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| The Alley |
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Paving the way for Son of Stimulus |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA 
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WASHINGTON – The White House has abandoned its controversial method of counting jobs under President Barack Obama's economic stimulus, making it impossible to track the number of jobs saved or created with the $787 billion in recovery money. Despite mounting a vigorous defense of its earlier count of more than 640,000 jobs credited to the stimulus, even after numerous errors were identified, the Obama administration now is making it easier to give the stimulus credit for hiring. It's no longer about counting a job as saved or created; now it's a matter of counting jobs funded by the stimulus. That means that any stimulus money used to cover payroll will be included in the jobs credited to the program, including pay raises for existing employees and pay for people who never were in jeopardy of losing their positions. Recipients of recovery money no longer have to show that a job would have been lost without the stimulus help, and they no longer are required to keep an ongoing tally of jobs saved or created. The new rules allow stimulus recipients to limit the job tally to quarterly reports, making it impossible to avoid double-counting a job that was created in one quarter and continued into the next. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100112/ap_on_bi_ge/us_stimulus_counting_jobs These are the people you want to run health care.....really??? |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Is it possible that some folks wouldn't like the Democrats to take any credit for any sort of positive reaction to the stimulus package? I find this entirely possible. It is not clear to me that the economy is zooming through any sort of recovery territory at all in terms of job creation. This bothers me a great deal. I do believe that the recession hasn't gotten worse, however, and I think that we need to do some planning and acting on actual job creation strategies targeted at the middle class and not simply at part time Mac-jobs. I'd like to know what possibilities Mike or John or Ron or Denise would think might produce some solid middle class jobs or opportunities? I am a bit nervous about protective tariffs of selective imports or restrictions on imports that don't follow our environmental and protective labor practices (restrictions on exposure to toxic chemicals, no child labor, no slave labor, minimum wages and so on) but I suspect that they might be a good idea in the long run. They might at least stop the flight of capital out of the country and make domestic products competitive in price with foreign products. I don't know how great Free trade has been for the United States, since many other countries don't seem to reciprocate. Do we want to give up cheap clothes and computers for well paying jobs and and growing middle class? Is that even the question? What is the sort of stimulus we should be thinking about? Mr. Grinch, what are your thoughts on the matter? I'd enjoy actually learning something from a discussion of this sort of stuff, if we could avoid settling into pre-determined positions. This is always a bit of an effort for me, but I'm willing to give it a shot if other people are. If I already knew the answer, it'd be pretty boring to ask, after all. Out of curiosity, Bob Kaven |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
My belief, Bob, is that we allow the people who made this country what it is to do what they do best. I referring to businesses, of course. Yes, I know it is the thought of the day among democrats that businesses are evil, greedy. money-grubbing monsters out to rape the public....I just don't agree. How do we let them do what they do best? Get out of their way. Have limited controls, yes, but don't strangle them with an abundance of regulations and taxes. Congress doesn't pass out jobs to people (with the exception of the millions who have been hired into government work lately), businesses do. We have the second highest corporate tax rate in the world...and complain that businesses are moving overseas. We hit businesses with more taxes and complain they are not hiring. It has been fashionable lately to go after banks for not granting loans to small business. There was a banker lately who told congress that they were more than willing to lend the money...but small businesses weren't asking for it. Is there any wonder? They don't know how the health care program will affect them. They don't know how cap and trade will affect them. They don't know how new taxes (of which there certainly WILL be) will affect them. Is it any wonder they are not willing to hire? Obama wants to put these burdens on them and, at the same time, demand they hire and expand. Not gonna happen.. If your question is what can the government do, my answer is...nothing. Get out of the way and let business get back to doing what they do best....making money and creating prosperity as they have done since the country was founded. The stimulus plan hasn't worked. They tried to cook the books and make it look like it has but that didn't fly. Now they are throwing away the book and making their own formulas to attempt to show job creation. Now they are considering a second stimulus package. They say insanity is doing the same things over and over again, expecting different results. In that case, the administration is insane to the nth degree. GET OUT OF THE WAY! |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
