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PoliGAF 2011: Of Weiners, Boehners, Santorum, and Teabags

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Puddles

Banned
GaimeGuy said:
oh, there was growth, it just went exclusively to the uber rich (I'm talking top 0.1% here). We've known that for a while. Housing prices should probably be lower since wages have been stagnant since before 2003

The median price of a house should be 3x the median annual income, as it was for decades.

If it's more than that, housing is still overpriced. Households have to take on way too much debt to finance a house if it's much higher than that price, and that depresses consumer spending, as we're seeing.
 

Clevinger

Member
Measley said:
As much as I hate Romney, I want him to win the Nom over Perry. Perry would be the worst thing to happen to the presidency since the last Texas governor won the White House.

I have no clue what a Romney presidency would look like. Would he be like Obama and compromise a lot with the Democrats? Would he be an even bigger whore to the financial and pharma industries? Would he be scared of his conservative base and veer far right?

No clue, because I have no idea what goes on in his brain other than, "Fuck, I want to be president."
 

SolKane

Member
Romney: I’ll win Iowa in November 2012

Mitt Romney announced today that he’ll win Iowa in November 2012, if he’s the GOP nominee. An amazing statement, given that he’s making only his fourth campaign trip to Iowa this year.

Romney made his comments in a media avail after a business roundtable at Vermeer Corp. in Pella. I live-tweeted the roundtable.

Romney blasted President Obama for embarking on a bus tour while the economy struggles.

“Let me make this prediction. He won’t carry Iowa in November 2012. He won’t carry Iowa because Iowans recognize that his presidency has failed.”

Romney, asked if he can win Iowa given his lack of participation in the Iowa Straw Poll, said he will compete in the caucuses. He said he is skipping straw polls to conserve his campaign resources for events that generate delegates.

And if he is the nominee, he said, he’ll campaign “aggressively” in Iowa and win it.

http://caucuses.desmoinesregister.c...-iowa-campaign-trip-with-business-roundtable/

More footage at link.
 

Veezy

que?
TacticalFox88 said:
What the hell? Reset relations with Russia? Is this man stuck in 1989?
They got those hats. And that silly language. They trade with China using their own currencies. Plus, they descend from commies. Dirty, filthy, commies.

It's enough for Fox to run with. Hell, I could throw together a "manatees are pro gay marriage due to their EPA protection" post with the above. And Fox is better than I am.
 

ToxicAdam

Member
Puddles said:
The median price of a house should be 3x the median annual income, as it was for decades.

If it's more than that, housing is still overpriced. Households have to take on way too much debt to finance a house if it's much higher than that price, and that depresses consumer spending, as we're seeing.


You don't think the fact that the median size of a home has grown over 40% in the past 30 years has something to do with it?

http://www.census.gov/const/C25Ann/sftotalmedavgsqft.pdf
 

daedalius

Member
I passed around the "corporations are people too, my friends" at work, got quite a few laughs and sighs of disgust.

Someone needs to run with him saying that, seriously. What a poor way to articulate his point; whatever it was.
 

SolKane

Member
daedalius said:
I passed around the "corporations are people too, my friends" at work, got quite a few laughs and sighs of disgust.

Someone needs to run with him saying that, seriously. What a poor way to articulate his point; whatever it was.

I get a real Dan Quayle feeling from Romney whenever I see him speak.
 

SoulPlaya

more money than God
daedalius said:
I passed around the "corporations are people too, my friends" at work, got quite a few laughs and sighs of disgust.

Someone needs to run with him saying that, seriously. What a poor way to articulate his point; whatever it was.
God, it's so sad that the choice in 2012 may be Romney or Obama. One guy who happily embraces the interests of corporations, and another guy who hesitantly embraces the interests of corporations. Either way, we're pretty fucked.
 

Puddles

Banned
ToxicAdam said:
You don't think the fact that the median size of a home has grown over 40% in the past 30 years has something to do with it?

http://www.census.gov/const/C25Ann/sftotalmedavgsqft.pdf

It plays a part, but in 1990 the average price of a home was around $162k in today's dollars (adjusted for inflation). In 2006 it was around $262k. That's a price increase of 61%.

Over that same time period, the average size of a home went from 2,080 square feet to 2,469 square feet. That's only about a 17% increase in size.

So prices increased over 3.5 times faster than size did over that period of time.
 

SolKane

Member
So, in case anyone was wondering what the most socialist state in the US is, it's West Virginia:

Despite the fact that Republicans won two out of three House seats in the 2010 midterm elections, West Virginia has been a democratic state for most of its existence. In fact, Congress’s longest-serving member ever was Robert Byrd, the West Virginia Democrat who, at the time of his death last year, had represented the state for 57 years.

On the state level, four of the past five governors have come from the Democratic Party, which will explain for some how the state’s expenditures have come to account for 32.1% of total output.

http://www.mainstreet.com/slideshow...n&psv=outbrainselectedarticle&obref=obnetwork

Disclaimer: I found this link on the Des Moines Register website.
 

