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Romney's Attempt to Sell Snake Oil
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Oct 5, 2012 02:52:34   #
Bmac Loc: Long Island, NY
 
singleviking wrote:
.......I'm not saying everything has gone well during the past administration, but at least it hasn't gotten us into another war front or supporting another hostile regime somewhere in the middle east.


Wasn't Libya a war front? We are supporting the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt to the tune of over a billion dollars and they seem a bit "hostile."

singleviking wrote:
All of the loans to the auto industry have been repaid.


Really?

"Right now, the federal government owns 500,000,000 shares of GM, or about 26% of the company. It would need to get about $53.00/share for these to break even on the bailout."

The above is from here: http://www.forbes.com/sites/louiswoodhill/2012/08/15/general-motors-is-headed-for-bankruptcy-again/

Right now the stock is worth $24.65, if anyone wants to do the math be my guest. 8-)

Reply
Oct 5, 2012 02:56:38   #
Bmac Loc: Long Island, NY
 
singleviking wrote:
We had a good shot at being solvent during the Clinton years if things kept going but with the advent of 2 wars and the banking catastrophy when Glass-Steigle was revoked, we were bound for disaster and fiscal catastrophy.


Uhm, I believe Glass-Steigle was revoked during the Clinton Administration. Clinton may have even referred to it as "antiquated." Not sure though, so correct me if I am wrong. 8-)

Reply
Oct 5, 2012 03:01:25   #
Bmac Loc: Long Island, NY
 
RixPix wrote:
I think that President Obama played it cool on purpose.....


Yep, I think you are right RixPix, that and a slight case of altitude sickness. 8-)

Reply
 
 
Oct 5, 2012 03:02:38   #
Blurryeyed Loc: NC Mountains.
 
Bmac wrote:
singleviking wrote:
.......I'm not saying everything has gone well during the past administration, but at least it hasn't gotten us into another war front or supporting another hostile regime somewhere in the middle east.


Wasn't Libya a war front? We are supporting the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt to the tune of over a billion dollars and they seem a bit "hostile."

singleviking wrote:
All of the loans to the auto industry have been repaid.


Really?

"Right now, the federal government owns 500,000,000 shares of GM, or about 26% of the company. It would need to get about $53.00/share for these to break even on the bailout."

The above is from here: http://www.forbes.com/sites/louiswoodhill/2012/08/15/general-motors-is-headed-for-bankruptcy-again/

Right now the stock is worth $24.65, if anyone wants to do the math be my guest. 8-)
quote=singleviking .......I'm not saying everythi... (show quote)


That's not even the half of it, the Obama administration allowed GM to carry about 30 billion in tax credits through the bankruptcy, which is against federal bankruptcy law for any other corp as it should have been discharged in the bankruptcy so all told GM is looking like it got a gift of somewhere around $45 billion from the taxpayers...

Not a bad deal for GM, kinda sucked for the taxpayers

Reply
Oct 5, 2012 05:48:31   #
madcapmagishion
 
Blurryeyed wrote:
That's not even the half of it, the Obama administration allowed GM to carry about 30 billion in tax credits through the bankruptcy, which is against federal bankruptcy law for any other corp as it should have been discharged in the bankruptcy so all told GM is looking like it got a gift of somewhere around $45 billion from the taxpayers...

Not a bad deal for GM, kinda sucked for the taxpayers


Another fine example of Obama thinking he and his cronies are above the law, by by allowing that to happen!

Imperial Obama
Imperial Obama...