[ quote: You make too sweeping a statement to be agreed with or disagreed with here, Mike. You have yourself made comments about the Insurance business and their intentions. I happen to agree with quite a few of those unhappy evaluations, as do quite a few Democrats and Liberals. The insurance industry doesn't see itself as monstrous, I believe, any more than the tobacco industry does, or than the slave industry did. The judgement depends on point of view, the ability one has for self deception, and the amount of honesty one is able to bring to bear on one's own actions and the actions of one's friends. One can point those comments toward the Republicans or the Democrats, depending on one's information and loyalties. I have known quite a few decent and honest businessmen, myself, and don't agree with any negative stereotyping you'd want to pin on them. It wouldn't be accurate. My father knew substantially more of them because he happened to move in those circles. While he studied for his MBA, when he was a kid, and later when he studied for his PhD in Business, I was tapped as his often unwilling study partner, going over case study after case study of business decision making, as was the fashion in those days. Looking at what made success and what made failure in real life situations. Dad had run his own business for close to 20 years before going back to school, and I got stories from that too. I also learned a lot about labor relations. Dad taught the first course in Unions in Virginia at the time, and he caught lots of flack for doing so. You'd think folks would want business leaders of the future to know about Unions and what they were about, for good or ill, but the business community was pretty much solidly against it, as though ignoring them would make them go away. There were decent people over there as well. I will assert it. I'm not offering it as a point of contention, but as an observation which you should feel free to accept or reject. I didn't see the business folk I knew as being evil, nor did I see the union folk I knew as being evil. If you see me or the majority of other Democrats holding such a position, you may be overgeneralizing. This doesn't mean that there haven't been or aren't now rapacious and destructive business people, and that I don't think that they aren't dangerous to the economy and to the people of this country. To the extent that you understand me saying this, you understand me correctly. Those people are mostly at the controls of or in the employ of multi-national corporations and financial institutions. They have no vested stake in the future of this country or of the citizens of this country, but only in the the growth of the money they control and of the amount of it they can gain for themselves. If that involves the destruction of the United States or any other country, that seems to be fine with them. Ross Perot mentioned the giant sucking sound of capital leaving the country with the passage of NAFTA; this is what he meant. Small and medium sized companies do indeed create prosperity and a middle class for the country. Giant companies and monopolies and multinational companies, I suspect, by and large, don't have any loyalty to country. Their loyalty is profit for themselves, and not to prosperity for any particular political entity. It is unfair of me to respond to you about this, but then, you weren't answering my question here. You were telling me things about myself and my party that seemed to me to be off base, and needed to be corrected. Your assumptions were incorrect and too general and you were missing facts that you needed to have supplied. You needn't change your mind, of course. How you evaluate the information is up to you. But without the information, you aren't making an informed or free evaluation. I owe you that much. quote: Okay. Do you mean the large multi-nationals or do you mean the mid-sized and small businesses here, because they sometimes run in competition. Without some regulation, we will tend to favor the multi-nationals with no sense of loyalty to americans, american workers or american government policy. We would essentially be cutting our own national throats. The notion of tariffs comes in here. Smaller and more agile American companies would be in favor, so their growth would be protected. A middle class would have a chance to develop again. Multi-nationals would be against them, because the tariffs would cut into their profit margin. It would make American labor more expensive and would create an American middle class with a more robust sense of what they think is in their economic best interest, such as a more competitive entrepreneurial environment, where mid-sized companies could compete more effectively against larger companies because they had better ideas and ran a tighter, more innovative ship. This is the way America ran in the forties, fifties and sixties. If companies grew large enough to threaten to become monopolies, they were broken up into more competitive smaller organizations. The taxes, by the way, were higher at that time. quote: I can't respond well without more details here, Mike. I would wonder, however, what the rates were that the banks were offering for loans to small businesses, and to what extent