The Cruise (Description)

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I'm fairly sure you're either ignoring me or incapable of subjecting the government to scrutiny. Bad loans are bad for business because it's money they cannot expect to return to them at any time, but the government said "Make bad loans or we fine you" so they made bad loans.

No, I understood that. But they took advantage of it as well. Since they had to sell bad loans, they would sell it to other people as well and like I said before, say it was gold even though it was shit. The same loan would be sold over and over again in pieces. It may have STARTED with bad legislation, but it's greed that made it foster into an epidemic.

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That's actually a 6% overall tax increase, 2% of their total earnings, if those numbers are accurate. Over a long time-line, 6% plays pretty rough. Hell it'll probably continue to increase too.

And that's what liberalism is. A few suffer for the greater good of many. Assuming what was said in the campaign is correct, 95% of people benefit....and the other 5% have to pay for the rest. That's what liberals stand for, the rights of the group. Conservatives stand for the rights of the individual. I can't convince you otherwise, nor do I think I should, since I understand both viewpoints....It hurts the businesses in the long term, but helps the country in the long term as well.

Jay.J wrote:

Naw, apocalypse starts 2012, December 21st. Republicans are going to blame the democrats for it and be all "At least when Bush was in power we never got attacked, look what happened with the Dems in power" then 2013 January whatever, 21st? You're going to have a Republican in power again

Wait, what? When Bush was in power, we got attacked a lot, I thought, because he went to War on Terrorism. 9/11? What happened to that? lol

Jay.J wrote:

So you're saying the stimulus package is a bad idea? Maybe so. What would you do in place as a republican? Tax breaks? Ha, cause that's worked before....Why you guys even in the mess you are?

In times of prosperity it's probably better to do a fiscally conservative budget. Balance the budget blah blah blah. But in times of dire need, in times of recession...you need to spend. Overspending does it faster (Admittedly causing problems for future generations, but they would arguably have worse problems if the problem wasn't fixed to start with.) The only real criticism of the stimulus package I see is that the money isn't as efficient as some would like it to be in the actual job creation as some of the money doesn't come into effect for that for a year or two.

Seriously....Just look at the past. Tax breaks do NOT work. This may not either, but it at least has some track record (World war II) which WAS overspending. If WW II didn't happen and they had just made a bunch of factory jobs and created a bunch of missiles and tanks and guns and ammunition and blah blah, and just tossed it out - the economy would still have benefited. Almost everyone agrees that it was the WW that got you out of the depression. If you agree to that you can infer that it was the overspending. In the same manner you have to over spend, and at least get some good things out of it this time around to not only help the economy but to get some good programs/resources etc in place.

And seriously, ripping on him for going on Jay Leno? How much vacation days did Bush have? Going on a TV show doesn't mean you're not doing your job, and hell I would say it's part of your job. Seriously - you don't just work 24/7 as President....there's only so much you can do, and then you kind of just have to wait until what you did takes place, so you can then respond to the result.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Liberal > Conservative, or vice-versa. I'm saying that at different times, different things are better. Right now, set aside your conservative views - and realize that you guys have a broken party. Even though you have conservative views, realize that there is no one who will help fulfill those views. Bush is a bad example of conservatives since he actually expanded the government, since he actually went and interfered with other countries. He's pretty hypocritical. That and he's in a secret cult (Skull & Bones). I haven't seen a good conservative leader in my life time which is why I hold judgment. I'm pretty middle when it comes to politics, however find it sad for Republicans since they just don't have a good leader. McCain used to be good...but seems to have flip-flopped during the campaign from what he used to stand for. He went from a Maverick to a conformer IMO. Bush did bad for the Republican image...

Anyway - the point of that all is that even though Obama might not be doing the best job (Or because his very being liberal) realize that no one right now would breathe life into your views, and to realize that your conservative views aren't necessarily right to begin with. There's a reason that it's generally 50/50 between Liberal/Conservative with many people finding themselves in the middle. Because none of them are absolute in their being right...

Sorry for the wall-o-text.

