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Another data point provided by Herm Cain

By iwog   Follow   Wed, 11 Apr 2012, 6:23pm   7,697 views   88 comments
In Lafayette CA 94549   Watch (0)   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (1)   Dislike  

This one is just psycho. WTF is wrong with Republicans?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/11/herman-cain-video-chickens_n_1419050.html

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1. iwog Follow Befriend (48) 272 threads 12,446 comments 47 male Lafayette, CA Premium

   1   2:27pm Fri 13 Apr 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (4)   Dislike (1)   Honest Abe says I noticed that Iwaog had failed and refused to give what he thinks is the definition of Inflation. I've done it a dozen times before and generally it results in some idiot yelling "INFLATION ISN'T A RISE IN PRICES!!!". Asking me questions that can be answered by Googling "definition inflation" is really childish and a waste of everyone's time.

2. Kevin Follow Befriend 40 threads 2,652 comments

   2   7:29pm Sun 15 Apr 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (3)   Dislike   God I wish Herman Cain was still running. I'm not sure what the fuck he's actually doing at this point, but the man is an endless font of crazy.

3. iwog Follow Befriend (48) 272 threads 12,446 comments 47 male Lafayette, CA Premium

   3   8:40am Mon 16 Apr 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (3)   Dislike   clambo says and it was a classless society (unlike European societies) allowed people to reach their potential here. Republicans destroyed this. Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan fully intend to make matters much much worse. This is no longer a classless society. The standards for a regular person to enter an Ivy League University starts with a gpa well over 4.0...........unless you're George Bush, then you get into Harvard with a 2.35

4. Dan8267 Follow Befriend (16) 760 threads 7,667 comments Boca Raton, FL Premium

   4   9:13pm Wed 11 Apr 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (2)   Dislike   Half the problems in this country would be solved if only those who could pass the citizen's test immigrants have to take were allowed to vote. Too many dumb, uneducated voters.

5. iwog Follow Befriend (48) 272 threads 12,446 comments 47 male Lafayette, CA Premium

   5   7:10am Thu 12 Apr 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (2)   Dislike   CBOEtrader says This? Coming from the guy who, years ago, accurately preached to republicans that taxes are created when government spends. The US debt will be paid at some point, most likely by the poorest amongst us via inflation. Inflation doesn't hurt the poor. Wages generally rise at the same rate as inflation. The people who get hurt the most are people on fixed income and the rich who are hoarding dollars. Anyway the question of who will ultimately pay the national debt isn't a campaign issue now just like it wasn't a campaign issue in the 1980s when Reagan tripled the national debt from$1 trillion to $3 trillion. Neither Democrats nor Republicans are willing to tax what we spend, and I see no change in the near future. However if you're going to insist government balance its books, putting Republicans in office is the worst thing you can do. The only man who ever balanced the budget was Bill Clinton, and he had to veto 13 Republican budgets to do so. Everything about this video is a lie.

6. iwog Follow Befriend (48) 272 threads 12,446 comments 47 male Lafayette, CA Premium

   6   2:33pm Fri 13 Apr 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (3)   Dislike (1)   Dan8267 says Inflation has a duel effect. On one hand, it makes wages go down in the short-term, harming the poor. Inflation almost always results in an increase in wages. I posted two graphs demonstrating this in history but apparently there's still some doubt. Workers benefit from inflation because inflation is an increase in demand for products and services. Unemployment in an inflationary economy is generally very low. Hoarders and people on fixed income are hurt by inflation.