Reply
Oct 5, 2012 11:01:32   #
Hunter Lou 1947 Loc: Minnesota
 
singleviking wrote:
Richard,
I'm not saying everything has gone well during the past administration, but at least it hasn't gotten us into another war front or supporting another hostile regime somewhere in the middle east.
All of the loans to the auto industry have been repaid.
Most of the loans to the banks have been repaid.
And the situation with SOLINDRA was due to cheaper solar panels being manufactured in China, but now even they are cutting back production and closing plants. Solar power, without a significant tax rebate or federal grants to the home owner, is out of the normal homeowner's budget. And without any grant money other than to businesses, it will fail for the average consumer. Average cost for a simple solar power system is $40,000.
Richard, br I'm not saying everything has gone wel... (show quote)


Sounds like you understand. We can't take the chance to change leadership right now. The jobs rteport this morning clearly shows that we are moving forward. Yes, it's not a fast trend. The President was dealt a very bad hand from the previous administration when he became President. Yes, those of you on the other side won't agree. Because you really can't unterstand how deep of a hole we were in. I'm not a rocket scientist but if you are moving in the right direction why wpuld you want to change course by moving backward? That's what we would do if Romney is elected. He has a fundamentally different idea of how to deal with this economy. It shows that this President has his thoughts and idea's on the right plan. Romney's plan is to give the wealthy a huge tax break and raise taxes on the middle class. There is no two ways about it. He, Romney has stated that claim about giving tax breaks for the wealthy. We are all in this together and the upper 2% of us need to step up to the plate and help the other 98% of us keep moving us forward in the right direction. It is vital for this country and every working person to re-elect President Obama.

Reply
Oct 5, 2012 11:49:13   #
Blurryeyed Loc: NC Mountains.
 
Hunter Lou 1947 wrote:
singleviking wrote:
Richard,
I'm not saying everything has gone well during the past administration, but at least it hasn't gotten us into another war front or supporting another hostile regime somewhere in the middle east.
All of the loans to the auto industry have been repaid.
Most of the loans to the banks have been repaid.
And the situation with SOLINDRA was due to cheaper solar panels being manufactured in China, but now even they are cutting back production and closing plants. Solar power, without a significant tax rebate or federal grants to the home owner, is out of the normal homeowner's budget. And without any grant money other than to businesses, it will fail for the average consumer. Average cost for a simple solar power system is $40,000.
Richard, br I'm not saying everything has gone wel... (show quote)


Sounds like you understand. We can't take the chance to change leadership right now. The jobs rteport this morning clearly shows that we are moving forward. Yes, it's not a fast trend. The President was dealt a very bad hand from the previous administration when he became President. Yes, those of you on the other side won't agree. Because you really can't unterstand how deep of a hole we were in. I'm not a rocket scientist but if you are moving in the right direction why wpuld you want to change course by moving backward? That's what we would do if Romney is elected. He has a fundamentally different idea of how to deal with this economy. It shows that this President has his thoughts and idea's on the right plan. Romney's plan is to give the wealthy a huge tax break and raise taxes on the middle class. There is no two ways about it. He, Romney has stated that claim about giving tax breaks for the wealthy. We are all in this together and the upper 2% of us need to step up to the plate and help the other 98% of us keep moving us forward in the right direction. It is vital for this country and every working person to re-elect President Obama.
quote=singleviking Richard, br I'm not saying eve... (show quote)


LOL you really believe that crap?

Let's try and understand how the federal government manipulated the numbers to get that drop in the rate...

Quote:
That 104,000 is well below the job growth needed to affect the unemployment rate just for population growth. Also digging deeper, we find that at least part of the drop in the unemployment rate was due to the continued decline in the number of people in the labor force. More specifically, 211,000 people exited the labor force over the last 30 days, which brings the trailing 12-month total to 2.64 million.


So 2.64 million people have given up looking for work which has lowered the so called jobless rate which has been reformulated only so as to make the government look good, and you somehow are foolish enough to think that the economy is moving in the right direction.... Maybe you might note that the number of new jobs last month is significantly smaller than the number of those who gave up looking, and smaller than the number needed to keep up with the rate of population growth...

But hey! the government manipulated a report to make itself look good.... We should all celebrate this....

Lemmings.

