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Politics : President Barack Obama -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RetiredNow who wrote (125934)	10/31/2012 10:15:35 PM
From: Sr K	Respond to of 149317

Hmmmm. An erroneous analysis, and it passed by you, who in your work do some kind of numbers analyses. The article says they multiplied the 0.1 + 0.7 growth in the government sector spending by an unknown to conclude that "Federal government spending rose at a 9.6% annual rate in the third quarter". We've been through part of this before, with the fake claims regarding GM. There is seasonality to some government programs, including budget years that end 6/30 in some cases and 9/30 in others. "Government" includes state, local and federal; it's not all federal. And you have to multiply 0.8 by 12 to get 9.6. So the article presents a quarter change and treats it like it's a 1-month change. If you did it right with the data in the article, the state, local, and federal sector increase for calendar Q3 was at an annual rate of 0.8*4 or 3.2%.

To: RetiredNow who wrote (125934)	10/31/2012 10:35:58 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 149317

As a follow-up on yesterday’s report on GDP from Consumer Metrics Institute, this came out today from the Mercatus Center, by Veronique de Rugy. I am sure all this “good” news was merely a coincidence. While government spending does count as “spending” it is not the same kind of spending that businesses and consumers do. Government creates nothing really. While roads and bridges and other infrastructure can be good for the economy, my sense is that this current spending isn’t that. According to CMI 30% of government spending was defense related. The rest, mostly transfer payments (welfare, social services, and other entitlements), comes from money we private citizens would have spent on productive things or from funds borrowed which will never be repaid but the interest payments will become a bigger drag on the economy and our descendants. According to de Rugy: Did you read this guy's conclusion..........its all ideology. Govt spends but its not that good. What BS. If gov't is hiring more teachers, why isn't that as good as a private company hiring more technicians? If people receive SS......money they funded when they worked.......... and spend it on food or clothes......why is that not as good as someone working for a private company and spending their salary on food and clothes. When did you Romneys get to be so much better than everyone else? You all need a serious attitude adjustment. No one died and made you all gods.

To: RetiredNow who wrote (125934)	10/31/2012 10:58:52 PM
From: TheBrit	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 149317

Good manners would dictate that you say thank you to Sr K for the education.

To: RetiredNow who wrote (125934)	11/1/2012 6:13:03 AM
From: ChinuSFO	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 149317

And you continue to favor Romney!!!! You think he will shrink the debt? Find out. ======================================== El Mundo, Spain A Businessman Should Not Be President By Pablo Pardo Where do things like pensions, unemployment, and museums fit into a company? How do you manage a country like a business? *Translated By Sara Hunter* 23 October 2012 Edited by Kathleen Weinberger Spain - El Mundo - Original Article (Spanish) One of the things that Mitt Romney repeats endlessly is, because he comes from the private sector, he knows how to create jobs and how to balance budgets. Both statements defy common sense. Let's start with the second claim. Romney is a businessman from the private equity sector. Private equity means taking debt to buy a company, then using the company to guarantee the debt as collateral – simply speaking, a mortgage. Private equity by DownloadNSave">funds are doing something that has not been done since the 1980s: taking still more debt, using this for the basis of companies, and distributing this money between the shareholders of the funds, like dividends. Experience in private equity is about how to create and manage debt in a way that earns shareholders money. In the process, this means reducing by DownloadNSave">payroll, selling units, and, if necessary, breaking up the company. This does not create many jobs. Additionally, there is a second argument against the idea that businessmen make successful politicians. Politics and business are two different things. When you manage a company, you are looking for ways to benefit your shareholders. Companies are dictatorships. Decision-making is done by the boss or by the shareholder. Employees do not vote for the CEO – that is done by the shareholders. Where do things like pensions, unemployment, and museums fit into a company? How do you manage a country like a business? Not to mention the idea of a country managed using the types of methods used by Bain Capital! Let's say that Romney takes out enormous debt on the United States and continues to split it among voters, and later sells the eleven U.S. nuclear aircraft carriers that the U.S. has to pay off this debt. Incidentally, what Romney has said about the Navy, about the country falling to levels below those of 1917 is untrue: in the world there are 12 nuclear aircraft carriers: 11 belong to the U.S., and one belongs to … France. Moreover, the U.S. now has more warships than it did under George W. Bush. Also among the assets liquidated are Yellowstone National Park and the Statue of Liberty. One last thing: let’s look at the performances of the three businessmen who became president in the last century: 1) Herbert Hoover, the architect of the Great by DownloadNSave">Depression. 2) Jimmy Carter, the architect of hyperinflation of the seventies. 3) George H. W. Bush, who had a minor recession. There was also a president who had a Masters in Business Administration (MBA) but had a very bad record as an entrepreneur: George W. Bush, that is, the architect of the Great Recession, the greatest crisis in the U.S. since … the Great Depression.

