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Default GE pays no income tax

"Kurt Ullman" wrote in message
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"Robert Green" wrote:


Are you saying that if the US Congress put their mind to it they

*couldn't*
close the loopholes that allow companies to move offshore so easily?

Not
that they ever would, but in light of their threats to claw back the

obscene
AIG bonuses, it seems that they might indeed have the power to pass laws
saying "You can leave, but it's going to cost you dearly." I'd have no
heartache with making American companies that built their fortune here

leave
a lot of it at the door when they leave. I would feel better about than
then dissolving bargaining agreements and union busting. Teachers

aren't
playing off-shore keep-away with the IRS but they're the ones paying for
companies that do.


I don't know. It would be a very interesting World Trade Court (or
whatever they call it) case. Teachers aren't paying for anything more
than other wise.


I know a few teachers and they feel very much under attack. If you recall,
in Wisconsin they singled out teacher's unions but left police and
firefighters out of the legislation to end collective bargaining for public
employees. That seems, to teachers at least, to imply that the state's
money woes came from overpaying teachers. Why would they select them and
not firefighters or police?

As you are probably aware, the Swiss are under assault for their refusal

to
reveal account holders and amounts of money held there for US citizens

(and
probably corporation slush funds, too) to the IRS. There's is/was an
amnesty for people to self-report those assets and interest payments

under a
new law and threatened prosecutions and steep penalties for those who

did
not self-report. If Congress wanted to, they could close the Cayman
offshore tax havens. But that would step on some pretty important toes.
That's the direction we should be moving in, not harassing teachers.

The
rich are getting richer and the poor, poorer and that's not been a very

good
formula for societal stability.


But that is hardly new. Actually a lot of the concentration of the
wealth is directly related to Congress messing with something it doesn;t
understand (economics) and taxes. For instance almost every major CEO
gets $1 mill or so in salary. Why? Because that is what the tax laws say
is the most that can be deducted. However, in their zeal to "reign in"
executive compensation and make the executive's interests in line with
stockholders, they tax advantaged stock options and bonuses. So, instead
of being paid a certain amount to actually run the company, they are now
being paid to run the books. The best example was a Merrill dude just
before the crash who was getting $300,000 in salary and $300 mill in
options and "Performance based bonuses".


Congress does a lot of things to make people *think* something's being done
about a problem when in fact they've just changed "happy" to "glad." No
one ever follows up to see whether the changes to the law have really had
any effect. For example the threat to claw back AIG bonuses went exactly
nowhere, but it made at least some people feel something was being done.
Your example proves the point. Corporate compensation is completely out of
whack because the real owners of these companies, the stockholders, have
virtually no input as to how execs are compensated. Performance based
bonuses are a sham - CEO's get them whether they perform or not and the only
time it doesn't happen is when they do something so extreme that they feel
forced to decline their bonuses rather than being tarred and feathered by
the press and the public - thereby causing the stock price to drop and
reducing the non-salary compensation.

Saw a rather interesting study late last year. Noted that you can
relate a increase in the intensity of the wealth divide to the time a
Dem Congress passed this law. It was happening before, but it speeded
up.
Also a new CBO study in todays WSJ that showed the really (top 1%)
rich's income went down more than 2x as much as the other 99%.


We're back at the "food prices quintupling while wages only doubled" example
cited earlier. The ultra rich losing half their wealth has relatively no
effect on their lifestyle while someone in the lowest bracket losing half
their wealth means serious deprivation. In other words, the very rich can
very much afford big losses while wage earners usually can not.

a
Actually most of are suggesting that GE should not get any tax

breaks
relative to their competitors. Rather we are largely saying that their
competitors shouldn't have to pay either.


And that's going to bring down the national debt? The deficit has risen
BECAUSE so many big companies play fast and loose with the tax laws - or
have them changed to suit them.


Not really. Look at the stat abstract of the US at the Tax
expenditures, what the IRS calls these things, youy are out of the top
10 until you get one for the companies. The three biggest are the
deduction for health insurance (which is a deduction for the individual
even though the company takes it), the mortgage deduction, and exclusion
a person's pension benefits. The first purely company deduction is 10
and it only about 1/6 of the mortgage deduction. The next is 17. Look at
actual figures and they just don't match up. THe deferral of income from
controlled corporations is an anemic 18t at 7440 millions (that is the
way the chart says it and so did I to make sure I did not add extra
zeroes. (The mortgage deduction alone costs 76030 millions.)


But the mortgage deduction had the effect of encouraging home ownership and
that built wealth - the wealth that investment banks were falling all over
themselves to securitize and sell, driving the real estate bubble to burst
wide open. Giving tax breaks to corporations usually means that a very few
people at the top of the corporate pyramid get the money. Yes, some
companies do invest and pay dividends to their stockholders, but the trend
has been more and more obscene compensation for the guys at the top and very
little trickle down for anyone else.

If lowering the tax rate stimulates growth, why not give citizens the

tax
break? They could use the extra money to spend on buying GE products.

GE
would then have to invest to meet increased demand. Why do the rich

folks
and the corporations always get the breaks under the Republican schemas

if
tax breaks not only work at the middle class level, but perhaps even

better?

Again look at the actual figures. First of all, the Bush tax cut was
a set %age across the board and actually took a bunch of people off the
roles entirely. Aroun 43% of all households pay NO tax. Both the
percentage of total (federal) taxes paid and the percentage of income
taxes paid went up for the top 10%. Heck the bottom two quintiles
actually pay a negative tax meaning they get more back in credits, etc,.
than they paid in.


That knife cuts both ways. Do you think anyone at the lower end of the
income scale benefited at all from the reduction of the estate tax? That
break was only for the rich and as I recall, it meant a significant loss of
revenue for the Treasury. I don't need to tell you the difference between
progressive and regressive taxation. As for the bottom two quintiles, you
really wouldn't want to be there, even if you got tax credits. My point was
that in order to stimulate the economy, lowering taxes for the people that
buy consumables gives them more money to spend which goes to corporations
selling goods which increases their profits. Lowering taxes for the highest
earners is far more likely to result in them investing or sheltering that
money abroad, which doesn't help restart the stalled economy very much at
all.

It's morally bankrupt to take the savings and tax money of people who

did
nothing risky or wrong and use it to lavishly reward those that did. I
guess I abhor the freemarketeers who clamor "No interference" and then
travel hat in hand (on private jets) to ask the very government they

despise
to pay for their mistakes. How is the freemarket operating when their

true
fate should have been the bankruptcy auction block?


Me too. But we have a long and cherished and bipartisan history of
privatising the profits and socializing the losses.


Privatising? Are you turning Brit on us? (-: Seriously, though, unless
that cherished tradition is hacked to death, we'll go on letting mergers
thin out the competitors until we end up bailing out the remaining
businesses that we've allowed to become too big to fail.

What kept the nation's economy from collapsing in 2008? The much

maligned
Federal government with the taxes it had collected. Small government

could
never counterbalance the idiot things business seem to do decade after
decade. Even Warren Buffet said that government needs to be larger than

any
one business sector for precisely that reason. Yet what choice did Bush

and
Obama have when, after years of the anti-trust dept. at DOJ licking

their
anuses like malfeasant bored dogs, banks grew to be "too large to fail?"


Not with the taxes they collected. That is a big part of the
problem.


Well, ostensibly with taxes collected. Obviously we've borrowed to make
those payments, but the principle remains the same. Who would be in a
position to a) borrow that much money and b) lend it to a company nearly in
extremis other than the Federal government?

If Obama came out for apple pie, mom and clear blue skies, I believe a

large
number of Republicans would find reasons to condemn all three. A lot of
what we see here in the world and here in AHR, especially with the

veiled
death threats and such, indicates politics has become reflexively

partisan
with not a lot of intellectual horsepower being applied. I wish I knew

how
to stop that, but it may be a process that once started doesn't stop

until
very bad things happen.


And if Bush so would the Dems. That is more an indicator of the fact
that neither party is really under adult supervision at this time.
Making matters worse.


That's the bottom line - that there's no adult leadership. As an
independent I have to say that I believe there's a lot more overt hatred of
Obama than there was of Bush. Whether that's attributable to occult racism,
I can't say. But the clamor of claims of a stolen 2000 election seem to
have died out long before the cult of the Birthers which by all accounts is
still going strong.

What saddens me the most about modern American is how woefully uninformed
people are about current events. Newspapers are dying not only because of
"bust out" schemes perpetrated upon them by takeover firms, but because
people just don't seem motivated to learn enough to be educated voters. I
am reluctant to look up how few people read a paper or watch TV news
anymore.

It's clear from the adverts in both that only the Geritol set watches the
news anymore. That's why so many people believe the crazy things that
"interpreters" tell them, hence the birthers, the blame placed on the CRA
for the entire real estate bubble and other odd, nearly cultish beliefs that
propagate through our society.

Our growing national ignorance is why people can claim a bomb and not a
plane caused the damage at the Pentagon on 9/11 even though you can easily
find footage from the parking lot's CCTV cameras showing the impact of the
plane. It doesn't matter if their theory gapingly fails to answer what on
earth happened to the missing jet. I'll bet some believe it went through an
"Event" type portal to another universe. I blame part of the American
appetite for conspiracies on the JFK assassination and all the questions it
left unanswered. People who grew up in that era are likely to see
"shooters" behind every bush.

In this day and age facts seems to be on an equal footing as pie-in-the-sky
conjecture of the wildest sort. Just reading through AHR it's quite obvious
that people just talk past each other, demeaning others that hold opposing
views and keeping their minds tightly closed to new ideas. Debate has given
way to derision and discussion to dogma.

Maybe countries suffer from a "hardening of the arteries" with age just the
way people do. )-:

--
Bobby G.


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Default GE pays no income tax

"Kurt Ullman" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"Robert Green" wrote:



I know a few teachers and they feel very much under attack. If you

recall,
in Wisconsin they singled out teacher's unions but left police and
firefighters out of the legislation to end collective bargaining for

public
employees. That seems, to teachers at least, to imply that the state's
money woes came from overpaying teachers. Why would they select them

and
not firefighters or police?


In real life, their union is the single biggest campaign contributor
to Dem candidates. The unions for the cops/firefighters (and the
Chamber) spread their money around a lot more. Live by the Dems, die by
the Dems. Politics ain;t patty cake.


