Moar goodies from that Republican autopsy thing:
Let us emphasize: these are things that a majority of younger REPUBLICANS believe are GOOD things.
If you agree with all these things then why bother identifying as Republican at all?
Moar goodies from that Republican autopsy thing:
Let us emphasize: these are things that a majority of younger REPUBLICANS believe are GOOD things.
The big thing that pisses me off about Wisconsin is mainly just the recent politics. People are too split and die-hard, and there are a lot of just nutso Republicans around now. It's like they came out of the woodwork and decided to scream at the top of their lungs every chance they get. It felt like before Walker yeah we had republicans, but they voted their mind and then kind of did their own thing and so yeah whatever we disagree but that's cool. Now it's just unbearable in places. That's pretty much the big thing I dislike about Wisconsin now. Everyone used to be pretty friendly to most everyone. Now it all feels so hostile.
I think part of it is as people get older and build a family they become more fiscally conservative. And that steers them more towards the GOP. But for me, it seems the GOP is just a crazy in their financial policies as they are in their social policies.
No one else has followed up on this, so I'll bite. What was all that stuff about asian immigrants superperforming and going from there into how all the other poor people need to bootstraps not mah hard earned money rawr? Looked a lot like a political conversion in progress, not that Poe's Law hasn't hoodwinked me many times before.
Me said:First off yes that thread was a troll thread, well sort of. I was curious about the topic of what tends to make people poor in America, I was going to make it a serious topic but I realized that people probably wouldn't care about it. I thought of doing the Linux effect. Basically if I were to make the thread and take it seriously I would only get two or three replies. However if I said something like "poor people are dumb" or "poor people deserve to die" I would get a shit ton of responses, which is what happened. This may sound embarrassing but I'm young enough to the point where I have never truly lived on my own (pay rent, utilities, etc.) so I'm not sure how hard it is to "make it" for the average person in real life. I admit though that much of it was because I was bored and felt like giving people a rise so I made it a troll topic. For that I apologize and its something I won't do again.
In terms of my ideology. I use to be a socialist when I first came to this board. I believed that workers should own their businesses, people should be paid equal, a majority of the economy should be nationalized, etc.
Anyway upon further researching I found that social mobility isn't as rare as I thought it was. A big reason why I supported far left politics is because I felt that people moving from one social class to another was very very rare. It wasn't until I did research that I found out that it was more common than I thought. There is also of course the Asian immigrants. I assumed that most of the original immigrants from 70s and 80s came here with money, connections, and or experience like most Asian immigrants today. This wasn't true for many and this resulted in a vast majority of these people working their way out of poverty. Its rare and not realistic for most but it shows that it IS possible. I know people commented that I have a weird "fetish" for this but I think I always go back to it because this was a turning point in my viewpoints.
So many of people who identify as republicans say sound things, yet they elect the most unreasonable, far right candidates.
Show you're reasonable people by electing reasonable candidates. Until then, your "reasonable" policy stances are bullshit, since the people you're electing don't hold those views.
Moar goodies from that Republican autopsy thing:
Let us emphasize: these are things that a majority of younger REPUBLICANS believe are GOOD things.
Moar goodies from that Republican autopsy thing:
Let us emphasize: these are things that a majority of younger REPUBLICANS believe are GOOD things.
they sound like democrats
Future Democrats, obviously.
Fox News host Bill OReilly on Tuesday night got into a tussle with two spokeswomen for a college GOP report that outlines why Republicans lost the youth vote in November, asking why the party should care about a bunch of kids who dont know anything.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/06/bill-oreilly-pans-college-gop-report-92267.html#ixzz2VT3VGn6K
Rush and Fox News have failed the younger generation.
Also, I was scouting the right-wing sites reporting about Biden making that Strom Thurmond joke, and wouldn't you know it? Seems everyone's mad that Biden's speaking ill of the dead. LOL.
Rush and Fox News have failed the younger generation.
Also, I was scouting the right-wing sites reporting about Biden making that Strom Thurmond joke, and wouldn't you know it? Seems everyone's mad that Biden's speaking ill of the dead. LOL.
I swear, it's a real-life Onion article every day.
i mean, do they think they are republicans because their parents are? Unless they are single issue pro life voters?
There's plenty of polling out there that shows many voters who don't generally like the Democrat Party, do in fact like Democrat policies. Obamacare is a great example of this.