that was affecting the lending practices. I'd have to do some research. And one might wonder what the banks were then doing with the money they borrowed? Did the investigation cover that? quote: Doing nothing now is different than doing nothing then, Mike, because the fall back position for doing something to change things is now a set of existing laws. In the beginning, at least before 1793 or so, this was not the case. You need to be specific about which laws you want to stay the same and which laws need to be enacted, and which laws need to be repealed. "Doing nothing" is only a soothing statement whose content you would not include in sausage, even if you made a point of not looking. The stench alone would identify it even to somebody with a sinus infection, simply by the blowflies it drew. "Doing nothing" is a semantic black hole that needs to be filled in. What are you going to fill it in with? "Get Out of The Way" is the same thing. It suggests that everybody knows how and where, when this isn't true at all. quote: The stimulus package would be the third, not the second. First was under Bush. Second under Obama. It appears that there is still a big problem with jobs, that this is a jobless recovery at this point. That's a big thing with me. Most of the money voted in the Obama Recovery package has not yet been distributed, but will be over the next year. Hopefully that will help a lot, both for the recovery and — politically speaking — for the election. That should be beyond consideration, but it isn't; my consideration, at least. If it doesn't work, it'll be a big deal politically and economically. I think that President Obama and the Democrats, if they're thinking competently and well, are trying to bring it off to peak close to the election. I hope that's what they're doing, at least; and I hope the plan works. If it does work, the Democrats will do well in the elections and the power shift should be consolidated. If not, it's Mule Soup time in Washington. Maybe it'll work that way, maybe not. The whole thing could be simply orchestrated by headless chickens fluttering about the henhouse. This would be unfortunate for the government and people as a whole. I want to thank you, specifically, Mike, for trying to think some of this stuff through with me. I hope you don't get too impatient with my meanderings and musings here, and I'm looking forward to your reactions and to the reactions of anybody else who's got some ideas to throw into the pot. I hope it isn't the headless chickens scenario, I must confess. My best to everybody, Bob Kaven |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
I'll have to get back to you tomorrow, Bob...long work day ahead. I just had time to skim your reply. Giant companies and monopolies and multinational companies, I suspect, by and large, don't have any loyalty to country. Their loyalty is profit for themselves, and not to prosperity for any particular political entity. I certainly hope the rest of your reply makes a little more sense than that. Stating that giant companies have no loyalty to country is not only foolish, it's very unfair. Undoubtedly you have no facts to back up such a claim, so why take the bother to denigrate them in such a manner. WHy do I say Democrats are against big business? You have just given an excellent example right there. Off to bed....see you tomorrow. |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Read the rest of the reply, please, Mike. You're taking the stuff out of context. I do draw a distinction. |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
Most of the money voted in the Obama Recovery package has not yet been distributed, but will be over the next year. Hopefully that will help a lot, both for the recovery and — politically speaking — for the election.That should be beyond consideration, but it isn't; my consideration, at least. If it doesn't work, it'll be a big deal politically and economically. I think that President Obama and the Democrats, if they're thinking competently and well, are trying to bring it off to peak close to the election. I hope that's what they're doing, at least; and I hope the plan works. If it does work, the Democrats will do well in the elections and the power shift should be consolidated. If not, it's Mule Soup time in Washington Bob, I think too highly of you to believe you actually mean what you say there because what you say is politics at it's worst. You are basically saying that Obama is taking the stimulus money and keeping it from the American people for his party's political purposes. You are saying that, in the height of one of the highest unemployment times in our history, with people searching frantically for work, with Obama claining job creation is a top priority, Obama is holding back the money he claimed to need IMMEDIATELY to create jobs and stimulate the economy for the purpose of looking like a grand benefactor right before the elections in order to gain votes. It is akin to keeping food from a starving man up to the point you feel you will look like a hero by giving him a bite....and you, Bob, hope the plan works. Any president who would commit such an action has no interest in the welfare of the people of the United States but only for keeping his party in power. Such a man should not be president. Any rank and file member of such a political party who applauds such an action is below contempt. I thank God, or whatever powers that be, that I am not a member of such a party. The whole thing could be simply orchestrated by headless chickens fluttering about the henhouse. Yes....and it is. |
