US Election Discussion

I'm curious to know if we'll make any progress in these four years.

House of Republicans and Democratic President, again.

I'm curious to know if we'll make any progress in these four years.

House of Republicans and Democratic President, again.

My bet is we will. In any first term you have to play with things and make decisions that will make the public vote for you again. Second term is when the gloves come off. Even if the house attempts to wall him he'll just push back like he did with obamacare. That's my hope anyway.

No. Republicans still feel spurned about how they were out voted on the Affordable Care Act.

Whether Obama or Romney became president, neither president would be able to change the bipartisan hostilities between the two parties in the legislature.

"The law was the largest single legislative achievement of Mr. Obama’s first two years in office, and the most controversial. Not a single Republican voted for the final version, and Republicans across the country campaigned on a promise to repeal the bill. In January 2011, shortly after they took control of the House, Republicans voted 245 to 189 in favor of repeal, in what both sides agreed was largely a symbolic act, given Democratic control of the Senate and White House."

Obama wanted to end bipartisanship, however he ended up fortifying it in order to push legislation that he wanted to pass. He himself wasn't the type of person to schmooze the opposing party and try to wine & dine them in good graces. And he didn't. He had advisers and a team that had the ability to pull strings and get things done outside of Congress in order to get things passed inside Congress. However he himself wasn't the type of man for the job to bridge the gap despite him making many claims that he would end hostilities between the two parties and his actions increased an already existing divide (Frontline).

Let me rephrase. Progress can be done. Yes. But it will be by bypassing Congress through presidential powers, not by working with a Congress that remains fractured at the hip.

I voted for Obama, despite voting for McCain in the prior election since I believe in keeping the incumbent in office to keep the pace. The latest jobs report figures show growth and I want to see that remain there. I don't think that a volatile move such as switching Presidents would help in any shape or form. Although whether it would definitely hurt the markets is only speculative since a large portion of financial doing has to do with the The Federal Reserve, largely independent from the arms of the President and from government in general. 40 billion a month in mortgage backed securities has seen some increase in the house market it tanked due to the subprime mortgage crisis and investors are changing capital to capitalize on this change. I'm starting to believe that things are starting to click and now is not the time to kill the man behind any of the wheels. As economically talented as Mitt Romney is, I couldn't in good conscience elect him when he has flopped on so many issues. And as much as I wanted to abstract the economy as being the most important variable for voting, I felt that his aggressive mind (he's willing to flip to win) to push these reforms may have the possibility of tanking the growth we are seeing currently. I like the way things are now. I don't care for gay marriage or any of the other civil liberty pandering that goes on even though it may increase my taxes. I just want to keep a positive pace going. And I think a disillusioned Obama whose had his face mauled in by the ugliness that is Congress is a veteran of knowing how to play his cards in these times. An optimistic Mitt Romney who even though he has had his fair share of dreams being shattered, doesn't seem seem to effect tangible plans of execution with a divided Congress. There was a scene in which Mitt Romney took his wife for a talk that proceeded as follows:

"Ann obviously felt I was insulting her husband and indicated that I was by asking that question. And the rest of the people in the room were sort of taken aback and shocked. I know my friend Rich Schwarm left the room because he doesn't handle conflict very well, and he didn't want to be around to even see what would happen. Mitt just simply refused to talk about it, and Ann left the room and didn't join us for the rest of the evening meal."

This. And the 47% comment analyzed not for their content alone, but on the principal that Mitt simply lacks some pivotal social skills needed to win over big investors, senators, or any other number of people to bring big some plans into actions does not give me a good projection that this man will quickly come in and take effective reigns when it comes to bringing us up to pace after kicking out the democrats. How things actually pan out is of course speculative and the basis behind my conjectures can of course be counter-pointed to some point where Mitt showed poise in the Presidential Debates or in some gala meeting. Mitt seems to be a somewhat fractured man as do most Republicans coming out from their own primaries, this one ended up being a literal cesspool. One might make the joke that if I think Mitt is fractured, he'd be the man to understand a fractured Congress or even a fractured economy, however sadly Mitt hasn't shown that he can perform as a US President, so again I'll trust this incumbent to see where he goes and if he fails, then we can blame him for not properly taking the reigns of an economic upswing when he already had many cards already in place for his disposal. No excuses, only progress.

I went to bed early last night for a reason; if you noticed, I never once said I thought Obama was going to lose, just that he will be the cause of an inevitable world war. I'm not mad and I can't be disappointed when I already knew nobody paid any attention to anything resembling facts in this country. Nor do I think that the world will end on whatever date those Mayans said it would; it will be a few more years before it comes to that. Time to prepare for an interesting/terrifying 4 years, even if I'm wrong about that.

Let me rephrase. Progress can be done. Yes. But it will be by bypassing Congress through presidential powers, not by working with a Congress that remains fractured at the hip.