So it's clear you have to pay to play. Singling out the teachers, for
whatever reason, still has the appearance of blaming them specifically for
the recent economic unpleasantness when it's clear there were many other
contributing factors to our money woes, mainly, in my eyes, runaway
arbitrage that adds very little to the nation's productivity but clearly
takes away much of it as anyone with a 401K or a savings account paying
below 1% interest can verify.

Your example proves the point. Corporate compensation is completely out

of
whack because the real owners of these companies, the stockholders, have
virtually no input as to how execs are compensated. Performance based
bonuses are a sham - CEO's get them whether they perform or not and the

only
time it doesn't happen is when they do something so extreme that they

feel
forced to decline their bonuses rather than being tarred and feathered

by
the press and the public - thereby causing the stock price to drop and
reducing the non-salary compensation.


Congress is a lot of fire and (try to) forget. Of course a lot of
this is how to put genies back in bottles.


Promises buy votes. Obama got my vote by promising to extricate us from
wars we can ill afford. He seems quite willing to think that people will
forget about his failure to do what he promised at election time. Maybe
he's right. How we're getting knee-deep in Libya when we have no business
interests in the country since the 80's amazes me. Let Europe and Asia deal
with their own problems spending their own damn money.

But the mortgage deduction had the effect of encouraging home ownership

and
that built wealth - the wealth that investment banks were falling all

over
themselves to securitize and sell, driving the real estate bubble to

burst
wide open. Giving tax breaks to corporations usually means that a very

few
people at the top of the corporate pyramid get the money. Yes, some
companies do invest and pay dividends to their stockholders, but the

trend
has been more and more obscene compensation for the guys at the top and

very
little trickle down for anyone else.


Which of course is beside the point I was (attempting to make). You
can take away the things you want taken away and it will make not a lot
of real impact. They just don't take that much money out of pockets when
compared to what we take out for ourselves.


Sorry, but I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. Could you rephrase?

That knife cuts both ways. Do you think anyone at the lower end of the
income scale benefited at all from the reduction of the estate tax?

That
break was only for the rich and as I recall, it meant a significant loss

of
revenue for the Treasury. I don't need to tell you the difference

between
progressive and regressive taxation. As for the bottom two quintiles,

you
really wouldn't want to be there, even if you got tax credits. My point

was
that in order to stimulate the economy, lowering taxes for the people

that
buy consumables gives them more money to spend which goes to

corporations
selling goods which increases their profits. Lowering taxes for the

highest
earners is far more likely to result in them investing or sheltering

that
money abroad, which doesn't help restart the stalled economy very much

at
all.


The estate tax is yet another smokescreen. Not all that much was
collected even at the zenith. ALso, that was a tax that was entirely
punitive. You had too much money, you offended the Gods of Washington,
and you had to pay much higher rates than any other tax. It was
confiscatory. (FWIW, I have long said that you should tax estates at
whatever it would have been taxed on at the time of death. Got cap gains
in the family company, tax it at cap gains rate, etc. Essentially tax it
exactly as you would if Dad sold it to the kid. I fyou wanted to get
really radical, pass it along tax free with no bump in basis. Then it
would taxed based on what Great Grandad paid for it in the late 1800s
when the business was sold outside the family)


I don't disagree. I was merely pointing out that the estate tax, whatever
its evils, has virtually no impact on most Americans, especially the people
at the poverty line.

Well, ostensibly with taxes collected. Obviously we've borrowed to make
those payments, but the principle remains the same. Who would be in a
position to a) borrow that much money and b) lend it to a company nearly

in
extremis other than the Federal government?


But it was the Federal government that got us into this mess. ALL of
the laws that people point to as being THE REASON (whether or not it
was, of course) were passed by large bipartisan majorities. (Heck the
bill to kill off Glass-Stegal was passed by voice vote in the Senate for
the love of Pete). We were limping along with the Fed, FDIC,, etc.,
doing forced marriages between good place and bad places until they
finally decided to throw someone to the wolves. THAT is what caused the
dry up, the idea that nobody knew any more the parameters of what would
or would not be propped up. EVERYBODY became suspect and the system
immediately shut down. I have often wondered what might have happened if
the forced marriages had continued.. but again I digress.


And I often wonder what would happen if the Feds had not intervened. I
suspect they did so because a failure of a bank like the Bank of America
would shatter the economy and not even the FDIC could pick up the pieces.

What saddens me the most about modern American is how woefully

uninformed
people are about current events. Newspapers are dying not only because

of
"bust out" schemes perpetrated upon them by takeover firms, but because
people just don't seem motivated to learn enough to be educated voters.

I
am reluctant to look up how few people read a paper or watch TV news
anymore.


My family still owns a newspaper. They were dying out LONG before the
internet.


My condolences, but I don't think I blamed the internet. Papers have been
accosted by the same sort of "load it with debt and cash out" takeover deals
that decimated Simmons. Couple that with a dumbing down of the population
that considers American Idol statistics a "newsworthy" event and what chance
does serious print journalism have anymore?

The NYT just instituted their third attempt at a "pay wall" to try to
develop new income streams. The smart money says that the income gained
will be completely neutralized by the loss in "eyes" viewing their
advertising. But that's the newspaper business. They just can't adapt to
the new model and keep trying the same old tricks that fail time after time.
Just like the music industry. The WSJ was successful with their pay wall
because it's a deductible expense as well as news that allows people to make
money. The NYT doesn't have those two critical draws. I expect to hit the
pay wall (20 free articles allowed per month) any day now but I am not sure
it will even effect me since I surf with Javacrap turned off on all but
critical commerce sites. Even before the pay wall went up, hackers had
developed workarounds. When you build a tall wall, remember, someone's
building a taller ladder to climb over it. (-"

It's clear from the adverts in both that only the Geritol set watches

the
news anymore. That's why so many people believe the crazy things that
"interpreters" tell them, hence the birthers, the blame placed on the

CRA
for the entire real estate bubble and other odd, nearly cultish beliefs

that
propagate through our society.


That and there is a need for people to find ONE THING (preferably one
they have no skin in-grin) to blame it on. The CRA definitely had a
place in the real estate meltdown, but there were many others. But
again, this is more human nature than political venality.


We were in the middle of a plain ol' garden variety spec bubble, the same
kind of thing that's been happening since the great tulip spec bubble of
centuries ago. People all "want in" on a good thing and that force alone
eventually makes it a very bad thing by over-valuing whatever it is (tulips,
tech, real estate) that's the current "hot" item. So you're right, it's
clear these spec bubbles are part of human nature. The question is: "What
can we do to mitigate their potential damage?"

Our growing national ignorance is why people can claim a bomb and not a
plane caused the damage at the Pentagon on 9/11 even though you can

easily
find footage from the parking lot's CCTV cameras showing the impact of

the
plane. It doesn't matter if their theory gapingly fails to answer what

on
earth happened to the missing jet. I'll bet some believe it went

through an
"Event" type portal to another universe. I blame part of the American
appetite for conspiracies on the JFK assassination and all the questions

it
left unanswered. People who grew up in that era are likely to see
"shooters" behind every bush.


If you look history, American and otherwise, this is nothing new.
Some segment of the population has always "seen" the reality as
different. THe biggest difference since JFK is that they now have much
more efficient ways to find others to reinforce their beliefs.


I don't know if I agree. In looking at Japan I believe a country can
experience a major shift in national consciousness when enough people feel
their government is lying to them. Oswald's strange journey to the USSR,
Jack Ruby's shadowy mob connections and much more overwhelmed people to the
point that they did not know who to trust or what to believe. Fast forward
to Dan Rather's denouement over the alleged evaluations of Bush's fitness.
By that time, even Dan was ready to believe anything without checking the
facts critically. Higgs Boson, are you reading this? Shame on you for that
Pi BS. Bad, bad, BAD dog!!!! People might start to think you're a fifth
columnist, and I don't mean newspaper columnist, either.

Maybe countries suffer from a "hardening of the arteries" with age just

the
way people do. )-:


If not, we'd probably still all be Roman or Mongol, or pick whatever
previous top dog you want. (g).


That's an interesting reminder that history has made it very clear that even
though we're the top dog now, we won't be forever and by the time we realize
we're slipping, it may be too late. The fall of Rome always fascinated me -
a number of very powerful forces acting in concert from very different
directions all conspiring to end the greatest empire the world has ever
known. I hope we'll be remembered as force for overall good in the future,
but I have my doubts. Reminds me of "Life of Brian" when a Jew asks "What
have the Romans ever done for us?"

XERXES
The aqueduct?

REG
What?

XERXES
The aqueduct.

REG
Oh yeah, yeah. They did give us that. That's true, yeah.

UNNECESSARY
And sanitation.

LORETTA
Oh yeah, the sanitation, Reg. Remember what the city used to be like.

REG
Yeah, all right, I'll grant you the aqueduct, the sanitation are two things
the Romans have done...

MATTHIAS
And the roads.

REG
Well, yeah. Obviously the roads, I mean the roads go without saying, don't
they? But apart from the sanitation, the aqueduct, and the roads...

VESTIGIAL
Irrigation.

XERXES
Medicine.

EXPENDABLE
Education.

REG
Yeah, yeah, all right. Fair enough...

SUPERFLUOUS
And the wine.

PFJ
Ohhhh yeah...

FRANCIS
Yeah. Yeah, That's something that we'd really miss, Reg, if the Romans left,
huh?

UNNEEDED
Public baths.

LORETTA
And it's safe to walk the in streets at night now, Reg.

FRANCIS
Yeah, they certainly know how to keep order. Let's face it, the only ones
who could in a place like this! (indicating them)

PFJ
(general agreement)

REG (irritated)
All right. But apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine,
public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system, and public
health... What have the Romans ever done for us?

XERXES
Brought peace?

REG
Oh, peace... SHADDAP!

--
Bobby G.


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Default GE pays no income tax

In article ,
"Robert Green" wrote:

So it's clear you have to pay to play. Singling out the teachers, for
whatever reason, still has the appearance of blaming them specifically for
the recent economic unpleasantness when it's clear there were many other
contributing factors to our money woes, mainly, in my eyes, runaway
arbitrage that adds very little to the nation's productivity but clearly
takes away much of it as anyone with a 401K or a savings account paying
below 1% interest can verify.

