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The War of the Words [Dan Collins]

Via Gateway Pundit:

The “War on Terror” is losing the war of words. The catchphrase burned into the American lexicon hours after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, is fading away, slowly if not deliberately being replaced by a new administration bent on repairing the U.S. image among Muslim nations.

Since taking office less than two weeks ago, President Barack Obama has talked broadly of the “enduring struggle against terrorism and extremism.” Another time it was an “ongoing struggle.”

He has pledged to “go after” extremists and “win this fight.” There even was an oblique reference to a “twilight struggle” as the U.S. relentlessly pursues those who threaten the country.

But only once since his Jan. 20 inauguration has Obama publicly strung those three words together into the explosive phrase that coalesced the country during its most terrifying time and eventually came to define the Bush administration.[link mine]

Nevertheless, we must prosecute the War on Root Causes vigorously. Parsnip, your days are up.

Addendum: See, the thing that really bothers me about this is that it means that the crapola that they teach in English graduate school about retooling human relations by reinscribing the phallogocentric discourse has taken root in journamalism. Or, of course, you can see myriad of Jeff’s writings on the subject.

219 Replies to “The War of the Words [Dan Collins]”

  1. geoffb says:

    So Obama is declaring “Jihad” on terrorism.

  2. Bob Reed says:

    The first step to losing is to forget that it is an actual war we are engaged in…

    I guarantee the Islamo-fascists will not be as soft…

    The lefty’s want to declare a war on everything else, to use the crisis mentality evoked as a justification for anything…

    Except, you know, actual war

  3. N. O'Brain says:

    “After four years of failure to restore the Union by the experiment of war….humanity, liberty, and the public welfare demand that immediate efforts be made for a cessation of hostilities…”

    Democratic Party platform for 1864

  4. happyfeet says:

    “One of the contrasts between the two administrations is the care with which Obama uses language. He thinks about the subtle implications,” said Fields, an expert on presidential rhetoric.

    oh.

    Actually I’m cutting more than I’m spending so that it will be a net spending cut. – Baracky, Oct 7 2008

    I think the subtle implication is that he’s a lying piece of dirty socialist shit.

  5. Joe says:

    “People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.” George Orwell

  6. Joe says:

    “An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life.” Robert Heinlein

  7. parsnip says:

    The “War” on Terror was always a dumb formulation.

    Good riddance.

  8. geoffb says:

    “One of the contrasts between the two administrations is the care with which Obama uses language. He thinks about the subtle implications,”

    So he is really actually changing the “War on Terror” to the “enduring struggle jihad against terrorism and extremism.” Another time it was an “ongoing struggle jihad.”

    Since he is so smart and nuanced and all.

  9. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    Wasn’t “endless war” a popular catchphrase with the lefties, way back in the Bush administration?

  10. Joe says:

    Did anyone catch Jimmy Carter on Michael Medved? Okay, I know Carter’s frontal lobes have rotted away over the last twenty years, If that is 15% of the type of nuiance we can expect from President Obama, we are fucked.

  11. Joe says:

    Did anyone catch Jimmy Carter on Michael Medved? Okay, I know Carter’s frontal lobes have rotted away over the last twenty years, but if that is 15% of the type of nuiance we can expect from President Obama, we are fucked.

  12. Carin says:

    I’m just glad that Obama is doing away with Rendition like he promised… oh, the heartach!

  13. Carin says:

    I’m prolly going to be lonely here tonight, but the Hammer addressed the whole “repairing our image with the Arabs” dealo here and it’s really good. Tidbit:

    In these most recent 20 years — the alleged winter of our disrespect of the Islamic world — America did not just respect Muslims, it bled for them. It engaged in five military campaigns, every one of which involved — and resulted in — the liberation of a Muslim people: Bosnia, Kosovo, Kuwait, Afghanistan and Iraq.

    The two Balkan interventions — as well as the failed 1992-93 Somalia intervention to feed starving African Muslims (43 Americans were killed) — were humanitarian exercises of the highest order, there being no significant U.S. strategic interest at stake. In these 20 years, this nation has done more for suffering and oppressed Muslims than any nation, Muslim or non-Muslim, anywhere on Earth. Why are we apologizing?

  14. happyfeet says:

    “We cannot paint with a broad brush a faith as a consequence of the violence that is done in that faith’s name.”

    Baracky’s NPR does exactly that with Christians all the time. I think Baracky just says stuff without actually thinking about it in a nuanced way. He should take more care with the way he uses language I think.

  15. router says:

    “We cannot paint with a broad brush a faith as a consequence of the violence that is done in that faith’s name.”

    What happens if that is the faith?

  16. Did Ya Hear? The War On Terror Is Finished!…

    Well sorta, Roger Cohen at the New York Times proclaimed it finished because of Obama’s recent “proclamations.”
    In his first White House televised interview, with the Al Arabiya news network based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Presi…

  17. Sdferr says:

    Something big happened this weekend and I think I missed the whole deal (on account of having one of these). Could the big thing be the ginormous fuss the new administration made about elections in Iraq? No? (Help me out, really, I’ve totally panicked in a quick scan of Rodger explains and run into oxycontin in the post (when they set me home with oxycodone, is that a bad thing?). Where to start? Push on past to work it all up chronologically, starting with “What getting kicked to the curb looks like…” or just flounder around until I get the gist? Days without cigarettes and pumped full of morphias in lieu of the ordinary coffee has had a distinct brain scrambling effect on me.

  18. happyfeet says:

    oh. In short: Pajamas Media is closing the blog network part that Jeff is part of to become a MAJOR force in television (PJTV), which Jeff is not a part of. Roger Simon, who is the CEO, mishandled the announcement of the closing the blog network. Then he got rude about it and said all the bloggers were just welfare cheats anyway and basically Roger didn’t make any friends. That’s about it really. It was kind of anti-climactic. Just that we have to hope that there’s another ad network that will work with the ex PJM bloggers. If not, some number of them and maybe even this one which is my favorite might not keep going.

  19. happyfeet says:

    ack. So you have plates and screws? Are they forever or do they come out some day?

  20. Sdferr says:

    It was kind of anti-climactic. Happyfeet, can I have you permission to take this to the bank? Cause thinking about the rest of that stuff gives a grindy stomach with a side of agita, especially that “not keep going” bit.

  21. Sdferr says:

    Forever unless something untoward (and unusual) happens.

  22. happyfeet says:

    Sure – so far everything’s been very even-keeled. Except a certain Joe who may or may not be trying to instigate some drama. Or not. Joe is of a mercurial temperament I think. Right now he’s getting drunk on root beer and vodka. Oh. So you’re like Wolverine now. That’s very cool I think.

  23. Sdferr says:

    It’ll be damned cool when I gets me his magical healing powers for sure. Til then I’m sticking with the two to three every three hours as needed.

  24. Dan Collins says:

    Sorry about the scrofula, Sdferr.

  25. happyfeet says:

    Definitely. Hang in there… this sounds like it could be a tough week …

  26. Carin says:

    Your lucky they gave you something that works, Sdferr. Whatever they gave me after my operation made me feel really sick. I had to just overdo the tylenol.

    Heal-up!

  27. Sdferr says:

    Eeeyeeesh, Collins! Nutsacks on the neck? Gaaaah.

  28. Adriane says:

    We did more for Indonesia after the tsunami than did countries which share the Indonesian people’s religious beliefs …

  29. gus says:

    Has it not occurred to most of us Conservatives that Obama is doing exactly what a clueless child would do? He’s not capabale of anything and he is taking a path that makes him look nice.
    He’s going to get his candy ass handed to himself. He’s literally clueless. We gave a position of authority to a clueless ass.

  30. Dan Collins says:

    Gus, can’t you ever be amused?

    Sdferr, I’m sorry.

  31. eeee, what happened, Sdferr?

  32. Big D says:

    Sdferr,

    Sorry to hear about your condition.

    Here is a summary of recent threads:(Field being regulars)
    Unnamed troll – HaHaHa, bye bye
    Field – Fuck you!
    thor – Dumb rethuglican hicktard
    Field – Fuck you thor
    Parsnip – I like tater tots!
    Field – Umm, OK.

    Other than that, it had been fairly quiet.

  33. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    I think I missed the whole deal (on account of having one of these).

    Yikes.

    Now I’m thinking about Joe Theisman video they were running on AoSHQ earlier.

    Hope the drugs keep working and that you’re better soon!

  34. Sdferr says:

    But I laughed and laughed Dan. Does that mean there’s something wrong with me? I’m still laughing. Sick.

    Bike, speed, stupid old guy, hydroplane, ground Maggie. It’s all on me. On the upside, I did learn that torture is still practiced in the USA, just so long as it’s done by ortho guys with their patients under anesthesia, nobody says a word.

