The Republicans Dodged a Bullet there

[03Lightningrocks]

...... and let the corporate big boys drive our economy off the
cliff again, but in a diferent style than the Dems.
SIA

I am wondering if this might be where libs and conservatives differ. You see, I like the big boys because I realize that in America I can work hard and be one of them. Libs on the other hand feel threatened by the big boys because they fear they can never be one of them. This would explain why liberals believe that the way to bring themselves up is by holding everyone else back. Conservatives, on the other hand, believe the way to get ahead is by earning it for ourselves. We don't want any Government entity regulating our level of success because we believe in ourselves and we realize that the restriction set forth to hold others back may very well hold us back one day.

[Zee]

I am wondering if this might be where libs and conservatives differ. You see, I like the big boys because I realize that in America I can work hard and be one of them. Libs on the other hand feel threatened by the big boys because they fear they can never be one of them. This would explain why liberals believe that the way to bring themselves up is by holding everyone else back. Conservatives, on the other hand, believe the way to get ahead is by earning it for ourselves. We don't want any Government entity regulating our level of success because we believe in ourselves and we realize that the restriction set forth to hold others back may very well hold us back one day.

These sentences are stated as fact. Can they be qualified in any way?

[rm9792]

pbwalker wrote:

True...I just think that if the GOP is to take back the WH in 2012, it won't / shouldn't be with her. My $0.02...

I totally agree! The Repubs blew the last election...for various reasons. The candidates were just a couple of the reasons. If the GOP is to prevail in 2012, it must listen to the people and come forth with viable programs to address our problems in the good 'ol USA.

I dont think the GOP could run anyone that would have beat Obama. The media lovefest guaranteed his victory. The chance to elect any black man president was too great to ignore. I dont mean this in a racist way just the current PC trend and desire of libs to show their "colorblindness". You couldnt speak out about his lack of qualifications without literally being called a racist or bigot. Even quoting his own words back seemed to make you a bigot. I personally could care less if a green woman pygmy was running the WH as long as she is qualified and believes in the Constitution.

I take offense with your slight against the green pygmy. You are obviously racist.

My distinct apologies for my shortsightedness. I meant vertically challenged earth toned individual.

[The Annoyed Man]

These sentences are stated as fact. Can they be qualified in any way?

Sure. Talk to the small businesses that have moved out of California to save their businesses, which is how I came to live in Texas.

[RANT]
In California, thanks to liberal policies, we had to pay an annual use tax, equivalent to the sales tax, on every piece of equipment we bought. We were a printing company. If we bought a $100 desktop printer, we had to pay an $8.25 sales tax; but then we also had to pay an 8.25% use tax on the value of the printer every year until it depreciated to zero. Not that big a deal when you're buying $100 desktop printers. But when you buy a $500,000.00 printing press (not that much money for a press), you not only pay the sales tax of $41,250.00 at time of purchase, you also get to pay the use tax of $41,250.00 of the value of a half million dollar piece of equipment. Printing presses depreciate very slowly because they are barely broken in after millions of impressions. So every year, for YEARS, you get to pay the state 8.25% on a very slowly depreciating $500,000 for the privilege of using a piece of equipment, without which you have no business, and for which you have already paid the sales tax, and for which you are also making payments to the bank.

LIBERAL democrats in California thought up that particular piece of anti-capitalist nonsense, not conservative republicans, nor libertarians.

Similarly, you pay property taxes right? And among other things, your property taxes pay for your fire department. But in Los Angeles County, where capitalism is baaaaaaaaaaaaad (notice how that sounds like a sheep), a business pays property taxes, AND it pays an additional assessment for fire service, above and beyond the property taxes. Those taxes, like most states, are based on the value of the property. If you think home prices are high in California, price out some commercial properties. So you pay a ton of money to the county in taxes, which are supposed to cover your fire service, but then you have to pay for the fire service all over again.

LIBERAL democrats in California thought up that particular piece of anti-capitalist nonsense, not conservative republicans, nor libertarians.