Also too, regarding that same report: Bill O'Reilly asks "Why should the Republican Party care about a bunch of kids who dont know anything?"
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/06/bill-oreilly-pans-college-gop-report-92267.html#ixzz2VStrFPyQ
"we can't win the youth unless we're cool"
O'Reilly dismisses the youth vote as basically idiots who just want to vote for someone cool.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...g-adults-want-obamacare-lets-ask-aaron-smith/About 19 million young adults 18 to 34 lack health insurance. Our polling shows that less than 5 percent of young people choose not to have it. The number one reason they dont have it is the cost. Most young people dont qualify for Medicaid right now even if they have very low incomes because most states just dont give childless adults Medicaid. Thats one of the biggest changes under Obamacare. If every state expanded Medicaid, about 8 million would qualify for Medicaid. Another 9 million would qualify for subsidies because they make less than 400 percent of poverty.
Klein: So then 17 of the 19 million uninsured young people are, in theory, eligible for either subsidies or Medicaid under Obamacare?
Thats right. Its a pretty phenomenal percentage. So if we do our jobs right, young people will be one of the biggest winners in the health-care law.
They really put too much faith in "kids only vote for cool". John Kerry could hardly be considered cool but still won the 18-29 demographic two election cycles ago.
So 90% of uninsured young adults could conceivably get affordable health insurance if every state expanded.
But Avik Roy told me all those rich young people would have to pay more for insurance!
Can you post the link? TF quotes huge articles but doesn't post the link, don't you start doing it too!
If you agree with all these things then why bother identifying as Republican at all?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...g-adults-want-obamacare-lets-ask-aaron-smith/
So 90% of uninsured young adults could conceivably get affordable health insurance if every state expanded.
But Avik Roy told me all those rich young people would have to pay more for insurance!
Cultural/Cafeteria Republicans, hah
Curious, the subsidies are a great thing, but what's to stop insurers from jacking up premiums under the rationale that people will still be able to afford it cause of the subsidies?
Curious, the subsidies are a great thing, but what's to stop insurers from jacking up premiums under the rationale that people will still be able to afford it cause of the subsidies?
Curious, the subsidies are a great thing, but what's to stop insurers from jacking up premiums under the rationale that people will still be able to afford it cause of the subsidies?
If you agree with all these things then why bother identifying as Republican at all?
Competition. 13 companies are selling. If 12 jack up rates, all one has to do is lower it and get all the clients.
I don't know much about the law so someone else would have to speak on it, but there might be caps on how much it could be raised in a year. Remember all those people also getting refunds this year because of a part of the law?
Hasn't worked before.
Cultural/Cafeteria Republicans, hah
Hasn't worked before.
Man: I think I have a coldthey have to spend 85% on actual care.
I don't like that term, Republicans use it to describe fucking everybody to the left of Michele BachmannI prefer the term RINO personally.
Only one letter away from rhino.
First off yes that thread was a troll thread, well sort of.
In terms of my ideology. I use to be a socialist when I first came to this board. I believed that workers should own their businesses, people should be paid equal, a majority of the economy should be nationalized, etc.
Anyway upon further researching I found that social mobility isn't as rare as I thought it was. A big reason why I supported far left politics is because I felt that people moving from one social class to another was very very rare. It wasn't until I did research that I found out that it was more common than I thought. There is also of course the Asian immigrants. I assumed that most of the original immigrants from 70s and 80s came here with money, connections, and or experience like most Asian immigrants today. This wasn't true for many and this resulted in a vast majority of these people working their way out of poverty. Its rare and not realistic for most but it shows that it IS possible.
I'd say of all the main GOP presidential candidates for President, Romney and McCain were the most moderate out of Cain, Perry, Bachmann, Paul, and Santorum.
It doesn't make the GOP reasonable, but I think they did the best with the hand that they were dealt lol.
Although Jon Huntsman would have been a candidate I could have considered voting for.
I don't like that term, Republicans use it to describe fucking everybody to the left of Michele Bachmann
FBI, NSA tapping into internet companies: http://www.washingtonpost.com/inves...0c0da8-cebf-11e2-8845-d970ccb04497_story.html
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I an article I read recently, I can't remember where - might have been Wonkblog - noted it's already working on the exchanges. In one of the exchanges (I want to say Oregon), the premiums submitted by the insurance companies were clumped in a tight range - with one company undercutting them. The other insurance companies looked at that, and asked to re-submit their premiums at lower rates to be more competetive, otherwise everyone picking insurance on the exchange would have gone with the other company. The article was about ways the exchanges were already working, before even opening up.