Reply
 
 
Oct 5, 2012 11:57:45   #
Richard94611 Loc: Oakland, CA
 
BlurryEyed, the government used the same method for calculating the unemployment rate that it has used for years. The rate wasn't "manipulated." If the government had changed the method, you would probably complain about that also as "manipulation." The unemployment rate is slowly going down. I am a little sketchy about the precise figures -- I am sure you have this at your fingertips -- but I recall that something around 5% is regarded as a reasonable unemployment rate. Am I correct about this ?

Reply
Oct 5, 2012 12:22:36   #
Blurryeyed Loc: NC Mountains.
 
Richard94611 wrote:
BlurryEyed, the government used the same method for calculating the unemployment rate that it has used for years. The rate wasn't "manipulated." If the government had changed the method, you would probably complain about that also as "manipulation." The unemployment rate is slowly going down. I am a little sketchy about the precise figures -- I am sure you have this at your fingertips -- but I recall that something around 5% is regarded as a reasonable unemployment rate. Am I correct about this ?
BlurryEyed, the government used the same method fo... (show quote)


Regardless of how long it has been used, the calculations are designed to make the numbers look good, the government wants to use U-3 as the official unemployment rate as it makes things look better than they actually are, and as of this morning U-3 is at 7.8% but if you really want to get a better handle on the real unemployment in this country you if you dig a little deeper you will look at U-5 and U-6 which are 9.3% and 14.7% respectively in the same report....

Quote:
U-4 and U-5 both add selected not-in-labor-force categories (that is, groups of persons neither employed nor unemployed) to the unemployed. U-4, which adds discouraged workers, is very close to the official rate, since the number of discouraged workers—those who want a job but have given up the search for work because they believe no jobs are available for them—is small in relation to the number of unemployed persons. U-5 adds all marginally attached workers, including discouraged workers, to the unemployed. Marginally attached workers are those who want a job and are available to work now, and have looked for a job in the past year--but not in the past month--for a wide range of reasons that extend beyond discouragement over job prospects.

The broadest measure of labor underutilization, called U-6, includes the unemployed, the marginally attached, and persons who are actually employed but who work fewer hours than they would like (sometimes referred to as underemployed).
U-4 and U-5 both add selected not-in-labor-force c... (show quote)


To try and answer your question about 5% yes historically that is a relatively healthy number at 4% labor markets begin to heat up and businesses have to become much more competitive to attract employees and that is typically when we see people really beginning to feel as if they are getting ahead and have real career choices, but Richard don't be fooled by these numbers, as there is a huge difference between 7.7% and 5%, the other factor that is discouraging is the U-5 and the U-6 numbers... in a healthy economy we would not see such a spread between U-3 and U-6..

Reply
Oct 5, 2012 12:31:35   #
Richard94611 Loc: Oakland, CA
 
Yes, BlurryEyed, but you are asking us all to compare apples with oranges. The traditional unemployment rate, the one I was referring to, is generally regarded as OK when it is about 5%. I am sure you wish to switch methods of calculating the unemployment rate in order to make Obama look bad, but the traditional unemployment rate is improving, no matter what you say, and we are slowly approaching (downwards) what is regarded as acceptable and more normal.



Blurryeyed wrote:
Richard94611 wrote:
BlurryEyed, the government used the same method for calculating the unemployment rate that it has used for years. The rate wasn't "manipulated." If the government had changed the method, you would probably complain about that also as "manipulation." The unemployment rate is slowly going down. I am a little sketchy about the precise figures -- I am sure you have this at your fingertips -- but I recall that something around 5% is regarded as a reasonable unemployment rate. Am I correct about this ?
BlurryEyed, the government used the same method fo... (show quote)


Regardless of how long it has been used, the calculations are designed to make the numbers look good, the government wants to use U-3 as the official unemployment rate as it makes things look better than they actually are, and as of this morning U-3 is at 7.8% but if you really want to get a better handle on the real unemployment in this country you if you dig a little deeper you will look at U-5 and U-6 which are 9.3% and 14.7% respectively in the same report....

