, you probably weren't paying attention back then, so I'll fill you in; Back in 1998 the SEC loosened IPO standards and Margin rates, among other things, creating what was called "The Tech Bubble," by some and "the Internet Economy" by others.

By whatever name you want to call it, [B]IT[/B] was a mirage.

In late 1999 a consortium of large (many of them Multi-national Corporations) petitioned the Clinton administration to rein in those IPO standards, etc after Amazon.com's stock value exceeded all the major Hollywood studios combined!

By January of 2000, AOL had the stock value to "take over" Time Warner, which was a disaster, as most CEO's claim it takes a lifetime to develop the skills that some of these thirty-something pseudo-execs (like Steve Chase) were trying to develop "on the fly)."

Thankfully, the SEC finally did rein in all those rules changes early in 2000....and of course, that Tech Bubble or "Internet Economy" imploded immediately.

[B]THAT'S[/B] what Bush "inherited."

By March of 2001 (less than sixty days after he took office) the NASDAQ had slid back from a high of over 5,000 to under 1,600 and all that was due to the mirage "Tech Bubble" becoming the PUMPKIN (mirage) it always was.

The Bush tax cuts INCREASED tax revenues and both shortened the recession and made it more shallow.

But there's MORE!

The Corporate shennanigans that flourished under the previous administration's loose reined SEC - the Adlephia, Worldcom, Enron, Tyco, Arthur Anderson scandals had to be sorted out, prosecuted and FIXED by the current administration.

It did all those things and even introduced Sorbannes-Oxley to keep those kinds of scandals from recurring.

But WAIT!!!

There's even still MORE!

On 9/11/01 America was attacked by the global forces of pan-Islamic Jihad. A force with "troops" without uniforms, and without an allegiance to any specific nation, but to a basic, unifying ideology. In fact, it's a force with more "troops" under arms than Nazi Germany ever had...and a global reach that is even more entrenched and more effective than the Soviets had.

That single attack, by those forces harbord by a rogue Afghan government, sponsored by numerous other rogue states and supported by Iraq (Saddam's Iraq had al Qaeda run Ansar al Islam camps inside its borders, that shared a common enemy with Saddam - the Kurds) cost the U.S. some 3,000 civilian lives and over $100 BILLION in damages.

It plunged us into what will now probably be a twenty years war with this international pan-Islamic Jihadist movement...a war that had been relentleesly waged against since 1993, but ignored up until 9/11/01.

As an aside concerning oil prices - neither U.S. policies, nor the ongoing wars inthe Mid-East have much effected world oil prices, what DID was the rapid industrialization of both India and China - fully [B]ONE THIRD[/B] of the world's population industrializing rapidly and at the same time has created a HUGE spike in demand for oil and thus...higher oil prices.

Please, put down those Michael Moore tapes and think for yourself a little bit.

You'll appear a lot more lucid if you do.

God, you are either a paid Republican propogandist or the most gullible, naive child ever born.

The "Tech Bubble" was based on the never-ending lies of GOLDMAN-SACHS and other multibillion dollar investment houses. They made a FORTUNE lying, lying, lying. Amazon? It was a STRONG BUY!

So, why didn't the financial "experts" see through these shell companies? Because of Clinton? Or was it the HUGE PROFITS they were raking in?

Warren Buffet was the lone voice of sanity, and he was SHOUTED DOWN and called an old-fashioned crackpot by EVERY MAJOR FINANCIAL PLAYER. Did Clinton do that? How much money did Clinton make off high tech stocks?

Nobody "changed" the corporate rules. Bush's friends simply acted like what they are: criminals. Was it Clinton's buddies who raked in billions commiting fraud? No, it was Bush's friends. The dotcom bust merely exposed their crimes for all the world to see. Most of them got off without a slap. In fact, Bush twice violated insider trading laws himself, but his daddy shielded him -- boys will be boys!

Chimp's brother Neal defrauded taxpayers out of hundreds of millions of dollars. Did Clinton make him do that? Funny how Bush and Crime go together.

The terrorist attack and Afgan war were reasonable actions that hurt the small group of terrorists committing most of these crimes.

Lying America into attacking Iraq was simply to enrich Halliburton and line the pockets of yet more criminal Bush buddies. Big Oil used every action as an excuse to gouge Americans out of hundreds of billions of dollars -- the largest tax increase in history.

The war in Iraq has aided the terrorists immensely and taken them from a small group of crazies to nearly mainstream in Muslim societies. They now VOTE TERRORIST GROUPS IN to represent them. Did Clinton make them do that?

Tell me, what industry PROFITS when wholesale prices go up? Well ... none. They all lose money. So why does Big Oil post obscene profits every quarter?

They produce oil too, right? They don't buy it all. But wait, according to free market competition, shouldn't they offset the high price of foreign oil with their cheaper domestic oil and make, at most, the same profit?

There is no competition. There is collusion, price fixing, and other criminal acts by ... well yeah, by more Friends of Bush. Bush and Crime. Crime and Bush.

So, let's recap your position:

You believe that corporations have a right to use any worker, anywhere in the world, no matter what the conditions -- anything to maximize profits.