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Grinch Member Elite
since 2005-12-31
Posts 2929Whoville |
I agree entirely with what you say about big business Bob, but only to a point. I haven’t got a problem with the size of a Company, my gripe is how Companies are run. Specifically who runs them and how and the almost unavoidable consequences that result under the current conditions. I think companies should be owned, like mistakes, problems and responsibility, preferably by the person or people that created them. Like those Companies back in the 30’s, 40’s and 50’s you mentioned, businesses built on the back of the honest sweat and determination of the owners that created them. Companies should definitely not be run by the share price motivated mercenaries with three-year PowerPoint plans and the security of a golden parachute – which is what we’ve unfortunately ended up with. If you want to stem the haemorrhage of workers onto the bandage of unemployment benefit that’s where I’d start. Big business run by people with short term and personal goals don’t employ people when sales are down or their profits start to get squeezed and the share price is threatened – they ‘streamline’, ‘outsource’ ‘downsize’, ‘realign the business model’ or (my personal favourite) ‘minimise overheads by divesting themselves of unnecessary fixed costs’. All the above are euphemisms for laying people off, and when push comes to shove (pun intended)those big businesses are top of the list when it comes to using them. They were lining up to announce how many thousand employees they were willing to sacrifice to maintain their bottom line and share price. They’ve forgot that shareholders are only one leg of the chair they’re sitting on, that more unemployed means a smaller market and less employees leads to disgruntled customers, at the same time they’ve also forgot the sweat and determination that it takes to be a successful businessman. To people with three year PowerPoint plans a year of reduced profit is the end of the world so they’re willing to do anything to avoid it - and do. To someone who’s been there for the last twenty years and is planning to be there for the foreseeable future one year is a minor setback in the grand scheme of things. How do you stop the PowerPoint brigade from ‘minimising overheads by divesting themselves of unnecessary costs’? Easy, you make it financially unattractive by increasing the amount of severance pay that they have to give to the thousands of ‘unnecessary’ Joes and Janes that were maximising their profits last year. Obviously unemployment is only one part of the negative feedback that feeds a recession, oddly it’s one that Obama isn’t directly addressing with the stimulus bills – regardless of what they’re called - they’re simply aimed at reducing fear and increasing confidence. End of rant.  |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Once again with the "below contempt," Mike? I am describing what I think I see, and I'm saying what I think about it. I evaluate it in terms of success or failure potential for the future good of the party and for what effects it may have on the Republican Party as well. I have done the same thing from time to time in terms of the Republican party and offered evaluations of Republican strategies, such as using the approaching 2002 elections to force Democrats to offer supporting votes for the Iraqi war resolution. I didn't like what the Republicans did, but I certainly said that it was a brilliant political strategy. It caught the Democrats flat-footed and they've been paying for it ever since. Am I not supposed to notice such a coupe? Am I not supposed to admire such a coupe, even if it's against my own personal interests? Am I not supposed to notice when you say something interesting or clever or incisive, even if it's against my own interests? It's be a pretty grim world if I limited my sources of pleasure to my own petty accomplishments, and to those who agree with me. Even as I skewered by a decent piece of wit, I can't help but take some pleasure in it, even as I may be planning some repost in response. This is not politics at its worst. Politics at its worst leaves bodies and armies in the streets. Politics at its worst leaves civil war in its wake. Sometimes politics at its worst leads to foreign wars as well. This sort of politics leads people to an understanding of the need of some sort of domestic safety net. It would have been impossible without the excesses of the last thirty years. I include the Clinton years in that time, sadly, and there seems to be no actual active left wing around to speak out today, outside a few survivors of The New Left back in the 60' and early 70's. As for saying that Obama is taking the stimulus money and keeping it for his purposes, I think that's ill founded. The money needed to be spent and still does. If Republicans had wanted to be part of that process, they could have been, and influenced where and when the spending was to be done. Instead, they essentially boycotted the entire process and now deny that there's been any effect to the economy at all. There's a certain disconnect between their comments and reality here. I was looking for some places to put some of my IRA money. Finance sector Spydr s in the funds I was looking at had risen between