Elections 2012: You must choose the lesser of two weevils

[5mn_Major]

Re: Elections 2012: You must choose the lesser of two weevils

Some of the proposed "solutions" will solve nothing and actually make the problem worse:[/url]

I'm not sure which of my proposed solutions youre talking about. The only real one I made was to make sure that we invest in US citizens ability to compete.

If you're inferring that I am recommending tax hikes on the rich to support that...everyone has to pay a bit. And believe me Eduardo's situation is very rare...how many rich folks walk away from US citizenship? He and Cat Stevens (and Cat's not rich). If anything, offshore accounts and headquarters need to be regulated.

In the end, tons and tons of capital is being generated overseas. The US needs to have the right team in place to go after it. Cutting the tools to make us competitive will result in the Indians/Chinese eating our lunch.

 

[FlagDUDE08]

Re: Elections 2012: You must choose the lesser of two weevils

The shift begins.

The progression for a party to get out of a cul de sac:

1. X is laughable.
2. X is dangerous!!!
3. X should be permitted under careful controlled conditions.
4. I have always wholeheartedly supported X.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/may/15/bush-policies-he-reviled-part-of-obamas-arsenal/

 

[FlagDUDE08]

Re: Elections 2012: You must choose the lesser of two weevils

I'm not sure which of my proposed solutions youre talking about. The only real one I made was to make sure that we invest in US citizens ability to compete.

If you're inferring that I am recommending tax hikes on the rich to support that...everyone has to pay a bit. And believe me Eduardo's situation is very rare...how many rich folks walk away from US citizenship? He and Cat Stevens (and Cat's not rich). If anything, offshore accounts and headquarters need to be regulated.

In the end, tons and tons of capital is being generated overseas. The US needs to have the right team in place to go after it. Cutting the tools to make us competitive will result in the Indians/Chinese eating our lunch.

Or, foster a competitive environment to combat those offshore accounts and headquarters. That's why companies are leaving. I mean, look at how Apple sets up corporate shop in Nevada to escape California's taxes.

 

[Priceless]

Re: Elections 2012: You must choose the lesser of two weevils

The larger picture is that the foreigners will do a service that Americans won't perform themselves for the same salary. Find me an engineer in the US who will perform finite element analysis 40 hours per week, 50 weeks per year for $20k salary and no benefits and then you will have a point.

Or make an iPhone for 10 cents an hour.

So is your solution to do away with the minimum wage, safety regulations, environmental standards etc and have the vast majority of Americans devolve into a third-world existence? Or to get the Indian and Chinese governments to impose those regulations on business and raise their citizen's standard of living?

 

[FreshFish]

Re: Elections 2012: You must choose the lesser of two weevils

So is your solution to do away with the minimum wage, safety regulations, environmental standards etc and have the vast majority of Americans devolve into a third-world existence? Or to get the Indian and Chinese governments to impose those regulations on business and raise their citizen's standard of living?

My guess is that his solution would be neither of those options.

"There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

 

[FreshFish]

Re: Elections 2012: You must choose the lesser of two weevils

I'm not sure which of my proposed solutions youre talking about. The only real one I made was to make sure that we invest in US citizens ability to compete.

I wasn't talking about your proposed solutions at all! I'm pretty well aligned with you on these matters.

I agree that everyone has to pay a bit more, and that we have to slow the rate of growth in spending (oh, how frustrating it is to try to talk sense with progressives! if you slow the rate of spending increase from 7% to 3% they call that a "cut" and howl to the moon....a 3% increase in spending is NOT a "cut" folks!)

 

[Priceless]

Re: Elections 2012: You must choose the lesser of two weevils

I wasn't talking about your proposed solutions at all! I'm pretty well aligned with you on these matters.

I agree that everyone has to pay a bit more, and that we have to slow the rate of growth in spending (oh, how frustrating it is to try to talk sense with progressives! if you slow the rate of spending increase from 7% to 3% they call that a "cut" and howl to the moon....a 3% increase in spending is NOT a "cut" folks!)

But ending a temporary tax cut is a tax increase, right?

 

[FreshFish]

Re: Elections 2012: You must choose the lesser of two weevils

But ending a temporary tax cut is a tax increase, right?

let's see, if your income is $50,000 this year and you paid $5,000 in income tax this year, and if your income is $50,000 next year and you pay $7,500 in income tax next year, are your taxes higher next year? If so, would the term "increase" be accurate?

now let's look at spending. if you spend $100,000,000,000 this year, and $107,000,000,000 next year, has your spending gone up? Now, if you spend $100,000,000,000 this year and $103,500,000,000 next year, has your spending gone up?

If the answers are yes, then wouldn't the term "increase" be accurate, and that the latter has merely increased less than the former?


C'mon, this isn't that hard, you can do it!




PS so eleven years is "temporary"? interesting......I hope you don't perform any "temporary" maintenance in our neighborhood!!