But the teachers are an easy target and brought a lot of this down on
themselves. Fighting against most reforms despite the fact schools are
routinely graduated undereducated people. Yelling that it is everyone's
fault BUT theirs (which of course is the other side of the coin that is
now showing up), fighting any attempt to bring in performance measures
(espcially galling to many who go through such things in THEIR jobs).
Politicians look around for the easy prey just like lions, tigers, and
hedge fund operators.


Congress is a lot of fire and (try to) forget. Of course a lot of
this is how to put genies back in bottles.


Promises buy votes. Obama got my vote by promising to extricate us from
wars we can ill afford. He seems quite willing to think that people will
forget about his failure to do what he promised at election time. Maybe
he's right. How we're getting knee-deep in Libya when we have no business
interests in the country since the 80's amazes me. Let Europe and Asia deal
with their own problems spending their own damn money.

I don't know if he is counting on forgetting, or having just enough
people think the other option is worse (which at times the GOP seems to
working REALLY hard to do), holding their noses and voting for him.
Maybe we need none of the above and if that gets more than 30% of the
vote, we start over again with the P and VP candidates from both sides
barred from running again (grin).


Sorry, but I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. Could you rephrase?

Yeah, although the corps get the hate, the money going to
individuals is much greater. We can no more balance the budget by
cutting breaks for the corps as we can taxing the rich, there just isn't
enough money there. Now, I am not at all saying that we shouldn't look
at the corp tax structure to see if there are things to cut. But to make
them the boogie man in this is simplistic and I don't like simplistic
answers.
Especially since in tax law, healthcare and many other government
functions, the Pogo Principle is invoked: "We have met the enemy and he
is us."


That knife cuts both ways. Do you think anyone at the lower end of the
income scale benefited at all from the reduction of the estate tax?

Coming in late.. but I don't think anyone at the high end benefited
from the Earned Income and other credits.

The estate tax is yet another smokescreen. Not all that much was
collected even at the zenith. ALso, that was a tax that was entirely
punitive. You had too much money, you offended the Gods of Washington,
and you had to pay much higher rates than any other tax. It was
confiscatory. (FWIW, I have long said that you should tax estates at
whatever it would have been taxed on at the time of death. Got cap gains
in the family company, tax it at cap gains rate, etc. Essentially tax it
exactly as you would if Dad sold it to the kid. I fyou wanted to get
really radical, pass it along tax free with no bump in basis. Then it
would taxed based on what Great Grandad paid for it in the late 1800s
when the business was sold outside the family)


I don't disagree. I was merely pointing out that the estate tax, whatever
its evils, has virtually no impact on most Americans, especially the people
at the poverty line.

And I was merely trying to state the fact that is a big whoop. There
are things at all levels of the tax code that don't impact on the other
levels. For example, there was a time a few years ago when I was
personally paying an addition $5000 in taxes (writing the check to the
Feds) solely and utterly because I made too much money and hit the phase
out of certain deductions.


And I often wonder what would happen if the Feds had not intervened. I
suspect they did so because a failure of a bank like the Bank of America
would shatter the economy and not even the FDIC could pick up the pieces.

Yep what ifs are fun. But almost as useful as reading all those
books about what would have happened had the South won the
Unpleasantness Between the States. (grin).



My family still owns a newspaper. They were dying out LONG before the
internet.


Just like the music industry. The WSJ was successful with their pay wall
because it's a deductible expense as well as news that allows people to make
money. The NYT doesn't have those two critical draws. I expect to hit the
pay wall (20 free articles allowed per month) any day now but I am not sure
it will even effect me since I surf with Javacrap turned off on all but
critical commerce sites. Even before the pay wall went up, hackers had
developed workarounds. When you build a tall wall, remember, someone's
building a taller ladder to climb over it. (-"

The WSJ was successful (1) because they started it early enough that
people weren't viewing free as some sort of birthright and (2). they put
stuff behind the wall that people were actually interested in paying
for. Most newspapers really can't do that because local news is
available in too many places (TV, radio, etc.) that there is little to
differentiate them. I think the NYT is grappling with this now.

We were in the middle of a plain ol' garden variety spec bubble, the same
kind of thing that's been happening since the great tulip spec bubble of
centuries ago. People all "want in" on a good thing and that force alone
eventually makes it a very bad thing by over-valuing whatever it is (tulips,
tech, real estate) that's the current "hot" item. So you're right, it's
clear these spec bubbles are part of human nature. The question is: "What
can we do to mitigate their potential damage?"

Apparntly nothing. As someone noted (might even have been Warren the
B) speculative bubbles all have a couple of characteristics in common.
The human feeling that good times inevitable continue (despite the old
adage that trees never grow to the sun) and the human conceit that THIS
time is different because We Know Things. Anytime the dudes in the WSJ
or CNBC start talking about how this new thing is a different paradigm
that won't react the same way things in the past have always acted, THAT
is the time to head for door.


--
"Even I realized that money was to politicians what the ecalyptus tree is to koala bears: food, water, shelter and something to crap on."
---PJ O'Rourke
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On Mar 31, 9:38*am, Kurt Ullman wrote:
In article ,
*"Robert Green" wrote:

So it's clear you have to pay to play. *Singling out the teachers, for
whatever reason, still has the appearance of blaming them specifically for
the recent economic unpleasantness when it's clear there were many other
contributing factors to our money woes, mainly, in my eyes, runaway
arbitrage that adds very little to the nation's productivity but clearly
takes away much of it as anyone with a 401K or a savings account paying
below 1% interest can verify.


The problem here is the premise is just wrong. Teachers were NOT
singled out. It's true that police were exempted and that part sounds
unfair.
But the law clearly covers most state workers, not only teachers. I
found
online where it says 56% of state employees are teachers and 8% are
police and fire. That still leaves another 36% apparently covered
under
the law that are neither police, fire, or teachers.



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"Kurt Ullman" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"Robert Green" wrote:

So it's clear you have to pay to play. Singling out the teachers, for
whatever reason, still has the appearance of blaming them specifically

for
the recent economic unpleasantness when it's clear there were many other
contributing factors to our money woes, mainly, in my eyes, runaway
arbitrage that adds very little to the nation's productivity but clearly
takes away much of it as anyone with a 401K or a savings account paying
below 1% interest can verify.


But the teachers are an easy target and brought a lot of this down on
themselves. Fighting against most reforms despite the fact schools are
routinely graduated undereducated people. Yelling that it is everyone's
fault BUT theirs (which of course is the other side of the coin that is
now showing up), fighting any attempt to bring in performance measures
(espcially galling to many who go through such things in THEIR jobs).


Having close friends who are teachers, they would counter and say that
"performance based" ratings often end up really being "you've been here a
while and are too expensive to keep" sorts of games. It's not very easy to
fairly rate a teacher because each year they get a new crop of kids with
varying degrees of intellectual competence.

Politicians look around for the easy prey just like lions, tigers, and
hedge fund operators.


That's true. I believe that Gov. Walker was truly surprised by the ferocity
of the opposition to the new law stripping state works of collective
bargaining rates and reducing their pay.


Congress is a lot of fire and (try to) forget. Of course a lot of
this is how to put genies back in bottles.


Promises buy votes. Obama got my vote by promising to extricate us from
wars we can ill afford. He seems quite willing to think that people

will
forget about his failure to do what he promised at election time. Maybe
he's right. How we're getting knee-deep in Libya when we have no

business
interests in the country since the 80's amazes me. Let Europe and Asia

deal
with their own problems spending their own damn money.

I don't know if he is counting on forgetting, or having just enough
people think the other option is worse (which at times the GOP seems to
working REALLY hard to do), holding their noses and voting for him.
Maybe we need none of the above and if that gets more than 30% of the
vote, we start over again with the P and VP candidates from both sides
barred from running again (grin).


Sorry, but I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. Could you

rephrase?
Yeah, although the corps get the hate, the money going to
individuals is much greater. We can no more balance the budget by
cutting breaks for the corps as we can taxing the rich, there just isn't
enough money there. Now, I am not at all saying that we shouldn't look
at the corp tax structure to see if there are things to cut. But to make
them the boogie man in this is simplistic and I don't like simplistic
answers.
Especially since in tax law, healthcare and many other government
functions, the Pogo Principle is invoked: "We have met the enemy and he
is us."


I agree. Everyone wants to see someone else's ox get gored. Means testing
for SS and Medicare would reclaim a lot of money. Just try passing such
laws in the face of special interest groups like the AARP. They've learned
from the NRA that being able to focus their member's ire on a particular law
or candidate is a very effective way of being an elephant in a jungle full
of lions. Yes, occasionally a lion will attack an elephant calf, but the
outcomes are always always bad for the lions.

That knife cuts both ways. Do you think anyone at the lower end of

the
income scale benefited at all from the reduction of the estate tax?

Coming in late.. but I don't think anyone at the high end benefited
from the Earned Income and other credits.

The estate tax is yet another smokescreen. Not all that much was
collected even at the zenith. ALso, that was a tax that was entirely
punitive. You had too much money, you offended the Gods of Washington,
and you had to pay much higher rates than any other tax. It was
confiscatory. (FWIW, I have long said that you should tax estates at
whatever it would have been taxed on at the time of death. Got cap

gains
in the family company, tax it at cap gains rate, etc. Essentially tax

it
exactly as you would if Dad sold it to the kid. I fyou wanted to get
really radical, pass it along tax free with no bump in basis. Then it
would taxed based on what Great Grandad paid for it in the late 1800s
when the business was sold outside the family)


I don't disagree. I was merely pointing out that the estate tax,

whatever
its evils, has virtually no impact on most Americans, especially the

people
at the poverty line.

And I was merely trying to state the fact that is a big whoop. There
are things at all levels of the tax code that don't impact on the other
levels. For example, there was a time a few years ago when I was
personally paying an addition $5000 in taxes (writing the check to the
Feds) solely and utterly because I made too much money and hit the phase
out of certain deductions.


But you and I are hopelessly out-gunned by the IRS. Not so for corporations
that routinely challenge IRS findings, going to their representatives and
Tax Court to have decisions reversed. The IRS doesn't have the staff to
take up all the challenges and often backs down when arrayed against an
armada of tax lawyers and accountants from businesses big enough to keep
them on staff.

And I often wonder what would happen if the Feds had not intervened. I
suspect they did so because a failure of a bank like the Bank of America
would shatter the economy and not even the FDIC could pick up the

pieces.
Yep what ifs are fun. But almost as useful as reading all those
books about what would have happened had the South won the
Unpleasantness Between the States. (grin).