early January to April from about 1000 to about 1700. Communications in the same period had risen from about 1000 to about 1300, and so on. Past performance is no guarantee, etc, etc, and I'm not suggesting to buy anything. But something's coming back after a thoroughly dismal 2008. Somebody's investing, only not in jobs. Many of which have been shipped overseas. We can fight about why some other time. You complain that Obama keeping the stimulus money from the people when the Republicans were against the money in the first place, are still against the money, and given a chance to help decide where it was spent decided either not to or to criticize where and when it was being spent as being pork. Even with the money voted, the Republicans would block any disbursement of it if they could. It's all pork and waste, according to many Republicans, and, from time to time, that would include you, wouldn't it. Spare me the false moans. The Democrats want to get the money out. They want to feed the folks, and they want to gain some political pay-off for doing so. The Republicans have done their level best to make sure none of that happens. Pork, waste, long term debt is their and your mantra. Holding back the food till you look like a hero by giving his a bite, is it. The money is going out, you know. And if it were up to the Republicans the food wouldn't go out. The folks would have to depend on tapped out private charities and the starvation would be all their own fault, wouldn't it? That's the Republican way! |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
As for saying that Obama is taking the stimulus money and keeping it for his purposes, I think that's ill founded. I didn't say it, Bob...you did and, for the record, I agree with you. That is exactly the democrat plan, wait until just before the election, pass out the candy and look like great guys, helping out all of the people they had been keeping the bulk of the money from for well over a year while the unemployment continued to rise. The Democrats want to get the money out So why aren't they? Republicans can't stop them. The fact is they DON'T want to get the money out, until the most advantageous time to them. No, Bob, these are not false moans. They are sincere thoughts about how despicable the democrat ic actions are here and how fake Obama's words really are. He did not come through with the "shovel-ready" jobs he claimed he had ready, he has been sitting on 70% of the stimulus money while declaring how important job creation and employment is, and he will release it in order to pander for votes. Man, I can just imagine your howls of disgust if a republican president were using these tactics! MY condemnation of these tactics are not false or for show. They are real as is my disgust for any political party that would employ them. Applaud them if you like. It doesn't surprise me as much as I thought it would. |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
You really ought to at least think about responding to what I'm saying, Mike. It would at least show you've bothered to read it. |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
But I did, Bob. My comment was a direct response to what you said in your previous reply so I don't understand what you mean by that. And if it were up to the Republicans the food wouldn't go out. The folks would have to depend on tapped out private charities and the starvation would be all their own fault, wouldn't it? That's the Republican way! Is THAT something you think I should respond to? I'll pass on nonsensical gibberish, if you don't mind. |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
quote: You did not reply to the above, Mike. Am I correct in understanding that you grant this as an accurate assessment of the facts, or do you have some disagreement with this that is as yet unexpressed? How would A reader know? quote: The above paragraph, a follow-up of the original chain of reasoning seems self-evident. Your lack of response to this as well would see to grant me this point, yet how would a reader know that you disagreed with such an obvious statement unless you said so. You did not. quote: I am addressing your tendency to hyperbole here, where you said that President Obama was engaging in "the worst sort of politics." I pointed out some types of politics that are, in fact, worse, and that we have in the past encouraged in other countries. I also pointed out that a large part of the current circumstance in our own country is due to the practices of the rightist policies of the past 30 years, and the dismantling of the safety net built so laboriously after the Great Depression, including curbs on the sort of economic excesses that led directly to investment in derivatives and the dismantling of the regulatory system. This went unremarked in your reply. I find it entirely sensible that you would grant me such obvious points. I do not find it sensible for you to say that you had addressed them when you have not. I am incredulous that you would let pass my comment about President Clinton. But there you are. quote: You did respond to the part above. quote: This part, however, which is the rest of the paragraph and puts the meat on the bones of the topic sentence, you left untouched, thus taking the topic sentence out of context. There are certainly enough budget hawks among the Democrats to have put up a difficult fight. They might well have influenced the where and when of the