  35. Dan Collins says:

    Oh, God, another sociopath.

  36. daleyrocks says:

    Sdferr – The important thing to know is if you had hot nurses. JD claims he had hot nurses with his gall bladder thingee but I have seen no proof.

  37. daleyrocks says:

    Cheney to Muslim world – Nuts

    Obama to Muslim world – On behalf of America, I would like to take this opportunity to apologize……..

  38. Sdferr says:

    Hot urses (ursa?) more like, not a one on the ortho ward was under 58. There was one good looker festooned with piercings (and a sympathetic fellow smoker to boot) in the E-Ward, but she inherited me only five minutes before I got shifted upstairs, so I don’t think I’d get to count her daleyrocks.

  39. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    Bears? Trained bears?

  40. Sdferr says:

    I’d best not say any more SBP, other than that all were fine caring professional people.

  41. geoffb says:

    Russian nurses, named Ursala, torture, oh my.

    I shall pray for Sdferr’s release and recovery.

  42. cynn says:

    Obama is not diminishing the cause by abandoning the crazy Will Robinson Danger Danger War On Terror crap we have been endlessly subjected to. That’s a waste of adrenaline, it’s overkill, and it’s ultimately rendered meaningless. Better to face the bad boys down not in fear, but with resolve.

  43. Sdferr says:

    Resolve? What, you mean like promising to bugout in 16 months type resolve just when we’re pulling the bad guys down? That kind of resolve?

  44. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    Oh, please, cynn. “Resolve”?

    The Iranians are already laughing at what a pussy Obama is.

  45. geoffb says:

    Struggle with firm resolve. Struggle, enduring, sounds positively Sisyphean. Also a fine word with a grand lineage on the Left. Solidarity! Struggle!

  46. cynn says:

    Give me a break. I don’t recall one positive note on this site about the relatively successful recent elections in Iraq. That’s a credit to your side, I grant, but no, you’re off to the next bitchslapping. What a bunch of schoolyard bullies.

  47. Adriane says:

    Barack Milhouse Obama spoke for all of us when he thanked the UN for the Iraqi elections. What more can we say?

  48. cynn says:

    By the way, I give our military great praise for their overall restraint and professionalism. They are not policemen or clean-up crews, and that is how the previous administration used them.

  49. geoffb says:

    Latest memo just in. The US military and the Iraqi people get no credit for the Iraqi election. The UN is the party that gets the credit for their fine work in making Iraq the place it is today.

  50. geoffb says:

    “”that is how the previous administration used them.

    I too remember the Clinton “pizza delivery service”.

  51. cynn says:

    The UN can pound sand.

  52. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    cynn doesn’t click on “those orange things”, geoffb. They might “damage her computer” or somethin’. I never quite got the straight of that.

  53. Nan says:

    Well geoff, according to Cynn we were only cleaning up Iraq, sorta like janitors.

  54. Sdferr says:

    Oh? Would this count under your rubric? And cynn, your policemen – clean-up crews crack is just gratuitous horseshit.

  55. cynn says:

    I’m not excusing anyone. Use the military as the experts they are. Destroy and get out.

  56. Bob Reed says:

    Sdferr,

    Here’s hoping you feel better and experience a quick recovery…

    Best Wishes

  57. Nan says:

    “Destroy and get out.” Anybody wanna bet what the left would have said about our military if they’d done that?

  58. geoffb says:

    Janitors, I guess, is a step up from pizza delivery. And a long way from Kerry’s Mongol Hordes and “baby killers”.

  59. cynn says:

    I, for one would have approved, since there was no occupation plan. And Spies, I don’t typically click on the orange links because they invariably lead to some hyper-righty link. No thanks.

  60. cynn says:

    Sdferr: Sorry to hear you’re ill; wha happa? Still don’t see your point.

  61. geoffb says:

    Ah, those “hyper-righty” site that might infect a computer with the dread virus of theocracy. Like this one here.

  62. Sdferr says:

    Click the linky in 17 cynn, it’s a picture. Not ill really, just broken. Or fixed and mending, I should say. Now we wait.

    Thanks for the good wishes, to the lot of you, you’re all very kind.

  63. thor says:


    Comment by Nan on 2/1 @ 9:54 pm #

    “Destroy and get out.” Anybody wanna bet what the left would have said about our military if they’d done that?

    “Good job,” that’s what I’d bet they’d have said, but then again I’m not a r-winger retardo who thinks his self-worth boosting imagination speaks for “the left.”

  64. geoffb says:

    Well, I have to take my wife to the hospital tomorrow morning for her monthly MS treatment and so I’ll say goodnight in a musical fashion to all the trolls we love so dearly here.

  65. cynn says:

    Like I’m going to click on that! Can you say STD? Psych!

  66. cynn says:

    Sdferr: Get the hell better, moron.

  67. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    And Spies, I don’t typically click on the orange links because they invariably lead to some hyper-righty link.

    That’s it, cynn. Must. Keep. Brain. Compartmentalized.

    How’s that Obama thing workin’ out for you? Looking forward to having $10,000 less for every member of your family if Barky’s “stimulus” passes?

  68. Sdferr says:

    Heh. I think it could be rightly tagged an ATF, for asphalt transmitted fracture though.

  69. happyfeet says:

    Obama is a lot diminishing the cause I think. Hi terrorists. Let’s be friends. Gack. Just words. Terrorists can smell a pussy a mile a way. And goats.

  70. Mr. Pink says:

    WTF I thought 95% of us were getting a tax cut? What happened to that anyway.

  71. Darleen says:

    Sdferr,

    OUCH! and my thoughts for a speedy, well-knit recovery! Was this a repair for an accidental break, or a replacement due to old injuries? (my late uncle played a lot of football right up to professional … had to have both hip joints replaced when he was in his 60’s)

  72. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    By “us” he meant “Obama voters”, Pink.

    We’re “them”, not “us”.

    Hope that helps!

    BTW, it’s actually about $3,000 per capita, not $10,000. $10,000 or so per household.

  73. happyfeet says:

    He’s still counting tax cuts as that dealio where he hands monies to people that never paid taxes in the first place. Jeez. What a dipshit.

  74. cynn says:

    Yah, happyfeet, we’re having a terrorist wingding, featuring all your favorites. Including those who might be sent out of black sites! Coming to a back yard near you!!

  75. happyfeet says:

    cynn, this is nothing to make light of I don’t think. I’m feeling very vulnerable.

  76. Mr. Pink says:

    SBP what is a trillion dollars in national debt when compared to the needs of the many in this country that might at any moment be attacked by an STD.

  77. Sdferr says:

    Ten-speed crash Darleen, all on me. As I told maggie upthread, mix speed with stupid old guy, hydroplane a tetch, overcorrect and kablooey. Joints are ok (knock wood, or head in my case), just need the rod and screws to hold the thing together.

  78. RTO Trainer says:

    Coming to a back yard near you!!

    Entirely possible of course.

    But less likely than other places. We have a tendency to keep the lights on here and cockroaches prefer the dark.

  79. thor says:

    #

    Comment by Mr. Pink on 2/1 @ 10:21 pm #

    WTF I thought 95% of us were getting a tax cut? What happened to that anyway.

    Those tax cuts are included in the stimulus package that all the powerless House reLimbaughlicans voted against. Have you forgotten cutting taxes stimulates the economy? Where’s your Republican Bible of dumb economic cliches?

  80. Darleen says:

    Comment by Joe on 2/1 @ 5:35 pm #

    Did anyone catch Jimmy Carter on Michael Medved?

    Yes, I did … and Medved really backed The Worthless One into a corner about Hamas. Everytime Medved kept saying “what about their charter that says their purpose is to destroy Israel and rid the Waqf of Jews and even fight to all jews are dead.” the best Carter could keep bleating was “That’s ancient history.”

    Carter is an anti-Semite.

  81. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    I’m going to grab as many “free” condoms as I can when they start passing ’em out. Maybe I’ll snag enough to inflate, tie together, and used in an improvised raft to float to Cuba.

    Hey, I thought the Euros were going to like us again if we elected Plastic Jesus? (h/t: AoSHQ)

  82. daleyrocks says:

    Sdferr – If you got any asphalt in the wound, make sure you put it back where you found it. We can’t go wasting any petroleum derived products in this brave new dirty little jug-eared socialist dork Baracky world. Just sayin’.

    May your bones get screwed fast.

  83. Darleen says:

    Tax cuts are cuts to people who pay taxes…not a check to people who pay nothing in taxes.

    The latter is the bulk of Obama-welfare “tax cuts”

    The majority of the $819 billion pork bill is Leftist wishlist spending that has no “stimulus” effect and will not be spent within the next year.