Maybe not because one day we may come to that crossroads again at a time
when the Feds are so deep in the hole that they *can't* bail them out
without disastrous consequences, far worse that what we've already seen.

My family still owns a newspaper. They were dying out LONG before

the
internet.


Just like the music industry. The WSJ was successful with their pay

wall
because it's a deductible expense as well as news that allows people to

make
money. The NYT doesn't have those two critical draws. I expect to hit

the
pay wall (20 free articles allowed per month) any day now but I am not

sure
it will even effect me since I surf with Javacrap turned off on all but
critical commerce sites. Even before the pay wall went up, hackers had
developed workarounds. When you build a tall wall, remember, someone's
building a taller ladder to climb over it. (-"

The WSJ was successful (1) because they started it early enough that
people weren't viewing free as some sort of birthright and (2). they put
stuff behind the wall that people were actually interested in paying
for. Most newspapers really can't do that because local news is
available in too many places (TV, radio, etc.) that there is little to
differentiate them. I think the NYT is grappling with this now.


I read through all 2000+ comments on the NYT site because I wanted to
evaluate the claim Sulzberger made that "quite a few people were willing to
pay for the NYT online." My count was 10 to 1 against the pay wall. As you
note, instituting one early on, as the WSJ, doesn't leave people with the
feeling that something's being taken away from them. I know that journalism
needs help, but I wonder if the NYT is doing things the right way. At $195,
people have pointed out that if all the other sites did the same, you could
end up paying $2,000 a year to surf multiple news sites, something that most
of us already do.

We were in the middle of a plain ol' garden variety spec bubble, the

same
kind of thing that's been happening since the great tulip spec bubble of
centuries ago. People all "want in" on a good thing and that force

alone
eventually makes it a very bad thing by over-valuing whatever it is

(tulips,
tech, real estate) that's the current "hot" item. So you're right, it's
clear these spec bubbles are part of human nature. The question is:

"What
can we do to mitigate their potential damage?"


Apparntly nothing. As someone noted (might even have been Warren the
B) speculative bubbles all have a couple of characteristics in common.
The human feeling that good times inevitable continue (despite the old
adage that trees never grow to the sun) and the human conceit that THIS
time is different because We Know Things. Anytime the dudes in the WSJ
or CNBC start talking about how this new thing is a different paradigm
that won't react the same way things in the past have always acted, THAT
is the time to head for door.


Yes, I wanted to burn my J degree when I saw the extent to which news
outlets were fueling the spec bubble in housing. I came across a stash of
newspapers from 2007 when cleaning up and the number of stories about "you
can't lose in real estate" just floored me.

--
Bobby G.




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"Robert Green" wrote
Having close friends who are teachers, they would counter and say that
"performance based" ratings often end up really being "you've been here a
while and are too expensive to keep" sorts of games. It's not very easy
to
fairly rate a teacher because each year they get a new crop of kids with
varying degrees of intellectual competence.


Good teachers are always good, the bad ones are always bad, no matter who
the class consists of. Most of us have memorable teachers from our school
days and can attest to that. I've seen teachers fired (during my kid's
school years) and they deserved to be.

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In article ,
"Robert Green" wrote:


But the teachers are an easy target and brought a lot of this down on
themselves. Fighting against most reforms despite the fact schools are
routinely graduated undereducated people. Yelling that it is everyone's
fault BUT theirs (which of course is the other side of the coin that is
now showing up), fighting any attempt to bring in performance measures
(espcially galling to many who go through such things in THEIR jobs).


Having close friends who are teachers, they would counter and say that
"performance based" ratings often end up really being "you've been here a
while and are too expensive to keep" sorts of games. It's not very easy to
fairly rate a teacher because each year they get a new crop of kids with
varying degrees of intellectual competence.

Having friends that are teachers I would say, sounds like BS. I am
daily evaluated on what I do, why shouldn't they be? I never have
understood why teachers are so deathly afraid of having their work
evaluated.



Yeah, although the corps get the hate, the money going to
individuals is much greater. We can no more balance the budget by
cutting breaks for the corps as we can taxing the rich, there just isn't
enough money there. Now, I am not at all saying that we shouldn't look
at the corp tax structure to see if there are things to cut. But to make
them the boogie man in this is simplistic and I don't like simplistic
answers.
Especially since in tax law, healthcare and many other government
functions, the Pogo Principle is invoked: "We have met the enemy and he
is us."


I agree. Everyone wants to see someone else's ox get gored. Means testing
for SS and Medicare would reclaim a lot of money. Just try passing such
laws in the face of special interest groups like the AARP. They've learned
from the NRA that being able to focus their member's ire on a particular law
or candidate is a very effective way of being an elephant in a jungle full
of lions. Yes, occasionally a lion will attack an elephant calf, but the
outcomes are always always bad for the lions.

Not only that, but the Dems are assured that the only thing keeping
SS in business is that the rich support it, too, because they get their
cut. Never have understood the reasoning, but I guess it could be a
concern.



Maybe not because one day we may come to that crossroads again at a time
when the Feds are so deep in the hole that they *can't* bail them out
without disastrous consequences, far worse that what we've already seen.


My guess would be the next time. And there will be a next time.


needs help, but I wonder if the NYT is doing things the right way. At $195,
people have pointed out that if all the other sites did the same, you could
end up paying $2,000 a year to surf multiple news sites, something that most
of us already do.

Or we could pay nothin' and have no sites to surf to.


Yes, I wanted to burn my J degree when I saw the extent to which news
outlets were fueling the spec bubble in housing. I came across a stash of
newspapers from 2007 when cleaning up and the number of stories about "you
can't lose in real estate" just floored me.

You just have to look between the lines sometimes. I was thinking
about buying a house in FL when I read an article in one of the papers
when I was in Boca. They were talking about how even the Realtors in the
area wished they did not have so many houses to sell and would be happy
if things cooled off for awhile. When a bunch of money-grubbers like
your average Realtor start wishing for less business, you know the end
is near (grin).

--
"Even I realized that money was to politicians what the ecalyptus tree is to koala bears: food, water, shelter and something to crap on."
---PJ O'Rourke
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On Fri, 01 Apr 2011 09:05:02 -0400, Kurt Ullman
wrote Re GE pays no income tax:

Having friends that are teachers I would say, sounds like BS. I am
daily evaluated on what I do, why shouldn't they be? I never have
understood why teachers are so deathly afraid of having their work
evaluated.


+1 on that.
--
Work is the curse of the drinking class.
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On Apr 1, 2:05*pm, Kurt Ullman wrote:
In article ,
*"Robert Green" wrote:



*But the teachers are an easy target and brought a lot of this down on
themselves. Fighting against most reforms despite the fact schools are
routinely graduated undereducated people. Yelling that it is everyone's
fault BUT theirs (which of course is the other side of the coin that is
now showing up), fighting any attempt to bring in performance measures
(espcially galling to many who go through such things in THEIR jobs).


Having close friends who are teachers, they would counter and say that
"performance based" ratings often end up really being "you've been here a
while and are too expensive to keep" sorts of games. *It's not very easy to
fairly rate a teacher because each year they get a new crop of kids with
varying degrees of intellectual competence.


* * Having friends that are teachers I would say, sounds like BS. I am
daily evaluated on what I do, why shouldn't they be? I never have
understood why teachers are so deathly afraid of having their work
evaluated.







* * Yeah, although the corps get the hate, the money going to
individuals is much greater. We can no more balance the budget by
cutting breaks for the corps as we can taxing the rich, there just isn't
enough money there. Now, I am not at all saying that we shouldn't look
at the corp tax structure to see if there are things to cut. But to make
them the boogie man in this is simplistic and I don't like simplistic
answers.
* * *Especially since in tax law, healthcare and many other government
functions, the Pogo Principle is invoked: "We have met the enemy and he
is us."


I agree. Everyone wants to see someone else's ox get gored. *Means testing
for SS and Medicare would reclaim a lot of money. *Just try passing such
laws in the face of special interest groups like the AARP. *They've learned
from the NRA that being able to focus their member's ire on a particular law
or candidate is a very effective way of being an elephant in a jungle full
of lions. *Yes, occasionally a lion will attack an elephant calf, but the
outcomes are always always bad for the lions.


* * Not only that, but the Dems are assured that the only thing keeping
SS in business is that the rich support it, too, because they get their
cut. Never have understood the reasoning, but I guess it could be a
concern.



Maybe not because one day we may come to that crossroads again at a time
when the Feds are so deep in the hole that they *can't* bail them out
without disastrous consequences, far worse that what we've already seen..


* My guess would be the next time. And there will be a next time.



needs help, but I wonder if the NYT is doing things the right way. *At $195,
people have pointed out that if all the other sites did the same, you could
end up paying $2,000 a year to surf multiple news sites, something that most
of us already do.


* Or we could pay nothin' and have no sites to surf to.



Yes, I wanted to burn my J degree when I saw the extent to which news
outlets were fueling the spec bubble in housing. *I came across a stash of
newspapers from 2007 when cleaning up and the number of stories about "you
can't lose in real estate" just floored me.


* *You just have to look between the lines sometimes. I was thinking
about buying a house in FL when I read an article in one of the papers
when I was in Boca. They were talking about how even the Realtors in the
area wished they did not have so many houses to sell and would be happy
if things cooled off for awhile. When a bunch of money-grubbers like
your average Realtor start wishing for less business, you know the end
is near (grin).

--
"Even I realized that money was to politicians what the ecalyptus tree is to koala bears: food, water, shelter and something to crap on."
*---PJ O'Rourke- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -


Most teachers have a problem. They have never been in the real world.
They go from school to university to school and then to another
school.
But being intellectuals they think they can deduce things from zero
experience with their great intellects. They talk to one another and
come up with weird ideas. Because they never talk to normal people
they never find this out. They just get further and further off beam.
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On Thu, 31 Mar 2011 07:51:55 -0700 (PDT), "
wrote:

On Mar 31, 9:38*am, Kurt Ullman wrote:
In article ,
*"Robert Green" wrote:

So it's clear you have to pay to play. *Singling out the teachers, for
whatever reason, still has the appearance of blaming them specifically for
the recent economic unpleasantness when it's clear there were many other
contributing factors to our money woes, mainly, in my eyes, runaway
arbitrage that adds very little to the nation's productivity but clearly
takes away much of it as anyone with a 401K or a savings account paying
below 1% interest can verify.