To: RetiredNow who wrote (125934)	11/1/2012 4:49:45 PM
From: ChinuSFO	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 149317

MM, I hope you haven't voted yet. And if you have you can always go back and vote at the polling place. At least here in CA, I did that once, It was a provisional ballot that they gave me and I had to sign a declaration/request to cancel my absentee vote. The reason I take the trouble to say this to you because of the great economic reports that came out in the past two days. You also saw that economic bellwether EXPE reported record earnings and today the best of the breed in the travel sector Priceline, sent their earnings report through the roof. They are up $64 AH. As I had indicated earlier that companies like these along with others such as FedEx and UPS reporting good earnings says that the economy is poised or already on the road to recovery. We don't need Romney or Obama for that. We need the American people and they have demonstrated that they are capable of determining their own future if they are provided an unimpeded path to do so by the Govt. Obama did that for them during his 4 yea tenure and the results are now showing.

To: RetiredNow who wrote (125934)	11/1/2012 6:42:23 PM
From: sylvester80	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 149317

BREAKING..GOP Suppressed Nonpartisan CRS Report On Tax Cuts For Wealthy (UPDATE) Posted: 11/01/2012 3:05 pm EDT Updated: 11/01/2012 6:14 pm EDT huffingtonpost.com The New York Times reported on Thursday that Senate Republicans applied pressure to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service (CRS) in September, successfully persuading it to withdraw a report finding that lowering marginal tax rates for the wealthiest Americans had no effect on economic growth or job creation. "The pressure applied to the research service comes amid a broader Republican effort to raise questions about research and statistics that were once trusted as nonpartisan and apolitical," the Times reported. Democrats in Congress, however, have resurfaced the report and published it in full. It can be read below. Republicans told the Times they had issues with the tone, wording and scope of the report, but they clearly objected most strongly to its findings, which undermine the governing fiscal philosophy of the party, that tax cuts for the wealthy will spur growth and benefit everybody. GOP officials told The Times that the decision by the CRS came after a cooperative discussion, but Democrats have suggested that the move is part of a broader effort by Republicans to squelch legitimate research that runs counter to their economic principles. The CRS report, by researcher Thomas Hungerford, concluded: The results of the analysis suggest that changes over the past 65 years in the top marginal tax rate and the top capital gains tax rate do not appear correlated with economic growth. The reduction in the top tax rates appears to be uncorrelated with saving, investment, and productivity growth. The top tax rates appear to have little or no relation to the size of the economic pie.However, the top tax rate reductions appear to be associated with the increasing concentration of income at the top of the income distribution. As measured by IRS data, the share of income accruing to the top 0.1% of U.S. families increased from 4.2% in 1945 to 12.3% by 2007 before falling to 9.2% due to the 2007-2009 recession. At the same time, the average tax rate paid by the top 0.1% fell from over 50% in 1945 to about 25% in 2009. Tax policy could have a relation to how the economic pie is sliced—lower top tax rates may be associated with greater income disparities. Rep. Sandy Levin of Michigan, the top Democrat on the Ways and Means Committee, demanded the CRS explain its decision. "The impartial research and advice provided by CRS experts informs and strengthens the work of Congress. However, this valuable role hinges on the impartiality of CRS analysts and their freedom from political pressure. As with other non-partisan institutions, subjecting CRS analysts to political considerations undermines the legislative process and the American people’s trust in it," Levin wrote in a letter to CRS. "Therefore I was deeply disturbed to hear that Mr. Hungerford’s report was taken down in response to political pressure from Congressional Republicans who had ideological objections to the report’s factual findings and conclusion." (Scroll down for Hungerford's response in the UPDATE.) The report is extensive, but the reasoning behind its conclusion is fairly straightforward. The richest Americans are the least likely to spend extra money they get as a result of a tax cut, and are more likely to save it or invest it offshore. Those on the lower end of the economic spectrum, meanwhile, are the most likely to spend transfer payments they receive from the government. A release by the Democratic Policy & Communications Center on Wednesday accused Republicans of attempting to bury the report because its "findings undermine a central tenet of Republican party orthodoxy on taxes." They included a copy of the original report, which is available below: CRS Report: Top Tax Rates UPDATE: 5:45 p.m. -- Thomas Hungerford, the CRS researcher who produced the report, told HuffPost that he stands by it. "Basically, the decision to take it down, I think The New York Times article basically got it right, that it was pressure from the Senate minority to take it down," Hungerford said. "CRS reports go through many layers of review before they're issued and as far as the tone and the conclusions go, people who specifically look at the writing and the tone said it was okay. So it's not going to be that and as I can tell you outright, I stand by the report and the analysis in the report." Hungerford said that he had never experienced suppression like this before, and he pushed back on the GOP argument that he had only looked at the effect of tax cuts in the year immediately following enactment. Regardless, he said, Republicans argue that tax breaks for the rich will bring an immediate benefit to the economy, so their criticism is inconsistent. "I checked out three years and then five years and found that no, it doesn't change the results or the conclusion of my paper. So in a way, I find it interesting that they keep talking about the need to lower the top tax rate in order to stimulate the economy now," he said. 'It sounds like they're being a little inconsistent here." Despite the pressure, Hungerford said he'll continue doing his job in a nonpartisan way. "I'm not going to change. My job is to do economic analysis on issues that the Congress is comparing and quite frankly, I'm going to continue doing that. That's my job," he said. The Times reported that Hungerford has given $5,000 this election cycle to Democrats. HuffPost asked if that biased his report in any way. "I leave any political baggage at the door when I walk into my office and pick it up on my way out. I'm there to provide help to members of both parties, which I do," Hungerford said.

