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Nohea
Trad climber
Sunny Aiea,Hi
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Nov 28, 2010 - 04:04pm PT
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Skeptimistic
Mountain climber
La Mancha
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Nov 28, 2010 - 04:27pm PT
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is michelle obama's nether region referred to as the obama-bush ??
I don't know- is your wife's called the republi-
Edit- Sorry. That was out of line. But your's is completely out of line also.
Skip- anytime you want to meet for a beer without the buffer of an internet connection between us, I'm game.
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Nohea
Trad climber
Sunny Aiea,Hi
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Nov 28, 2010 - 05:07pm PT
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sadly in 2012 it will just be more of the same...
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philo
Trad climber
Somewhere halfway over the rainbow
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Nov 28, 2010 - 05:18pm PT
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Skipt take a break.
You are frothing.
Say something new and uninflamatory for a change.
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philo
Trad climber
Somewhere halfway over the rainbow
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Nov 28, 2010 - 05:23pm PT
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That was not a leak it was common knowledge.
I am on the side of Liberty and Justice not "might makes Right".
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Nohea
Trad climber
Sunny Aiea,Hi
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Nov 28, 2010 - 06:01pm PT
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you guys are on a roll, why such government infatuation?
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Nohea
Trad climber
Sunny Aiea,Hi
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Nov 28, 2010 - 08:29pm PT
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maybe I am wrong and we dew need the gov? Here's a great idea from the DHS!
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Bob D'A
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Nov 28, 2010 - 10:44pm PT
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Skip wrote: What a stupid game you play.
Skip
And look at the dumb sh#t who is more than happy to play along.
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HighDesertDJ
Trad climber
Swimming in LEB tears.
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Nov 28, 2010 - 11:14pm PT
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If Jewish isn't an ethnicity then neither is English, Italian nor Hispanic. That's got to be one of the silliest things ever written in this thread. There is a pretty clear line of Jewish heritage that would allow someone to be "half-Jewish." Hasidic Jews are even prone to certain genetic diseases that others are not.
Being "Jewish" is both an ethnicity AND a religion. That's not a particularly hard concept. Well, I guess not for most people.
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Jingy
climber
Somewhere out there
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Nov 29, 2010 - 11:01am PT
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philo - hey... that was a skipt quote. That the was way back when skipt was talking about being in/teaching "special forces"...
That question/statement was originally posted by skipt.
Go back to that date. Check that post by skipitty.
sorry for the confusion.
cheers.
But then again, this is yet another reason the repukes are so wrong on everything.
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Bob D'A
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Nov 29, 2010 - 11:16am PT
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Skip...if Obama does enter there it is also where you exit.
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philo
Trad climber
Somewhere halfway over the rainbow
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Nov 29, 2010 - 12:47pm PT
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And he is a wiser man.
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Nibs
Trad climber
Humboldt, CA
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Nov 29, 2010 - 04:21pm PT
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So the pissing match is alive and well...as the Titanic continues to take on water. Good for you all!
Check out what David Stockman, Reagan's budget director, has to say about our current fiscal insolvency:
http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/fareed.zakaria.gps/
plenty of blame to go around left or right over that last 30 years - but he is especially scathing regarding his own party's current policies, or lack thereof. take note of HIS numbers - the top 5%'s net worth in 1980 was $8 trillion; it is now $40 trillion. oh, but you neo-cons probably will write him off as a 'moderate' or RINO...yeah right.
Time to CUT spending and let the tax cuts for that 5% expire. We have no time to lose. Do some homework on the bipartisan deficit solution that Stockman notes is currently dead-in-the-water because of entrenched partisanship. write your congressman. Do something besides bicker!
Also the interview with Mike Mullen is informative, so don't pass that up.
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Ksolem
Trad climber
Monrovia, California
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Nov 29, 2010 - 05:14pm PT
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the top 5%'s net worth in 1980 was $8 trillion; it is now $40 trillion.
US GDP in 1980 = app 2.8 trillion
US GDP in 2010 = app 14.6 trillion
adjusted (real) $ from usgovernmentspending.com
As a part of GDP we see that the amount of $ concentrated in the top 5% has remained about the same since 1980. Both numbers have grown by a factor of about 5.
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Nibs
Trad climber
Humboldt, CA
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Nov 29, 2010 - 05:14pm PT
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whoa! thanks for the link!
the article and interview compliment one another so please check out both. Quit the useless bickering - let's get this ship moving again.
[edit] Ksolem; thanks -interesting, I was quoting his numbers as I remembered them from yesterday. perhaps I remembered incorrectly or perhaps everything is copacetic and I am chicken little.
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Jeremy Handren
climber
NV
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Nov 29, 2010 - 06:00pm PT
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Ksolem
your statement is misleading.
Almost all those gains were concentrated in the very top tier of earners. The income gains in the top 0.01% dwarf those of the remaining 4.99% of the top 5%. Furthermore even those numbers tell a skewed story because as we all know sheltering income is so much easier when you can hire a boatload of accountants and lawyers (not to mention Credit Suisse) to make some cash disappear.