The problem here is the premise is just wrong. Teachers were NOT
singled out. It's true that police were exempted and that part sounds
unfair.
But the law clearly covers most state workers, not only teachers. I
found
online where it says 56% of state employees are teachers and 8% are
police and fire. That still leaves another 36% apparently covered
under
the law that are neither police, fire, or teachers.

The issue is "work rules". Police and Firefighter unions are allowed to
bargain work rules because of the nature of the work. Teachers and most other
unions don't have the same issues.


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On Fri, 1 Apr 2011 10:30:59 -0700 (PDT), harry wrote:

On Apr 1, 2:05*pm, Kurt Ullman wrote:
In article ,
*"Robert Green" wrote:



*But the teachers are an easy target and brought a lot of this down on
themselves. Fighting against most reforms despite the fact schools are
routinely graduated undereducated people. Yelling that it is everyone's
fault BUT theirs (which of course is the other side of the coin that is
now showing up), fighting any attempt to bring in performance measures
(espcially galling to many who go through such things in THEIR jobs).


Having close friends who are teachers, they would counter and say that
"performance based" ratings often end up really being "you've been here a
while and are too expensive to keep" sorts of games. *It's not very easy to
fairly rate a teacher because each year they get a new crop of kids with
varying degrees of intellectual competence.


* * Having friends that are teachers I would say, sounds like BS. I am
daily evaluated on what I do, why shouldn't they be? I never have
understood why teachers are so deathly afraid of having their work
evaluated.







* * Yeah, although the corps get the hate, the money going to
individuals is much greater. We can no more balance the budget by
cutting breaks for the corps as we can taxing the rich, there just isn't
enough money there. Now, I am not at all saying that we shouldn't look
at the corp tax structure to see if there are things to cut. But to make
them the boogie man in this is simplistic and I don't like simplistic
answers.
* * *Especially since in tax law, healthcare and many other government
functions, the Pogo Principle is invoked: "We have met the enemy and he
is us."


I agree. Everyone wants to see someone else's ox get gored. *Means testing
for SS and Medicare would reclaim a lot of money. *Just try passing such
laws in the face of special interest groups like the AARP. *They've learned
from the NRA that being able to focus their member's ire on a particular law
or candidate is a very effective way of being an elephant in a jungle full
of lions. *Yes, occasionally a lion will attack an elephant calf, but the
outcomes are always always bad for the lions.


* * Not only that, but the Dems are assured that the only thing keeping
SS in business is that the rich support it, too, because they get their
cut. Never have understood the reasoning, but I guess it could be a
concern.



Maybe not because one day we may come to that crossroads again at a time
when the Feds are so deep in the hole that they *can't* bail them out
without disastrous consequences, far worse that what we've already seen.


* My guess would be the next time. And there will be a next time.



needs help, but I wonder if the NYT is doing things the right way. *At $195,
people have pointed out that if all the other sites did the same, you could
end up paying $2,000 a year to surf multiple news sites, something that most
of us already do.


* Or we could pay nothin' and have no sites to surf to.



Yes, I wanted to burn my J degree when I saw the extent to which news
outlets were fueling the spec bubble in housing. *I came across a stash of
newspapers from 2007 when cleaning up and the number of stories about "you
can't lose in real estate" just floored me.


* *You just have to look between the lines sometimes. I was thinking
about buying a house in FL when I read an article in one of the papers
when I was in Boca. They were talking about how even the Realtors in the
area wished they did not have so many houses to sell and would be happy
if things cooled off for awhile. When a bunch of money-grubbers like
your average Realtor start wishing for less business, you know the end
is near (grin).

--
"Even I realized that money was to politicians what the ecalyptus tree is to koala bears: food, water, shelter and something to crap on."
*---PJ O'Rourke- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -


Most teachers have a problem. They have never been in the real world.
They go from school to university to school and then to another
school.
But being intellectuals they think they can deduce things from zero
experience with their great intellects. They talk to one another and
come up with weird ideas. Because they never talk to normal people
they never find this out. They just get further and further off beam.


Rather like Obummer, and company.
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Default GE pays no income tax

On Apr 2, 3:33*am, "
wrote:
On Fri, 1 Apr 2011 10:30:59 -0700 (PDT), harry wrote:
On Apr 1, 2:05*pm, Kurt Ullman wrote:
In article ,
*"Robert Green" wrote:


*But the teachers are an easy target and brought a lot of this down on
themselves. Fighting against most reforms despite the fact schools are
routinely graduated undereducated people. Yelling that it is everyone's
fault BUT theirs (which of course is the other side of the coin that is
now showing up), fighting any attempt to bring in performance measures
(espcially galling to many who go through such things in THEIR jobs).


Having close friends who are teachers, they would counter and say that
"performance based" ratings often end up really being "you've been here a
while and are too expensive to keep" sorts of games. *It's not very easy to
fairly rate a teacher because each year they get a new crop of kids with
varying degrees of intellectual competence.


* * Having friends that are teachers I would say, sounds like BS. I am
daily evaluated on what I do, why shouldn't they be? I never have
understood why teachers are so deathly afraid of having their work
evaluated.


* * Yeah, although the corps get the hate, the money going to
individuals is much greater. We can no more balance the budget by
cutting breaks for the corps as we can taxing the rich, there just isn't
enough money there. Now, I am not at all saying that we shouldn't look
at the corp tax structure to see if there are things to cut. But to make
them the boogie man in this is simplistic and I don't like simplistic
answers.
* * *Especially since in tax law, healthcare and many other government
functions, the Pogo Principle is invoked: "We have met the enemy and he
is us."


I agree. Everyone wants to see someone else's ox get gored. *Means testing
for SS and Medicare would reclaim a lot of money. *Just try passing such
laws in the face of special interest groups like the AARP. *They've learned
from the NRA that being able to focus their member's ire on a particular law
or candidate is a very effective way of being an elephant in a jungle full
of lions. *Yes, occasionally a lion will attack an elephant calf, but the
outcomes are always always bad for the lions.


* * Not only that, but the Dems are assured that the only thing keeping
SS in business is that the rich support it, too, because they get their
cut. Never have understood the reasoning, but I guess it could be a
concern.


Maybe not because one day we may come to that crossroads again at a time
when the Feds are so deep in the hole that they *can't* bail them out
without disastrous consequences, far worse that what we've already seen.


* My guess would be the next time. And there will be a next time.


needs help, but I wonder if the NYT is doing things the right way. *At $195,
people have pointed out that if all the other sites did the same, you could
end up paying $2,000 a year to surf multiple news sites, something that most
of us already do.


* Or we could pay nothin' and have no sites to surf to.


Yes, I wanted to burn my J degree when I saw the extent to which news
outlets were fueling the spec bubble in housing. *I came across a stash of
newspapers from 2007 when cleaning up and the number of stories about "you
can't lose in real estate" just floored me.


* *You just have to look between the lines sometimes. I was thinking
about buying a house in FL when I read an article in one of the papers
when I was in Boca. They were talking about how even the Realtors in the
area wished they did not have so many houses to sell and would be happy
if things cooled off for awhile. When a bunch of money-grubbers like
your average Realtor start wishing for less business, you know the end
is near (grin).


--
"Even I realized that money was to politicians what the ecalyptus tree is to koala bears: food, water, shelter and something to crap on."
*---PJ O'Rourke- Hide quoted text -


- Show quoted text -


Most teachers have a problem. They have never been in the real world.
They go from school to university to school and then to another
school.
But being intellectuals they think they can deduce things from zero
experience with their great intellects. *They talk to one another and
come up with weird ideas. Because they never talk to normal people
they never find this out. *They just get further and further off beam.


Rather like Obummer, and company.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -


Exactly so. Many politicians have never had a proper job.
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harry wrote:

Rather like Obummer, and company.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -


Exactly so. Many politicians have never had a proper job.


I think you may be coming around.

Consider our current president's cabinet. Only two or three have had
experience in the field for which they are responsible or have even had a
recent real-world job. Here's a list:

Experienced:
Justice - Eric Holder who once worked in private practice
Defense - Robert Gates had at least four or five years on the job training.
Treasury - Tim Geitner once worked on Wall Street

The rest:
State - Hillary Clinton. No experience in foreign relations. Several decades
since she held a real-world job.
Interior - Ken Salazar, former governor
Agriculture - Tom Vilsack, former governor
Commerce - Gary Locke, former governor
Labor - Hilda Solis, former House member from L.A.
Health - Kathleen Sebelius, former governor
HUD - Shaun Donovan, arguably experienced, former NYC head of Housing
Preservation
Transportation - Ray Lahood, Illinois congressman
Energy - Steven Chu, academic
Education - Arne Duncan, arguably experienced as a Chicago school
superintendent
Veteran's Affairs - Eric Shinseki, former Army Chief of Staff, arguably
experienced as a military leader
Homeland Security - Janet Napolitano, former governor

NONE of the above 15 were promoted from within the departments they now
lead.


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In article ,
" wrote:

The issue is "work rules". Police and Firefighter unions are allowed to
bargain work rules because of the nature of the work. Teachers and most
other
unions don't have the same issues.

With police and (especially) fire, a lot of the work rules are put
in place by others. Staffing on a truck, for example, is largely driven
by OSHA and The Insurance Service Organization (one city wanted to cut
back on staffing on the apparatus, ISO, said go ahead but if you do we
cut your rating and your citizen's insurance rates go up by 25% or more.
That tends to put a damper on somethings.).

--
"Even I realized that money was to politicians what the ecalyptus tree is to koala bears: food, water, shelter and something to crap on."
---PJ O'Rourke
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"Ed Pawlowski" wrote in message
news

"Robert Green" wrote
Having close friends who are teachers, they would counter and say that
"performance based" ratings often end up really being "you've been here

a
while and are too expensive to keep" sorts of games. It's not very easy
to
fairly rate a teacher because each year they get a new crop of kids with
varying degrees of intellectual competence.


Good teachers are always good, the bad ones are always bad, no matter who
the class consists of. Most of us have memorable teachers from our school
days and can attest to that. I've seen teachers fired (during my kid's
school years) and they deserved to be.


Largely, I'd agree, but almost nothing is ever "always" and this economy,
you know that when a school board is making firing decisions, it's awfully
tempting to replace a 50 year teacher with a high salary with two 25 year
olds making half that. I see it in almost every other business that I've
ever been familiar with. Even though it's allegedly illegal, it's done all
the time. I worry that it's too easy to "stack the deck" against older,
more costly and more experienced teachers. Not only does their higher
salary make them a target, so does their higher health care costs.