matter, though probably not the "if" of the matter, and could have made a very large difficult stink in the process as they chose to do on issues that matter to them, such as health care. The fact that no such effort was forthcoming underlines exactly what import the Republicans gave this particular issue. As close to zero as possible; not enough to expend any political capital on fighting. Whatever your own personal opinions might be about this, your representatives did not choose to back them with much vigor where and when it mattered. My own thinking is that privately they agreed with the necessity of the spending. quote: This last paragraph is something that it is hypocritical of you not to address. It's been the Republican position that the whole bill was unnecessary in the first place, and that it would have no effect. In order for your current complaint to have any meaning at all, you have to admit that the money is and was necessary and that the money is vital. Do you say you were wrong before or do you say you're wrong now? And why should we believe that your statements are other than political posturing on either occasion? Spare me the false moans. The Democrats want to get the money out. They want to feed the folks, and they want to gain some political pay-off for doing so. The Republicans have done their level best to make sure none of that happens. Pork, waste, long term debt is their and your mantra. Holding back the food till you look like a hero by giving his a bite, is it. The money is going out, you know. And if it were up to the Republicans the food wouldn't go out. The folks would have to depend on tapped out private charities and the starvation would be all their own fault, wouldn't it? That's the Republican way! [/quote] I will say that you tried to respond to the above section. Your response was that President Obama wasn't responding fast enough and was responding with political benefit for his party. You said that if the Republicans tried that, I'd be upset. The Republicans were against the stimulus package going through at all. (The Obama package) They tried to tie it up and obstruct it, sort of, and said that it cost too much and that we should cut taxes instead. I will say that they didn't fight all that hard; but they did fight. If it were up to the Republicans, we wouldn't be having this situation, things would be considerably worse. Mike wouldn't be complaining about when funds were released, he'd be complained that there weren't any funds to release. And complaining that we didn't have money to pay for any relief package now, in the middle of a Depression. Clearly the fault of the Democrats. Now that the money isn't there, Mike's complaining that it isn't going to the people who didn't want to have any part in voting to support it or in helping plan for the disbursement. The logic of this is beyond me. Why would they have any benefit when they weren't helping design the package? Why would they have any say in the timing of the release of the funds when they virtually boycotted the process? They retain the right to complain, as we all do, but their right to having their wisdom honored needs to be evaluated in the light of their behavior. |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
Thanks, Bob,for pointing out where I may have missed your requiring an answering comment. Here are my thoughts.. In your first example, I simply see no correlation. using the approaching 2002 elections to force Democrats to offer supporting votes for the Iraqi war resolution. How in the world does that relate? Granted, it was a method to get the Democrats to do the republican bidding but is there any similarity between that and keeping money that can be used to create jobs for well over a year away from the people who need jobs in order to gain votes? I see no correlation and, therefore, no return comment. Ref your certain example, Your lack of response to this as well would see to grant me this point, yet how would a reader know that you disagreed with such an obvious statement unless you said so. You did not., yes, I did grant you that point and didn't realize that what was important to you was that the "audience" may not have seen that and needed to hear it from me. I talk to you, not the audience. Your third example? Politics at its worst leaves bodies and armies in the streets. Yes, that's true. Politics at it's worst would also be the government poisoning millions as a means of population control, or having the homeless shot in the streets and buried in the name of city beautification, etc, etc,etc. if your point is to claim that there are worse politics than allowing the highest unemployed to remain unemployed by not spending money you peomised to spend immediately to help them, I grant you the point. I didn't expect for you to take my superlative "worst" in it's highest sense but as a simple description of my feelings on the actions. I stand abashed for using such a word. Your fourth...The money needed to be spent and still does. If Republicans had wanted to be part of that process, they could have been, and influenced where and when the spending was to be done. Instead, they essentially boycotted the entire process and now deny that there's been any effect to the economy at all. There's a certain disconnect between their comments and reality here., I see no question in there for me to respond to. I simply disagree with it and allow you to have your own thoughts. Republicans