Originally posted by Star428
True. Getting their food stamps and welfare is most important thing to them. They don't care what the person who gets them for them has done.
Note that large numbers of people on both are working people, even full-time working people, just at low wage.
And do you know what happens if someone doesn't have food? They get food by whatever means they can, which is crime, which costs more than giving food in the first place.
Getting rid of 'em doesn't do anything useful, it does not save money, it doesn't make the country more stable, it doesn't encourage people to not-be-poor, it just punishes them for being poor.
Originally posted by Time-Immemorial
The democrat ticket will be Joe Biden/Julian Castro I'm betting money.
I'd vote for that.
Originally posted by psmith81992
Furthermore, the auto industry isn't "healthy", it's just not dying.
And dying would've probably cost a million jobs. Now it's in no danger of dying. That is significant.
As a result of the stimulus however, we got out of control inflation,
2009 and after have a lower inflation rate than 00-08.
a useless dollar, god awful purchasing power,
Everyone else's currency is doing worse their ours, rising the dollar's relative position.
further increase in debt (epic proportions under Obama administration),
Higher debt, yes, but not critical. Note that we are below historic max (talking percentage-of-GDP terms), we've been higher before. It's quite doable to knock it down from this level, and other countries have operated long-term with higher.
etc. It's almost like a ponzi scheme and I hesitate to fully blame Obama because Bush signed it into law first.
And the Bush Bailout was necessary to keep the economy from dying! We'd be at worse than the great depression without it.
In terms of reviving the economy, it slowed the epic fail.
It outperformed other methods and turned thing into a recovery.
We got lucky because as we suffered, the rest of the industrialized world suffered as well, so the damage was minimal.
Note how we recovered better than parts of the industrialized world who were hit less-bad than us at the start.
That's not luck, that's taking better action.
[b]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/did-the-stimulus-work-a-review-of-the-nine-best-studies-on-the-subject/2011/08/16/gIQAThbibJ_blog.htmlInteresting review of the studies done.
Nice article!
Let's go to the conclusion:
"As the descriptions above make clear, none of the studies are flawless. But while the optimistic studies do, in fact, support the conclusion that the stimulus worked, there is some reason to doubt that the pessimistic studies support the conclusion that it failed.
...
Using more plausible figures produces a significantly larger multiplier, meaning the package was more effective than the model initially suggested. Due to these issues, I’m inclined to believe that the preponderance of evidence indicates the stimulus worked."
NPR Planet Money: Why We Can't Bet On Elections?
Only marginally related, but very fascinating anyways. And I'd bet on the cat.
I'm thinking of taking an unpaid gig writing for a political blog. They're more about promoting informed voters than pushing the agenda of a single party - though they do allow opinion pieces - so it's not entirely partisan.
I do a fair amount of professional writing currently, and I have a standing rule that I won't do it unless I'm getting paid for it. I've made exceptions before, though, and it's usually when I'm trying to break into a particular genre or market. Political writing intrigues me. Not blogging so much, tbh, but things like speech writing. But I'm not sure if this would be a toe in the door, or just a non-starter.
But people always ask what your dream job is, like it's a goddamn soul mate or something. Realistically, I have about a dozen jobs that would be at or near the top of my list (that are at least plausibly attainable). And while it may not be at the absolute top, speech writer and/or communications guy for a big-time politician is pretty far up there. Something about that role fascinates me, because of all the social, political, and societal factors that affect decisions while you're still trying to stay true to your voice.
/srug
All good questions, and they're among those I expect to ask before taking on any writing duties. Apparently I'd get to pitch ideas though, so I wouldn't have a quota or anything. That kind of flexibility makes it a bit more appealing.
The dream job thing annoys me, because it's a persistent idea in our culture. Either in social settings or interviews, I've been asked what my dream job is far too many times.