Yes, and what is the relevance of this? Many of those plans have been replaced by defined-contribution plans, which are even more susceptible to the market. Not sure the relevance here. Agreed. The people that have $70k in their retirement accounts can't afford a market crash nearly as much as someone who has millions. Which is exactly my point - you are more interested in punishing the wealthy than you are in the best interests of the middle class. This was also shown very clearly by your opposition to TARP, which cost us nothing (and actually made a profit) and saved us from a Great Depression. But instead, you'd rather have destroyed the middle class simply to punish the banks. Your opposition to TARP proves otherwise. It was one of the most brilliant economic decisions our government has ever undertaken, and you were opposed to it. To anyone who understood the economics of it all, it was clear as day in 2008 how it would play out, yet your interest was simply in attacking the 1% rather than saving everyone else.
Absolutely. All the "cliff" does is restore thepre Bush tax cuts on everybody. Do some sensible level cuts on defense and some other cuts that can be restored. Once we have OMG!!! gone off the "cliff" Obama can then introduce a bill to restore the tax cuts for say the lowerr 98-99% and let the GOP stumble all over themselves to explain (good luck!!) why they oppose them. They can also campaign why they want to keep spending down on needed public works projects etc. Once they cave Obama will show them what a mandate means and they will respect him more. Something I suppose some moderate defenders of Obama might even want, though it might be a bit too partisan for them. Today is definitely the day to see if 1) Obama has any balls or 2) he is even mildly the progressive he trots out in his campaign and for which the public voted for him twice.
What have you seen on the details of the deal? From what I'm hearing, the Dems will go up to $400k in exchange for an extension of unemployment benefits: each side is giving something up to get something else they value more. What is the DoD thing? I haven't seen anything that suggests that the sequester is dead.
BTW what do you call giving up something in a negotiation when you don't have to? I mean aside from the old bromide "you have to give up something to get something". Good will? Is about all I can think of. Do you think the GOP House will be so grateful they will cooperate more on other matters till 2014 or something?
Congrats to Obama and the Dems they got a deal that was worse than they could have gotten on Jan 2nd, but they got a deal. They also saved the GOP ass and pleased moderates, I guess. http://www.washingtonpost.com/busin...21c-11e2-950a-7863a013264b_story.html?hpid=z1 "Vice President Biden and Sen. Mitch McConnell were locked in urgent talks late Sunday over the “fiscal cliff” after Democrats offered several significant concessions on taxes, including a proposal to raise rates only on earnings over $450,000 a year. With a New Year’s Eve deadline hours away, Democrats abandoned their earlier demand to raise tax rates on household income over $250,000 a year, as President Obama vowed during the recent presidential campaign. They also relented on the politically sensitive issue of the estate tax, according to a detailed account of the Democratic offer obtained by The Washington Post" Got to love it. So delicate. Politically sensitive. HaHa. The ordinary middle class in income reporter must have had to choke finding that phrase. Great news for the Walton's. Do I need to fact check how many billions they save on that one? Do I have to get the facts on what percent of Americans wil actually pay inheritance tax under any recent law?
Hey, Major, just to let you know, sarcasm aside for the moment, you are a smart guy and probably a nice guy in real life, which we tend to forget. Are you by any chance DT during lunch? We could meet and discuss these topics. Keyboarding can be so exhausting. I guess I could start using Dragon dictation more, but as an old guy I prefer talk.
Off topic of the scary Cliff, but I've actually posted along with NSS several articles in various discussions as its come up over the last 6 to 8 months & especially in regards to why pensions & even cities are filing or on the verge of filing for bankruptcy. I didn't search my posting history to come up with this link but here is a recent article from BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19199683 consequence #5 burned pensions & retirement accounts, searching Libor & pensions can reveal many articles but here is one: http://www.iplanretirement.com/retirementblog/how-the-libor-rate-fixing-scandal-robs-your-pension/ Adam Smith of course nails the Libor scandal with this quote: “People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.” Libor was one big banking industry act of collusion.
So, after all this, is there any preliminary numbers of what additional revenue this may raise? Seems like a lot of media hype over nothing.
Another in a lengthy list of important ways the real world fails to conform to libertarian/ market fundie simplistic visions of society: Large number of sellers and buyers in most major markets, equal access to info, no barriers to entry etc. etc. I forgot some of the rest of the assumptios quickly glossd over in the first day of MBA econ classes before they started drawing curves on charts and doing some numbers.
I didn't think we would ever agree. Congrats, Bigtexx, sad to say. Obama is very much like the upper part of the one percent he has hung out with almost exclusively since about the age of 10 when he was admitted to that uber fancy private school in Hawaii. I feel like we are in some sort of Kubuki sp? theater in which Obama briefly plays some sort of progressive to the hatred of conservatives and occasionally in campaigns to the 99%, but we all know what he will do in the end.
That was always the whole point. Scare folks in to reducing social security,and also keep folks breathlessly watching TV "news" till the next mass murder or blonde girl abducted or perhaps even a black kid killed by the cops-- a daily occurence I know, but you can always latch on to a particularly grievant case. After all the election is over.
Ding ding ding. Sadly, he is probably the most progressive in recent history but in comparing him to everyone else in recent history you realize the difference is so minuscule and so inconsequential that it's no wonder Americans are wrapped up with their Xboxes and semi-automatic weapons with a lack of interest in medium or large issues. Elections which are free-est in the world in terms of legal and physical coercion and voter turnout hovers around 50-60% of eligible voters. You can actually make a difference and the outcome of the decisions affects hundreds of millions of Americans and non-Americans. The failure of the US government to solve this fiscal cliff problem is intentional, and that's saying it nicely. But when you have the attention span of a lamp post, Americans have no chance against one of the best marketing teams and plan of our times (Obama's team beat out people like Apple and Microsoft for this award in both elections). Hell, Americans don't have time given their labor conditions - working like maniacs, drugged up, but with a static standard of living for 40 years now. So many Americans are trying to just make it to the point where they can BORROW money to buy stuff. By the time he's in office, the red/blue voters have to defend their choice and attack the other side since the leaders are constantly pitting them against each other. To decry the outcome of events at THIS point is not worth the effort. Just a giant mess, and one that can be attributed to having - for all intents and purposes - one political party with two factions. Obama is merely the most leftish conservative and he is treated as such by conservatives.
They are spineless A lotta Truth The difference between Republican and Democrat . . . is very small. Rocket River
No surprise at all. Another obama epic negotiating fail. Cue major with an apologetic explanation centered not on what obama could have gotten (and indeed, vowed to get) but rather on the oh-so-nice sounding "bipartisan compromise" that never needed to happen.
Hmm has a deal been made? All i read is that a deal is close. Read the details and it does look like the dems conceeded on more items which is curious comsidering the repubs only have the house and also most people would have blamed the repubs more (myself included) if a deal was not reached. Well if a deal is reached i guess the bright side is its better for the country and the economy regardless on who got what they wanted
People are saying a deal is close because the Dems conceded a lot. I wouldn't be surprised to see Republicans not conceding anything and forcing the Democrats to concede more just to have a deal complete before the day is over. From what I've read, the biggest thing I do not agree with is not cutting spending on military.