were not even asked to be part of the process. They were simply asked to vote yes on it and if they didn't, well, as Pelosi pointed out, "We won the election and we run things around here." Denying that there has been any effect on the country? I see no problem with that because I see no positive effect, either, once one blows a hole in Obama's faked figures. Fifth and final? You complain that Obama keeping the stimulus money from the people when the Republicans were against the money in the first place, are still against the money, and given a chance to help decide where it was spent decided either not to or to criticize where and when it was being spent as being pork. Even with the money voted, the Republicans would block any disbursement of it if they could. It's all pork and waste, according to many Republicans, and, from time to time, that would include you, wouldn't it. The republicans were against the billions of pork built into the bill, you know, that stuff Obama had promised would not be included, as he went line through line, making sure. How could the republicans block disbursement, anyway? I refer you back to Pelosi's statement mentioned above. You try to give the impression that the democrats want to spend the money but the republicans won't let them....and you don't even see how much rubbish is in that thought. It's been the Republican position that the whole bill was unnecessary in the first place, and that it would have no effect. Please cite the reference that gave you that information. They were against the PORK in the bill which, I admit, was most of it. The logic of this is beyond me. Why would they have any benefit when they weren't helping design the package? Why would they have any say in the timing of the release of the funds when they virtually boycotted the process? of your statement is beyond me. As I stated earlier, they were not invited to design the package. It was one of Obama's blitzkrieg actions....we need it NOW! The fate of the country depends on it being passed NOW! Why would they have any say in the timing of release? They don't and therefore the lack of release falls with the democrats. When they think they can get brownie points and votes by relaising it, they will. Finally, Bob, you seem to feel that, when you make a statement, a response to your statement is required. The news flash is that....it's not. I am not required to respond to any of your comment any more than you are required to respond to mine. We all have choices on what we want to respond to and what we consider worthy of responses. You apparently feel that, if you are not given a response to something you want responded to, it gives you the right to criticize and admonish the person who did not come forward to respond to something you want responded to. If you ask me a direct question, I will do my best to answer it. If you simply put out statements defining your point of view, bashing republicans, or bringing up Bush or whatever avenues to like to dance along, if I don't consider them worthy of a response, I won't respond...and no admonishment from you will have any importance at all. Hey, you get to show "the audience" your views. That should be what's important to you, I suppose. |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
When you suggest that you have responded to a posting and get huffy about having done so, yet respond only to cherry picked and distorted elements of the posting, Mike, that is a distortion. Especially when you suggest that you have responded fully top what has been said. Nobody requires you to take that stance. You seem to do so on your own, and make sweeping generalization based on partial data, or on data based on distortions of what I've said. You apparently expect me to allow you to do that without comment or without calling you on the duplicity of that. Should you wish me to refrain from holding you to your words, restrain your words and refrain from distorting mine. That's really fairly simple. If the Republicans were as powerless as you claim, we would have had a good health care bill, at least in my terms, before last September. They are far from powerless, and they have significant Democratic allies which they know very well how to play, as may be seen by the long and meandering trip the health care legislation has been taking. To suggest the powerlessness of Republicans is disingenuous at best. Since when do the Republicans have to be invited to do anything in the legislature? They have, in fact, been trying to tell the Democrats how to run the Democratic party for years, with varying degrees of success. To suggest that they would need an invitation would, were I actually eating when I read the statement, make me pass an entire tuna sandwich and a pint of milk through my nose in my initial fit of laughter. They don't even feel they need an invitation to listen to my phone conversations! As for your upset about my comment on the reality of an audience, you always have the option of using email to speak to me in private, should you wish to do so. You have done so one one or two occasions, as I have done with you, and I've enjoyed those occasions for the most part. Those are personal conversations. I stopped doing that when you shared the content of one of my messages in the public forum here without asking my permission first. You have the notions of public and private, I suspect, reversed, if this is the way you chose to act. Messages that are