Bush or the other guy?Follow

Let me know when you can answer the question.

LOL. I didn't think this thread would be that big, but carry on. Im learning political ...things?:)

No, no, no. How can you vote for Bush. Freedom in Iraq... Pfffft. Yeah right! You got Sadam (that tyrant) out of there. So now it's your turn to do the same!

Let me ask the question very simply again. Who's going to pay for the debt?

It could be answered with about ten words. You've thusfar spent...let me run a word count real quick...One thousand, six hurndred and twenty eight not answering it.

One, that's about 1600 words more than is needed, which is really quite astonishing. Two, it's stunning you still can't answer the question. Let me make it multiple choice for you, perhaps that will make it easier:

A) The middle class will end up paying for the debt in the form of higher taxes.

B) The magic money fairy will come and the debt will vanish and no one will have to pay for it.

C) The economy will grow at 470% rate, which is what would be required to compensate for the current increasses in spending coupled with the reduction in tax rates.

Now you only need respond with a single letter, not lets see, the NINE THOUSAND characters you've spent thusfar.

Oh, hey, by the way. Do you rent that place in CA or own it?

My vote gos to the bush. Then iI would like to be hired as his/her(Whatever sex a bush is) "First Water Boy". It would be great.:)

Just curious. I'm bored and trying to build an imaginary "Gbaji" personality in my mind. The only bit I can't figure out is why you live with the female roomate.


Sometimes things really are simple. The middle class carries about 80% of the burden of all money that reaches the coffers of the government. If you want to dispute that show me something that indicates otherwise. Keep in mind, that the middle class get nailed with payroll taxes which generate a vast amount of revenue for the Feds independent of income tax. It's largely a function of numbers. There's more middle class than there are other classes. There's really no way around the middle class burdoning the majority of the load unless you lessen the load.

That's my point. This administration is spending and not collecting revenue. That's no one's model of economics, it's just "something for nothing" politics that can't help but bite us inthe ***. That's not just my oppinion, it's the oppinion of fiscal conservatives as well. When you get economists from the left and the right agreeing on something there's a pretty good chance they're right.

Edited, Tue May 4 00:36:15 2004 by Smasharoo

One more. It's Qualcomm you work for?

Hmmm... That would be a good guess given the clues I've dropped. I'll leave it at that though... ;)

Making good gueses is my job. I'll check that off as a "yes".

So how come no SO or whatnot, Gbaji? You're about my age, maybe a few years older, financially secure, no desire for little Gbajis?

Eh. That could be. It really depends on how you look at it though. That same 1% also does not get nearly as much in terms of government services in relation to the taxes they do pay.

That same 1% also provides a service that government does not (jobs just to name one). One can argue that the top 1% contributes vastly more per dollar earned to our nation then the other 99% combined. Sure, you've got to have lots of people to dig the ditches, but someone has to pay them, and someone else has to have a need for a ditch, and someone has to arrange for the right ditch to get dug in the right place and for the right reasons.

Should they bear an even greater burden so that others can get more benefits? At what point do we say: "Hey. You're successful at what you do, and should get to keep what you've earned?".

It's just a fundamental difference in the way you and I look at economics, value, reward, and entitlement. I start from the assumption tbat each person should get to keep what he makes in the free market, and then we add government services that are needed by taxing those people. I make no assumption about the need or even desirability of an equality of result. In fact, I believe that the more we try to equalize the results across our citizens, the *worse* things become. You seem to start from the exact opposite view. Those who earn the most don't deserve to keep any more of it then what the "average" person earns. They somehow owe not just a livelyhood to themselves and their family, but to everyone else in the country, and we should tax them to the highest extent to remove the inequity that is wealth accumulation.

There's just no way to make those two starting assumptions agree Smash. I simply fundamentally disagree with your entire believe as to what a government *should* do in terms of economics.





That I can totally agree on. It's one of the reasons you'll see a Republican increase the budget like Bush did (and why we saw Clintons shrink). Each party has things they want to spend money on. And that's not getting into the nitpicking within a party as each congressman wants to get his little bit in for his state or district. There's a hell of a lot of deal cutting as well. One can easily argue that the size of the budgets during Clintons last term and Bush's term have nothing to do with the party in power and everything to do wither whether a single party had "control". With a Dem president and a Rep congress, it would simply be harder for anyone to pass a big spending bill. This case would exist regardless of which party had power where. Once you had a single party that had both executive and legistlative, the budget grows. Again, it had nothing to do with which party was there and everything to do with how many votes you'd need to pass something, and how willing one side or the other was to make a deal.




I think alot of it is the relative alarmism relating to a dip in growth during Clinton's last 3 years and a countering growth in spending during Bushs first 3 years. When you actually plot the total spending across the long term, you'll see that what's happening right now is that spending is moving back up to the same line it's been on more or less for the last 30+ years. The line was unusually shallow during Clinton's last few years, which makes the upswing today look more dramatic. We're still just getting back to the line though.


Think of it like sailing a ship. If you want to keep a specific course, you can just go straight in that direction. However, if you turn to the left for a bit, you'll go offcourse in that direction. You then have to turn dramatically to the right, then back to the left again to get back online. That's what's happening right now. You're seeing that sharp turn first. I'm betting, once interest rates climb again, we'll start seeing taxes rise, and spending increases slow to bring us back "on course". I tend to agree that GWB should have been a bit more conservative with it, maybe just steepened the curve a bit to bring revenues back up while dropping taxes slightly. But maybe his economic advisors felt a more dramatic jolt was needed to push us out of recession. I have no idea of the specifics, but I also don't automatically critisize just based on the changes of some economic indicators. What I prefer to look at is that jobs seem a lot more easy to come by this year then 3 years ago. Consumer confidence is much higher this year then 3 years ago. People are buying stuff. People are feeling better about their financial outlook. Stocks are coming back up. Businesses are hiring and promoting again. Those are the indicators that really matter...




Yeah. Possibly. "colapse" is a pretty strong word though. "dip" is more like it. San Diego has its own unique topology and sprawl. It's extremely rare for property values to actually go down (although it does and can happen). It's more often that the growth in property values just doesn't make it as good of an investment. But that'll occur as interest rates and/or inflation rates change anyway. What's far more likely to happen in this area is if the businesses get depressed, and folks lose jobs, but costs initially are still high so they either wont be able to maintain their own houses, or wont be able to afford rent. This causes a ripple in the market where there is more housing then jobs (cause they have to leave), and that screws the folks who use property holdings as a source of income as well. It's a double whammy that can devalue property very fast.


Historically though, property has always been one of the best long term investments you can make. Sure, you may lose some "value" (not the same as losing money) for a time, but it always comes back up again. The real trick is being diversified enough to be able to weather out the bad periods.


Heh. If we had guarantees in life, we also would have no opportunities. You take the good with the bad IMO.

Please see below. Thank you.

Edited, Tue May 4 02:00:59 2004 by psychojester