I shudder to think what a truthful accounting of wealth concentration would really look like.
Thats the point, wealth has become extremely concentrated in America. The enormous productivity gains of the last 20 years have not produced any increase in wealth for the vast majority of American households. Furthermore, almost all of the gains in the last 40 years can be attributed to more workers per household, ie women entering the workforce.
You can try to put lipstick on that pig if you want, its certainly another nail in the coffin of supply side economics, so I can see why you would try and downplay the reality. More importantly, if the situation continues (or gets worse as appears likely) the long term consequences for America seem quite disturbing.
Its real, and its important.
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Nibs
Trad climber
Humboldt, CA
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Nov 29, 2010 - 06:28pm PT
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ok fat, got it.
I would be interested on your take of Stockman's article; John's too if he is lurking.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Nov 29, 2010 - 06:44pm PT
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"We interrupt your regularly scheduled flaming for this bulletin"
Are you one of the "confused, hypocritical or ideologically motivated" when it comes to Fed-bashing?
The Economist
Fed under fire
Political attacks on America’s central bank are misguided
Nov 25th 2010 | from PRINT EDITION
RARELY has a central bank been lambasted so loudly by so many. The Federal Reserve’s decision on November 3rd to start a second round of quantitative easing, or QE—printing money to buy government bonds—gave rise at first to loud protest abroad. A chorus of finance ministers accused America of wilfully pushing the dollar down. Now the Fed is under attack at home, as Republicans accuse it of fuelling asset bubbles and inflation (see article). Several want to narrow the Fed’s dual mandate to curb inflation and maintain full employment to a single goal of price stability.
Like any other policy, QE deserves scrutiny. Reasonable people can disagree about whether its benefits outweigh the risks. But too much of the cacophony of criticism is confused, hypocritical or ideologically motivated. Par for the course in policy matters, you may say. But by politicising or paralysing the technocratic Fed, it could have dangerous consequences.
Begin with the confusions. A common theme among the most vocal critics is that QE is some sort of voodoo monetary policy. That is nonsense. QE follows the same logic as standard monetary policy. In normal times central banks loosen monetary conditions by pushing down their policy interest rates. They do so by creating bank reserves (“printing money”) to purchase government bills temporarily. But today short-term rates are virtually zero. So the Fed wants to push down longer-term rates by buying longer-term government bonds. The approaches are not identical: rather than targeting a specific interest rate (the yield on ten-year Treasury bonds, say), the Fed has announced the total amount of bonds it intends to buy. But the principle is the same.
Chinese pots and American kettles
That is why the charge of currency manipulation is false. In countries with floating currencies, looser monetary policy often (though not always) results in a weaker exchange rate. But central banks that cut short-term interest rates are not routinely accused of deliberately driving their currencies down. Nor should the Fed be now. Yet one of its loudest foreign critics, China, has amassed $2.65 trillion of reserves to stop its exchange rate rising, while trying to keep a lid on inflation. If there is currency manipulation, it is in Beijing.
Confusion also shows in worries about QE’s effects. The Fed’s domestic critics sometimes says that it won’t work and sometimes that it will send inflation spiralling. Both are unlikely to be true at once. Prices will accelerate if the money created by buying bonds is put to use—but that would boost the economy. If the Fed’s strategy caused inflation, thus, it would do so because it was “working”.
More thoughtful sceptics worry that buying bonds won’t boost the economy much in the short term and that the Fed will find it hard to tighten policy later when the economy recovers. Granted, when people and companies are trying to save more and borrow less, monetary loosening is less effective than usual. Rather than rely only on the Fed, America would be better off with more short-term fiscal stimulus (coupled with a plan to cut the deficit in the medium term). But in the absence of that, QE still beats doing nothing. The economic weakness that justifies action today also makes it unlikely that prices will suddenly surge. The Fed has the tools to unwind QE. Its officials may prove too slow to use them, particularly if unemployment remains high. But the possibility of mistakes tomorrow is a poor justification for inaction today.
It is not just the substance of the criticisms that matter, it is also their source. By dragging the Fed into a political argument, Republicans risk undermining its effectiveness. Attacks on it may cow officials into acting less boldly than they otherwise would; even if that does not happen, financial markets’ uncertainty about the Fed’s ability to sustain the policy may make QE less effective.
Most developed countries have put their monetary policy in the hands of independent central banks for a good reason: technocrats are better at running it than elected officials are. The Fed is doing its job as best it can. QE may or may not help America’s economy. But putting political pressure on the Fed certainly won’t.
http://www.economist.com/node/17577128?story_id=17577128
"We now return you to your regularly scheduled nonsense"
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Nibs
Trad climber
Humboldt, CA
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Nov 29, 2010 - 07:13pm PT
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thanks FT, but he is not the only one hitting the panic button. By any chance have you read or seen interviews with Alan Simpson(r) and Erskine Bowles(d) like the one I posted a couple of weeks ago? Their dire warnings are similar. They have several proposals to cut spending and increase revenues; their ideas for restructuring the tax code seem radical but worthy of discussion.
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