And then there are the workman's comp issues. Workman's compensation insurance in California costs easily 4 or 5 times the price in any other state. I personally know a man who closed his printing business because of his workman's comp costs. His business was 2 generations old, and in that time, they had a couple of incidents. It was also a much larger business back then. Anyone who knows the printing business will tell you that it is a tough business, with very tight margins. He struggled to stay in business, and over the years he gradually laid off workers until he was down to 3 or 4 employees. At that point, his business stabilized, but because of state laws passed by LIBERAL democrats in California, he had to still pay the same worker's comp insurance rate as he did when he was a much larger company. He couldn't afford it, and so he finally gave up trying and closed his business down. My company bought his customer list. His 3 or 4 employees were now jobless. Because of liberal democrat policies.

I don't think that liberals evil; just wrong. But I have yet to meet one who didn't think that the path to "social justice" was to rape small businessmen and large corporations at every opportunity. I have yet to meet one, including ALL of my own family members back in California, who didn't think that being stinking rich wasn't somehow evil... ...unless it was their own wealth we were talking about. But other people's wealth is fair game. How do I know this? My mother is stinking rich, and I get to hear her moan and groan ever year about her tax bill. But in the 27 years that she has been an American citizen (she is French by birth), she has never voted for anyone who wasn't a far left democrat. It figures. She's a college professor. At Caltech, no less. I love my mother, but when it comes to understanding the fundamentals of capitalism, it is hard to believe how incredibly dense she is.

She doesn't understand that it is (or was, until she retired) the engine of capitalism that makes all those very generous endowments possible which Caltech receives, and which paid her salary. Believe me, it wasn't the tuition. People don't go to Caltech to study French literature. They're all there for the engineering/physics/astronomy/math. Neither does she understand that most employers have to trim the dead weight wherever possible. Neither does she understand that most employers do not grant their employees tenure.

She says she understands... but then she keeps reflexively voting for people who work to destroy the economic engine which paid for her salary when she worked, and which continue — through the stock market and other investments — to fuel her very comfortable retirement; a position from which she continues to picture capitalists as grasping, thuggish, amoral crooks.

So yeah, I would say that many liberals have a fundamental ignorance about how the engine of capitalism is what makes their comfortable lifestyles possible. Not all of them by any means. But many of them do, and they vote. And the ones who do show some understanding of it still continue to vote for politicians who don't, and that baffles the heck out of me.

Significantly, in my own family's case, my two younger brothers are self employed, and are much more subject to the vagaries of the economy than is a sheltered and pampered California university professor, and it has made them drift to the right. My middle brother is now more what I would call slightly left of center, and my youngest brother has made the transition to libertarianism. But my middle brother still reflexively votes for candidates that make it harder for him to be in business. How smart is that? And he's the one with the degree from UC Berkeley. You'd think he'd know better.

I could go on, but I doubt it would make a dent.
[/RANT]

[chabouk]

Brilliant, TAM.

Thank you for the rant.

[longhorn_92]

These sentences are stated as fact. Can they be qualified in any way?

Sure. Talk to the small businesses that have moved out of California to save their businesses, which is how I came to live in Texas.

[RANT]
In California, thanks to liberal policies, we had to pay an annual use tax, equivalent to the sales tax, on every piece of equipment we bought. We were a printing company. If we bought a $100 desktop printer, we had to pay an $8.25 sales tax; but then we also had to pay an 8.25% use tax on the value of the printer every year until it depreciated to zero. Not that big a deal when you're buying $100 desktop printers. But when you buy a $500,000.00 printing press (not that much money for a press), you not only pay the sales tax of $41,250.00 at time of purchase, you also get to pay the use tax of $41,250.00 of the value of a half million dollar piece of equipment. Printing presses depreciate very slowly because they are barely broken in after millions of impressions. So every year, for YEARS, you get to pay the state 8.25% on a very slowly depreciating $500,000 for the privilege of using a piece of equipment, without which you have no business, and for which you have already paid the sales tax, and for which you are also making payments to the bank.

LIBERAL democrats in California thought up that particular piece of anti-capitalist nonsense, not conservative republicans, nor libertarians.

Similarly, you pay property taxes right? And among other things, your property taxes pay for your fire department. But in Los Angeles County, where capitalism is baaaaaaaaaaaaad (notice how that sounds like a sheep), a business pays property taxes, AND it pays an additional assessment for fire service, above and beyond the property taxes. Those taxes, like most states, are based on the value of the property. If you think home prices are high in California, price out some commercial properties. So you pay a ton of money to the county in taxes, which are supposed to cover your fire service, but then you have to pay for the fire service all over again.

