Cynical Nation

Baz said:
Does anyone doubt for a minute that Bush would have happily signed the exact same bill had it been sent to him by a Republican congress?

Nope.

And:
God knows he signed off much worse budgetary abominations during the past six years.

Yep.

What? You take weeks and weeks off and I can't give one word responses? :p

Great quote from George Will - he did nail it that time. If they want to reform healthcare and extend government benefits to all children under 18 (which is probably the gaol) then they ought not hide it inside program designed to help the poor.

Healthcare does need reform, but doing it half-ass will never work.

That's right. Bush needs to save all of our tax money so that he can keep giving it to Halliburton while we protect Corporate Oil interests in whatever country has a lot of oil.

Not sure what the one has to do with the other...

It would appear that Boy George can only find his veto pen when he thinks children might get medical insurance. The arguments are laughable considering the tens of billions poured down the drain into Iraq.

Health Insurance probably DOES need reforming. As our Corporate "founders of the feast" say it does.

For one thing, employers SHOULD NOT be responsible for insuring over 85% of Americans as they do now.

That makes it harder for American businesses to compete in a global market.

There probably should be some form of "bare-bones" taxpayer-financed health care system (a network of "free clinics") augmented, of course, with private insurance for those who can and wish to purchase it.

Which means we definitely NEED tax reform. We NEED to switch to a tax system (like the Fair Tax, a consumption-based tax) that taxes EVERYone, so that no one gets a "free ride."

Bottom-line, people earn what their skills/jobs are worth. For instance, a cop, school teacher, firefighter, etc. IS indeed currently worth about 6 to 10 times LESS than a stock or bond trader in our market-based economy.

The latter work far longer hours, operate under much more pressure and their continuing education is more complex, more involved and forever ongoing.

Under socialism/American Liberalism the political class is more highly valued than the business/"producing" class.

In market-based economies, that is reversed.

And that's ONE of the reasons why market-based economies work best.

It's also why you'll never hear ANY cogent, coherent arguments in favor of a more "socialized" system and a less market-based one.

Because those who favor such, generally CAN'T make real affirmative arguments for that position.

dante would have a legitimate argument if the Dems did not sign a 648 BILLION dollar defense bill,(with 148 BILLION going to Iraq and Afghanistan) before the SCHIP veto override attempt. It would have been simple for the Dems to hold off on that funding until the SCHIP veto override attempt to reflect on W's double standard. But they did not.
And I'm with Barry on W - if the Reps did this, he would have signed off on it with much fanfare.

This was not about passing a bill ( a very bad bill, IMO) but rather creating a campaign issue for 2008.

The fact that the bill is overly generous not only with the income levels but with the age of the 'children' (I believe it is up to 21 years) is a farce.

Now, how many in the media pointed out those weaknesses of the bill with any honesty i.e. in the first ten paragraphs of their stories when people might still be reading?

Always a pleasure to see my old friend Zilla!

"Bottom-line, people earn what their skills/jobs are worth. For instance, a cop, school teacher, firefighter, etc. IS indeed currently worth about 6 to 10 times LESS than a stock or bond trader in our market-based economy."

Stock and bond traders are parasites who produce nothing and thrive off of con games and Enron style manipulations, all of which enrich them and damage the economy. These are JMKs heroes. The pillars of capitalism!

What JMK again fails to mention is that there is no "free market" for workers in this country. Outsourcing, allowing illegal immigration, and destructive "worker" visa programs destroy even the most remote possibility of a level playing field. The employers hold all the cards. They can beat millions in "tax relief" out of politicians and then employ foreign workers to further damage America.

Like their great leader Bush, they are all traitors. Greed is not good. Greed is evil.

"Stock and bond traders are parasites who produce nothing and thrive off of con games and Enron style manipulations, all of which enrich them and damage the economy." (BH)


Spoken in complete ignorance.

Stock and bond traders and commodities speculators are THE engine of our economy.

Without them, we'd be back in the late 19th Century.

I DON'T espouse a "free market," Barely, I support a "well-regulated market-based economy."

We had a free market for EVERYONE through the 1920s and it worked well enough.

Of course there was no security for companies, no matter how large and thus no "job security" for workers either.

But most workers didn't seem to mind. You'd lose a job in one company and take another in the one that took it's place.

What J P Morgan and Bernard Baruch did that was brilliant was that they got Americans to willingly trade the boom-bust cycles of unregulated Free Market Capitalism in return for a loosely government regulated one that kept new upstart companies (started by guys with one of two "great ideas") from taking over from the established "blue bloods."