You believe that workers have no rights whatsoever. If Americans need to work for 22 cents an hour to compete with a third world worker, then so be it.

You believe that corporations owe nothing to America, and they can create shell companies to avoid taxation, and they can worm their way out of paying promised pensions, and they should be able to freely pollute, make deadly products, and should not be harassed about it.

Did Clinton turn Dallas into one of the most polluted cities in the United States? No wait, that was Bush.

Hey, it's OK, businesses profited, and they trickled it down to millions of East Indians!

Funny, but all these businesses who locate offshore, and use offshore labor, still SELL in America!

How is this going to work out in the long run?

Middle class American families have lost income, costs have increased (fuel has doubled), taxes have NOT been reduced for them, and the government is hugely in debt with no end in sight. Services have all been cut, but not taxes. Less money comes in, and more goes out for necessities. The standard of living for the American middle class has fallen drastically under Bush, and the upper class has soared to even more ridiculous new heights.

After years of legal wrangling to beat concessions (for the fourth time in a row) out of auto workers, basically destroying the union, the fat cats awarded themselves FIFTY MILLION DOLLAR bonuses.

You are fine with this.

I predict, just as I predict that Joe Lieberman will keep his senate seat, that domestic terrorism will be a greater problem than Al Quida if Bush and his asshole thieving buddies keep it up.

Heh, then you will see the Republicans screaming for gun control!

IPO Rules changes, Margin Rates and other changes at the SEC are the ONLY causes of the Tech Bubble and when those rules changes at the SEC were reined in back in early 2000 the NASDAQ, as expected, imploded.

The Tech Bubble/Internet Economy was a mirage...thus all the jobs & oppostunities created by it were mere mirages, that never would've existed absent that artificial scenario created by the loosening of rules at the SEC.

Virtually ALL the "Corporate thievery" (the Worldcom, Adelphia, Enron, Arthur Anderson, Tyco, etc) happened between 1998 & 2001.

It sprung up in the loosened atmosphere of the previous administration and was brought under control by the CURRENT one.

THAT is a fact. It may be an inconvenient one for you, much like the actual causes of the "Tech Bubble," but it's a FACT none-the-less.

Neal Bush's Savings & Loan shennanigans occured back in the 1980s...and yes, Ronald Reagan (OK, actually the Democratic Congress at the time) MADE HIM DO JUST THAT.

OK, not really, but the chicken coop was left wide open, back then...so how can folks like that not give in to a little temptation?

It's damned near impossible!

I believe it was Aristotle who said, "The strong take advantage of the weak, and the SMART take advantage of the strong."

Yes, I'm pretty sure it was. Look, the 1970s had the BCCI scandals, the 1980's the Savings & Loan scandal and 1990s the Tech Bubble Bust. As one investor I know says, [i]"Every once in a while, the sheep (small investors, etc) must be shorn."[/i] He swears such things actually HELP the economy, even though it helps those powerful and well-placed enough to be poised to take advantage of such things a lot more.

Moreover, workingclass people had their tax rates reduced by the same percentage as the higher income earners did, with the ACROSS THE BOARD income tax rate cuts. ALL income tax rates were reduced.

IF YOU earned over $100,000/year (and I believe you've claimed you do), you are in the top 12% of American income earners (median income is appx $48,000/year)...and YOU are among "THE RICH"

Inflation (despite increased fuel costs) has remained under 3% (currently 2.6% overall)...and less than 2%, some say closer to 1% of American jobs have been outsourced overseas.

AS Jim Pinto noted, "Wired provides numbers: In 2003, U.S. businesses took in $61.4 billion by “in-sourcing” (providing labor for foreign firms), while $43.5 billion worth of American jobs were lost to outsourcing."

The great myth of outsourcing IS....well.....a MYTH!
is going after domestic terrorists, like ALF & ELF...without any call for more gun control.

Tell me, what industry PROFITS when wholesale prices go up? Well ... none. They all lose money. So why does Big Oil post obscene profits every quarter? (BH)
BUT the world price, or "market price for oil is now over $70/barrel, due almost entirely to the incredible spike in DEMAND caused by one third of the earth’s population (India + China = 2.2 BILLION people) industrializing at the same time.

Mobil-Exxon CAN’T sell U.S. oil here for $20/barrel or they’d wind up being bought out in a hostile takeover by foreign oil companies awash in oil profits.

You’re not going to start parroting Bill O’Reilly now, are you???

O’Reilly claims that U.S. based energy companies SHOULD be forced to sell U.S. oil for $20/barrel in America, at least “during war time.”

Utter nonsense.

They’ve spent all the money and taken all the risks reaching and attaining that oil, and if the U.S. government won’t let them sell that oil here at market prices, then they must be allowed to sell it on the world market at prevailing market prices – China and India would gladly pay that $75/barrel and up!

That’s how the market works BH.