Bypassing an entire branch? That has got to be the worst...jesus. Listen, the only thing that separates us from a dictatorship, the ONLY thing, regardless of what people may think, is our three branch system. If you start bypassing it, it's a one way path to the end of this country. Relying on the decency of the president to not abuse his power is cute and all, but that's not how the world works; they will seize AS MUCH power as they can, regardless of who they are. It's not just Obama I'm saying this about, it is EVERY PRESIDENT IN THE HISTORY OF THIS COUNTRY.

The 47% comment analyzed not for their content alone, but on the principal that Mitt simply lacks some pivotal social skills needed to win over big investors, senators, or any other number of people to bring big some plans into actions does not give me a good projection that this man will quickly come in and take effective reigns when it comes to bringing us up to pace after kicking out the democrats.

It was a good comment stated terribly. I agree with you completely, though; he had no social skills and lacked the charisma necessary for the presidency.

@Flonne's second paragraph: I was thinking more about powers of the executive like the "line-item veto" that could be used to enact policy or actions. Not the "line-item veto" itself, but presidential powers along the lines.

@Flonne's second paragraph: I was thinking more about powers of the executive like the "line-item veto" that could be used to enact policy or actions. Not the "line-item veto" itself, but presidential powers along the lines.

Ah, that's more reasonable. They bundle so many things into those goddamn bills; a prime example is 6464, which I posted yesterday. The first page is all hot button issues that people in the senate will be paying attention to, then when you flip to the second page on, suddenly it's a bunch of pomegranate like "1% tax on all electronic transactions" and "after 2013, a 3% tax on all houses sold". Those things need to GO, regardless of the content of the main segment of the bill; they do not belong, they do not fit with the rest of the bill, they should not be bundled with it.

Okay, so as the election celebration starts, I just wanted to know this from everyone who cares:


do you think Puerto Rico will become the 51st state, become independent, or remain a territory?

Puerto Rico voted to become a U.S. State.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puerto_Rica...codecide-7
http://resultados.puertoricodecide.com/2...scito.aspx
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-20238272

Great, now we're going to have an awkward flag.

Like a boss

Bypassing an entire branch? That has got to be the worst...jesus. Listen, the only thing that separates us from a dictatorship, the ONLY thing, regardless of what people may think, is our three branch system. If you start bypassing it, it's a one way path to the end of this country.

I know what you are saying, but I think it has more to do with Federalism as a whole rather than just the three-branch system.

Btw, dictatorships tend to not be capitalist societies, so that is another way that the US is not like a dictatorship.

dictatorships tend to not be capitalist societies, so that is another way that the US is not like a dictatorship.

To that I would simply say this; every day that this man is in office is taking us further from capitalism. Our free market is dying.

To that I would simply say this; every day that this man is in office is taking us further from capitalism. Our free market is dying.

Yes because leaving the market to its own devices clearly works all the time, like it did in 2007-2008.

I don't think he's anti-capitalism. I'm not sure what you're implying here.

Great, now we're going to have an awkward flag.

Yes because leaving the market to its own devices clearly works all the time, like it did in 2007-2008.

You are missing so many fundamentals to your understanding of how marketplaces actually work that even giving a full explanation on why that is so terribly incorrect would do nothing for you until you learned the core workings of it first. If you think -I- think that having a Republican Congress/President automatically make the free market free, you are also mistaken; it has been quite a long time since our market was truly being utilized correctly.

Markets, when working CORRECTLY, are supposed to work like a bipolar person off of their meds, and that is why so many people don't understand them. The REAL key to making money off of the market is not to stop or even hinder the downswings (the recessions and depressions, you know), or to even help/coax the upswings. The real key is to learn the signs of the market, put your money in when you think it is going up, and take it out when it is going down. People WILL go bankrupt from the market if they do it incorrectly, just like people WILL become millionaires and billionaires off of it if they do it correctly. There is some luck involved, but if you diversify properly, there is very little chance of actually destroying your life; the people that do, they used it wrong and deserve to have lost all of their money. We should not be helping people back onto their feet when the market screws them. Leave them where they lie, that's where they belong, they deserve no sympathy and they should have known the risks beforehand. Money isn't just paper to be flung around every which way, you have to think before you use it.

The government should have NOTHING to do with the market.

NOTHING. The market should regulate ITSELF, 100% of everything about the market should be self regulated. The absolute ONLY time the government of any country should step in is in the event that substances illegal in said country are being marketed; in that case, even then, the government should only be allowed to cut off that stock from their country's market, nothing more and nothing less. I know bleeding heart types don't like being told that something when it's at its most efficient will DEFINITELY destroy some people's lives, but that's how it is.

I think there's some regulation that needs to happen. I don't think the market and the people in it are capable of regulating themselves. If they are, they're not doing it very well.