7. clambo Follow Befriend (5) 1,070 comments Santa Cruz, CA

   7   11:26pm Fri 13 Apr 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (2)   Dislike   I have never heard savers called hoarders. Inflation hurts everyone, the poor I was friends with in Mexico felt the pain very much. The math however is that they never LOST anything really. There are also several kinds of inflation, depending on: 1. how you want to define inflation 2. the cause and so the "type" of inflation. The inflation in the USA after WWII was related to rising wages, and this led to house prices rising. That inflation was very different to the energy inflation caused by the Arab oil embargo in the early 70's, entirely unrelated to rising wages. Likewise the Mexican inflation was not caused by rising Mexican wages but their various economic crises related to extreme govt. debt and lowering ability to pay it back (sound familiar?). So, it's possible to argue about inflation since it's like cancer with several causes. Rapidly rising prices per se are not good, but depending on how they are caused e.g. rising wages, this isn't as bad as falling value of a currency, etc. Rising wage inflation is one kind of inflation, the prices follow the higher wages. Wages rise when demand for workers meets with scarcity of workers, so the millions of illegal workers here drives wages DOWN. This trend cannot stop if they are not stopped from working here. FYI, I know personally illegals who bought and walked away from a house that went "underwater". Multiply it by thousands of people and you are talking some serious dough lost in those transactions.

8. tclement Follow Befriend (3) 8 threads 48 comments Oakland, CA

   8   12:42pm Sun 15 Apr 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (4)   Dislike (2)   clambo says Someone made a snarky comment that I am greedy because "I got mine". You bet your fuckin ass it's mine buddy. I made it, and I won't go into detail about HOW I made it, but it was not working as a "Diversity coordinator" or a "community activist." I put my brains, balls, money, sweat, blood and sacrifice out there and NOW everything I have is the result of 1. work 2. sacrifice. 3. risking investments. You seem to be deluded into thinking that you "make" money. Apparently, you're good a diverting it from the economic stream towards yourself. The real agenda of right wing fanatics is to capitalize on economic externalities to get rich at the expense of others. If you were in favor of a carbon tax to offset the unpaid costs you subject other to, or you were willing to pay enough taxes to educate our youth at the level you received, or you didn't engage in generational exploitation by cutting taxes (and hence increasing the debt our children and their children would have to pay) without cutting government spending, then I'd believe you are true capitalist. As it stands you're simply a opportunist taking advantage of others. You may be a winner in this game, but I don't see a shred of integrity.

9. clambo Follow Befriend (5) 1,070 comments Santa Cruz, CA

   9   12:59pm Sun 15 Apr 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (4)   Dislike (2)   I made my money pal. I never got rich at the expense of anyone else. I have 100% integrity because: 1. I do not seek free money from govt. I do not want to steal from taxpayers 2. I do not want to limit someone else's freedom to keep his money 3. I do not want to take from people's savings/capital to feed sloth, failure and other's bad decisions. (e.g. free money for underwater mortgage holders) 4. I don't divert anything, I have simply decided to save money and then I invested it. 5. I don't call names to those who live the way they want to. I do call names to assholes and weirdos who want to take from me to support their own pet charity projects. Your insane rant is typical for the liberal. Carbon taxes? How about we just run cars on natural gas and forget it. Besides, I have a very "low carbon" lifestyle. This is part and parcel of my extreme cheapskate lifestyle. I am not an opportunist. I say that you do not have the right to pickpocket me to pay for the pensions of Washington DC goldbricks, food stamp queens, and other parasites. You live in Oakland, so how many thousands of Oakland residents are taking free money while they create ruin in your "society" up there? Your ideas would only create more of them. Why did you crop out your boyfriend from your profile pic? Pay to educate someone else's kids? We all do that already with taxation.