I keep reading news articles about well-qualified people in their late
fifties and early sixties that have been looking for work for over a year
without so much as a nibble. There are lots of factors that cause that, but
mostly it's cost and the feeling that "why should we train this person up if
they've only got a few years of workability left?"

There are a lot of pressures on managers to do more with less, and that's
what worries me (and my teacher friends). There has to be some protection
against dumping older people. In the military, for example, they prize
experience and by the time you reach bird colonel or Navy captain (O6)
you're a valued asset, proven by many, many "culls" and competitive
evaluations. There are few evaluations as tough as an OER (Officer
Evaluation Report) and as damning as a bad one. My boss (then a AFR - Air
Force Reserve -major, now a full colonel) *demanded* that we keep a log of
everything good we had done through the year so that he could pull for more
of the raise pool available for that year. It was excellent and monetarily
valuable advice.

I've seen friends in their 50's and 60's offered "golden handkerchiefs"
(because of their small size compared to Wall St.'s golden parachutes!) to
go away voluntarily without subjecting the company to any age discrimination
suits. Do some teachers "retire in place?" Yes, that happens in every
sector of the economy and it seems to particularly affect the tenured. Is
tenure a bad idea? Maybe for all except college profs who are often vastly
underpaid and subject to political attack if they teach the "wrong things."
I don't really know the answer to the tenure question other than it can be
abused.

The bottom line is that bad teachers usually show their "badness" early on
in their career. That's the best time to separate them from the herd, not
when they're fifty and there's no other work for them. The evaluations
should also be as concise and unwavering as the military's Officer
Evaluation Reports and should be able to stand up to rigorous review for
fairness. They should also be examined for potential age bias as well.

Just my two cents.

--
Bobby G.




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On Sat, 02 Apr 2011 08:56:01 -0400, Kurt Ullman wrote:

In article ,
" wrote:

The issue is "work rules". Police and Firefighter unions are allowed to
bargain work rules because of the nature of the work. Teachers and most
other
unions don't have the same issues.

With police and (especially) fire, a lot of the work rules are put
in place by others. Staffing on a truck, for example, is largely driven
by OSHA and The Insurance Service Organization (one city wanted to cut
back on staffing on the apparatus, ISO, said go ahead but if you do we
cut your rating and your citizen's insurance rates go up by 25% or more.
That tends to put a damper on somethings.).


Work rules have safety implications for public safety employees and the
(fire/police) unions will continue to have input into those. Teachers, not so
much. That's the point.
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On Apr 2, 12:43*pm, "HeyBub" wrote:
harry wrote:

Rather like Obummer, and company.- Hide quoted text -


- Show quoted text -


Exactly so. Many politicians have never had a proper job.


I think you may be coming around.

Consider our current president's cabinet. Only two or three have had
experience in the field for which they are responsible or have even had a
recent real-world job. Here's a list:

Experienced:
Justice - Eric Holder who once worked in private practice
Defense - Robert Gates had at least four or five years on the job training.
Treasury - Tim Geitner once worked on Wall Street

The rest:
State - Hillary Clinton. No experience in foreign relations. Several decades
since she held a real-world job.
Interior - Ken Salazar, former governor
Agriculture - Tom Vilsack, former governor
Commerce - Gary Locke, former governor
Labor - Hilda Solis, former House member from L.A.
Health - Kathleen Sebelius, former governor
HUD - Shaun Donovan, arguably experienced, former NYC head of Housing
Preservation
Transportation - Ray Lahood, Illinois congressman
Energy - Steven Chu, academic
Education - Arne Duncan, arguably experienced as a Chicago school
superintendent
Veteran's Affairs - Eric Shinseki, former Army Chief of Staff, arguably
experienced as a military leader
Homeland Security - Janet Napolitano, former governor

NONE of the above 15 were promoted from within the departments they now
lead.


A case of who you know, not what you know. Same over here.
Cameron was in public relations for a couple of years.
Deputy dawg Clegg was a journalist, hence by definition a liar.
Bunch of ignorant twerps in other words.
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"HeyBub" wrote in message
...
harry wrote:

Rather like Obummer, and company.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -


Exactly so. Many politicians have never had a proper job.


I think you may be coming around.

Consider our current president's cabinet. Only two or three have had
experience in the field for which they are responsible or have even had a
recent real-world job. Here's a list:

Experienced:
Justice - Eric Holder who once worked in private practice
Defense - Robert Gates had at least four or five years on the job

training.
Treasury - Tim Geitner once worked on Wall Street

The rest:
State - Hillary Clinton. No experience in foreign relations. Several

decades
since she held a real-world job.
Interior - Ken Salazar, former governor
Agriculture - Tom Vilsack, former governor
Commerce - Gary Locke, former governor
Labor - Hilda Solis, former House member from L.A.
Health - Kathleen Sebelius, former governor
HUD - Shaun Donovan, arguably experienced, former NYC head of Housing
Preservation
Transportation - Ray Lahood, Illinois congressman
Energy - Steven Chu, academic
Education - Arne Duncan, arguably experienced as a Chicago school
superintendent
Veteran's Affairs - Eric Shinseki, former Army Chief of Staff, arguably
experienced as a military leader
Homeland Security - Janet Napolitano, former governor

NONE of the above 15 were promoted from within the departments they now
lead.


However, NOT ONE of those have been involved in anything as ridiculous as
George Bush putting the failed head of an Arabian horse association in
charge of FEMA or have you forgotten the infamous "Heck of a job, Brownie!"
comment that became so well known after Katrina? I would rather have a
smart academic than a dud with "real world experience" - especially if that
dud had NO experience in the field he was appointed to.

Shinseki has plenty of experience and was not cowed by strong opposition. He
basically got sacked during Bush's adminstration for daring to tell Rummy
and the Congress that we didn't have enough boots on the ground in Iraq for
the war to come to a swift conclusion. Guess he was right.

Is this enough "arguable" experience for you:

"Shinseki served in a variety of command and staff assignments in the
Continental United States and overseas, including two combat tours with the
9th and 25th Infantry Divisions in the Republic of Vietnam as an artillery
forward observer and as commander of Troop A, 3rd Squadron, 5th Cavalry
Regiment. During one of those tours, he stepped on a land mine, which blew
the front off one of his feet."

That made him a customer of the VA, which he now heads. He rose from
squadron commander to the Army Chief of Staff, too.

Much more can be found he http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Shinseki

What credentials are missing IYHO?

Now I've got to dust off my Bush cabinet list and all of their foilbles. Is
there no end to your evil HeyBub? (-: I guess the price of freedom is
eternal vetting of your posts for "yabbuts." Is not your evil-doing great?
and there is no end to your sins?

The cord may curl long, but an end will appear - Colonel Alexi Vaselov (-:

--
Bobby G.




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Robert Green wrote:

Consider our current president's cabinet. Only two or three have had
experience in the field for which they are responsible or have even
had a recent real-world job. Here's a list:

Experienced:
Justice - Eric Holder who once worked in private practice
Defense - Robert Gates had at least four or five years on the job
training. Treasury - Tim Geitner once worked on Wall Street

The rest:
State - Hillary Clinton. No experience in foreign relations. Several
decades since she held a real-world job.
Interior - Ken Salazar, former governor
Agriculture - Tom Vilsack, former governor
Commerce - Gary Locke, former governor
Labor - Hilda Solis, former House member from L.A.
Health - Kathleen Sebelius, former governor
HUD - Shaun Donovan, arguably experienced, former NYC head of Housing
Preservation
Transportation - Ray Lahood, Illinois congressman
Energy - Steven Chu, academic
Education - Arne Duncan, arguably experienced as a Chicago school
superintendent
Veteran's Affairs - Eric Shinseki, former Army Chief of Staff,
arguably experienced as a military leader
Homeland Security - Janet Napolitano, former governor

NONE of the above 15 were promoted from within the departments they
now lead.


However, NOT ONE of those have been involved in anything as
ridiculous as George Bush putting the failed head of an Arabian horse
association in charge of FEMA or have you forgotten the infamous
"Heck of a job, Brownie!" comment that became so well known after
Katrina? I would rather have a smart academic than a dud with "real
world experience" - especially if that dud had NO experience in the
field he was appointed to.


A fair assessment of FEMA would disagree with the progressive meme. First,
FEMA had never in its history encountered a disaster of the proportions of
Katrina. Second, most investigators place the vast majority of what went
wrong during Katrina with state and local governments (contrast Louisiana
and Mississippi). Third, FEMA was never designed to be a first responder.

Further FEMA is NOT a cabinet position and not part of my critique.
Although the current director, W. Craig Fugate, seems admirably suited to
the position, starting out as a volunteer fireman and rising to the position
of director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management.


Shinseki has plenty of experience and was not cowed by strong
opposition. He basically got sacked during Bush's adminstration for
daring to tell Rummy and the Congress that we didn't have enough
boots on the ground in Iraq for the war to come to a swift
conclusion. Guess he was right.


Shinseki had virtually NO private sector experience nor any experience
dealing with veteran's affairs. You are correct in that he got sacked for
not only bucking the chain of command and doing so in public, but by
guessing wrong. For the second Gulf War, he wanted a minimum of 200,000
troops (a la 1st Gulf War). Rumsfeld managed to accomplish the task with
one-quarter that number.


Now I've got to dust off my Bush cabinet list and all of their
foilbles. Is there no end to your evil HeyBub? (-: I guess the
price of freedom is eternal vetting of your posts for "yabbuts." Is
not your evil-doing great? and there is no end to your sins?


News Flash! Bush is no longer president.

I'm not comparing the Bush Cabinet to the Obama cabinet; I'm suggesting that
the current cabinet is chock-a-block full of incompetents. Whether the Bush
cabinet was stocked with Nobel laureates, dishes from China, or
ventriloquist dummies is irrelevant -- unless you're claiming that good
people cannot be found by ANY president.


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In article ,
"Robert Green" wrote:



Shinseki has plenty of experience and was not cowed by strong opposition. He
basically got sacked during Bush's adminstration for daring to tell Rummy
and the Congress that we didn't have enough boots on the ground in Iraq for
the war to come to a swift conclusion. Guess he was right.


Nah. We had plenty to bring the war to a swift conclusion. It is the
peace that is giving us so much trouble.