    Stimulate the economy quickly? Sure, declare a tax holiday on PAYROLL taxes for 12 months … immediate tax savings to both businesses and wage earners.

  84. happyfeet says:

    thor, for real. Baracky gives “tax cuts” to people that don’t even pay taxes. I’m embarrassed for him. Dirty socialist amateur hour I think. But then I guess I would say that since I’m sort of reflexively oppositional to the socialisms. Still, this is about as stimulating as watching the original Solaris and the remake what had George Clooney in it back to back.

  85. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    will not be spent within the next year

    There is that. Good chance that some of it can be rolled back if the Republicans gain in the House in 2010.

  86. thor says:

    Just float on one of those big wooden crosses that you use for cross burnings.

  87. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    Would using “Smoot” as a nickname for Obama be racist?

  88. Darleen says:

    Comment by Sdferr on 2/1 @ 10:33 pm

    Ok…double OUCH… (missed your reply to maggie) … more good thoughts your way.

  89. thor says:

    Comment by happyfeet on 2/1 @ 10:38 pm #

    thor, for real. Baracky gives “tax cuts” to people that don’t even pay taxes.

    The earned income tax credit was first expanded in such a manner under Clinton. Why feign faux-shock when paranoia-based insults are your strength. Ha.

  90. happyfeet says:

    It’s not like after Baracky’s trillion dollar payoff to his Soros buddies doesn’t actually do jack for the economy people are just going to not notice. It’s Baracky’s lies at that point that are going to be very very scary. NPR will lick it up, but we won’t be living in America anymore I don’t think.

  91. happyfeet says:

    But the EITC isn’t stimulative is the point Mr. thor. It takes money from where it’s productive and puts it where it’s not. I’m not particularly opposed to the EITC, but it’s not stimulative. It’s just not, and it’s particularly not stimulative when unemployment is really really high among the EITC demographic.

  92. thor says:

    Elections mean something and…

    “I won.” Barack Obama

    It’ll all work out. The rethuglican piggies fattened their pig faces at the public trough for eight long years, right? Lots a bridges to no-where for certain states with indicted senior rethuglidum senators and airheaded lying governors. In other words, no pork for you.

  93. RTO Trainer says:

    Sdferr, I managed to crack a couple of ribs in a similar fashion a few years ago. But I didn’t require anything but taking it easy for a while to fix it.

  94. thor says:

    Comment by happyfeet on 2/1 @ 10:47 pm #

    But the EITC isn’t stimulative is the point Mr. thor. It takes money from where it’s productive and puts it where it’s not.

    The Hamptons are that productive, as we’ve found out. The trickle down has proven to be a lie that fat, lazy, thieving CEO’s can’t even say anymore with a straight face.

  95. B Moe says:

    the best Carter could keep bleating was “That’s ancient history.”

    Carter is an anti-Semite.

    In all honesty, I don’t think Carter is sophisticated enough to be an anti-semite. He is just a doddering old pandering douche bag that acts like one.

  96. serr8d says:

    Damn that sounds painful Sdferr. I once ran a 10-speed under a station wagon, was dragged for a ways, but I was much younger, and bounced right up. Today that sort of thing would tend to multiple plates and screws.

    May your drugs keep the edge off whilst your body heals.

  97. RTO Trainer says:

    The trickle down has proven to be a lie

    …because you say so.

  98. Sdferr says:

    That was my take too RTO, just go home, specially since I’ve broken lots of little bones and gotten away with that tack, but the OrthoDoc swore I be dead within a fortnight. Dead I tells ya! Specialists are hard as hell to argue with when they fix their minds on stuff.

  99. Bob Reed says:

    thor,

    Obama did win. But with all due respect, he might not have had he been more detailed about this whole bailout issue, and the effect it would have on his other plans. I watched while he hedged and prevaricated when asked what plans or promises would have to be cut or scaled back…

    And he never mentioned telling the military to cut 11% from their budget while troops were fighting in the field nor was he clear about not living up to our promises to place missle defense in the Czech republic…

    If he had been more clear about his agenda the election might have been very different. I’m not necessarily saying that it would be better if McCain were in charge; just that Obama engaged in some connivance, broadly speaking, to convince a lot of people he was something he is not…

    Best Wishes

  100. happyfeet says:

    This little piece of AP propaganda has been bugging me all day.

    The downward spiral has hammered the retail and manufacturing industries. For years, stores enjoyed boom times as shoppers splurged on TVs, fancy kitchen decor and clothes. Suddenly, frugality is in style.

    Grace Case, 38, of Syracuse, N.Y., is a self-described recovering creditaholic. For 13 years, she charged it all — cars, clothes, repairs, vacations. She’d make only the minimum card payments to sustain her buying spree for her and her family, which includes her husband and two children.

    But after being laid off 2 1/2 years ago from her job as an accountant, she landed another accounting job that cut her salary from $60,000 to $40,000. It was impossible to meet minimum payments on her card balances.

    Now, the Cases are on a strict budget. They take “staycations,” grow their own vegetables, buy only used cars and pre-pay cell phones. Case hasn’t used a credit card in two years. And she’s saving more.

    “It’s really a liberating feeling,” she said. “If you want something, you have to have the money for it.”

    Some experts say consumers have been so shaken by how fast their wealth has shrunk, so burned by credit card debt, that they might not resume their robust spending for years, if ever.

    Matthew Conrad, a financial manager at Complete Wealth Management in Orange County, Calif., says he knows of people who drive a BMW or Mercedes and eat macaroni and cheese for dinner several nights a week. That suggests some are making an awkward shift from free-spending habits and are reluctant to give them up.

    The AP has its marching orders: things aren’t getting better is the message. That’s what Baracky need people to believe cause he knows his policies aren’t going to do dick for the economy. So this is the sort of thing the AP delivers for him. That’s not America.

  101. thor says:

    Um, econ-airhead, your Bushian $7-trillion emergency bailout happened why?

    Explain.

  102. happyfeet says:

    oh. *needs* people to believe…

  103. Bob Reed says:

    Sdferr,
    Any alternative is better than dead…

    As Bruce Dern once said in a western, “Every day above ground is a good day…”

  104. thor says:

    101 for 97.

  105. B Moe says:

    I have a microwave oven, a cell phone, a computer and internet service that were the stuff of science fiction thirty years ago. I drive a seven year old truck I bought for under a thousand dollars that is nicer than the best Cadillac of that period. I live and work (sometimes) in a climate controlled environment that was inconceivable thirty years ago. I bought a cheap boom box the other day that is head and shoulders above the two thousand dollar stereo system I had thirty years ago.

    Yeah, this trickle down shit obviously sucks.

  106. Bob Reed says:

    You have to admit though, that it is a matter of fact that when capital gains tax rates are reduced, the overall treasury tax revenue increases…

    Obama admitted as much during the Philadelphia debate with Hillz, but insisted the rates needed to be inreased; because of the fairness…

    And there wouldn’t be as many companies moving overseas if our corporate tax rate wasn’t the highest on Earth…

    Lower the rates for the capital gains tax and corporate tax, and the result would be a large increase of jobs and more treasury revenue for Mr. Obama to spread around

  107. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    Suddenly, frugality is in style.

    Hey, those wagyu steaks don’t buy themselves. The rich are just going to have to sacrifice so the little guys can have fruit for their kids and $100/lb. meat, and afford to keep their 55,000 square foot taxpayer-provided dwellings at Bali-like temperatures.

  108. B Moe says:

    Um, econ-airhead, your Bushian $7-trillion emergency bailout happened why?

    Explain.

    $7 trillion?

    I can’t explain your hallucinations, dude. lack of oxygen would be my first guess.

  109. RTO Trainer says:

    Um, econ-airhead, your Bushian $7-trillion emergency bailout happened why?

    Because elected officials cannot be seen to be doing nothing in the face of what is publicly perceived to be a crisis (real or not) even if doing nothing is the best course of action.

    Your turn. Explain how supply-side economics is/was a failure.

  110. happyfeet says:

    And for real… is there actually a conservative in the Hamptons? Who is it?

  111. thor says:

    Comment by Bob Reed on 2/1 @ 10:58 pm #

    And he never mentioned telling the military to cut 11% from their budget while troops were fighting in the field nor was he clear about not living up to our promises to place missle defense in the Czech republic…

    Our troops are fighting in the field? Looks to me like we lose half-a-soldier a month in Iraq as of late. Feeding 130K fighting men Whoppers and curly fries in our Iraqi nation building effort is getting a little expensive, especially since our own country has been so frighteningly economically mismanaged by a bunch of fat Republican money pissers.