I'm not saying the stimilus package is a bad idea...I'm saying that he's doing it completely wrong. He's completely ignoring small businesses that make up more than half the jobs of the U.S., and giving all the money to bigger companies. He's causing a huge inflation of money by printing so much, and spending it where it's not needed. Not only that, but the money is NOT being used, and is NOT helping the economy. Infact, as you said, for future generations, it's simply making it worse.

Oh sure, you get vacation days, but I think it's completely unnecessary to being doing that while we're in this much of a crap-hole. At least Bush wasn't going to Hawaii while we were being bombed at the World Trade Center.

I'm not even sure what Liberal/Conservative means. (looks up on Wikipedia)

(edit) There's like six million definitions of conservative...

(edit) I think I'm more of a liberal-conservative...

(edit) A few suffered for the better of everyone else? What happened to equal opportunity, equal rights?

Jay.J wrote:

No, I understood that. But they took advantage of it as well. Since they had to sell bad loans, they would sell it to other people as well and like I said before, say it was gold even though it was shit. The same loan would be sold over and over again in pieces. It may have STARTED with bad legislation, but it's greed that made it foster into an epidemic.

They didn't say they were gold even though they were shit, they packaged the bad loans with the good loans and sold them as a package. The fact that the bad loans were in there makes it easy for people to be mistaken about whether or not selling loans in packages is a bad thing. I'm still correct: If the bad loans were not issued, shit wouldn't have gone to hell. Quit blaming the evil banks and blame the fucking government, they did it.

Jay.J wrote:

And that's what liberalism is. A few suffer for the greater good of many. Assuming what was said in the campaign is correct, 95% of people benefit....and the other 5% have to pay for the rest. That's what liberals stand for, the rights of the group. Conservatives stand for the rights of the individual. I can't convince you otherwise, nor do I think I should, since I understand both viewpoints....It hurts the businesses in the long term, but helps the country in the long term as well.

It doesn't help the country in the long term. Lets say you have 20 people that go out to dinner every week. Suddenly someone named Obama mandates that even though 1 of those people already pays for most of the dinner, that one person now has to pay for the entire dinner, and give some money to the other 19 people as well. At some point, the dude stops fucking going out to dinner with those bums, and they get to go hungry.

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They didn't say they were gold even though they were shit, they packaged the bad loans with the good loans and sold them as a package. The fact that the bad loans were in there makes it easy for people to be mistaken about whether or not selling loans in packages is a bad thing. I'm still correct: If the bad loans were not issued, shit wouldn't have gone to hell. Quit blaming the evil banks and blame the fucking government, they did it.

Ahh, my mistake. I wasn't blaming the banks. I was saying that the government isn't the ONLY one to blame which you are definitely making it sound like. Everyone fucked up. The people who got the loans and knew they couldn't pay it, the people who bought and sold the bad loans and the government for making this situation arise. The problem stems from the government, and I SAID that. But the problem escalated because of greed, no?

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It doesn't help the country in the long term. Lets say you have 20 people that go out to dinner every week. Suddenly someone named Obama mandates that even though 1 of those people already pays for most of the dinner, that one person now has to pay for the entire dinner, and give some money to the other 19 people as well. At some point, the dude stops fucking going out to dinner with those bums, and they get to go hungry.

1. I said I wasn't going to try to argue and "Convert" you to be a liberal as that's just stupid. You can't argue generals and get anywhere. You can only look at specific situations. That, and I'm a moderate.
2. Your analogy is weak. This guy doesn't go from "most" to "all". The reasoning behind it is also bad. He doesn't want to pay for everyone else before "Obama" comes in anyway. Obama just makes him pay a bit more, not because he's an asshole....but because otherwise the 20 people that go for dinner won't be going out at all...they won't be able to chip in one what they normally do, all be it lower than the guy who pays for most of it. It would mean that the "night out" would suck since only 10 of them are around anyway. That, and one of the reasons the guy pays the most anyway is because he eats the most.

He eats the most? I don't see the rich people reaping government benefits from programs that are funded by tax dollars, which is what the "dinner" was in that analogy. The money that Obama wanted to give to all the taxpayers that already get all of their taxes back in their refund is the money that the 5% has to pay to the other people. I hope this clarifies the analogy for you.