 

[Rover]

Re: Elections 2012: You must choose the lesser of two weevils

The larger picture is that the foreigners will do a service that Americans won't perform themselves for the same salary. Find me an engineer in the US who will perform finite element analysis 40 hours per week, 50 weeks per year for $20k salary and no benefits and then you will have a point. It's not a black-and-white question of whether Americans will or won't perform the service - if tech support paid $200k per year, Americans would be falling all over themselves to perform that service.

Lets dispense with the extremes. Would your company hire US based engineers for 40K a year plus benefits (say 30% on top of that so 52K a year). Mind you, these people don't have to be based in Manhatten. Hell, it sounds like you could hire people who would work from home.

Here's my take: The extra 32K per year for the 3 employees costs your company a whopping $96 grand for the entire year. Maybe that's a lot of money and maybe it isn't. Not sure about the size of your company. However, is that so much to ask to keep jobs in the US? Your company might even be able to weasel a tax break out of it to reduce costs even more. I think an unfortunate fad in American business right now is that you have to outsource jobs overseas or else you're screwing the shareholders. It would be nice to know just how much money is really being saved.

 

[Priceless]

Re: Elections 2012: You must choose the lesser of two weevils

let's see, if your income is $50,000 this year and you paid $5,000 in income tax this year, and if your income is $50,000 next year and you pay $7,500 in income tax next year, are your taxes higher next year? If so, would the term "increase" be accurate?

now let's look at spending. if you spend $100,000,000,000 this year, and $107,000,000,000 next year, has your spending gone up? Now, if you spend $100,000,000,000 this year and $103,500,000,000 next year, has your spending gone up?

If the answers are yes, then wouldn't the term "increase" be accurate, and that the latter has merely increased less than the former?


C'mon, this isn't that hard, you can do it!




PS so eleven years is "temporary"? interesting......I hope you don't perform any "temporary" maintenance in our neighborhood!!

The temporary tax cuts were supposed to have already expired, it's not my fault Congress extended them.

By your logic, if Wal*Mart has a sale on widgets that normally are $4.00 each but for two weeks they only cost $2.00, when the sale is over and the price goes back to $4.00 they raised prices by 100%!

 

[FreshFish]

Re: Elections 2012: You must choose the lesser of two weevils

but for two weeks

Two weeks is temporary, nine years (the original duration) was four Congressional elections...eleven years is five Congressional elections. The Bush tax cuts were not "temporary" so much as they had a "sunset" provision which is a different thing entirely. That's okay though, your emotion always trumps dispassionate logic because your intentions are so noble....since it allows you so conveniently to ignore that your blessed Democrat brethren / sisterhood had complete control of Congress from 2006 through 2010 and did nothing whatsoever to change the tax law that you suddenly now find so abhorrent; and it was they who extended the cuts in 2010 when they still had majorities in both houses of Congress.

 

[Priceless]

Re: Elections 2012: You must choose the lesser of two weevils

Two weeks is temporary, nine years (the original duration) was four Congressional elections...eleven years is five Congressional elections. The Bush tax cuts were not "temporary" so much as they had a "sunset" provision which is a different thing entirely. That's okay though, your emotion always trumps dispassionate logic because your intentions are so noble....since it allows you so conveniently to ignore that your blessed Democrat brethren / sisterhood had complete control of Congress from 2006 through 2010 and did nothing whatsoever to change the tax law that you suddenly now find so abhorrent; and it was they who extended the cuts in 2010 when they still had majorities in both houses of Congress.

Do you always agree with everything the Republicans do?

I'm sure you can explain how tax cuts that were enacted in 2003 were planned for a nine year period that ended in 2010. Sounds like some of that fuzzy math they use in Wisconsin.

 

[Bob Gray]

Re: Elections 2012: You must choose the lesser of two weevils

let's see, if your income is $50,000 this year and you paid $5,000 in income tax this year, and if your income is $50,000 next year and you pay $7,500 in income tax next year, are your taxes higher next year? If so, would the term "increase" be accurate?

now let's look at spending. if you spend $100,000,000,000 this year, and $107,000,000,000 next year, has your spending gone up? Now, if you spend $100,000,000,000 this year and $103,500,000,000 next year, has your spending gone up?

If the answers are yes, then wouldn't the term "increase" be accurate, and that the latter has merely increased less than the former?


C'mon, this isn't that hard, you can do it!




PS so eleven years is "temporary"? interesting......I hope you don't perform any "temporary" maintenance in our neighborhood!!

Remember, in the federal government, if you spent $100 million last year and asked for $107 million this year and only got $103.5 million this year, that's a $3.5 million cut according to federal accounting.

 

[5mn_Major]

Re: Elections 2012: You must choose the lesser of two weevils

Ahh...love the message boards.

I wasn't talking about your proposed solutions at all! I'm pretty well aligned with you on these matters.

I agree that everyone has to pay a bit more, and that we have to slow the rate of growth in spending (oh, how frustrating it is to try to talk sense with progressives! if you slow the rate of spending increase from 7% to 3% they call that a "cut" and howl to the moon....a 3% increase in spending is NOT a "cut" folks!)