    We’re broke, have you not noticed?

  112. RTO Trainer says:

    Anyone eating “Whoppers and curly fries” paid for them out of their own pocket.

  113. happyfeet says:

    huh? Burger King doesn’t have curly fries. That must be more AP propaganda.

  114. RTO Trainer says:

    We aren’t broke. There’s money in the account and if it runs out they just print more. $817 bn new smackers comming up.

  115. B Moe says:

    Jesus Christ on a fucking pogo stick, thor, are you really so fucked up tonight you are going to parade out tuberheads teh worz costed 2 much argument while defending a bullshit pork bill that cost more in one year than both Iraq and Afghanistans total combined?

    For real?

  116. thor says:

    #

    Comment by RTO Trainer on 2/1 @ 11:09 pm #

    Um, econ-airhead, your Bushian $7-trillion emergency bailout happened why?

    Because elected officials cannot be seen to be doing nothing in the face of what is publicly perceived to be a crisis (real or not) even if doing nothing is the best course of action.

    Your turn. Explain how supply-side economics is/was a failure.

    Excuse me? How was supply-side economics ever a success? Do you know how much debt $12-trillion is or what it came from? Are you stupid? We spent money we didn’t have. Divide $12-trillion by 300-million. Anyone dumb enough to believe every man, woman and child in America can pay that off on top of all their other debts?

    I think I’ll call supply-side economics a debt ponzi scheme, or should I call it a debt shell game? It’s a fools game, regardless. Sort’a shocked, aren’t’ya, fake monopoly money conservative man of reverse finance.

  117. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    They closed Arby’s down here a couple of years back, so no curly fries around here.

    I miss Arby’s.

  118. I miss Arby’s.

    I would too. not that I ever eat out that often, but just knowing it’s there as an option is nice. now, it’s no Roy Rogers

  119. RTO Trainer says:

    I think I’ll call supply-side economics a debt ponzi scheme, or should I call it a debt shell game? It’s a fools game, regardless.

    …because you say so.

  120. B Moe says:

    OMGODZ!!!! Teh Debbitz!!!!

    How many businesses would we have in this country right now thor if people were never allowed to borrow and spend money they didn’t have? Take that fucking retarded shit down to the bar and bounce it off all those crooked cops you like to hang with, they are probably simple enough to believe it.

  121. happyfeet says:

    But deficits are measured by % of GDP. By that measure Baracky’s turning the clock back to like WW2 or something.

    He’s really got it in for our little country.

  122. Bob Reed says:

    thor,

    I’ve noticed we’re broke. That’s why I opposed the TARP deal Bush rushed through and oppose the stimulus package that is currently being considered. I opposed the TARP deal because I didn’t want all the discretionary power in the treasurey secretary’s hands. And, while I don’t mind the Feds creating an RTC like entity to buy up actual mortgage paper that has been defaulted/forclosed on, you have to admit that the bill has a whole lot of other goodies that may not be necessary at this time…

    Better to separate the necessary bailout line items from the policy wish list. Not only would it provide for more open and honest debate about the merits of certain controversial program creation/changes, but would allow the whole thing to move forward more quickly…

    I mean, Obama’s own guy, Larry Summers, said in a paper last summer that something along the lines of the bill being considered would not work; that a stimulus should be targeted, timely, and temporary…

    And, for the record, we have soldiers in harms way in Afghanistan; thank God that operations in Iraq seems to have moved on to a more stable phase…

    And, the defense budget, an appropriation directly called for in the constitution, is but a small fraction of the overall Federal budget. There are a lot more places to cut out the waste before scrapping future weapons programs, like missle defense, or force re-armament, repair, and upgrade; not to mention that the active military should be increased by 10 divisions!

  123. thor says:

    #

    Comment by B Moe on 2/1 @ 11:23 pm #

    Jesus Christ on a fucking pogo stick, thor, are you really so fucked up tonight you are going to parade out tuberheads teh worz costed 2 much argument while defending a bullshit pork bill that cost more in one year than both Iraq and Afghanistans total combined?

    For real?

    First of all, almost $300-billion of that spending is tax cuts (you can buy yourself a lot of rubbers with your tax cut). Isn’t that the purified air you freakin’ econo-retards breath, tax cuts? And no, less the tax cuts the resulting amount isn’t even close to what the Iraq and Afghani campaigns will cost us, Mr. Hannity.

    Don’t let whoever does your propaganda do your taxes. They can’t add.

  124. happyfeet says:

    But jeez. The dipshit’s only been in the Oval Sauna for not even two weeks, Give him time. He’s just getting started with the squandering and the thieving.

  125. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    I used to eat lunch there fairly regularly, ’cause there was one about two blocks from my office.

    I don’t think I’ve ever lived anywhere there was a Roy Rogers. Weird, I would have expected that to be more of a western thing, but from the link you posted they’re mostly on the East Coast, with some outposts in the eastern Midwest.

    Anyone remember a chain called Rax?

  126. happyfeet says:

    I just gotta say I’m not a big fan of how Baracky’s running things.

  127. thor says:

    #

    Comment by RTO Trainer on 2/1 @ 11:29 pm #

    I think I’ll call supply-side economics a debt ponzi scheme, or should I call it a debt shell game? It’s a fools game, regardless.

    …because you say so.

    Yeah, I said so.

    Were we the most indebted nation on earth before the joke of supply-side economics?

    Were we the most indebted nation on earth after the joke of supply-side economics?

    Better you stick to doing something other than pretending you know a fuckin’ thing about macro-economics. And you’re just the sort’a suckered ass that’s to blame for this mess, you idiot money pissing rethuglican, fuckin’ intellectual coward.

  128. I don’t think I’ve ever lived anywhere there was a Roy Rogers.

    there were a few in Oklahoma at some point. I mostly remember them for the kiddie seats that were these barrels with saddles on them. and I can still smell the roast beef. My mom wistfully mentions them ever so often, too.

  129. RTO Trainer says:

    spending is tax cuts

    thor’s smoking crack again.

  130. RTO Trainer says:

    I’m the intellectual coward?

    Ineresting. Because I’m willing to explain my thoughts and opinions. Still waiting for you to do so.

  131. thor says:

    #

    Comment by RTO Trainer on 2/1 @ 11:42 pm #

    spending is tax cuts

    thor’s smoking crack again.

    Oh really, because I’m calling you a idiot and a dumbass and a coward (my big three). Would you like to wager some money that the tax cuts are counted on the debit side of the ledger, that they are part of the spending?

    Come on pussy. $50?

  132. thor says:

    I want a $50 gift card to Cracker Barrel. I like the hick motif.

  133. thor says:

    Bob, were what, $153-billion into AIG. The last I read, and it changes by the day, weren’t they supposed to sell 80% of their assets in order to pay us, the tax-payer back?

    Anyone doing any due diligence as to what happens if AIG sells its assets and it doesn’t come to $153-billion?

    We just eat it, I think.

    I don’t want a penny for your thoughts RTO, I want a $50 Cracker Barrel gift card. Your silience is golden.

  134. RTO Trainer says:

    I don’t care were some moron puts them in the ledger. A tax cut isn’t be “spending.”

  135. RTO Trainer says:

    I also don’t care what you call me, thor. It just furthers your presonal, unbroken string of wrong.

  136. thor says:

    I’m off to Taco Bell for a late night Taco run.

    Of course you don’t care about the ledger, moron, because you’re wrong. Increasing a current deficit is considered spending. Nobody cares if you don’t get it.

    I might be derogatory, but I’m not stupid.

  137. RTO Trainer says:

    Cutting taxes doesn’t increase the deficit.

    Hauser’s Law applies.

  138. parsnip says:

    Cutting taxes doesn’t increase the deficit.

    Haha, RTO, then how did the Republicans manage to increase the federal debt by $5,000,000,000,000 under Bush?

  139. Bob Reed says:

    thor,

    I believe that AIG has 2 years to make good the loans made to them, during which time the Feds hold warrants on 80% of their stock. And that was another deal I opposed, although since the funds were loans along the Chrysler model from the ’80s. But, I especially didn’t like how the amount evolved from the original 80 or 90 billion to the amount it is today…

    The stubborn facts are that until the real estate market recovers, AIG’s assets may continue to be worth less than the book value of the loans. I think the reasoning of all the treasury types is that there will be a private financeer come forward, who recognizes and values the long term worth of their assets, and will make up the difference between what they can repay and the outstanding debt to the Feds…

    By the way, on another thread you were critical of my assigning blame to Dodd and Frank as they were not their respective comittee’s chairs until 2006. I realize that, but they didn’t need to be; especially within the context of my argument about how the Democrats blocked the reform and increased regulation of Fannie/Freddie…

    All I said was that in the resoective comittees, the Democrats party line lockstep voted against Booooooosh!s two attempts at reform and the Senate banking comittee’s single attempt. They had enough gullible RethugliKKKans, who were opposed to increased regulations on the grounds of ideological purity despite the evidence, that the measures were killed in comittee and never got to a floor debate/vote…

    There are many youtube videos of the house Democrats such as Frank and Waters praising Raines and innocently proclaiming there was nothing wrong with the system; essentially, “It ain’t broke, so why bother to fix it”…

  140. Bob Reed says:

    Be careful of Taco Bell thor,

    Remember the E-coli scare from last year?