--
"Even I realized that money was to politicians what the ecalyptus tree is to koala bears: food, water, shelter and something to crap on."
---PJ O'Rourke


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In article ,
"HeyBub" wrote:


A fair assessment of FEMA would disagree with the progressive meme. First,
FEMA had never in its history encountered a disaster of the proportions of
Katrina. Second, most investigators place the vast majority of what went
wrong during Katrina with state and local governments (contrast Louisiana
and Mississippi). Third, FEMA was never designed to be a first responder.

Actually it is not designed to run things. It is designed to come in
in an advisory capacity and to offer assistance only (the mission
statement on their website said that as of last month.
The main problem with Katrina is that the followed the hurricane
disaster plan to the letter. The La SEMA plan in effect specifically
stated that the Superdome was not to be used, stocked, or staffed as a
shelter. People were supposed to go the Dome, ride out the storm and
then be parceled to shelters as needed. Nobody (over multiple years)
every got around to thinking about what might happen if the other
shelters weren't available, which they weren't.
The general corruption and stupidity built into the governments of La
and NOLA did not help.

--
"Even I realized that money was to politicians what the ecalyptus tree is to koala bears: food, water, shelter and something to crap on."
---PJ O'Rourke
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"HeyBub" wrote in message
m...
Robert Green wrote:

Consider our current president's cabinet. Only two or three have had
experience in the field for which they are responsible or have even
had a recent real-world job. Here's a list:

Experienced:
Justice - Eric Holder who once worked in private practice
Defense - Robert Gates had at least four or five years on the job
training. Treasury - Tim Geitner once worked on Wall Street

The rest:
State - Hillary Clinton. No experience in foreign relations. Several
decades since she held a real-world job.
Interior - Ken Salazar, former governor
Agriculture - Tom Vilsack, former governor
Commerce - Gary Locke, former governor
Labor - Hilda Solis, former House member from L.A.
Health - Kathleen Sebelius, former governor
HUD - Shaun Donovan, arguably experienced, former NYC head of Housing
Preservation
Transportation - Ray Lahood, Illinois congressman
Energy - Steven Chu, academic
Education - Arne Duncan, arguably experienced as a Chicago school
superintendent
Veteran's Affairs - Eric Shinseki, former Army Chief of Staff,
arguably experienced as a military leader
Homeland Security - Janet Napolitano, former governor

NONE of the above 15 were promoted from within the departments they
now lead.


However, NOT ONE of those have been involved in anything as
ridiculous as George Bush putting the failed head of an Arabian horse
association in charge of FEMA or have you forgotten the infamous
"Heck of a job, Brownie!" comment that became so well known after
Katrina? I would rather have a smart academic than a dud with "real
world experience" - especially if that dud had NO experience in the
field he was appointed to.


A fair assessment of FEMA would disagree with the progressive meme. First,
FEMA had never in its history encountered a disaster of the proportions of
Katrina. Second, most investigators place the vast majority of what went
wrong during Katrina with state and local governments (contrast Louisiana
and Mississippi). Third, FEMA was never designed to be a first responder.

Further FEMA is NOT a cabinet position and not part of my critique.
Although the current director, W. Craig Fugate, seems admirably suited to
the position, starting out as a volunteer fireman and rising to the

position
of director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management.


Shinseki has plenty of experience and was not cowed by strong
opposition. He basically got sacked during Bush's adminstration for
daring to tell Rummy and the Congress that we didn't have enough
boots on the ground in Iraq for the war to come to a swift
conclusion. Guess he was right.


Shinseki had virtually NO private sector experience nor any experience
dealing with veteran's affairs. You are correct in that he got sacked for
not only bucking the chain of command and doing so in public, but by
guessing wrong. For the second Gulf War, he wanted a minimum of 200,000
troops (a la 1st Gulf War). Rumsfeld managed to accomplish the task with
one-quarter that number.


Accomplish the task? ARE YOU FOR REAL???? We're still THERE! Gawd, can you
pour on the BS. Maybe you're not as smart as I think you are and you really
believe the codswallop you're writing. Shinseki was right and there's not
very many people left who doubt it, especially since when we finally DID get
around to following his advice and sent a huge surge of additional troops,
things immediately improved. What COLOR is the sky on your planet? We
can't be talking about the same person:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Shinseki

If you bothered to read that item, you would have learned: "On November 15,
2006, in testimony before Congress, CENTCOM Commander Gen. John Abizaid said
that General Shinseki had been correct that more troops were needed. Who
should we trust to evaluate the truth of Shinseki's statement: You or the
CENTCOM Commander? I would say "you lack the real world experience to make
the call."

You'll just say anything to make a point, won't you? Truth seems hardly
relevant.

Now I've got to dust off my Bush cabinet list and all of their
foilbles. Is there no end to your evil HeyBub? (-: I guess the
price of freedom is eternal vetting of your posts for "yabbuts." Is
not your evil-doing great? and there is no end to your sins?


News Flash! Bush is no longer president.


So what? I didn't notice that anyone had died and made you King of Thread
Breadth. That horsecrap might work for M. Dufas (it doesn't!) but it
carries no weight with me. You can't scare off a comparison between the two
most recent presidents with a worn-out half-watt witticism. Bush appointed
people that were obviously more to your liking with the real world
experience you seem to think so valuable to a cabinet secretary. That make
it completely valid to examine how well that worked out since you're so
critical of Obama's different metrics but provide very little proof of what
you're saying.

I'm not comparing the Bush Cabinet to the Obama cabinet; I'm suggesting

that
the current cabinet is chock-a-block full of incompetents. Whether the

Bush
cabinet was stocked with Nobel laureates, dishes from China, or
ventriloquist dummies is irrelevant


Irrelevant to you because it easily demonstrates the fallacy of your
contention that having some ill-defined "real world job" previously makes
for better cabinet members. When you denigrate someone like Shinseki and
label his real world experience as "arguable" you're engaged in pure,
unbridled bull****. I'm just calling you out on it, just like I promised.

What should I use to compare cabinet appointments? Abe Lincoln from over a
century ago? Bush, as you've argued in the past, apparently did a better
job in your mind, picking cabinet secretaries because he chose "real world"
people (read: businessmen). I intend to show that's erroneous, and easily
proved to be. We won't even have to examine Bush's dubious record in other
appointments, such as toying with nominating his personal lawyer Harriet
Miers to the Supreme Court, a nominee lacking in both academic and real
world credentials, at least as far as the Federal Judiciary is concerned.

""The only sexism involved in the Miers nomination is the administration's
claim that once they decided they wanted a woman, Miers was the best they
could do. Let me just say, if the top male lawyer in the country is John
Roberts and the top female lawyer is Harriet Miers, we may as well stop
allowing girls to go to law school." -- Ann Coulter"
http://www.rightwingnews.com/quotes/miersquotes.php

Oh, but this wasn't a "cabinet" appointment. It was 10 times more important
and it was naked cronyism that even Bush supporters couldn't swallow. She
was never is a judge. So what were you saying about the importance of real
world experience? Sounds like "It counts when I want it to and doesn't when
I don't."

Bush may no longer be president, but I'm sorry to report, his actions are
now a legitimate part of US history, subject to comparison to the current
president our presidents from the past, despite how apparently uncomfortable
it makes you to revisit his record. Trying to make discussion of Bush
somehow off-limits to the subject of presidential cabinet secretaries only
indicates you're fearful. We both know that if we actually look at the
record, the record is bad.

Worse still, you know that your labels are wholly inaccurate regarding
Obama's cabinet. To say Shinseki's "real world" experience is arguable is
to lie through your teeth. Who, then IS qualified if not a man with his
credentials? Why on earth should a man have to have private sector
experience to run a government organization that concerns the US military?
Why isn't being Chief of Staff of the Army not good enough for you? What
past VA Secretaries do you think had qualifications more suited?

There are others on your list that are as woefully mischaracterized. I'll
go through them one by one as we compare Bush's "real world" secretaries and
their performance with those of Obama's "academics" you so thoroughly
disdain. I predict we'll quickly see that what you're claiming as some
essential quality of a cabinet member really means squat and in fact, it
could mean less than squat: it could be the exact reverse of the truth.
Having business ties and experience might actually cause a Secretary to act
in the best interests of his former associates and not the President and by
extension, the citizens of the United States. I am sure you know where I am
going with this.

The best comparison to the roster you've listed as somehow less than
competent is the *last* president's cabinet, selected in a way you think is
superior to the current administration. Of course you don't want to explore
that because a number of them left under serious clouds. The trouble they
found themselves in puts serious doubt to your implication that only
captains of industry should serve in cabinet positions. That's nonsense,
and it needs debunking. The best way to chip away to the truth would seem
to be comparing the most recent ex-president, Bush, and his cabinet, which
was to clearly more business oriented that Obama's.

Comparing experienced cabinet members who have been egregious failures seems
to me the perfect rebuttal to your implication that lack of something you
nebulously define as "lack of real world experience" has a serious impact on
a cabinet secretary's performance or competence.

unless you're claiming that good
people cannot be found by ANY president.


No, I am claiming that your assertion that an alleged "lack of real world
experience" somehow results in inferior secretaries. You're implying
Obama's made bad choices because they are academics. I'm merely pointing
out that in the past that ex-businessmen have done very, very poorly, often
resigning under a cloud like FEMA's "Heckuva Job Brownie." I realize that
having your parade rained on is unsettling, but your alleged facts aren't
really facts and need to be exposed as simply your unsubstantiated opinion
(I'm being charitable).

So here's a serious newsflash for you. No one with even half a brain would
respond to "Bush is longer president" with anything other than a big SFW?
That statement in no way means he's off limits in a discussion of
presidential cabinet appointments, no matter how much you try drawing that
imaginary line around your comments. A line meant to deflect criticism of
your basically erroneous contentions.

Ever hear a judge admonishing an attorney "But you opened the door to this
line of questioning so I will rule it admissible"? Well, that's exactly
what you did: opened the door to discuss ALL cabinet secretaries, not just
the ones you want to gore with you "short on facts" classification of
Obama's cabinet.