Quote:
U-4 and U-5 both add selected not-in-labor-force categories (that is, groups of persons neither employed nor unemployed) to the unemployed. U-4, which adds discouraged workers, is very close to the official rate, since the number of discouraged workers—those who want a job but have given up the search for work because they believe no jobs are available for them—is small in relation to the number of unemployed persons. U-5 adds all marginally attached workers, including discouraged workers, to the unemployed. Marginally attached workers are those who want a job and are available to work now, and have looked for a job in the past year--but not in the past month--for a wide range of reasons that extend beyond discouragement over job prospects.

The broadest measure of labor underutilization, called U-6, includes the unemployed, the marginally attached, and persons who are actually employed but who work fewer hours than they would like (sometimes referred to as underemployed).
U-4 and U-5 both add selected not-in-labor-force c... (show quote)
quote=Richard94611 BlurryEyed, the government use... (show quote)

Reply
Oct 5, 2012 12:50:30   #
Zenith701 Loc: Southern California
 
I wouldn't call a one-month number a trend. You are correct about the 5% number. That number pretty much represents the number of people that you couldn't make them go to work unless you threaten to cut off their free clinic, food stamps, subsidized housing, free school lunches, and welfare. Even then, most of them would go back to friends and family to mooch off them before they would consider the drastic step of actually working.

Reply
 
 
Oct 5, 2012 12:59:08   #
Richard94611 Loc: Oakland, CA
 
Zenith, all your editorializing aside, 5% is the level generally regarded as "healthy." It has been regarded that way for decades and decades.



Zenith701 wrote:
I wouldn't call a one-month number a trend. You are correct about the 5% number. That number pretty much represents the number of people that you couldn't make them go to work unless you threaten to cut off their free clinic, food stamps, subsidized housing, free school lunches, and welfare. Even then, most of them would go back to friends and family to mooch off them before they would consider the drastic step of actually working.

Reply
Oct 5, 2012 13:00:57   #
Hunter Lou 1947 Loc: Minnesota
 
Blurryeyed wrote:
Hunter Lou 1947 wrote:
singleviking wrote:
Richard,
I'm not saying everything has gone well during the past administration, but at least it hasn't gotten us into another war front or supporting another hostile regime somewhere in the middle east.
All of the loans to the auto industry have been repaid.
Most of the loans to the banks have been repaid.
And the situation with SOLINDRA was due to cheaper solar panels being manufactured in China, but now even they are cutting back production and closing plants. Solar power, without a significant tax rebate or federal grants to the home owner, is out of the normal homeowner's budget. And without any grant money other than to businesses, it will fail for the average consumer. Average cost for a simple solar power system is $40,000.
Richard, br I'm not saying everything has gone wel... (show quote)


Sounds like you understand. We can't take the chance to change leadership right now. The jobs rteport this morning clearly shows that we are moving forward. Yes, it's not a fast trend. The President was dealt a very bad hand from the previous administration when he became President. Yes, those of you on the other side won't agree. Because you really can't unterstand how deep of a hole we were in. I'm not a rocket scientist but if you are moving in the right direction why wpuld you want to change course by moving backward? That's what we would do if Romney is elected. He has a fundamentally different idea of how to deal with this economy. It shows that this President has his thoughts and idea's on the right plan. Romney's plan is to give the wealthy a huge tax break and raise taxes on the middle class. There is no two ways about it. He, Romney has stated that claim about giving tax breaks for the wealthy. We are all in this together and the upper 2% of us need to step up to the plate and help the other 98% of us keep moving us forward in the right direction. It is vital for this country and every working person to re-elect President Obama.
quote=singleviking Richard, br I'm not saying eve... (show quote)


LOL you really believe that crap?