That was deemed GOOD by the vast majority of Americans.

Once those established companies were set in place and "protected from domestic competiton" via government regulation, jobs also became more secure.

Just as businesses had to abide by a whole ne wslew of regulations, and couldn't predate on their competitors, as they once did, workers had their own free market rights reduced....not eliminated, just reduced.

Prior to these two giants (Morgan & Baruch) government had pretty much stayed out of the "business sector," but Calvin Coolidge made, perhaps the first, link between the two when he famously said, "The business of America (the American government) IS business."

It has certainly been that way ever since.

And YES, workers today, are pretty much paid precisely what their skills are worth, of that, there is little question.

As for the rest of your screed, you NEED to read The Myth of Middle-class Job Loss by Stephen J. Rose, an adviser to former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich; http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119318171973969059.html?mod=opinion_main_commentaries

Check it out, it's good reading....and it doesn't even have too many words.

SLIGHT CORRECTION:

"...but Calvin Coolidge made, perhaps the first, link between the two..." SHOULD READ "but Calvin Coolidge ACKNOWLEDGED, perhaps the first, link between the two..."

The link was MADE by Morgan & Baruch, it was acknowledged by Coolidge.

You know why you don't get detailed argument from me, JMK? It's because you are retarded. You are so blindly, stubbornly, and willingly WRONG and unable to think for yourself, that it is a waste of time.

JMK GUMP SAID:
"And YES, workers today, are pretty much paid precisely what their skills are worth, of that, there is little question."

Go ahead, Gump, explain to me how CEOs actually EARN their $100,000,000 salaries, even when their companies lose money.

Explain to me the VALUE of a parasitic stock and bond trader, because I know some traders, and I have some wonderful stories to tell about these great Americans (like the one who worked for Enron, intentionally causing blackouts in California to rape the citizens with inflated electrical rates).

My wife used to work with these people. She knows exactly how they operate: pretty much like the Republican Party. They lie, manipulate, and con people. They are scum.

So, the very engine of the Bush economy is scum. Makes sense. Inflation is taking off. The taxpayers are being raped to pay for the bad loans (speculative investments) made by huge companies like Merril Lynch. The Fed is lowering interest rates to try and stave off a complete collapse, even though it is guaranteed to cause inflation.

Yep,they are just trying to make it past the election any way they can. The new Republicans are hoping and praying that they can somehow keep blaming it on someone else when they fail. I think they misjudged in their greed, this time.

There are NO CEOs who "get $100 MILLION salaries," Barely.

Since the CEO salary deduction was capped at $1 MILLION/year under Bill Clinton, companies have had to increase "other compensation" in order to compete for the best candidates. Yes, CEO candidates are like successful basketball coaches (like Pat Riley or Phil Jackson) and baseball managers (like Torre and LaRussa), only for CEOs, there are fewer of them and the stakes are a lot higher.

At any rate, that "other compensation" has generally come in the form of stock options.

I know this is hard for you to understand, but when a CEO is given thousands of shares of a corporate stock as "an incentive to performance," that "stock money" is at risk and so an individual can, and often does walk away with tens of millions of dollars in value from those stock options.

Of course those stock options are NOT actually "salary" Barely.

You understand that, don't you?

Moreover, there were NO/ZERO stock brokers involved in the Enron scandal, which I don't have the time to explain and you don't have the capacity to understand (I say that given your inability to understand that salary is not the same as "other compensation," nor what the RICO statues actually do, nor when or even why H-1B Visas exploded from 50,000 in 1993 to over 1 MILLION by 2001), suffice to say, the idea behind Enron was a brilliant one.

The scandal, the CRIME that occurred was actually an accounting one (that's why Arthur Anderson went belly up)...the Enron guys posed debits as assetts and hid losses to both investors and potential merger & acquisition partners, which constitutes FRAUD ("investor fraud"). Arthur Anderson was involved in similar dealings with other companies and was found culpable.

The idea of bundling energy units from one source to sell to another, the way newsprint is sold, was indeed a brilliant one.

OK, we can add salaries vs compensation, the Enron scandal to RICO and H-1B Visas to the long list of things you don't even remotely understand....and now you want me to explain how vital and valuable stock brokers and bond traders are to the overall economy???

Let me put things as simply as possible, in the hopes that some of this may click with you; professionals, especially in the financial services sector, work incredibly looong hours, under tremendous pressure and their continuing education is both arduous and forevere ongoing.