LIBERAL democrats in California thought up that particular piece of anti-capitalist nonsense, not conservative republicans, nor libertarians.

And then there are the workman's comp issues. Workman's compensation insurance in California costs easily 4 or 5 times the price in any other state. I personally know a man who closed his printing business because of his workman's comp costs. His business was 2 generations old, and in that time, they had a couple of incidents. It was also a much larger business back then. Anyone who knows the printing business will tell you that it is a tough business, with very tight margins. He struggled to stay in business, and over the years he gradually laid off workers until he was down to 3 or 4 employees. At that point, his business stabilized, but because of state laws passed by LIBERAL democrats in California, he had to still pay the same worker's comp insurance rate as he did when he was a much larger company. He couldn't afford it, and so he finally gave up trying and closed his business down. My company bought his customer list. His 3 or 4 employees were now jobless. Because of liberal democrat policies.

I don't think that liberals evil; just wrong. But I have yet to meet one who didn't think that the path to "social justice" was to rape small businessmen and large corporations at every opportunity. I have yet to meet one, including ALL of my own family members back in California, who didn't think that being stinking rich wasn't somehow evil... ...unless it was their own wealth we were talking about. But other people's wealth is fair game. How do I know this? My mother is stinking rich, and I get to hear her moan and groan ever year about her tax bill. But in the 27 years that she has been an American citizen (she is French by birth), she has never voted for anyone who wasn't a far left democrat. It figures. She's a college professor. At Caltech, no less. I love my mother, but when it comes to understanding the fundamentals of capitalism, it is hard to believe how incredibly dense she is.

She doesn't understand that it is (or was, until she retired) the engine of capitalism that makes all those very generous endowments possible which Caltech receives, and which paid her salary. Believe me, it wasn't the tuition. People don't go to Caltech to study French literature. They're all there for the engineering/physics/astronomy/math. Neither does she understand that most employers have to trim the dead weight wherever possible. Neither does she understand that most employers do not grant their employees tenure.

She says she understands... but then she keeps reflexively voting for people who work to destroy the economic engine which paid for her salary when she worked, and which continue — through the stock market and other investments — to fuel her very comfortable retirement; a position from which she continues to picture capitalists as grasping, thuggish, amoral crooks.

So yeah, I would say that many liberals have a fundamental ignorance about how the engine of capitalism is what makes their comfortable lifestyles possible. Not all of them by any means. But many of them do, and they vote. And the ones who do show some understanding of it still continue to vote for politicians who don't, and that baffles the heck out of me.

Significantly, in my own family's case, my two younger brothers are self employed, and are much more subject to the vagaries of the economy than is a sheltered and pampered California university professor, and it has made them drift to the right. My middle brother is now more what I would call slightly left of center, and my youngest brother has made the transition to libertarianism. But my middle brother still reflexively votes for candidates that make it harder for him to be in business. How smart is that? And he's the one with the degree from UC Berkeley. You'd think he'd know better.

I could go on, but I doubt it would make a dent.
[/RANT]

There it is!

[03Lightningrocks]

These sentences are stated as fact. Can they be qualified in any way?

Sure. Talk to the small businesses that have moved out of California to save their businesses, which is how I came to live in Texas.

[RANT]
In California, thanks to liberal policies, we had to pay an annual use tax, equivalent to the sales tax, on every piece of equipment we bought. We were a printing company. If we bought a $100 desktop printer, we had to pay an $8.25 sales tax; but then we also had to pay an 8.25% use tax on the value of the printer every year until it depreciated to zero. Not that big a deal when you're buying $100 desktop printers. But when you buy a $500,000.00 printing press (not that much money for a press), you not only pay the sales tax of $41,250.00 at time of purchase, you also get to pay the use tax of $41,250.00 of the value of a half million dollar piece of equipment. Printing presses depreciate very slowly because they are barely broken in after millions of impressions. So every year, for YEARS, you get to pay the state 8.25% on a very slowly depreciating $500,000 for the privilege of using a piece of equipment, without which you have no business, and for which you have already paid the sales tax, and for which you are also making payments to the bank.