  141. RTO Trainer says:

    Haha, RTO, then how did the Republicans manage to increase the federal debt by $5,000,000,000,000 under Bush?

    By higher deficit spending.

    Federal revenues remained at the same ~19.5% of GDP it has been since 1950. This has been constant, no matter what the marginal tax rates were.

    If you want tax revenue to increase (in real dollars) you have to grow the economy. Tax increases can’t do that.

  142. RTO Trainer says:

    Shall I assume that the trolls are furiously crunching numbers to determine if my assertion as to the reationship between tax revenue and GDP is correct?

    Or maybe “taco run” is just shorthand for “I’ve been backed into a corner and can’t answer” and snipper can’t find any shinny bunnies?

  143. thor says:

    Gee, genius, sounds like we should have a 0% tax rate then, you know, since tax increases by some myth of math can’t increase tax revenue, and let me guess, tax decreases are the only way to increase the GDP. But wait, we’ll soon owe a trillion a year just on the interest on that supply-sider’s debt. And now our GDP is going down (hey ho, them tax cuts are the shizzle!), maybe we can simply print pretty green money and cause a little inflation!

    Are you one of those crackpots that says deficits don’t matter, RTO?

  144. parsnip says:

    If you want tax revenue to increase (in real dollars) you have to grow the economy.

    I agree with you, RTO.

    The American economy has never grown faster than it did under FDR’s New Deal, btw.

    So, Happy Days are indeed here again.

  145. Bob Reed says:

    How about this,

    We freeze spending at the rate of 3 trillion per year.

    Give 6oo billion to the defense department. Retire 900 billion in debt per year. and the other 1.6 trillion is available for social programs and entitlements…

    Sounds like the debt is retired within 10 years, we pare back to necessary entitlements only, none of the wealth redistribution stuff, and increase the value of the dollar steadily in the process…

    Along the way we’d learn some fiscal discipline too…

  146. thor says:

    Your correlating the GDP against tax revenue is a canard and your assumptions of GDP growth is a fool’s myth. Only listening to what you want to hear must be restful but you really don’t have it all figured out, trust me. It’s the whole I want it but I don’t want to pay for it freerider’s mental crutch that you suffer from, that and you’re gullible.

  147. parsnip says:

    What motivation do our Representatives in Congress have to freeze spending, Bob?

  148. Bob Reed says:

    We need to give them that motivation parsnip,

    By threatening their phony-baloney jobs; as Mel Brooks’ quipped in a movie…

    The one thing I hold against Bush is his free spending. I know he did it as part of a compromise to get the support he wanted for the Iraq war; but I still thought that restraint was in order…

    I too disliked borrowing the money to fund the war from foriegn sovereign wealth funds and investment pools. I have heard the justification for not wanting to raise taxes and hurt an economy here at home that they thought was fragile following 9/11. Additionally there were many who thought it would be a good bit f realpolitick to have the Chinese owning large amounts of our debt; they would be less interested in seeing us fail.

  149. RTO Trainer says:

    thor, please stick to debating me based on what I’ve said instead of putting words in my mouth. Your tendency to rhetorical inflation is no better for discourse than monetary inflation is for the economy. Start by trying to undertstand what I did say–revenue does increase (and decrease), in relation to GDP. What hasn’t changed appreciably in the last ~60 years is the percentage of revenue to GDP.

    Feel free to look up the data. Simple matter to divide revenue by GDP of the same years.

    Inflation matters (did you miss me complaining about that before, even in this thread?). Deficits only matter in so far as they are inflationary.

    parsnip, you are right about the economy growing fastest in that period, but it was not because of the New Deal. The ’37-’38 slowdown was the result of the New Deal.

  150. RTO Trainer says:

    Along the way we’d learn some fiscal discipline too…

    Which is the key. The federal government is intent on forcing he markets to give us everythign we want from it–everything that caused this mess to begin with–easy money and lots of credit. They are using sledgehammers and crowbars on a box full of sweating dynamite and our President is leading the way.

  151. RTO Trainer says:

    thor, you really have to learn to pay attention. It’s impossible to have a discussion with you even when you arne’t being nasty, because you’ve not only made up your mind that you are right and everyone else is wrong, but also that you already know what is in the minds of those you debate.

  152. parsnip says:

    The ‘37-’38 slowdown was the result of the New Deal.

    Or the end of the New Deal.

    Fiscal restraint at the wrong time can kill a recession.

    Let’s just hope at the next top of the business cycle we are actually retiring some debt.

  153. JHoward says:

    You’re clueless, aren’t you snotty?

  154. B Moe says:

    I don’t care were some moron puts them in the ledger. A tax cut isn’t be “spending.”

    It is if you are giving tax cuts to folks who don’t pay taxes.

  155. JHoward says:

    Were we the most indebted nation on earth before the joke of supply-side economics?

    You foolish bastard. Everything you’ve promoted in this thread depends on running up the debt spending exponent.

  156. JHoward says:

    Your correlating the GDP against tax revenue is a canard and your assumptions of GDP growth is a fool’s myth.

    Except that, you foolish bastard, provided you slice out productivity increase and leave it at inflation. Which you didn’t.

  157. JHoward says:

    Give 6oo billion to the defense department. Retire 900 billion in debt per year. and the other 1.6 trillion is available for social programs and entitlements…

    Sounds like a start. Provided O!bama can bring his socialist self to do it and provided the press doesn’t go apeshit when the DHHS goes from $10T a year to $1T.

    Ten trillion dollars a year to create dependents. It’s one of those numbers you never ever hear in public. Because of Haliburton, you know.

  158. Rusty says:

    That looks painful, sdferr, I hope it gets better soon.

    #132
    Comment by thor on 2/1 @ 11:48 pm #

    I want a $50 gift card to Cracker Barrel. I like the hick motif.

    Oh. That’s like your peoples Mortons.

  159. geoffb says:

    One thing that isn’t mentioned is that the Progressive/Socialists do not particularly care what the actual amount of federal spending is, though they would like it to increase. They care about the amount of total government (federal, state, local) spending as a percentage of the GDP. They want that percentage increased.

    If it means the economy declines while government spending stays the same so be it. Tax increases in a recession will get them there. High to hyper inflation will also. It is control over the whole of the economy that is desired.

    The only things that stop them from acting very rashly are those elections in 2010 and the problem that if the US declines too much it isn’t worth controlling.

    Power is always their goal, the only thing that matters to them. Being out of office is death. Being Mugabe isn’t much better.

  160. N. O'Brain says:

    “Comment by parsnip on 2/2 @ 12:08 am #

    Cutting taxes doesn’t increase the deficit.

    Haha, RTO, then how did the Republicans manage to increase the federal debt by $5,000,000,000,000 under Bush?”

    By increasing spending, you retarded marmoset.

  161. JHoward says:

    Let me do us a favor and lend thor the facts he needs to stop making a fool out of himself amongst his betters.

    First of all, the debt problem is systemic. The debt problem is not inherently or solely political.

    There is one thing underlying the current monetary system, together with its failure: It is largely not political. Government does not, by way of a politically partisan, party-based methodology, run the fundamental mechanism of money so as to ruin the place as thoroughly as it clearly as. There are political influences and there are political variables, to be sure, but the problem we’re faced with is common to all administrations and it is common to all congresses. Maybe we can dispense with the cross-aisle name-calling?

    Profligate debt spending saw its start at least by Carter.

    That’s right, the flat debt equilibrium line, if you can call it that,

    started

    going exponential in the late sixties, and by 1970 started up the growth ramp until hitting it’s mid-curve rate of expansion during Reagan. Under Clinton it certainly continued this pace, pausing only at the end of his administration. More recently, government debt saw its biggest percentage increases under Bush II, excepting when adjusted for GDP, which I’ll get to shortly.

    Debt spending is therefore largely independent of brand of POTUS.

    Or is it? If you look at the portion of deficit spending incurred by imports, the single biggest rate of increase in foreign ownership of US treasury bills occurred under Clinton. The Clinton Administration, for whatever influence it itself had on the problem, occurred during the period of most rapid expansion of debt to foreign nations in the country’s history.