O’Reilly’s plan would result in two things, both of them VERY bad; (1) U.S. based energy companies would not be able to take in the current profits made by their competitors overseas, harming them (their bottomline), relative to their competitors and making them vulnerable for takeover and (2) after years of making very little money on the margins, with oil prices as low as $15/barrel in 1998, these companies simply would refuse to take U.S. oil out of the ground for the below market price of $20/barrel, creating a further diminution of supply relative to demand and an even stronger upward pressure on worldwide market prices.

No, we’ve got to ride this situation out.

Energy companies and real oil men, like, oh say, Dave O’Reilly (Chevron), Lee Raymond (Exxon-Mobil) and AlGore (Occidental Petroleum) all knew this surge in demand was coming.

You CAN’T fix that “demand problem,” once you’re in the midst of a surging demand. In fact, the energy companies tried to anticipate this demand – they’ve increased access to oil reserves that wouldn’t have been possible to plum even a decade ago, but even that increased supply couldn’t keep up with this huge spike in demand.

If the government was going to do something/anything, that would’ve had to have been done, far in advance.

Now two of the three guys above did right by their constituents (both O’Reilly & Raymond were duty-sworn to do what was best for their respective comapany's share-holders), the other one did not.

Occidental Petroleum is awash in oil profits right now, and Al Gore did what was best for Occidental Petroleum’s share-holders, NOT what was best for his constituents (the American voting public).

Do you see it?

Oil is like any other commodity.

It still may cost Saudi Arabia $10/barrel to take that crude out of the ground, but THAT COST doesn't set the price, at least NOT in a market economy.

The price is set by DEMAND for that commodity!

For instance, I own a house that I bought a long time ago for around $200,000, today it's worth around $850,000.

I've done a few things, but it's not the few home improvements that have improved its value, it's the DEMAND for housing in and around NYC!

Now you might, at first blush, think that I could, in fact, sell that house TODAY, for $200,000, even less, as most of the mortgage is paid off, without any financial catastrophe...but I wouldn't dare! In fact, I couldn't. One of the great things about real property is that it holds its value well relative to inflation.

The price of that house is whatever the Real Estate market dictates it is at that time. That PRICE has NOTHING to do with my initial COST.

If we were to sell, some Realtor would come in and give us a CMA and tell us the prevailing market price and that's what the house would be marketed for.

Thankfully, no one's going to suggest that I sell my commodity (home) for less than the prevailing market price, so why should I support anyone telling an energy company (or ANY company) that they should sell their property (oil) for below the prevailing market price.

Now you claim to be a "Free MArket advocate," well, get to better understand market principles better (Hayek, von Mises and Friedman are good places to start) and start lauding profit!

PROFIT is our FRIEND!

Big Oil is a monopoly, or cartel to be more precise. They collude and price-fix, and everyone knows it. The Republican congress refused to put them under oath and allowed them to lie endlessly, without a challenge, debate closed.

These people are criminals. They are not businessmen. What they are doing has nothing to do with any market, free or not. It is crime. Their bought off puppets in our government look the other way, like the traitors they are.

Why didn't DEMAND raise the price of computer programmers to $800,000 a year salaries? Hey, that was the going rate.

No, our bribed government brought in foreigners and THEY DID LOWER WAGES for Americans by lowering demand to nothing.

Our bought and paid for Corporate government constantly steps in to PROTECT corporations from foreign competition.

If you don't see this, you are just too dumb to talk with.

Computer programmers are worth whatever the lowest amount of money the average programmer will accept for that job.

Sturctural unemployment doesn't necessarily increase salaries.

Often, if not enough qualified people are found, companies close up shop, unable to put out product.

We have a shortage of accountants. The firm my wife works in imports lots of accountants from England. Those who stay past a certain number of years must get a CPA to go with their Chartered Accountancy.

If they couldn't get enough qualified accountants, they wouldn't simply raise salaries, in fact, salaries might actually decrease because they'd lose clients, do less business and make less profit!

That's what happens when you don't have enough people on staff.

Computer programmer jobs were not impacted by imported labor, so much as the Tech Bubble bust. THAT'S what eroded the tech job market and that's why after the limit on H-1B Visas was raised to 195,000/year that number was NEVER reached.

Imported labor didn't erode tech sector jobs, the Tech Bubble bust DID.

The world price of oil is impacted primarily by demand, the way real estate prices are.

Just as rising mortgage interest rates have cooled the real estate market lately, the surging world demand for oil has increased the price of oil.

Both of those cost increases are natural market-based corrective measures.

As mortgages get more expensive (as money "costs more to borrow") demand for housing starts to fall.

Same thing with any commodity - as the price of oil goes UP in response to surging world demand, that demand dampens in response to the escalating price.

We NEED a cheap, accessible and readilly available source of energy and we had that for over 100 years! Now world demand, thanks in large part to over one third of the world's population indudtrializing at the same time, has pushed the price of oil to new heights.

There's nothing we can do about exploding world demand. India and China are going to industrialize and use more and more oil. Eventually, we're going to need to find another source of energy....but that's a ways off.

One thing people like you can do to make your own lives a little easier is to stop blaming politicians for the bad things that happen to you.

Just a hunch, but you don't look in the mirror much, do you?