To: RetiredNow who wrote (125934)	11/1/2012 8:03:52 PM
From: sylvester80	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 149317

Business Abandons Romney as Bloomberg and The Economist Endorse Obama By: Sarah JonesNovember 1st, 2012 Days before the election, the business community is abandoning Republican “businessman” Mitt Romney in order to endorse the Democratic incumbent President Obama. These are not ringing endorsements, but rather concern over Romney’s failure to make the math work and his hard turn to the right. In other words, Mitt Romney has finally managed to lose the faith and confidence of the one constituency that he was supposed to have locked up. The Mayor of New York and the founder/majority owner of Bloomberg News endorsed Obama today. Bloomberg said if the old Mitt Romney were running, he might have voted for him. But given Romney’s tack to the right, Bloomberg is endorsing the President for a second term. He concluded, “If he (Obama) listens to people on both sides of the aisle, and builds the trust of moderates, he can fulfill the hope he inspired four years ago and lead our country toward a better future for my children and yours. And that’s why I will be voting for him.” Bloomberg wrote: bloomberg.com “When I step into the voting booth, I think about the world I want to leave my two daughters, and the values that are required to guide us there. The two parties’ nominees for president offer different visions of where they want to lead America. One believes a woman’s right to choose should be protected for future generations; one does not. That difference, given the likelihood of Supreme Court vacancies, weighs heavily on my decision. One recognizes marriage equality as consistent with America’s march of freedom; one does not. I want our president to be on the right side of history. One sees climate change as an urgent problem that threatens our planet; one does not. I want our president to place scientific evidence and risk management above electoral politics.” President Obama responded by saying, “I’m honored to have Mayor Bloomberg’s endorsement. I deeply respect him for his leadership in business, philanthropy and government, and appreciate the extraordinary job he’s doing right now, leading New York City through these difficult days. “While we may not agree on every issue, Mayor Bloomberg and I agree on the most important issues of our time – that the key to a strong economy is investing in the skills and education of our people, that immigration reform is essential to an open and dynamic democracy, and that climate change is a threat to our children’s future, and we owe it to them to do something about it. Just as importantly, we agree that whether we are Democrats, Republicans, or independents, there is only one way to solve these challenges and move forward as a nation – together. I look forward to thanking him in person – but for now, he has my continued commitment that this country will stand by New York in its time of need. And New Yorkers have my word that we will recover, we will rebuild, and we will come back stronger.” The Economist endorsed Obama [ economist.com ] saying, “America could do better than Barack Obama; sadly, Mitt Romney does not fit the bill.” Yes, not exactly a ringing endorsement, but then that speaks volumes about Mitt Romney. They say Obama’s foreign policy could be better, but “Mr Obama has been a safe pair of hands.” They cite his healthcare achievement in addition to their view that his foreign policy is an achievement after spending the entire paragraph citing what’s wrong with it, “Even to a newspaper with no love for big government, the fact that over 40m people had no health coverage in a country as rich as America was a scandal. ‘Obamacare’ will correct that, but Mr Obama did very little to deal with the system’s other flaw—its huge and unaffordable costs.” politicususa.com