10. Dan8267 Follow Befriend (16) 760 threads 7,667 comments Boca Raton, FL Premium

    10   11:35am Tue 17 Apr 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (2)   Dislike   iwog says Dan8267 says Inflation has a duel effect. On one hand, it makes wages go down in the short-term, harming the poor. Inflation almost always results in an increase in wages. I posted two graphs demonstrating this in history but apparently there's still some doubt. Don't know those graphs, but certainly in the short term, inflation decreases the real purchasing power of wages, as wage increases always lag. People have to react to rising costs of living and then demand raises from their employers or switch jobs. That takes time. Now does inflation increase the long-term real purchasing power of wages? I don't know. I haven't heard an argument supporting or detracting from this. The real wages today are less than what they were in 1973 despite the enormous increase in worker productivity brought on by computers and the Internet, although the Internet seems to have improved wages significantly from 1996 to 2003. Perhaps people don't buy that inflation improves wages because for 30 years, we haven't seen that. iwog says Workers benefit from inflation because inflation is an increase in demand for products and services. Another way to state that is that inflation steals money from savers to subsidize consumer spending. And people spend money less efficiently, when it's someone else's money. A better mechanism would be to use the savings as investments in capital tools and infrastructure, providing a safe, positive real rate of return for the savers. It doesn't even have to be extravagant. A safe, real rate of return of 3% tax-free would be sufficient to ensure that savings don't hurt the economy, that people can save for major purchases instead of going into debt, and that the long-term economic needs for infrastructure is met. tclement says The real agenda of right wing fanatics is to capitalize on economic externalities to get rich at the expense of others. So true. The leaders of the right wing are all about parasitic zero-sum games, and the followers willingly vote against their own economic interest because the leaders keep saying Jesus this and Jesus that. clambo says Americans are not quite the "master race". The USA however was the best incubator for great minds to come here and for other great minds to flourish here. Over the past 400 years, Europe has produce far more great scientists and thinkers than America. There was a small time in the 1920s and 1950s when America was catching up, but since we started the culture of stupidity, that trend has reversed. The typical American looks at book learning and intellectualism as negative qualities. The typical American doesn't want an intelligent president. This is scary. clambo says Steve Jobs as an example would probably have ended up having a shitty life if he were born in London. I disagree. Talentless charlatans can make it anywhere. London is no exception. clambo says The vast size of the USA economy, and the almost unique protection of private property from the Constitution encourages innovation. If you ignore the b.s. nominal figures and just concentrate on real production, China is a bigger economy than ours and India is on its way. If the currency exchange rate were left to the free market, China would have more nominal GDP than the U.S. And China, India, and the other BRICS nations are only getting bigger. America, by contrast, is getting smaller. Size won't save us. As for the protection of private property, there is none in the United States. It doesn't matter what's on paper, even the Constitution as that is violated every day. Think you own your house? The federal, state, or local government can take it away from you without compensation through eminent domain. What about the money in all your bank accounts? It can be seized at the press of a button. What about money in foreign bank accounts? It's illegal not to disclose them to the government, so the government can seize those as well at the drop of a hat. What about your car? It can be compensated or they could put a tracking device on it. What about your phone? It's already tapped. Everyone's is today. Large computers clusters perform speech-to-text and then store all text in a database so it can be analyzed and mined later. What about your body? Surely you own that? Not at all. The government can force you to provide fingerprints, DNA samples, blood samples, and any other medical sample even if you have not been charged with a crime, nonetheless convicted. They can strip search you, body cavity search you, force you to undergo radiation, take potent laxatives or other drugs, and well, pretty much do whatever they want to your body including torturing it to death. So, what property protections do you really have? None. You can't have property protection without human and civil rights protection, including the right to privacy. And you can't have any of those as long as we're fighting the "war on terror".

11. marcus Follow Befriend (5) 166 threads 5,053 comments

    11   12:16am Thu 12 Apr 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (1)   Dislike   clambo says Taxes as a % of GDP are high, not low. BS. See the column on the right. http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=205

12. dublin hillz Follow Befriend 10 threads 763 comments Dublin, CA

    12   11:48am Thu 12 Apr 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (1)   Dislike   bdrasin says iwog says Bap33 says iwog, if the minimum wage were just set to $100 per hour we would all be rich $100 an hour is only $208,000 per year. You'd have a decent standard of living but I wouldn't consider that rich. You probably wouldn't even be able to afford a mistress. I think you must be overpaying. If the min wage was $100 per hr, first thing bay area lanlords would do would increase rent to $15000 per month - that's what they do, just like the jacked up the rent when social security tax cut was passed.

13. Dan8267 Follow Befriend (16) 760 threads 7,667 comments Boca Raton, FL Premium

    13   12:11pm Thu 12 Apr 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (1)   Dislike   wthrfrk80 says My pay hasn't increased as fast as the cost of gasoline and food, that's for sure. Your pay has increased? Count yourself lucky. I was paid more in the 90s.