LIBERAL democrats in California thought up that particular piece of anti-capitalist nonsense, not conservative republicans, nor libertarians.

Similarly, you pay property taxes right? And among other things, your property taxes pay for your fire department. But in Los Angeles County, where capitalism is baaaaaaaaaaaaad (notice how that sounds like a sheep), a business pays property taxes, AND it pays an additional assessment for fire service, above and beyond the property taxes. Those taxes, like most states, are based on the value of the property. If you think home prices are high in California, price out some commercial properties. So you pay a ton of money to the county in taxes, which are supposed to cover your fire service, but then you have to pay for the fire service all over again.

LIBERAL democrats in California thought up that particular piece of anti-capitalist nonsense, not conservative republicans, nor libertarians.

And then there are the workman's comp issues. Workman's compensation insurance in California costs easily 4 or 5 times the price in any other state. I personally know a man who closed his printing business because of his workman's comp costs. His business was 2 generations old, and in that time, they had a couple of incidents. It was also a much larger business back then. Anyone who knows the printing business will tell you that it is a tough business, with very tight margins. He struggled to stay in business, and over the years he gradually laid off workers until he was down to 3 or 4 employees. At that point, his business stabilized, but because of state laws passed by LIBERAL democrats in California, he had to still pay the same worker's comp insurance rate as he did when he was a much larger company. He couldn't afford it, and so he finally gave up trying and closed his business down. My company bought his customer list. His 3 or 4 employees were now jobless. Because of liberal democrat policies.

I don't think that liberals evil; just wrong. But I have yet to meet one who didn't think that the path to "social justice" was to rape small businessmen and large corporations at every opportunity. I have yet to meet one, including ALL of my own family members back in California, who didn't think that being stinking rich wasn't somehow evil... ...unless it was their own wealth we were talking about. But other people's wealth is fair game. How do I know this? My mother is stinking rich, and I get to hear her moan and groan ever year about her tax bill. But in the 27 years that she has been an American citizen (she is French by birth), she has never voted for anyone who wasn't a far left democrat. It figures. She's a college professor. At Caltech, no less. I love my mother, but when it comes to understanding the fundamentals of capitalism, it is hard to believe how incredibly dense she is.

She doesn't understand that it is (or was, until she retired) the engine of capitalism that makes all those very generous endowments possible which Caltech receives, and which paid her salary. Believe me, it wasn't the tuition. People don't go to Caltech to study French literature. They're all there for the engineering/physics/astronomy/math. Neither does she understand that most employers have to trim the dead weight wherever possible. Neither does she understand that most employers do not grant their employees tenure.

She says she understands... but then she keeps reflexively voting for people who work to destroy the economic engine which paid for her salary when she worked, and which continue — through the stock market and other investments — to fuel her very comfortable retirement; a position from which she continues to picture capitalists as grasping, thuggish, amoral crooks.

So yeah, I would say that many liberals have a fundamental ignorance about how the engine of capitalism is what makes their comfortable lifestyles possible. Not all of them by any means. But many of them do, and they vote. And the ones who do show some understanding of it still continue to vote for politicians who don't, and that baffles the heck out of me.

Significantly, in my own family's case, my two younger brothers are self employed, and are much more subject to the vagaries of the economy than is a sheltered and pampered California university professor, and it has made them drift to the right. My middle brother is now more what I would call slightly left of center, and my youngest brother has made the transition to libertarianism. But my middle brother still reflexively votes for candidates that make it harder for him to be in business. How smart is that? And he's the one with the degree from UC Berkeley. You'd think he'd know better.

I could go on, but I doubt it would make a dent.
[/RANT]

Absolutely brilliant!!!

[surprise_i'm_armed]

03lightningrocks:

To answer your above post about the differences between liberals and conservatives:

Although the Republican mantra about personal responsibility is well-known,
it's a heck of a way to run an airline when corporate profits belong to the corporation
and its shareholders, but gargantuan losses are socialized to the taxpaying citizens of
the country to absorb.

Who is reponsible for the losses? It's not Joe Workerbee, but Joe has to pay for the
failed risks of the corporations. The companies keep the profits when times are good,
then the same companies expect to be bailed out by DC.