AlteredBeast

Fork 'em, Sparky!
SoulPlaya said:
God, it's so sad that the choice in 2012 may be Romney or Obama. One guy who happily embraces the interests of corporations, and another guy who hesitantly embraces the interests of corporations. Either way, we're pretty fucked.
Which one is which? :(
 

Bishman

Member
PhoenixDark said:
BREAKING NEWS—12:27: PElOSI NAMES VAN HOLLEN, CLYBURN AND BECERRA TO DEFICIT COMMITTEE

Fuck yes
nancy-pelosi-laughing.jpg
 
Sherrod Brown (D-OH but you knew that?) actually said Rob Portman (R-OH, also part of SuperCongress) is open to tax increases to close the deficit, so hopefully we can get a 7-5 deal that includes a repeal of the Bush-era tax cuts (for the wealthy, obv).

But then it has to pass NotSuperCongress. Ugh. That'll be a headache.
 

eznark

Banned
Clevinger said:
Eznark, I've seen you say that Romney's a great speaker before. Did you mean just in speeches?

Tone, tenor, tempo. Not what he says, how he says it. Even there he wasn't flustered and kept his composure while being heckled. I'm sure you can find plenty of clips (just like with any politician) of flubs and misspeaks but in general, he is a very good orator.
 
Whoever is in charge of Romney needs to take the microphone out of his hand. People are angry. They don't care about how you are going to help the corporations. They see in the news that corporations are already making record profit. Not many voters are major shareholders of corporations. They want to know how you are going to bring jobs to the economy. He should have gone by the book about how lowering their tax burden will let them hire more. But if their profits are already so high, then why aren't they already hiring?

Also, talking about winning Iowa in 2012 is a little early. You could probably say that after the caucuses have spoken in 2012, but not now. He's basically telling them that they mean crap to him, and he'll see them later when they matter. He better be glad Massachusetts is so close to New Hampshire because otherwise no one would be listening to him. Even John Edwards gave a damn about what the Iowa Democrats thought. Romney proves he's lower than him in that regard.
 
eznark said:
Tone, tenor, tempo. Not what he says, how he says it. Even there he wasn't flustered and kept his composure while being heckled. I'm sure you can find plenty of clips (just like with any politician) of flubs and misspeaks but in general, he is a very good orator.
You probably mean when he is on message. You only really know what a politician really thinks when he goes off it.
 

eznark

Banned
Dr. Pangloss said:
You probably mean when he is on message. You only really know what a politician really thinks when he goes off it.

I'm not in anyway talking about what he is saying. I'm talking about how he says it.

I think Romney is a giant piece of shit who is generally great at speaking in public.
 

Clevinger

Member
Aaron Strife said:
Sherrod Brown (D-OH but you knew that?) actually said Rob Portman (R-OH, also part of SuperCongress) is open to tax increases to close the deficit, so hopefully we can get a 7-5 deal that includes a repeal of the Bush-era tax cuts (for the wealthy, obv).

But then it has to pass NotSuperCongress. Ugh. That'll be a headache.

Thinkprogress had fun little bits of info about him:

SEN. ROB PORTMAN (OH): President George W. Bush put Portman in charge of his Office of Management and Budget in order to meet “our goal to cutting the budget deficit in half by 2009.” Under Portman’s watch, the deficit nearly tripled. During the debt ceiling debacle, Portman was one of the GOP senators who actually entertained defaulting as an “opportunity to get our fiscal house in order.” Considering privatization “the greatest force in the universe,” he also suggested privatizing Social Security to bail out bad investors and voted in 2005 to divert Social Security dollars to create private accounts. He did hedge on all-out support of Ryan’s budget plan, but ended up supporting it. Believing that “spending, not tax cuts, causes future deficits,” Portman ran on the idea that “any tax increase would hurt the fragile economy.” As such, he’s continually advocated to make the Bush tax cuts permanent and is pushing to balance the budget in 10 years without a single tax increase. However, Portman did state in the past that he would support defense cuts as “the Pentagon has to be part of the discussion.”

So if he's saying that, I'm guessing he's full of shit. I hope not, though.
 

mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
The stock market went up today, because the breaking news is Rick Perry will announce that he's running for President!!!!
 

Clevinger

Member
eznark said:
Tone, tenor, tempo. Not what he says, how he says it. Even there he wasn't flustered and kept his composure while being heckled. I'm sure you can find plenty of clips (just like with any politician) of flubs and misspeaks but in general, he is a very good orator.

I'll respectfully disagree. He sounded flustered and he even nervously laughed/grinned.

From what I've seen of Perry, he seems like a much better speaker. Or maybe I'm just a sucker for a Texas accent.
 

eznark

Banned
Clevinger said:
From what I've seen of Perry, he seems like a much better speaker. Or maybe I'm just a sucker for a Texas accent.

I've never claimed otherwise. I haven't heard much from Perry though.
 

ToxicAdam

Member
Puddles said:
It plays a part, but in 1990 the average price of a home was around $162k in today's dollars (adjusted for inflation). In 2006 it was around $262k. That's a price increase of 61%.

Over that same time period, the average size of a home went from 2,080 square feet to 2,469 square feet. That's only about a 17% increase in size.

So prices increased over 3.5 times faster than size did over that period of time.