    As to the argument that a bigger GDP pie justifies a larger debt load, the ratio of the two did indeed see its most dramatic nadir — excepting during WWII, when it was twice as bad as today — not under Bush II, but under Reagan and Bush I.

    I think we can now safely assume Dubya no longer sits in the Oval Office. Given the financial miracles we all expect from O!bama in our own lives, I think that premise even bears up under scrutiny. I hear the latter’s gonna spend us rich again?

    What about Congress? Remembering that the debt rate started going off the charts starting before 1970, we find that the Democrats held both majorities for eleven years between 1969 and 1981, split with the Republicans between 1981 and 1987, assumed both houses again for seven years between 1987 and 1995, gave the Republicans back both houses for the eleven years between 1995 and 2007 (excepting two during the 107th Congress between 2001 and 2003 when the Senate as split) and the Democrats have held both houses again since 2007.

    So there’s no real correlation between brand of Congress and debt either.

    Except, perhaps, that the Democrats have done absolutely nothing to balance a thing for the great majority of the time they’ve held power in Congress since 1970.

    Anyway, what percentage of national income does government spending consume? Roughly 5% percent of it goes to defending the place. Meanwhile, three times that goes to paying folks for doing nothing.

    So we’re not in this mess because of The Bush Wars.

    So why are we here? Returning to my first premise, we’re here because of some other fundamental issue, the one I’ve been carping about here for months. The problem is systemic, it is not political. What is it?

    Washington DC does not, as a matter of reliable or historical cause or effect, or as the result of direct party-based influence, manipulate the staggering US debt upwards — now roughly seventy five trillion dollars in actual debt and unpaid obligations — nor does it manage private debt, now standing at over forty trillion more. Our federal masters have not spend every man, woman, and child into a personal debt share of $175,000, at least not as a matter of specific partisan interest.

    No, there’s one thing that underlies all of this and one thing that makes all this carnage possible. There’s one thing that enables these unprecedented debts, this unpayable interest, this skyrocketing fifty million dollars an hour in interest alone.

    We can make the stuff.

    So before thor gets all pissy all over again pointing fingers strictly at Dubya, let’s realize, shall we, that this all came about because we let ourselves live on what had been our creditworthiness instead of living on what we actually produced, traded, and consumed. We made homes into ATM’s, we funded countless failed tech-boom startups, we spiked commodities, and we paid ourselves trillions because we could simply print the stuff.

    I like to believe that the overall tone of irresponsible anti-classical liberalism that began as far back as FDR and the institution of fiat currency and saw its heyday starting under Carter and certainly continued apace without any restraint under mostly Democrat congresses and look-the-other-way, big-spending Republicans had something to do with at least the 3:1 ratio of domestic entitlement spending — we’re finally calling Socialism, which what it fundamentally is — to national defense, but the ability to make these debts comes from something else.

    That something else is borrowing it on the world by just making it. The US is the biggest debtor nation in the history of nations. We continually lend ourselves our own undoing, a principle of operations that is decidedly not traditionally conservative, libertarian, or classically liberal.

    If we want to make this a political fight, I suggest we identify the great propensity we have, of late, to write ourselves checks and to call it both public compassion and growth. Writing ourselves checks is a progressive entitlement, after all.

  162. happyfeet says:

    I don’t know about all this we being responsible business. It was certain people. But all I know is if I hear the word staycation again this week I’m calling in sick for the rest of the month.

  163. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    staycation

    Yes, that’s tough on the ear. Unrewarding.

  164. Carin says:

    You know, I keep hearing about people living way beyond their means, and owning all sorts of cars, and shopping to excess … and I’m thinking … you know, it sucks that I didn’t get a bit of that. I haven’t shopped till I dropped … ever. My car was bought used, and the one before it I drove for 11 years.

  165. Carin says:

    I mean, I’ve always had a tight belt. These people talking about cutting back … whatever. Welcome to my world.

  166. N. O'Brain says:

    “Comment by parsnip on 2/2 @ 12:58 am #

    If you want tax revenue to increase (in real dollars) you have to grow the economy.

    I agree with you, RTO.

    The American economy has never grown faster than it did under FDR’s New Deal, btw.”

    The economy grew during a the Depression.

    You’re a fucking genius, alpo.

  167. thor says:

    As long as people are gullible enough to believe only what they want to hear, no matter how little sense it makes, then we’ll continue to see crack pots find an audience for their far flung theoretical wares.

    Our Gov’t tax revenue draws from major components such as fees on economic activity, personal wages and corporate profits. To assume non-tangential correlations to the wildest estimate of all economic indicators, the GDP estimate, only because if you force such an argument someone who wants to believe hard enough always will, doesn’t change the assumption’s lack of validity.

    The interest and principle due on U.S. debt will be paid by the tax-payers, the citizens (or the Treasury’s printing press). Great GDP Pumpkin paper is not accepted currency between borrower and lender. You will not go far in arguing reducing a country’s ability to pay its interest and principle will enable a country to use faith in Great GDP Pumpkin paper to pay its way out of the debt equation. The U.S. will find itself in default for the fact some (suckers!) wanted to believe there was an easy way out when there never was.

    When did the Republicans start using farmer’s almanac’s to devise econ theory? About the time of Phil Gramm, yes.

  168. thor says:

    Comment by N. O’Brain on 2/2 @ 9:08 am #

    You’re a fucking genius, alpo.

    You’re a fuckin’ uneducated jackass parading yourself as a jackass.

  169. Carin says:

    The U.S. will find itself in default for the fact some (suckers!) wanted to believe there was an easy way out when there never was.

    Of course, it’s not a sucker’s bet that we can “spend or way out of this problem” at a national level. Ironic that fiscal responsibility is your drumbeat, yet from what I’ve seen not one peep from you regarding the enormous expansion of federal spending by Obama.

  170. JHoward says:

    Shut up, thor. I told you what’s going on so shut up about party already. Moron.

  171. thor says:

    Comment by N. O’Brain on 2/2 @ 9:08 am #

    “Comment by parsnip on 2/2 @ 12:58 am #

    If you want tax revenue to increase (in real dollars) you have to grow the economy.

    If you want to grow an economy you have to set the tax rate high enough so that tax revenue can pay current and long-term liabilities.

    You fuckin’ drooler, you fuckin’ credit card waving Naught Monkey slut pump and combat boot buying fairy. You are the faggot who collapsed the economy. The government doesn’t wave a magic wand to make the economy grow, a rethuglidum Pres doesn’t swing his prissy hips and announce a tax cut while increasing spending followed by sugary magic boners falling from the sky for you to suckle on.

    You suck magic balls, fairy.

  172. JHoward says:

    Ga. Which came first, fool, the economy or the tax?

    Go count bunnies. I told you what’s going on so shut up about party already. Moron.

  173. JHoward says:

    “We needs us a good Socialist to make markets work.”

    -thor, ca. 2008

    Which I’d paraphrase as, we needs us a good Socialist, you $&^@%# Rthuglickers, to make markets work!!!!!!

  174. Carin says:

    I think thor purchased himself some bad smack. You should complain to your dealer.

  175. thor says:

    Comment by JHoward on 2/2 @ 7:35 am #

    So before thor gets all pissy all over again pointing fingers strictly at Dubya, let’s realize, shall we, that this all came about because we let ourselves live on what had been our creditworthiness instead of living on what we actually produced, traded, and consumed. We made homes into ATM’s, we funded countless failed tech-boom startups, we spiked commodities, and we paid ourselves trillions because we could simply print the stuff.

    Look, you rethuglidum nancy boy, the Bush tax cuts were meant to stimulate the economy after the stock market collapse, remember, nancy? That’s why they had an expiration. And when they failed to do so, nancy boy ninnies like you then gussied up the argument we must extend the tax cuts, even in the face of continued failure to produce any stimulus effect.

    Bush wasn’t wrong to attempt to stimulate the economy with tax cuts, he was wrong to continue the tax cuts when they obviously weren’t stimulating shit and, in effect, doing nothing other than creating huge deficits. My logic is gushing on your nose.

    Chicken-tard, spending money you don’t have doesn’t work. Going back and paying for what you spent back then and what you owe now works. Suck on the hard reality you spineless rethuglicans created.

  176. Carin says:

    Suck on the hard reality you spineless rethuglicans created.

    The irony, it burns.

  177. thor says:

    Comment by JHoward on 2/2 @ 9:43 am #

    “We needs us a good Socialist to make markets work.”

    -thor, ca. 2008

    That’s in respect to reversing the current trend of domestic job losses, gee, how’d you so conveniently forget that?