A stock broker who earns, say, $180,000/year for his 70+ hour workweeks and high pressure life is really equivalent to a unionized worker earning a base rate of $80,000/year with that 30 hours of overtime paid at time and a half.

So, in a sense, most of those stock and bond traders are really earning base rates of $80K to $100K with the overtime factored in and paid as straight salary.

I really don't hold out much hope of any of that making any sense to you.

I think you probably mean well, but explaining things to you is like trying to explain things to a frolicking dog.

Almost everything you just said is wrong, JMK.

You are truly retarded and beneath a response ... ah, what the hell, maybe a few words.

Stocks are part of a salary package, dumbass.

Oh, and stop playing stupid:

In November 1995, Enron launched EnronOnline, the first web-based transaction system that allowed buyers and sellers to buy, sell, and trade commodity products globally. It allowed users to do business only with Enron. Due to the giant cash needs of Enron Online and the company wasting money in other areas such as broadband, Azurix, Enron Energy Services, and shutting down the original pipeline service which generated cash flow, Enron virtually drained itself of cash. The Enron Global Finance department had to keep working up more creative financing moves to keep the company running.

EnronOnline went live on November 29, 1999. The site allowed energy users to do business in a previously unseen way. Until this point a trader who wanted to buy an energy contract talked with another energy trader who wanted to sell a contract, and from there terms were agreed. EnronOnline allowed market participants to see prices on their screen just like a stock ticker, and could do business much more simply.

The main commodities offered on EnronOnline were natural gas and electricity, although there were 500 other products including credit derivatives, bankruptcy swaps, pulp, gas, plastics, paper, steel, metals, freight, and TV commercial time.

EnronOnline was seen as an impressive tool, but because Enron was either buying, selling, or trading in every transaction, the costs increased as time went on, and the systems were involved in the financial misreporting and other questionable financial behavior that eventually led to the Enron's demise. However, EnronOnline spawned several other e-commerce websites including www.DealBench.com. DealBench is an acquisition and divestiture tool still operating today. As of this writing, Enron still operates the DealBench code under the name EnronAssets. Other Enron developed technologies include Commodity Logic, ClickPaper and EnronCredit.

EnronOnline closed down for online trading on the morning of November 28, 2001, with Enron filing for bankruptcy four days later.

Stock options ARE NOT "salary."

Please stop talking about things you don't understand (RICO, H-1Bs, etc.), it's foolish on your part.

Stock options are like employer enhanced 457s & 401-Ks (packages that employers match the dollar value put in by the employee) - they are all, what is commonly called, "other compensation," NOT part of one's "salary."

Yes, Enron was, as I noted, a BRILLIANT business model, bundling energy units the way newspirint has been bundled, to seel it in bulk to various consumers.

Enron ran afoul of the law when the market changed and they used a number of now illicit accounting gimmicks to hide losses and claim non-existent revenues.

That's what Skillings, Fastow and Lay were found guilty of DEFRAUDING investors.

It was NOT, as you inanely claimed, a stock broker created disaster; "I know some traders, and I have some wonderful stories to tell about these great Americans (like the one who worked for Enron..."

AND Enron didn't CAUSE the California blackouts, California Governor Grey Dufus DID.

There should be an electric power generating plant in every neighborhood. Today's electricity generating sub-stations do not create a fraction of the health hazards that older ones once did.

Those folks who claim that "building new electric generating plants and new oil refineries near residential communities comes at great risk," are misinformed and are using old data about past dangers (that have been rectified by new technologies) to stir opposition to very necessary augmentations to our homeland's power grid.

Oh for god's sake, JMK.

Everyone knows that stock options are part of a salary package. There you go again, just like your hero Rush, wordsmithing around a lie. I think you are confusing salary with "base salary". Salary is just a word taht comes from the Latin word for "salt". Let's just call it compensation from now on, so that you don't continue to wordsmith for another 5,000 words.

Enron did EXACTLY cause the California blackouts. This is incredibly well documented, so you are just a liar, again.

If you weren't so pathetic, my little Dittohead, you would disgust me.

Nope, actually stock options are the same as any employer enhanced 401-K or 457....and none of those are "salary."

They are ALL "other compensation."

Enron sold bundled electricity units to Governor Gray Dufus.

Gray Dufus (that's his real name right? I think that's Albanian) caused those blackouts by not building enough power plants.

Too many people in America are still asleep.

