Politics America foreign policy,America in decline (YES or NO).

[Drillher4me]

300+ filibusters?
61 votes on ACA
Denying or staling every appointment he tried to make or initiative he tried to take

You're simply in denial, Torp ... why in the devil can't you occasionally admit it?
And the deficit spending that resulting in the rapid growth of the Nat'l Debt was REAGAN for Christ sake ... go read the facts and look at the frik'n charts. Even VP Cheney said "Pres Reagan proved that deficits don't matter"
God, I wish you'd start eating the stuff you're shoveling out to the rest of this forum. You're the most obstinate man I've ever met in my entire life ... you just keep circling your own wagon of BS and bring forth NO PROOF.
I provide chart after chart after report, and you just deny 'em or try to discount 'em, then you keep running your fruitless jaws of BS ... MY GOD!......View attachment 632777

READ IT AND DENY IT ....
http://crooksandliars.com/jon-perr/reagan-proved-deficits-dont-matter

MacNFries, Like I said earlier, "none so blind as those who refuse to see!" There is also another mantra, very much appropriate for those who refuse to see, and that is, "see it as you would like to see it and let the facts be damned!"

I'm very much bemused by the interruptions of historical facts that your adversary ennunciates to justify his own perceptions of those facts! I guess that's what makes all this so very interesting! It kind of reminds me of a lawyer friend of mine.

We were in court one day, and he was acting on behalf of an accused. The charge was *******. He was cross examining the plaintiff, a very pretty black lady. My question, Miss is this: "On the night in question, my client, seated right there, grabbed you, threw you on the bed. He then removed your blouse, your bra! Then in a fit of anger, tore your panties off! Is that correct?" She replied with a look of satisfaction and bemusement on her face responded! Are you ready for it?? Lol lol lol

"Oh! No, sir! That wus da times before!"
The judge threw the case out.
My point is, if the case is weak, why pursue it? Lol

 

[MacNfries]

.... I'm very much bemused by the interruptions of historical facts that your adversary ennunciates to justify his own perceptions of those facts! I guess that's what makes all this so very interesting! It kind of reminds me of a lawyer friend of mine.

Well, Torp wears me out, actually, and he knows it. I'm the one that needs to take that "chill pill" and simply remove myself from his delusional postings. If he'd just admit that the National Debt & deficit spending began skyrocketing under Reagan & Republicans, and admit that GW Bush and the Republicans were, in fact, the reason the US came the closest to having another Great Depression, I would concede everything else we've had discussions about. But conservatives simply won't do it. And why I continue challenging them is because they want to DO IT AGAIN the same way! They think cutting taxes is the solution to the problems we have ... it created the problem. You can't cut revenue and not make the same adjustment in spending. It's the old "Insanity" definition ... doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different results.

Unfortunately, I'm entering a very busy part of my year handling those so-called HUGE ACA rate increases he likes to talk about. And its funny, when I sit with employees and discuss benefits, employees want to know about ACA but don't want anything to do with Obamacare ... how ironic is that? If conservatives would just see that by supporting/helping fine tune a national healthcare system, and getting everyone on it, that competition and plan participation would drive rates and hospital costs down. But that's not what they want. It's going to get interesting in November when we start talking seriously about raising the debt ceiling again. Sean Hannity on Fox News is encouraging Republicans to call Democrats bluff and refuse to raise the debt ceiling. They haven't learned that President Obama does not bluff. If they do that, and crash the economy or damage the US credit rating "again", they can kiss 2016 goodbye. If I was them, I'd be going back to the President, hat in hand, and try to negotiate another 3:1 entitlement to revenue deal again ... maybe the President would take them up on it. I don't think a $2 trillion deal would be off the table if they'd offer it. Of course, Republicans would have to console with their bosses (Marquist & Kochs) first, and those guys would never agree to increasing taxes.

 

[MacNfries]

of course our foreign policy is in decline
we always had dorks as President....we need a real tough guy here, like Putin in Russia

Go back to sleep, Narco ... ...we're actually trying to have a serious conversation, here. Thanks!