actually restricted physically and must be reproduced to be read by others are personal and have some legitimate claim to being called private, whatever the legalities involved. Messages posted with the knowledge that they are in a public forum are public and do not carry a reasonable expectation of privacy. They are public documents. This is why many magazines regard materials that appear on the internet and on internet sites as having been published, having appeared in what many people believe is some sort of public domain. The fact that this public domain is limited in size to members of Pip may limit the size of the audience, but the audience is still there. I'm sorry if this is a rude awakening for you, but when you write something on a public forum, other people can actually see it. It's not vanity to be aware of that; it awareness of reality. Many of us actually pride ourselves on being aware of reality and on trying to live roughly inside its boundaries. We don't feel terribly stigmatized by doing this at all. I actually thought Republicans tended to pride themselves on this. Color me foolish here. |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
If the Republicans were as powerless as you claim, we would have had a good health care bill, at least in my terms, before last September. Actually, Bob, the reason we don't have one is due to some of the democrats and independents themselves recognizing the flaws and not getting into line. Were they all to stand together, the health care bill would be a done deal. Now, along with Democrats, pharma is complaining, the unions are complaining, hospital associations are complaining and Obama has certain body parts in a vise, since he made backdoor promises to all of them that he may not be able to keep to get the bill passed. when you write something on a public forum, other people can actually see it. I have no problem with anyone seeing whatever I write but I do not write it for their approval. If they have contrary thoughts, that's fine with me. One of your complaints was that I DIDN'T write something you wanted the audience to see. Consider yourself colored. |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Is that ill considered comment from you, Mike? with that terrible joke coming from a Republican and all, I'm afraid I'll simply have to let it pass. Though I confess it was good for a considerable amount of snickering. My sense of humor evidently has no conscious at all. |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
??? |
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Local Rebel Member Ascendant
since 1999-12-21
Posts 5767Southern Abstentia |
I had an uncle who, in his later life, became obsessed with designing a perpetual motion machine. Damned if Ron hasn't done it! |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
quote: |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
Bob: Color me foolish. Mike: Consider yourself colored. I said nothing wrong, Bob. If you mind wants to make it something it's not, that's your problem. |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
I didn't say you said anything wrong, Mike. I suggested you said something funny, without being aware of it. It was my brain that made the connection, which was in the language, not your head. Or if it was in your head, you weren't aware of it, a Freudian slip on an unconscious level. My brain made the connections. This was about the associations my brain made, and the wackiness of my brain, not yours. I was laughing at myself and at the funny turn that my brain took in looking at your language. You've got to admit, given the amount of extreme concentration on correctness of language, it was a slightly odd usage for you to come up with, though not at all off the charts, and my brain simply took it all the way. I had an enjoyable case of hysterics about it, like I used to from time to time when I caught an unintended pun my a teacher in civics class. Not you, Mike; me. |
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Grinch Member Elite
since 2005-12-31
Posts 2929Whoville |
Freudian slip – When you say one thing but mean your mother. |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
Is that ill considered comment from you, Mike? with that terrible joke coming from a Republican and all, I'm afraid I'll simply have to let it pass. Ok, Bob. I had thought that the "ill considered comment" and the "terrible joke coming from a republican" referred to me. My mistake. Welcome to the republican party!  |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
I actually hadn't heard that one before, Mr. Grinch. But I like it. I find my sense of humor makes leaps that are totally without conscience. I've learned to enjoy them as I grow older. I am often surprised at where various pieces of my brain hang out, apparently, and in what sort of company. I am also surprised at times to find what sort of things I find un-funny. It's not the sort of thing that one can easily speak about, however, because I find I run across other people's senses of humor and distaste. Folks are sometimes quite touchy about this sort of stuff, and not always where it's predictable. Just another thing between me and my lucrative career in standup comedy. A tip of the hat to you, Bob Kaven |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
Hey, Bob, if it makes you feel good, I think you're hilarious!!  |
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