But that's the problem, not just cuts but indescrimate cuts. Sure, cutting is pretty necessary...but cutting high value add (IMO education, technology infrastructure) is waay different than cutting something with a low return (IMO military). A big diff which does drive the long term competitive position of the US.

 

[Old Pio]

Re: Elections 2012: You must choose the lesser of two weevils

Some Congress race polling data. I believe the accepted term is "interesting."



I heard a POTUS story on the morning commute that highlighted the amount of money the Tea Party poured into the NE primary for Fischer. She is apparently a Christine O'Donnell type, with or without the coven, and her nomination could turn a Kerrey 50/50 seat into a 80/20 seat.

It's still very early but the Dems keep racking up these incremental advantages in Senate races that are usually associated with a party on the rise -- the sort of "luck" that precedes a good election night.

Purely inside baseball but my wife made the observation that in 2008 Republican staffers had their resumes circulating, while in 2012 Democratic staffers do not.

Can I have some of that 80/20? Or are you just passing gas? The 3 GOP candidates got about 2.5 times as many votes as Kerrey. He's been away from Nebraska for over a decade, in NYC no less, and Nebraska is more conservative now than when he left. Fisher's been sitting in the Nebraska unicameral since 2004. And your strenuous efforts to smear her with Christine O'Donnell are more the product of wishful thinking than any knowledge of her. Kerrey's got an uphill fight. Don't you doubt it for a moment.

As to your resume annecdote, maybe the Democrats are in the bunker, waiting for General Wenck to attack.

 

[Old Pio]

Re: Elections 2012: You must choose the lesser of two weevils

My personal opinion is that any nutjob can win in Nebraska. . However the point is a good one, which is until all these primary races are decided its a bit too early to start calling some of these contests. Who's scalp is next? Don't know, but I thinking Tommy Thompson in Wisconsin is really ripe for the picking. Can't get much more establishment than him. Plus he's even more middle of the road than Lugar. Florida, Arizona, etc - these primaries are yet to be decided and as we saw in Indiana (and Delaware last time) it doesn't take long for one of these candidates to catch fire.

You wouldn't know a cornhusker from a cornhole.

 

[Old Pio]

Re: Elections 2012: You must choose the lesser of two weevils

Droves of US business execs bow to Japanese every day. Its called cultural awareness.

Apart from the implausibility of you actually being there to see what "droves" of US businessmen do, is the little matter that the President of the United States is not a businessman and neither is HIM the Emperor. These men are heads of state and should follow the appropriate protocols. In the case of the president, this means no deep bowing, or genuflecting or hem kissing. So as usual, your analogy is totally wrong. But why should this observation be any more informed than your others?

 

[LynahFan]

Re: Elections 2012: You must choose the lesser of two weevils

Lets dispense with the extremes. Would your company hire US based engineers for 40K a year plus benefits (say 30% on top of that so 52K a year). Mind you, these people don't have to be based in Manhatten. Hell, it sounds like you could hire people who would work from home.

Here's my take: The extra 32K per year for the 3 employees costs your company a whopping $96 grand for the entire year. Maybe that's a lot of money and maybe it isn't. Not sure about the size of your company. However, is that so much to ask to keep jobs in the US? Your company might even be able to weasel a tax break out of it to reduce costs even more. I think an unfortunate fad in American business right now is that you have to outsource jobs overseas or else you're screwing the shareholders. It would be nice to know just how much money is really being saved.

Now you're just making stuff up. Entry level Mechanical Engineers in the US make $60K in salary (salary.com), not 40. And it's not whether it's $96k or whatever in absolute dollars for my company - the fact is that it's 5x less expensive per employee to hire the Indians. So it doesn't matter whether the company we're talking about is big or small.

Or make an iPhone for 10 cents an hour.

So is your solution to do away with the minimum wage, safety regulations, environmental standards etc and have the vast majority of Americans devolve into a third-world existence? Or to get the Indian and Chinese governments to impose those regulations on business and raise their citizen's standard of living?

My solution? To what problem?

 

[Priceless]

Re: Elections 2012: You must choose the lesser of two weevils

My solution? To what problem?

Oh sorry, I thought recognized outsourcing jobs to Asia was a problem.

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[FreshFish]

Re: Elections 2012: You must choose the lesser of two weevils

I'm sure you can explain how tax cuts that were enacted in 2003 were planned for a nine year period that ended in 2010.

The tax cuts were enacted in 2001 with various phase-in provisions. The 2003 law accelerated the phase-in period.

Many of the tax reductions in EGTRRA [the 2001 cuts] were designed to be phased in over a period of up to 9 years. Many of these slow phase-ins were accelerated by the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003 (JGTRRA), which removed the waiting periods for many of EGTRRA's changes.

The Bush tax cuts had sunset provisions that made them expire at the end of 2010

As my son would say, you've just been "owned."