    We have to protect our basic industries of glass, steel, aluminum, agriculture and various other strategic manufacturers, such as Boeing and GM, else how else would we build our bombers and tanks? Where would they get the raw materials necessary to do so?

    I know your WalMart worldview leads you to believe the Gooks will be happy to stock our shelves with bombs, but, sadly, I think you’re mistaken.

    Bring back basic industry, bitch. And if that takes the strong arm of a Socialist who’ll force the hand of corporations then so be it.

  178. thor says:


    Comment by Carin on 2/2 @ 9:58 am #

    Suck on the hard reality you spineless rethuglicans created.

    The irony, it burns.

    Your snark comes from a warehouse.

  179. JHoward says:

    Shut up, thor. You cannot so much as cite a single instance of my defending tax cuts. Ever, once, in history. Liar. Fraud. Look; BUNNIES!

    in the face of continued failure to produce any stimulus effect.

    Stimulus effect, money jeeneus?! You big-spending collectivist granola-pounding beardless Debtocrat trollop. You foul-breathed no-stubble crop, go load up on Birkenstocks on your WIC check and jam em into you three-wheeled Saab until the empty Sterno cans fall out, you cheese-making crystal-rubber. Go drape yourself nude in a tree and call it art, fruitcake.

    You are heretofore my bitch. You did it to yourself. Own it. Kiss it lovingly and roll around on the floor hugging it. Just shut up, you aimless little scrap of a man.

  180. JHoward says:

    Bring back basic industry, bitch. And if that takes the strong arm of a Socialist who’ll force the hand of corporations then so be it.

    Read: Let’s redo by collectivism what we made by free markets and wrecked by Keynesian Socialism. Let’s reindustrialize on the basis of simply forcing markets to provide us more free shit, O!bama style. Let’s do precisely what we did that ruined us only MORE of it. And let’s justify it — get this — by running them, this time, directly from the federal level, bypassing the messy process of just legislating them slowly into the ground with those antiquated passive-aggressive un-Progressive collectivist notions:

    Let’s rewrite supply and demand itself; let’s rewrite physics!

    You pond bottom. You too-ignorant-to-calculate. Regale me on tax cuts again, dufus.

  181. thor says:

    Or is it? If you look at the portion of deficit spending incurred by imports, the single biggest rate of increase in foreign ownership of US treasury bills occurred under Clinton. The Clinton Administration, for whatever influence it itself had on the problem, occurred during the period of most rapid expansion of debt to foreign nations in the country’s history.

    Foreign governments bought our debt for its quality, nancy. We don’t restrict buyers of our paper, especially when our paper is in such high demand because our financial house is(was) in order.

    Hello, anyone home?

  182. thor says:

    Comment by JHoward on 2/2 @ 10:10 am #

    Bring back basic industry, bitch. And if that takes the strong arm of a Socialist who’ll force the hand of corporations then so be it.

    Read: Let’s redo by collectivism what we made by free markets and wrecked by Keynesian Socialism. Let’s reindustrialize on the basis of simply forcing markets to provide us more free shit, O!bama style. Let’s do precisely what we did that ruined us only MORE of it. And let’s justify it — get this — by running them, this time, directly from the federal level, bypassing the messy process of just legislating them slowly into the ground with those antiquated passive-aggressive un-Progressive collectivist notions:

    Let’s rewrite supply and demand itself; let’s rewrite physics!

    Allow me to say what I’ve said before since you clearly didn’t understand it the first time. You are living in the time of the Wizard of Oz, get it, back in the fuckin’ 1950’s when our economic focus was setting an even playing field for domestic producers to compete against each other. Hello, McFly!!! Our domestic producers have been either run out of business or now produce overseas to compete against who? The larger foreign controlled/manipulated raw material producers and manufactures.

    You can’t click your heels and get taken back to a happier place and time, JHo. The larger foreign manufacturers now control the market and they got their by creating more cost efficiencies than we could. Again, suck on hard realities. We either re-enter the market with state capital because there’s not enough private capital since you fairyland rethuglicans killed the stock market.

    We adopt or we die. They love their old romantic movies so much that so far the wethuglicans have chosen death while clutching their fairyish flag pins. It’s simply too difficult to balance a budget or respond to market forces anymore. Credit Cards! More Credit, please, please, Mr. Bernanke!

  183. thor says:

    What else is Obama supposed to do except try and float on government paper, you dumbasses burned all the private stock.

    Oh, the price of oil is $147? “Nothing we can do” [add Bushian monkey shrug for effect]. $70-billion a month drains from our economy on its way to the Arabs, giggles, “it’s the free-market” [add another monkey shrug]. “I’m a believer in the free-markets” [add flag pin].

    Air-headed no-good Faggots whose trembling twitching lips cause their feet to tap while visiting an airport’s bathroom stall.

    Republicans are about lies, and creating more lies to defend their original lies. Larry Craigian veneers hide their perversions, I tell ya!!!-(sevanty)-!!!!!

  184. happyfeet says:

    “Now, what I’ve done throughout this campaign is to propose a net spending cut.” – Baracky, 10/15/08

  185. JHoward says:

    Foreign governments bought our debt for its quality, nancy. We don’t restrict buyers of our paper, especially when our paper is in such high demand because our financial house is(was) in order.

    Dipshit. There was no house in order, obfreekingviously, you mental midget. How the swingin hinges of hell could there be when we’re the biggest debtor nation in history?!

    You sandflea posing as escargot. We gave em money. They freaking accepted it. Now we’re broke and they hold what is vanishing wealth. And this you call having our house in order…because of Billy the Clinton’s direct, personal, and idiology-driven careful maintenance of all things Jeffersonian in monetary nature goes the thormind.

    You sorry little excuse for a week-old sandwich.

  186. Slartibartfast says:

    You sorry little excuse for a week-old sandwich.

    Braunschweiger, muenster, mayo and just the thinnest sliced Bermuda onion you can get, put in a ziploc and left in my car for a week. Mmmmmmm.

  187. JHoward says:

    The larger foreign manufacturers now control the market and they got their by creating more cost efficiencies than we could.

    You staggeringly insignificant phantom of functioning protoplasm. The larger foreign manufacturers now control the market and they got there by way, largely, of our boyz in the DC hood regulating them either into insolvency off offshore.

    Ga. You spout off about market forces all the while vomiting aloud that we now violate them from the top.

  188. thor says:

    Yeah, the ugly old days of Clinton when we had to switch the bench mark bond quote from the 30-year Treasury to the 10-year Treasury because we weren’t selling any 30-year debt – We Were Running a Budget Surplus!

    How fuckin’ quaint were those ugly old days of Clintonian fiscal responsibility. Somehow we persevered those balanced budgets into the Bushian era of economic magic carpet rides.

    Handcuffs are too good for ya. In debtor’s prison I’d keep your ass in a headstock and leg irons.

  189. JHoward says:

    The Republidumcanites were the majority from 1994, cretin. Prezidun’ done run the Fed during those epic times, you partisan-queer queer?

  190. thor says:

    #

    Comment by JHoward on 2/2 @ 10:51 am #

    The larger foreign manufacturers now control the market and they got their by creating more cost efficiencies than we could.

    You staggeringly insignificant phantom of functioning protoplasm. The larger foreign manufacturers now control the market and they got there by way, largely, of our boyz in the DC hood regulating them either into insolvency off offshore.

    Ga. You spout off about market forces all the while vomiting aloud that we now violate them from the top.

    Look, we could never compete with RusAl. We have labor laws. You don’t want that? No, no you don’t. You want cheap ass motherfuckin’ foreign made shit to line the store shelves. That nobody has a fuckin’ job anymore to buy anything seems of little consequence, well, until the economy blows up.

    You wanted overseas slaves. You cared not to try to effect wage inflation over there by negotiating trade treaties that would force overseas manufacturers to meet our labor standards or deny them entry into our market. Your Wizard of Oz-era cliche-vu was too strong!

    Now our wages are on their way down and headed toward matching those of those poor dumbfocks overseas. The unintended boomerang! Daaauey! Freeride over!

  191. N. O'Brain says:

    “Comment by thor on 2/2 @ 12:56 am #

    Gee, genius, sounds like we should have a 0% tax rate then,”

    You’re an idiot, hor.

    Shut up and sit down.

  192. N. O'Brain says:

    #Comment by thor on 2/2 @ 11:03 am #

    Could someone translate that into Sane?

  193. N. O'Brain says:

    #Comment by thor on 2/2 @ 9:37 am #

    Could someone translate that into Sane?

  194. thor says:

    Quit your stuttering you welfare bucket.

  195. I'm Only Saying says:

    seconded

  196. Carin says:

    Thor is in Trollhammer form today.