The Energy Companies are our friends. When public utilities tell us they need to build a lot more power generating plants, there's not really much need for all these "health studies" and "environmental impact" studies, as they wouldn't advocate putting those things in residential communities if they were really dangerous in any significant way. As they say (and this is very true) "We live here too."

Same goes for big energy companies and the need for MORE gasoline refineries.

We need to wake up and realize we need them.

Let's stop blaming those people in industry who're out there looking out for us.

The blame belongs with cowardly politicians like Gray Dufus, who are apparently afraid to tell the people the truth - we NEED more power plants and we NEED more oil refineries...and nothing trumps a basic NEED like that.

NO JMK.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_electricity_crisis

"The California electricity crisis (also known as the Western Energy Crisis) of 2000 and 2001 resulted from the gaming of a partially deregulated California energy system by energy companies such as Enron and Reliant Energy."

You are a liar, a retard, or hell ... isn't it a slam-dunk that you are both?

Enron did not CAUSE California's power woes.....poor state management did.

They rightfully took advantage of Gray Dufus's poor planning, by providing electricity they got cheap for very high prices.

Again, THAT was NOT Enron's crime. That's the equivalent of my buying a case of Cokes for $5 and selling each of the 48 bottles for $4 each to thirsty drivers along the side of a sweltering highway.

That's generally called "good business."

Gray Dufus was responsible for California's energy woes.

Enron was NOT guilty of "scamming California," nor of "price gouging" (that's only a crime in a natural disaster, like a flood or hurricane, etc), the ONLY crime that Enron was ever guilty of was "defrauding investors."

NO JMK.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_electricity_crisis

"The California electricity crisis (also known as the Western Energy Crisis) of 2000 and 2001 resulted from the gaming of a partially deregulated California energy system by energy companies such as Enron and Reliant Energy."

You are a liar, a retard, or hell ... isn't it a slam-dunk that you are both?

"the ONLY crime that Enron was ever guilty of was "defrauding investors."

Ahahahahahahahahaa! Good one! Don't you watch Fox News?

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,196983,00.html

Lay, who also founded the company, was convicted of all six counts of conspiracy and fraud and faces a maximum of 45 years in prison. Lay was also convicted on Thursday of bank fraud and making false statements to banks in a separate trial related to his personal banking.

As he left the courthouse Thursday afternoon Lay continued to claim his innocence, telling reporters "we're shocked" at the outcome. He also insisted that "despite what happened today, I'm still a very blessed man."

Skilling was found guilty of 19 counts of conspiracy, fraud, insider trading and making false statements which, combined, carry a maximum sentence of 185 years.

Hmmm, and this is only at the very top. Should I continue with the minions?

Dur hurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr ... I lied!

"the ONLY crime that Enron was ever guilty of was "defrauding investors." (JMK)


Barely do you even read what you post?

The above statement of mine is the truth and the quotes YOU hand-picked ONCE AGAIN back up MY VIEW!

"Lay, who also founded the company, was convicted of all six counts of conspiracy and fraud and faces a maximum of 45 years in prison. Lay was also convicted on Thursday of bank fraud and making false statements to banks in a separate trial related to his personal banking."

AND

"Skilling was found guilty of 19 counts of conspiracy, fraud, insider trading and making false statements which, combined, carry a maximum sentence of 185 years."

BwaaaaHaaaa!!!

I implied that there were multiple counts. "Defrauding investors," is a charge that always comes with "conspiracy charges" (conspiracy to defraud, etc) and "lying to investigators," etc......Yup ALL those charges were related to DEFRAUDING INVESTORS.

Do you know what NONE of those charges was related to?

Come on, guess!

Nope.

Wrong again!

NONE of those charges was related to "Fing over California and its imbecilic Governor Ggray Dufus."

That's a fact.

And that's why none of the articles on Enron ever mentioned a single charge related to THAT.

Investors assume risk and are allowed to "make bad decisions."

That's what Gray Dufus did. He made a very bad bunch of decisions.

What Enron did was lie to investors, hid losses, inflated profits and defrauded brokers, investors and another company that was considering a buy-out of Enron.

While I appreciate your posting things that back-up my position, I really don't need the help.

I mean, you're like a duelist who pulls out his gun and promptly shoots himself in both feet.

At any rate, now's as good a time as any, I guess, THANKS Barely!

Thanks for the H-1B Visa chart that backed up my contention, for the articles on RICO that backed up my contention and now this on Enron that backs me up as well.

But once again, I really don't need the help.