Let's try and understand how the federal government manipulated the numbers to get that drop in the rate...

Quote:
That 104,000 is well below the job growth needed to affect the unemployment rate just for population growth. Also digging deeper, we find that at least part of the drop in the unemployment rate was due to the continued decline in the number of people in the labor force. More specifically, 211,000 people exited the labor force over the last 30 days, which brings the trailing 12-month total to 2.64 million.


So 2.64 million people have given up looking for work which has lowered the so called jobless rate which has been reformulated only so as to make the government look good, and you somehow are foolish enough to think that the economy is moving in the right direction.... Maybe you might note that the number of new jobs last month is significantly smaller than the number of those who gave up looking, and smaller than the number needed to keep up with the rate of population growth...

But hey! the government manipulated a report to make itself look good.... We should all celebrate this....

Lemmings.
quote=Hunter Lou 1947 quote=singleviking Richard... (show quote)


There's no manipulating the figures. The BLS is a independent run organization. Many of these people have served under more than one President. The BLS is seperate from the Labor Dept.

So don't get your undies all tangled up before you know the facts. That's the trouble with alot of the folks who think they know politics and when it comes to the end of the day they don't know shit. They speak before their brain catches up with their mouth. That's pretty amazing evidence that we have now had a steady job growth now for 44 months in a row. Yes, the unemployment rate is now at 7.8% and not low enough for those still without a job, but there's still hope at the end of the tunnel. We are heading in the right direction. How come you want that 7.8% to be even worse? Is it because your negatives are starting to dry up? You know you are ever so slowly coming to the end of your crap about replacing the President. Your running out of time. You've only got 33 days to campaign against the President. So you better dream up some more crap filled mostly with lies. So let's hear some more lies today.

Reply
Oct 5, 2012 13:02:57   #
captkruts Loc: Janesville, IA
 
I agree with you Rich. I am a Dem and yes the president's performance at the debate looked real bad, however he sure did get Mr. "etchasketch" to say things much differently on stage than he has been saying the last several months. The one fellow was right, at the end of the day a snake oil salesman is just that!, a snake oil salesman. You know that little white speck on the top of a pile of chicken crap, well thats just chicken crap too!

Reply
Oct 5, 2012 13:04:39   #
Blurryeyed Loc: NC Mountains.
 
Richard94611 wrote:
Yes, BlurryEyed, but you are asking us all to compare apples with oranges. The traditional unemployment rate, the one I was referring to, is generally regarded as OK when it is about 5%. I am sure you wish to switch methods of calculating the unemployment rate in order to make Obama look bad, but the traditional unemployment rate is improving, no matter what you say, and we are slowly approaching (downwards) what is regarded as acceptable and more normal.


I did go back to my earlier post and try to answer your question but I did so with an update so maybe you did not see it so I will paste it in here and then add to it.

To try and answer your question about 5% yes historically that is a relatively healthy number at 4% labor markets begin to heat up and businesses have to become much more competitive to attract employees and that is typically when we see people really beginning to feel as if they are getting ahead and have real career choices, but Richard don't be fooled by these numbers, as there is a huge difference between 7.7% and 5%, the other factor that is discouraging is the U-5 and the U-6 numbers... in a healthy economy we would not see such a spread between U-3 and U-6..

I think that what is key here is that the under reporting value of U-3 when the economy is bad... back in the Oct and Nov of 2005 the rates remained unchanged across the two months with the official rate U-3 was 5.0% while U-6 was 8.7 so the gap was about 3.7, but still represented probably about 5 1/2 million people as the work force is about 150 to 155 million people, but as we are seeing this is a moving target and the government keeps reporting that it is getting smaller and this helps them to improve their numbers... but let's look at today's numbers, there is an almost full 7 point gap in these numbers so today that 5 1/2 million that the government does not report on has grown to 10 1/2 million... I would say that is somewhat slight of hand, no matter that both sides do it.

Reply
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