I don't know what the solution really is ... none of us do, but one thing that would help is getting the big money influence OUT of our government so our politicians can do their jobs. Repealing Citizens United, barring lobbyists from Congress, and publishing every dime of the political contributions out so everyone can see who's influencing our so-called elected officials would certainly be a start. Our state governments are becoming every bit as corrupt as our federal government; state voters need to take their state governments back. One thing we don't need, however, is another frick'n WAR.

 

[Torpedo]

The printing/flooding the economy with thin money, as I recall, actually got started mainly when Paul Volcker, who was the Federal Reserve Chairman, purposely put the US in recession to fight inflation during the early years of Pres. Reagan. Nixon (another Republican) took our dollar off the gold standard if I recall, and Reagan briefly considered going back to the gold standard for the US dollar, but he didn't. Why didn't he? It would have tied his hands as to what he wanted to do. He basically cut interest rates AND flooded the economy with a lot of new printed money, which fueled the Reagan expansion that Republicans love to brag about Reagan's heroics. Nat'l & personal debts had been pushed to their highest levels by the time Reagan left office, having tripled the Nat'l debt which he campaigned on resolving Carter's spending. He cut taxes for the wealthy & corp's to well below half of what they were, and there was a major shortage in government revenue ... all along he was involved in the wasted Star Wars arms race, etc and when the crap hit the fan, he implemented a ton of tax increases that hit primarily the poor/middle class by saying he was shoring up Social Security fund for the next 2 decades, etc. None of that extra tax money was applied to SS, instead he used the SS added taxes to pay for his Trickle Down BS by dumping them into the general fund. And Reagan's "economic miracle" was simply shifting trillions of dollars from tangible assets to financial assets that fueled the stock market growth of his time.
It's all written down someplace; I think they call it "history".
This QE you speak of has been going on a long while. You preach of it as some kind of "doomsday scenario", but the economy will adjust, and rather harshly, when it hits. One thing is for sure, just like the G Bush administration, when the ******* hits the fan, whoever is in power in Washington will do just as Republicans did after their recent 6 years of terror, they'll toss up their hands and try to act as if its someone else's fault, THEN, as the Republicans are doing now, they'll try to roll out THEIR solution to fix it even though it will most assuredly benefit them & their constituents, and only them. As I said, this has been going on for 30+ years now, which is why I scream about the GOP's insistence to continue with this Supply Side Eco theory of theirs. They're all basically preaching it.

By the way, I believe it was GW Bush that appointed Ben Bernack, was it not? It seems like a lot of our economic ills in the past 40 or so years can be traced back to Republican presidents, doesn't it?

You don't seem to have addressed why the national debt has went from 10 trillion in 2008 to 18 trillion or there about now. The total public debt exceeds the the Gross Domestic Product by around 3%, the ratio hasn't been that high since WWII.

In 1946 the Public Debt to GDP ratio was about 1.2 to 1. The biggest mitigating factor was that during the war there was very little in the way of durable goods that were available. Plus everybody that was capable of working was either working or in the military. So when the war ended a lot of people had a lot of money in the bank. These saving smoothed the way for the transition from a war time economy to a peace time economy. Starting in 1946 the when the public debt was 120% of GDP is steadily decreased until just before Nixon's resignation it bottomed out at about 36 or 37% of GDP. It stayed in this range through the Ford and Carter years. It steadily increased through the Reagan and the elder Bush's tenure and by the time Bush left office it was at around 64% to 65% of GDP. The first few years of Clinton it rose slightly and then dropped to around 57% of GDP when he left office. It steadily rose through the tenure of the younger Bush and was at around 81% to 82% by the time he left office. The upwards curve in the ratio is currently at about 103% of GDP. And I don't see any indication that anything is going to happen to mitigate this. The very serious differences between the end of WWII and now is nobody has a pile of cash in the bank. WWII had everybody working and not much to spend it on. So when companies switched to peace time economy they had a hungry market with cash to buy. That is not the case today. Wages are flat, most people don't have the money for any real emergency let alone luxury. Another huge factor is that most of our WWII debt was for the tools of war. When the war ended those expenses went away. A very large part of our debt is the cost of entitlements and I see little evidence that they are going away.