14. Bellingham Bill Follow Befriend 29 threads 1,473 comments Bellingham, WA Premium

    14   12:39pm Thu 12 Apr 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (1)   Dislike   dublin hillz says If the min wage was $100 per hr, first thing bay area lanlords would do would increase rent to $15000 per month - that's what they do, just like the jacked up the rent when social security tax cut was passed. Came here to say that. This observation is the "All-Devouring Rent" thesis. Google has 53 matches for this, and 10% of them are me. For something so obvious it sure is obscure. I suspect the Bush tax cuts were also drivers of the 2002-2003 housing boom, too. You can't give ALL households $2000 - $3000 more in take-home pay without it pushing up rents and home values. This is why I don't think progressive taxation is that great a thing. It is taking a cudgel to a tax problem when a scalpel would work much better. iwog proposes all people in his tax bracket pay more, great, but if he were really fair-minded he would agree that people in his line of "work" -- rent-skimming --should be paying taxes on their gross rents until it hurts. After that, we should go after other forms of capital income and then wages. Frankly, I also think/hope just raising taxes on the middle class would also come out of rents and land values in the end, but doing so would be a period of brutal readjustment. And ain't going to happen anyway. This nation is about as corrupt as the Soviet Union ca. 1985. Maybe we too have got 5 more years until the wheels come off, dunno.

15. freak80 Follow Befriend (4) 52 threads 4,416 comments Corning, NY Premium

    15   12:43pm Thu 12 Apr 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (1)   Dislike   $100/hour only gets you a middle class standard of living in the Bay Area. Barely.

16. Bellingham Bill Follow Befriend 29 threads 1,473 comments Bellingham, WA Premium

    16   12:45pm Thu 12 Apr 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (2)   Dislike (1)   clambo says and NOW everything I have is the result of 1. work 2. sacrifice. 3. risking investments. before you dislocate something patting yourself on the back, did you actually create any new wealth? Armed robbery also involves work, sacrifice, and risk.

17. Honest Abe Follow Befriend (41) 91 threads 1,806 comments

    17   1:54pm Thu 12 Apr 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (2)   Dislike (1)   Quote from Iwog:"Inflation doesn't hurt the poor". Hahaha, obviously from someone who doesn't understand inflation. Hey Iwog, define INFLATION for us.

18. clambo Follow Befriend (5) 1,070 comments Santa Cruz, CA

    18   9:39am Fri 13 Apr 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (1)   Dislike   delurking: What does my saving my own sweat have to do with robbery? Buying stocks means my savings and capital can be used to create some business or other. Stocks are not the worthless financial instruments that Citi, B of A, AIG, and others dealt with to make money out of thin air based on bad mortgages. I buy and hold so I don't feel any guilt over it if the shares rise over time. I have a lot of time to wait.

19. clambo Follow Befriend (5) 1,070 comments Santa Cruz, CA

    19   10:17am Fri 13 Apr 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (1)   Dislike   iWog is correct that inflation hurts more those who have capital already than those who are just working. I saw this myself in Mexico and they had super inflation along with peso devaluation since I left around 82. A guy with a lot of money in 1980 in a Mexican bank would see his money almost evaporate. The guy who has no money saved doesn't really notice his net worth drop, since he has no net worth. The poor people I knew then are now adults and all have a high standard of living. They are different than the Mexican illegals however: they went to college, which is generally free in Mexico. In fact, none of the people I knew in 1982 has touched a dish, a mop, a broom, or a pan out of necessity as an adult. They all easily find those who didn't graduate from high school (33% of adults) to do those chores for them.

20. Vicente Follow Befriend (8) 203 threads 4,403 comments Davis, CA

    20   9:54pm Sun 15 Apr 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (1)   Dislike   thomas.wong1986 says that was under the 1950s when WE had very lttle in terms of competition and our goods went to rebuild post war europe. I'm never sure what to make of this rationale. On the one hand, many free market zealots think Americans are the natural "Master Race" when we are capitalists. That in the "Good Old Days" before EPA and "Big Gubmint" we just naturally mopped the floor with everyone. Other times they credit our industrial success with this a storyline about "everyone else was bombed back to the Stone Age". Well not everyone was, and in any case is either explanation TRUE? Anyhow neither of these narratives work for me.