I don't have a problem with your point, but you're comparing prices from a time of a recession ('90) to the height of a historic housing bubble (06) ... and you are using averages when we were talking in means.
 

Puddles

Banned
ToxicAdam said:
I don't have a problem with your point, but you're comparing prices from a time of a recession ('90) to the height of a historic housing bubble (06) ... and you are using averages when we were talking in means.

It was median, actually. I typed that out wrong.

This is the chart I used:

Also, it looks like they already adjusted for the size of the house in their calculations:

http://www.jparsons.net/housingbubble/

The above chart estimates the market value of today's median-priced house over a 40-year period, thus controlling for the fact that housing sizes have changed over time. The thick red line represents real house prices. For those unfamiliar with economic terminology, "real" prices are prices that have been adjusted for inflation. The thick blue line represents nominal house prices. The thin lines represent the pre-bubble (1970-1999) trend lines.

I didn't even see that the first time.

Anyway, housing prices need to drop even more before they're even close to being in line with what they should be for maximum sustainability and societal stability.
 

Credo

Member
ToxicAdam said:
Time to quit my job and become a day trader! Wooo instability!

Yeah, it seems to be pretty predictable at this point. At least the several days after the crashes seem that way.

The crash is like an earthquake and the Dow's movements from day to day is like a seismograph's reading from one second to the next.
 

mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
DeMint: Obama Administration The ‘Most Anti-American’ In My Lifetime
Brian Beutler | August 11, 2011, 11:25AM



demint-vvsummit3-cropped-proto-custom_2.jpg





Conservative power-broker Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) ran through his litany of complaints about President Obama on Janet Meffered's Christian conservative radio show Wednesday, and concluded that of all the anti-American administrations in his lifetime, Obama's is the most anti-American.

"We saw within a few days that this President was going to be heavy-handed, he was going to implement his agenda and pay back his political allies, and it just went on from there to ObamaCare and then to Dodd-Frank," DeMint said.

It has been the most anti-business and I consider anti-American administration in my lifetime. Things that are just so anathema to the principles of freedom, and everything he has come up with centralizes more power in Washington, creates more socialist-style, collectivist policies. This president is doing something that's so far out of the realm of anything Republicans ever did wrong, it's hard to even imagine.


Just in point of fact, Obama's health care law is modeled on the Massachusetts health care system, created by former Gov. Mitt Romney. Its success inspired DeMint to support Romney in the last Republican presidential primary. Dodd-Frank was a fairly bipartisan, if insufficient, effort to regulate Wall Street in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. And pretty much every significant thing Obama's done since then -- temporarily extending the Bush tax cuts, funding the federal government, raising the debt limit -- have been done on GOP terms, to end three different hostage crises, and passed with bipartisan support


####################


What in the hell? At some point shouldn't the GOP start to sorta live in reality? Or does it get worse from here?

And how do you calculate that the POTUS is anti-american in any time period?
 
mckmas8808 said:
What in the hell? At some point shouldn't the GOP start to sorta live in reality? Or does it get worse from here?

And how do you calculate that the POTUS is anti-american in any time period?
This isn't banal to you yet?
 

besada

Banned
Invisible_Insane said:
This isn't banal to you yet?

Yeah, the idea of getting worked up over anything DeMint says is a little bizarre. It's like being shocked that Bachmann said something stupid.
 

mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
Invisible_Insane said:
This isn't banal to you yet?


No because it keeps happening and there doesn't seem to be too much push back from people in general about it.

I was just listening to a Dallas sports radio show where they were killing Obama for a speech that he just gave like yesterday where he praised/thanked Muslim in this country and said that they were some of the 1st responders on 9/11 helping everyday Americans.

They were saying that this was one of the worse things to say. Especially since the GOP debates are tonight and 9/11 is coming up. They even said that our taxes are too high due to Obama and I was like WOW! It's like you can say anything in this country and people will automatically believe it.
 
mckmas8808 said:
No because it keeps happening and there doesn't seem to be too much push back from people in general about it.

I was just listening to a Dallas sports radio show where they were killing Obama for a speech that he just gave like yesterday where he praised/thanked Muslim in this country and said that they were some of the 1st responders on 9/11 helping everyday Americans.

They were saying that this was one of the worse things to say. Especially since the GOP debates are tonight and 9/11 is coming up. It's like you can say anything in this country and people will automatically believe it.
So you're saying that you haven't gotten used to ridiculous things... because they keep happening.

K.
 
A substantial amount of people in our country right now (ones who actually vote) take things people like DeMint and Bachmann say seriously. Sometimes if you let the things people like that say get repeated enough without pushback, they become truth in the eyes of many people and it kind of carries over to "independents" and people who don't pay much attention to these issues. Especially when they ALL repeat the same catch phrase when referring to something like the "Government Takeover Of Healthcare" or "Obamacare" or "We Don't Have A Revenue Problem, We Have A Spending Problem" ad infinitum.
 

mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
Invisible_Insane said:
So you're saying that you haven't gotten used to ridiculous things... because they keep happening.

K.


Did you NOT see the "and" in that same sentence? You know what "and" means right?
 
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