 

[Drillher4me]

Go back to sleep, Narco ... View attachment 633236...we're actually trying to have a serious conversation, here. Thanks!

I don't know what the solution really is ... none of us do, but one thing that would help is getting the big money influence OUT of our government so our politicians can do their jobs. Repealing Citizens United, barring lobbyists from Congress, and publishing every dime of the political contributions out so everyone can see who's influencing our so-called elected officials would certainly be a start. Our state governments are becoming every bit as corrupt as our federal government; state voters need to take their state governments back. One thing we don't need, however, is another frick'n WAR.

I think, as an outsider looking in, there are several more disturbing things in American politics that, if I were an American, I'd be far more worried about. They are:

• The political biases of your Supreme Court when rendering decisions on political questions. Both political party appointees, from my perspective anyway, as well as the many I interact with share this view.
• I was under the impression that somewhere in the US Consitution it states (or stated) the principal of "One Man One Vote"! The first I ever heard to state otherwise was Mitt Romney. The statement I heard was, and I quote; "And corporations are not people?" Duh!
• The permitting, by your Supreme Court I might add, of Super PACs. I believe that was a 5 to 4 decision, and one that should be reversed by your Government. In my assessment the courts decision was a political decision. These judges were "appointed and not elected" and as such should have had refused to hear the case.
• It was interesting to read an article written by Paul Blumenthal of the Huffington Post. His headliner reads; "Oligarchy Of Super PAC Megadonors Have Conquered American Politics." The article further states, "The majority of money raised for the 2016 presidential race came from those giving $100,000.00 or more!" It further states that to the end of June/2015, Super PACs have raised $314 million. This compares to just, if I can use that word "just", $26 million in 2011. And guess what? Approximately $238 million of the $314 million, or 75% of the total, was donated by approximately 500 sources! I wonder what their anticipated ROI on their contributions is, 25, 50, 75, 100%. I'd be willing to bet, at minimum, their expectations exceed 100%. and who pays for it? Think middle class!

In closing, I'll plagarize something said many centuries ago, "No nation is destroyed from without, without first being destroyed from within!" The destruction of the "one man, one vote" option is the first major step toward that destruction! Please think about it regardless of your political affilliation.

 

[Torpedo]

I think, as an outsider looking in, there are several more disturbing things in American politics that, if I were an American, I'd be far more worried about. They are:

• The political biases of your Supreme Court when rendering decisions on political questions. Both political party appointees, from my perspective anyway, as well as the many I interact with share this view.
• I was under the impression that somewhere in the US Consitution it states (or stated) the principal of "One Man One Vote"! The first I ever heard to state otherwise was Mitt Romney. The statement I heard was, and I quote; "And corporations are not people?" Duh!
• The permitting, by your Supreme Court I might add, of Super PACs. I believe that was a 5 to 4 decision, and one that should be reversed by your Government. In my assessment the courts decision was a political decision. These judges were "appointed and not elected" and as such should have had refused to hear the case.
• It was interesting to read an article written by Paul Blumenthal of the Huffington Post. His headliner reads; "Oligarchy Of Super PAC Megadonors Have Conquered American Politics." The article further states, "The majority of money raised for the 2016 presidential race came from those giving $100,000.00 or more!" It further states that to the end of June/2015, Super PACs have raised $314 million. This compares to just, if I can use that word "just", $26 million in 2011. And guess what? Approximately $238 million of the $314 million, or 75% of the total, was donated by approximately 500 sources! I wonder what their anticipated ROI on their contributions is, 25, 50, 75, 100%. I'd be willing to bet, at minimum, their expectations exceed 100%. and who pays for it? Think middle class!

In closing, I'll plagarize something said many centuries ago, "No nation is destroyed from without, without first being destroyed from within!" The destruction of the "one man, one vote" option is the first major step toward that destruction! Please think about it regardless of your political affilliation.

You bring up some good points. Our political system has been in a downward spiral for about 40 years. The Supreme Courts decision on Super Pacs has to be one of the worst in the history of this country. The rhetoric, especially at the extreme right and left, has been reduced to their respective rants with little thought or understanding of the real problems. Each side points the dirty end of the stick at the other never taking the time to understand that both parties have had a hand in our mess