Who is reponsible for this shifting of corporate loss to the citizens? Bush, Jr. started
it at the end of his term, but Obama is continuing it.

It's unsettling to see billions in taxpayer dollars given away over a weekend to corporations
whose failed bets didn't work out, while getting anything substantive done in DC doesn't
happen.

SIA

[03Lightningrocks]

The reason the billions were given to the Airlines was to preserve the transportation system in the United States after a terrorist attack brought on by eight years of sleeping Democrats. The secondary reason was to preserve jobs for the working class...not to protect the individuals running the corporation or the stock holders. Some of the highest paying UNSKILLED jobs in the world are in the airline industry. I was a Union Steward in the transport workers union ...I know.

As far as money to save the banks? The Conservatives in Congress(Republican and Democrat) were against it. The Liberal Democrats pushed it through and now somehow they have pinned that on Bush also...cracks me up. I watched the whole proceeding on TV...I watched the Republicans get arm twisted into allowing that to happen. It was politicians who gave tax payer money away....mostly Democrat politicians. The very same ones who created the environment for the mess...Barney Frank and Maxine Waters for example....and the very same ones who are presently spending America into Bankruptcy.

Just for the record...myself and most conservatives I know were 100% against giving money to any corporation or Bank. Most conservatives wanted to let the chips fall where they may.


Check this out.... " onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Then this... " onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I also found this. I noticed your from Lewisville. Here is your own rep telling of how the Democrats excluded Republicans in the Bank Bailout hearings.

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[Oldgringo]

Good job, TAM.

That's one example, there must be a gazillion more such take aways in other left leaning cities and states across the country.

[chabouk]

Although the Republican mantra about personal responsibility is well-known,
it's a heck of a way to run an airline when corporate profits belong to the corporation
and its shareholders, but gargantuan losses are socialized to the taxpaying citizens of
the country to absorb.

Welcome to the financial model of fascism.

[03Lightningrocks]

Although the Republican mantra about personal responsibility is well-known,
it's a heck of a way to run an airline when corporate profits belong to the corporation
and its shareholders, but gargantuan losses are socialized to the taxpaying citizens of
the country to absorb.

Welcome to the financial model of fascism.

Perfect example of what I have been talking about.... LOL. Nothing about it is fascism. The word makes for great talking point for socialists...but it has nothing to do with the subject matter at hand.

[chabouk]

Although the Republican mantra about personal responsibility is well-known,
it's a heck of a way to run an airline when corporate profits belong to the corporation
and its shareholders, but gargantuan losses are socialized to the taxpaying citizens of
the country to absorb.

Welcome to the financial model of fascism.

Perfect example of what I have been talking about.... LOL. Nothing about it is fascism.

That is exactly the financial model of fascism: socialized risk for private profit.

"Fascist" is an overused and frequently misunderstood word. Take it out of the realm of talking points and actually study it, and you'll understand that we have been under a fascist government for quite some time, no matter which party was in power.

[The Annoyed Man]

Here is an interesting bit of commentary:

November 20, 2009
Entrepreneurs Go on Strike
By C. Edmund Wright
The American Thinker

Can Barney Frank Dunk on Lebron? No, he cannot. Nor can anyone else in Washington. Nor can they catch passes from Ben Rothlisberger in the Super Bowl or strike out Derek Jeter in the World Series. They are not equipped to do so.

So what?

This ridiculous image speaks to the business malaise infecting the economy since Obama took office. The point is that politicians are equally ill-equipped to run the auto industry or the health industry or the lending industry or the insurance industry -- and their determination to do so is sucking all the dynamism from the entrepreneurial class in this country.

With the threat of this administration and congress, what is the possible motivation for anyone with ideas and capital to invest his time, talent, and money into a risky endeavor? There appears to be none. In fact, there appear to be powerful incentives not to invest any time or treasure -- thus an economy with almost zero creative inertia.

For Obama voters, almost zero creative inertia means almost no one is having bright ideas, starting businesses based on them, and hiring employees to help share the dream.