  197. Slartibartfast says:

    thor is rarely not in trollhammer form.

  198. Bob Reed says:

    We have to protect our basic industries of glass, steel, aluminum, agriculture and various other strategic manufacturers, such as Boeing and GM, else how else would we build our bombers and tanks? Where would they get the raw materials necessary to do so?”

    I agree with you here thor,
    But protectionism of any sort is not the answer, at least in my humble opinion. Better that we lower the capital gains and corporate tax rates so that there is more impetus for people to go back into these necessary businesses…

    We are so reliant on imports right now that if we start a trade war via some protectionist knee-jerk codified as part of the stimulus it will really cause our economy to tank…

    Remember what the Smoot-Hartley act did in the early 30’s..?

    And that’s not some Limbaugh/Hannity talking point either; you know I don’t regurgitate those…

    And please, no talk about gooks please; that dangerously close to RAAAAACISM!

  199. N. O'Brain says:

    Way to sputter, moron.

  200. N. O'Brain says:

    “Remember what the Smoot-Hartley act did in the early 30’s..?”

    Probably not.

  201. thor says:

    Comment by Bob Reed on 2/2 @ 12:14 pm #

    “We have to protect our basic industries of glass, steel, aluminum, agriculture and various other strategic manufacturers, such as Boeing and GM, else how else would we build our bombers and tanks? Where would they get the raw materials necessary to do so?”

    I agree with you here thor,
    But protectionism of any sort is not the answer, at least in my humble opinion. Better that we lower the capital gains and corporate tax rates so that there is more impetus for people to go back into these necessary businesses…

    Yes, yes it is the answer. A basic level of protection certainly is the answer and other countries do it quite successfully, just ask Japan.

    Taxes and trade are not connected. Taxes should be set so that we collect enough revenue to service the past rethuglidum supply-sider’s debt and to fully cover the current budget.

    The whole lowering taxes to create jobs bullshit is something only Sarah Palin is stupid enough to imply. Germany now has lower default risk on their sovereign debt than we do. They pay higher taxes and have a better organized economy. They’re not pussies looking for theoretical excuses from proven losers of said same. This is all 100% the rethuglidum’s fault and the sissy bushtards who cry for lowering tax revenue while a deficit budget is already in place (this act is classified as spending, RTO, whimper as you may) are only adding to the pain of the reckoning.

    More taxes! Higher taxes! Pay your bills, bitches.

  202. N. O'Brain says:

    “Yes, yes it is the answer. A basic level of protection certainly is the answer and other countries do it quite successfully, just ask Japan.”

    Japan is an economic basket case, moron.

  203. N. O'Brain says:

    “More taxes! Higher taxes! Pay your bills, bitches.”

    You sound like Herbert Hoover.

  204. JHoward says:

    More taxes! Higher taxes! Pay your bills, bitches.

    Man, you’re dense. Where’s all the free-gas O!bamadependents gonna come up with their $100k+ per man, woman, and whelpling? It almost like you expect us to pay their way, thor.

    Oh.

  205. Bob Reed says:

    thor,
    I agree that foreign nations do protect and subsidize their large industries. Japan with their agriculture and manufacturing industry, Russia with oil and metals, Germany and Sweden with steel, Germany, France, and Britain with Airbus, and so on…

    And although their mechanisms differ, it is generally some combination of national tax advantage, direct subsidy, tariff advantages, and labor law wage tailoring. This combined with the often lower wages paid is what makes businesses here in the US unable to compete, given the labor laws and tax consequences of basing here…

    Lowering tax rates doesn’t always mean less revenue coming into the treasury, which is something I’m sure you know. No one wants to cut off the treasury’s revenue stream haphazardly, we do need to pay our obligations and begin to pay down the debt.

    But we’re not going to get there by blowing wads of cash, like TARP and Obama’s stimulus package will do, and simply run the debt up higher than ever.

    We need to use our tax monies more wisely, portioned out along the lines I suggested further upthread. If we keep running up huge debt the value of our currency will tank. And although that might make us feel better to pay off our foreign creditors with devalued dollars, I don’t think that would be too nice for the folks here at home; kinda Weimar-esque I’m afraid…

  206. thor says:

    Obama beats the rethuglidum pork-to-no-where budgets.

    And I like his books and speeches.

  207. thor says:

    Comment by Bob Reed on 2/2 @ 12:47 pm #

    Lowering tax rates doesn’t always mean less revenue coming into the treasury, which is something I’m sure you know. No one wants to cut off the treasury’s revenue stream haphazardly, we do need to pay our obligations and begin to pay down the debt.

    Lowering the tax rate does lower the revenue, yep, versus a higher one. Math is on my side here I’m afraid. Following the Laffer curve meant attempting to find the optimal rate (one that serves growth and that balances the budget over time) and not some theoretically low rate because loony cliches associated with lower taxes sounds nice to voters.

  208. JHoward says:

    Look, we could never compete with RusAl because we have labor laws and a ferociously meddlesome Congressional tradition that hates it some free markets.

    FTFY. Man, you’re dense.

    You don’t want that? No, no you don’t.

    You could say that, buffoon. Then go back, again, and read that part about Keynesian boom/bust cycles and how paper, as you manage to eke out, enables them. Stay on topic, ok?

    You want cheap ass motherfuckin’ foreign made shit to line the store shelves. That nobody has a fuckin’ job anymore to buy anything seems of little consequence, well, until the economy blows up.

    Excepting that that part simply doesn’t follow, dipshit, other than to be lockstep with the voices ricocheting around in that empty Red Bull can you call a brainpan. We had plenty of cheap stuff and a nicely vibrant economy and some relatively high standards of debt-free living until we invented runaway printing-press debt and offshored everybody smart enough to offshore themselves.

    If you had the faintest clue how government works, what it does, and the cause-effect relationship between that and the world, probably you wouldn’t engage in this dense buffoonery, you little dipshit.

  209. JHoward says:

    Math is on my side here I’m afraid.

    Sadly, the arithmetic isn’t.

    the optimal rate … and not some theoretically low rate

    Look! Republican bunnies!

  210. Bob Reed says:

    thor,
    I’m specifically talking about the corporate and capital gains rates, in the context of incentivizing a return of the industrial base in this country; not simply a case of lower rates versus higher rates to serve propagandistic partisan talking points…

    I believe in the Laffer curve optimization scheme, but it must be done by numbers and not self serving or propagandistic motivations…

    Because we all know, figures don’t lie, but liars figger’…

  211. thor says:

    #

    Comment by JHoward on 2/2 @ 12:57 pm #

    Math is on my side here I’m afraid.

    Sadly, the arithmetic isn’t.

    the optimal rate … and not some theoretically low rate

    Look! Republican bunnies!

    Whenever you bring up your dumb “fiat currency” meme I’m certain you’re referring to a rebate check from a French auto maker, you friggin’ red beret-wearing street mime.

  212. N. O'Brain says:

    Tom Daschle.

    From The Corner:

    More Tonight on Daschle’s Disappointments [David Freddoso]

    Senators are keeping their powder dry today over Tom Daschle’s tax situation, waiting to speak out until his closed-door meeting with the Senate Finance Committee this evening. One exception over the weekend was Sen. Jim DeMint (R., S.C.). Some news outlets quoted selectively from his appearance yesterday on This Week, to note simply that he wants to know more about Daschle’s details, but DeMint actually went a lot further than that:

    “I can see why liberals don’t mind if the tax rate goes up because they’re not going to pay it anyway.”

  213. thor says:

    Comment by JHoward on 2/2 @ 12:54 pm #

    Look, we could never compete with RusAl because we have labor laws and a ferociously meddlesome Congressional tradition that hates it some free markets.

    FTFY. Man, you’re dense.

    That Madoff carted off $50-billion into ponzi scheme heaven and that our investment banks imploded seems to be lost on your dumb deweguwationators’ dementia.

    The government should be regulating to prevent fraud, promote fairness, and to work the free trade system in favor of the American tax-payer, you second-year business school drop out.

  214. guinsPen says:

    deweguwationators’

    Face it, you miss him.

  215. daleyrocks says:

    Man, the second half of this thread is just a ginormous wad of dumbass thor jism. The stupid must build up inside him until it reaches reaches a critical point, like a nuclear reactor, and then spews over everything in its path. I’ve never seen such an unmitigated bunch of economic gobblegook before in my life. The man is an idiot. Even datadave understands more about this country’s history than thor.

  216. cynn says:

    Thor has that Sound of Music optimism, which is a good thing, I guess.

  217. McGehee says:

    You mean he’s 16 going on 17?

  218. Pablo says:

    Fiat is Italian, ya sewage headed freak.

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