I feel for you, though, HeyBub. It's got to be painful to try to kick dirt
on Obama's cabinet when Bush's was so much worse, only starting with "Heck
of a Job Brownie" the Arabian Horse Assn. executive. That's the subject of
a followup post. This one's run over and we haven't even gotten to those
Bush Secretaries and their various ill-fortunes. (-"

And lest you think this is partisan, at least neither Bush nor Obama tried
to pull perhaps the most dubious appointment of all time: JFK making his
brother AG. Ouch! Was he the best qualified in the nation? Very, very
doubtful. I suspect JFK's appointment eventually cost RFK his life. Sirhan
Sirhan was just another patsy. RFK violated life's number one rule:
"Friends come and go, but enemies accumulate."

--
Bobby G.





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On Apr 3, 2:35*am, Kurt Ullman wrote:
In article ,
*"Robert Green" wrote:



Shinseki has plenty of experience and was not cowed by strong opposition. He
basically got sacked during Bush's adminstration for daring to tell Rummy
and the Congress that we didn't have enough boots on the ground in Iraq for
the war to come to a swift conclusion. *Guess he was right.


* *Nah. We had plenty to bring the war to a swift conclusion. It is the
peace that is giving us so much trouble.

--
"Even I realized that money was to politicians what the ecalyptus tree is to koala bears: food, water, shelter and something to crap on."
*---PJ O'Rourke


So, they reckoned on perpetual war? There was no peace to follow it?
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On Apr 3, 3:53*am, "Robert Green" wrote:
"HeyBub" wrote in message

m...

Robert Green wrote:


Consider our current president's cabinet. Only two or three have had
experience in the field for which they are responsible or have even
had a recent real-world job. Here's a list:


Experienced:
Justice - Eric Holder who once worked in private practice
Defense - Robert Gates had at least four or five years on the job
training. Treasury - Tim Geitner once worked on Wall Street


The rest:
State - Hillary Clinton. No experience in foreign relations. Several
decades since she held a real-world job.
Interior - Ken Salazar, former governor
Agriculture - Tom Vilsack, former governor
Commerce - Gary Locke, former governor
Labor - Hilda Solis, former House member from L.A.
Health - Kathleen Sebelius, former governor
HUD - Shaun Donovan, arguably experienced, former NYC head of Housing
Preservation
Transportation - Ray Lahood, Illinois congressman
Energy - Steven Chu, academic
Education - Arne Duncan, arguably experienced as a Chicago school
superintendent
Veteran's Affairs - Eric Shinseki, former Army Chief of Staff,
arguably experienced as a military leader
Homeland Security - Janet Napolitano, former governor


NONE of the above 15 were promoted from within the departments they
now lead.


However, NOT ONE of those have been involved in anything as
ridiculous as George Bush putting the failed head of an Arabian horse
association in charge of FEMA or have you forgotten the infamous
"Heck of a job, Brownie!" comment that became so well known after
Katrina? *I would rather have a smart academic than a dud with "real
world experience" - especially if that dud had NO experience in the
field he was appointed to.


A fair assessment of FEMA would disagree with the progressive meme. First,
FEMA had never in its history encountered a disaster of the proportions of
Katrina. Second, most investigators place the vast majority of what went
wrong during Katrina with state and local governments (contrast Louisiana
and Mississippi). Third, FEMA was never designed to be a first responder.

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"Kurt Ullman" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"Robert Green" wrote:



Shinseki has plenty of experience and was not cowed by strong

opposition. He
basically got sacked during Bush's adminstration for daring to tell

Rummy
and the Congress that we didn't have enough boots on the ground in Iraq

for
the war to come to a swift conclusion. Guess he was right.


Nah. We had plenty to bring the war to a swift conclusion. It is the
peace that is giving us so much trouble.


I got to watch C-Span's televised hearings basically about AARP. It's
pretty disturbing to watch government at work. But I was heartened by the
sight of the Republicans overplaying their hand. Going after AARP pretty
much equals going after seniors in the minds of many voters, members or not.

It was interesting because I had been involved in 501(c)3 organizations but
had been away from it for a long time. AARP is actually a 501(c)4 which
allows limited lobbying. It was funny and sad to watch Wally Herger (R-CA)
try to stampede the likes of old pros like senior members Pete Stark and
Charles Rangel. It was very entertaining. I've had BOD meetings for puny
non-profits run with more attention to Robert's rules. One of the Reps
asked if we should also look at why GE paid no income tax instead of
focusing on AARP. The worm turns.

--
Bobby G.





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"harry" wrote
Kurt Ullman wrote:
"Robert Green" wrote:



Shinseki has plenty of experience and was not cowed by strong

opposition. He
basically got sacked during Bush's adminstration for daring to tell

Rummy
and the Congress that we didn't have enough boots on the ground in Iraq

for
the war to come to a swift conclusion. Guess he was right.


Nah. We had plenty to bring the war to a swift conclusion. It is the
peace that is giving us so much trouble.


So, they reckoned on perpetual war? There was no peace to follow it?

Methinks Kurt is pulling your leg by using a political speak. Like
Clinton's definitions of "sex" and "it."

--
Bobby G.


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In article ,
"Robert Green" wrote:

I got to watch C-Span's televised hearings basically about AARP. It's
pretty disturbing to watch government at work. But I was heartened by the
sight of the Republicans overplaying their hand. Going after AARP pretty
much equals going after seniors in the minds of many voters, members or not.

Which is a triumph of PR over reality. Never did understand how the
AARP (which gets over half of its budget from the royalties paid to it
by their AARP-okayed health insurer) got involved as a third party in
the healthcare debate.

--
"Even I realized that money was to politicians what the ecalyptus tree is to koala bears: food, water, shelter and something to crap on."
---PJ O'Rourke
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In article ,
"Robert Green" wrote:

"harry" wrote
Kurt Ullman wrote:
"Robert Green" wrote:



Shinseki has plenty of experience and was not cowed by strong

opposition. He
basically got sacked during Bush's adminstration for daring to tell

Rummy
and the Congress that we didn't have enough boots on the ground in Iraq

for
the war to come to a swift conclusion. Guess he was right.


Nah. We had plenty to bring the war to a swift conclusion. It is the
peace that is giving us so much trouble.


So, they reckoned on perpetual war? There was no peace to follow it?

Methinks Kurt is pulling your leg by using a political speak. Like
Clinton's definitions of "sex" and "it."


Not at all. Those are two very different things. The war is when one
is killing people and breaking things. The peace is when you are trying
to put things back into some manageable form. We did a bang up job (so
to speak) of the first part. We have had troubles with the second.
Failing to win the peace in WWI (for example) pretty much made WWII
inevitable. We did a better job with the peace in WWII. Not great, but
better. If we had had an Iraqi version of the Marshall Plan in place,
maybe it would have gone better.

--
"Even I realized that money was to politicians what the ecalyptus tree is to koala bears: food, water, shelter and something to crap on."
---PJ O'Rourke
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"Kurt Ullman" wrote in message
m...
In article ,
"Robert Green" wrote:

I got to watch C-Span's televised hearings basically about AARP. It's
pretty disturbing to watch government at work. But I was heartened by

the
sight of the Republicans overplaying their hand. Going after AARP

pretty
much equals going after seniors in the minds of many voters, members or

not.
Which is a triumph of PR over reality. Never did understand how the
AARP (which gets over half of its budget from the royalties paid to it
by their AARP-okayed health insurer) got involved as a third party in
the healthcare debate.


It's an interesting story. They use those royalties, they allege, to keep
membership dues low. But it's more likely to maintain good "feeder pools"
into their "sweetheart" insurers. But they have been statistically
forgetting their public service mission more and more as the profits grew.
Their boss is no great shakes but he draws a big salary. It was pure
political theater. I don't think Chairman Wally's day in the sun will end
up being a good thing for him. I was unimpressed by members on both sides
of the aisle. There was a lot of rancor about the origin of the report the
chairman wanted in the record.

It was painfully clear this was payback for supporting the health care bill.
As one rep pointed out, there are casinos that have 501(c)4 exemptions but
no one is going after them. CSpan racked back the zoom in order to catch
Wally using his handkerchief-covered finger to root out buggers or scratch
the bottom of his brain. It wasn't clear which. (-: The chairman was
playing the "when did you stop beating your wife game" and the AARP CEO
(Barry Rand?) played right along like a simpleton. God knows what they pay
him, but if it's over $5K a year, they wuz robbed!

--
Bobby G.


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On Apr 3, 10:30*pm, "Robert Green" wrote:
"harry" wrote

Kurt Ullman wrote:
"Robert Green" wrote:


Shinseki has plenty of experience and was not cowed by strong

opposition. He
basically got sacked during Bush's adminstration for daring to tell

Rummy
and the Congress that we didn't have enough boots on the ground in Iraq

for
the war to come to a swift conclusion. Guess he was right.


Nah. We had plenty to bring the war to a swift conclusion. It is the
peace that is giving us so much trouble.


So, *they reckoned on perpetual war? *There was no peace to follow it?

Methinks Kurt is pulling your leg by using a political speak. *Like
Clinton's definitions of "sex" and "it."

--
Bobby G.


The war is not won whilst there are bombs going off and the army is on
the streets.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asymetrical_warfare


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On Apr 4, 12:51*am, Kurt Ullman wrote:
In article ,
*"Robert Green" wrote:





"harry" wrote
Kurt Ullman wrote:
"Robert Green" wrote:


Shinseki has plenty of experience and was not cowed by strong

opposition. He
basically got sacked during Bush's adminstration for daring to tell

Rummy
and the Congress that we didn't have enough boots on the ground in Iraq

for
the war to come to a swift conclusion. Guess he was right.


Nah. We had plenty to bring the war to a swift conclusion. It is the
peace that is giving us so much trouble.


So, *they reckoned on perpetual war? *There was no peace to follow it?


Methinks Kurt is pulling your leg by using a political speak. *Like
Clinton's definitions of "sex" and "it."


* * Not at all. Those are two very different things. The war is when one
is killing people and breaking things. The peace is when you are trying
to put things back into some manageable form. We did a bang up job (so
to speak) of the first part. We have had troubles with the second.
Failing to win the peace in WWI (for example) pretty much made WWII
inevitable. *We did a better job with the peace in WWII. Not great, but
better. *If we had had an Iraqi version of the Marshall Plan in place,
maybe it would have gone better.

--
"Even I realized that money was to politicians what the ecalyptus tree is to koala bears: food, water, shelter and something to crap on."
*---PJ O'Rourke- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -


There was no war as it was not declared, therefore it cannot be ended.
There was illegal miltary action based on lies and deception. That
action continues. Mission not accomplished.
Republican halfwit.
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