Consider: A professional sports league featuring Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Dennis Kucinich, and Robert Byrd is not an enterprise that can successfully draw investors or paying customers, nor will it command media attention as anything resembling excellence. The entrepreneurial class in this country looks at the governing class in Washington today and sees a bunch of misfit incompetents who are determined to play starring roles in every nook and cranny of the economy.

And it is repulsive as well as disheartening. Maybe three of the 535 members of Congress have what it takes to keep a small business alive for a single fiscal quarter. We believe even fewer have what it takes to roll the dice and actually start one.

Yet they continue to pass laws and speak to reporters about all they are doing to create or save jobs. Yeah, right.

To people who are supercharged with the entrepreneurial spirit, the idea that the pudgy, bespectacled congressman -- a self-described non-outdoorsman -- could properly run an industry is just as outlandish as the idea that he could elevate over and "posterize" Lebron or Kobe. Taking risks and investing blood, sweat, and tears into a business that will -- should it become successful -- fall under the strict supervision of Washingtonians is simply a non-starter.

Any business idea, from the first day it is hatched, is nothing more than a series of cost-benefit analyses that the idea-holder either acts on or passes. Sometimes the first decision is to forget the idea. Sometimes the first decision is to move ahead and invest some cash. Perhaps a few million cost-benefit analyses later you might have Microsoft or Home Depot or ESPN. Or you might have Bill's Plumbing or Johnson's Quality Homes or a café or an electrical wholesaler, and so on. And those businesses still operate on a constant stream of risk-reward decisions. In the business world, there is no neutral gear.

This is the American dream. And it is being killed daily because there are few opportunities worth the risk anymore, thanks to Washington. Whether the Congress or the administration will infuse themselves directly into a given industry is not the only point. When government arrogantly claims it can perform impossible slam dunks in the banking industry, the auto industry, the insurance industry, and the medical industry, all the while imposing confiscatory taxes, there is almost nowhere to escape them in any legitimate business.

Businesses need professionals in banking, lending, insurance, and accounting to depend on, and we know now that whomever we hire in these areas will be under the government's thumb. Of course, paying customers are needed as well, and with government causing huge cracks in foundational sectors like housing, lending, and manufacturing, a reliable employed customer base is becoming harder and harder to maintain, much less find..

For many decades, the American dream has been undergirded by the faith that regardless of its current state, the economy would come back around thanks to the greatness of ordinary people being free to do extraordinary things. Thus the bold gunslinger mentality many business owners have had in previous recessions, refusing to participate, and even expanding cheaply to grab market share in the next recovery.

But it's different now, and there is no denying it. The dream itself is being killed by legal and regulatory micromanagement. Washington is determined to employ policies to cure something that can be cured only by government getting the hell out of the way.

A small business summit in the White House will accomplish nothing unless the invitees include unions and lawyers and bureaucrats, in which case it will be devastating. When did a union or a lawyer or a bureaucrat ever start a business? How many times a day do they kill one?

And that's the climate entrepreneurs see. Unions, lawyers, and bureaucrats gain more power and leverage every day. The big opportunity now is to spend government money: an eighteen-million-dollar government contract to create an awful Recovery.org website, SEIU union jobs in ObamaCare, bankruptcy lawyers, and perhaps carbon credit trades coming. There are ACORN-style crony contracts to be had, not to mention all the jobs created by the David Axelrod astroturfing media escapades. If you are connected or if your dream is to enrich yourself by killing the dreams of others, then the field is ripe for you.

But if you simply want to live some iteration of building a better mousetrap, this is not currently the country for you. And entrepreneurs can sense it. This is not about tax policy. It is not about health care. It is not about cap-and-trade. These are all terrible and need to be stopped, but most importantly, the dying American dream is in trouble. We now have a class of people in Washington now that will relentlessly pursue these ruinous initiatives, and a never-ending stream of similarly un-American agendas, until they are removed from power.

The businessmen are under attack, and they know it. This kind of economy cannot work -- not until pigs fly, or until Barney Frank dunks on Lebron James.

[stevie_d_64]

only a lib could consider GWB an extremist. Unbelievable!

And, in my opinion, McCain was the dead weight on the ticket, and does NOT support most of my views. But then again, my opinion is that "moderates", by definition, have no problem in compromising their core values in order to secure votes.

just my personal take on the issues.


surv