And please don't use the "If they had less governmental influence, they could regulate themselves better" argument. They've obviously fucked up in some areas, and to me, that says that SOME regulation is needed. Do we need ALL the current regulation? Probably not. Are there areas in which we could use MORE regulation? Quite possibly.

You are missing so many fundamentals to your understanding of how marketplaces actually work that even giving a full explanation on why that is so terribly incorrect would do nothing for you until you learned the core workings of it first. If you think -I- think that having a Republican Congress/President automatically make the free market free, you are also mistaken; it has been quite a long time since our market was truly being utilized correctly.

Markets, when working CORRECTLY, are supposed to work like a bipolar person off of their meds, and that is why so many people don't understand them. The REAL key to making money off of the market is not to stop or even hinder the downswings (the recessions and depressions, you know), or to even help/coax the upswings. The real key is to learn the signs of the market, put your money in when you think it is going up, and take it out when it is going down. People WILL go bankrupt from the market if they do it incorrectly, just like people WILL become millionaires and billionaires off of it if they do it correctly. There is some luck involved, but if you diversify properly, there is very little chance of actually destroying your life; the people that do, they used it wrong and deserve to have lost all of their money. We should not be helping people back onto their feet when the market screws them. Leave them where they lie, that's where they belong, they deserve no sympathy and they should have known the risks beforehand. Money isn't just paper to be flung around every which way, you have to think before you use it.

The government should have NOTHING to do with the market.

NOTHING. The market should regulate ITSELF, 100% of everything about the market should be self regulated. The absolute ONLY time the government of any country should step in is in the event that substances illegal in said country are being marketed; in that case, even then, the government should only be allowed to cut off that stock from their country's market, nothing more and nothing less. I know bleeding heart types don't like being told that something when it's at its most efficient will DEFINITELY destroy some people's lives, but that's how it is.

Sounds like you'd appreciate the Gilded Age.

You are missing so many fundamentals to your understanding of how marketplaces actually work that even giving a full explanation on why that is so terribly incorrect would do nothing for you until you learned the core workings of it first. If you think -I- think that having a Republican Congress/President automatically make the free market free, you are also mistaken; it has been quite a long time since our market was truly being utilized correctly.

Markets, when working CORRECTLY, are supposed to work like a bipolar person off of their meds, and that is why so many people don't understand them. The REAL key to making money off of the market is not to stop or even hinder the downswings (the recessions and depressions, you know), or to even help/coax the upswings. The real key is to learn the signs of the market, put your money in when you think it is going up, and take it out when it is going down. People WILL go bankrupt from the market if they do it incorrectly, just like people WILL become millionaires and billionaires off of it if they do it correctly. There is some luck involved, but if you diversify properly, there is very little chance of actually destroying your life; the people that do, they used it wrong and deserve to have lost all of their money. We should not be helping people back onto their feet when the market screws them. Leave them where they lie, that's where they belong, they deserve no sympathy and they should have known the risks beforehand. Money isn't just paper to be flung around every which way, you have to think before you use it.

The government should have NOTHING to do with the market.

NOTHING. The market should regulate ITSELF, 100% of everything about the market should be self regulated. The absolute ONLY time the government of any country should step in is in the event that substances illegal in said country are being marketed; in that case, even then, the government should only be allowed to cut off that stock from their country's market, nothing more and nothing less. I know bleeding heart types don't like being told that something when it's at its most efficient will DEFINITELY destroy some people's lives, but that's how it is.

Not only did you disregard my point while bringing up several different topics out of nowhere, but you also assumed things about my knowledge of economics. Shame on you sir.

Fortunately, part of being in this country means you have freedom of speech. So you are entitled to say whatever you want, no matter how outlandish, random, or bat-s'hit insane it is.

I know all about the economy guys.

[video=youtube;SvSJY3Xiwdg]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvSJY3Xiwdg[/video]
[video=youtube;wz-PtEJEaqY]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wz-PtEJEaqY[/video]

I brought your knowledge of economics into question, yes. It's fine though, you can call it crazy if you want, because like you said, this country was founded on freedom of speech, and people can say whatever they wish, "no matter how outlandish, random, or bat-s'hit insane it is.". I realize I'm not taken very seriously here, since the large majority of you guys have a pretty liberal bias and probably see mine as more conservative (though it's not on most issues, I just happen to overlap with them on economics and a small handful of other issues), but not being afraid to speak my mind even if absolutely nobody agrees with me on certain issues is pretty much all I have in life; I realize you aren't actively trying to dissuade me from posting, so don't take it like that, by the way. Honestly though, I feel like in a community where many don't agree with me, what I say actually has the best chance to persuade at least SOMEBODY to my way of thinking; doesn't even have to be total persuasion, everybody has their own base set of ideals that nobody else's opinion will affect, after all.