I'll try to find the article tonight if no one digs up a link by then.
FBI, NSA tapping into internet companies: http://www.washingtonpost.com/inves...0c0da8-cebf-11e2-8845-d970ccb04497_story.html
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Training materials obtained by the Post instruct new analysts to submit accidentally collected U.S. content for a quarterly report, “but it’s nothing to worry about.”
Well, I can only speak on Cali, but there wasn't competition here. Only 3 firms could compete. Yeah, there's like a small amount in the individual market that others compete in, but it's pretty insignificant when most capture roughly 1% of the market.
With 3 firms, you're at a near duopoly (when you profit maximize in a system with homogeneous products, which we have in health insurance in Cali, the number of firms makes a big difference, and 3 firms puts us no where near the competitive price and is fairly well between the monopoly price and that one).
But with 13 firms, theoretically it should change. That's one of the arguments behind it made by the Obama admin. Firms that were never in the individual market in Cali prior are now in the exchanges. There will be an issue of name recognition, but if these smaller known companies can combine to take an increasing hold on the individual market so that the big 3 are much lower than the 85% of the market they now control, competition would make a difference.
I'm not sure how it will play out because Anthem and blue shield are household names. But we'll see. Now, if Obamacare capped the marketshare a company could have...
The problem is that you still need a lot more trust in an insurance provider than you do most products. It's not like it's cheap enough you can take a risk like with trying out a generic brand soda or a no name HDMI cable manufacturer, and it's not like a car purchase where you can at least try it out and see what you are actually getting before you buy it.
You're basically paying a ton of money now on hopes that at some point in the future you will get a good service. It's really hard to take that risk on a no name company that nobody else uses. Even if it is literally the only insurance you can afford, its easy to say you don't want to waste money on it and just hope the government covers for you when you need it at some point, because in the end the brand is about the only thing that you can reasonably go off of.
It's possible the brands will compete on price between each other, but I still don't see the smaller companies standing a chance.
It's always possible. The problem is it isn't probable. The graph you linked makes it pretty clear where the problem lies. The middle three quintiles have a fairly flat distribution of outcomes, but if you start poor, you're not likely to get much higher, and if you start rich, you're gonna stay rich.
More to the point, even if it is possible to grind your way out of poverty through determined toil, why should we as a society tolerate it? Why would we even want people to live such hard lives? We have more than enough resources to ensure that everyone can have a place to live, food to eat, health care, and access to commerce. That we can even entertain the notion that poverty is somehow necessary to motivate people into working harder is vile and shameful. That last bit isn't necessarily directed at you, it was an appalling free market fundamentalist idea from another thread. But if you're implying that you're no longer as supportive of social support policies because you've read about a group of impoverished people who managed to make it, you're headed down that road.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/06/richard-galanti-wages_n_3396101.htmlCostco is one of the few bargain retailers to see success in recent months, and according to one executive, it could be even more profitable. If only the company weren't so committed to paying workers a decent wage.
Could Costco make more money if the average wage was $2 or $3 lower? Richard Galanti, Costcos chief financial officer, mused in an interview with Businessweek. The answer is yes. But were not going to do that.
The big box store most famous for its stockpiles of toilet paper and $1.50 hot dogs also has a reputation for paying its workers a higher wage than most of its competitors. The average Costco worker made about $45,000 per year, Fortune reports. By comparison, Walmart-owned Sams Club, a Costco competitor, pays its workers $17,486 per year, according to salary information site Glassdoor.com.
Whats more, Costco has continued to pay its workers decently even in the face of pressure to stop. Ever since the company went public in 1985, Wall Street investors have urged Costco executives to lower wages and cut health benefits, which are also relatively generous, according to Businessweek. Instead, the companys former CEO and co-founder gave workers a raise every three years.
Costcos insistence on treating its workers well hasnt come at the expense of the companys bottom line. The retailers profit jumped 19 percent to $459 million last quarter, while Walmarts sales suffered during the same period.
Costcos insistence on treating its workers well hasnt come at the expense of the companys bottom line. The retailers profit jumped 19 percent to $459 million last quarter, while Walmarts sales suffered during the same period.
Technically it's comparing Costco's profits to Walmart's sales. How did Walmart's profits do in the last year?
It appears immigration reform talks in the House have collapsed because of the GOP's hatred for Obamacare.